Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Do you think you two will ever get around to doing this?”

Jean was brought back to her more immediate surroundings by Iris dropping into the seat next to her, leaning back against Millie’s blazer, which she had put on the back of the chair for safekeeping. She had been watching Millie dancing with Hailey and Cadence on the other side of the marquee, the two women taking it in turns to twirl the little girl around in time to a pop song she was sure all three would jokingly berate her for not knowing the name of.

“Getting married?” Jean laughed. She looked across at her friend, who was holding a glass of red wine, and was reminded about the gin and tonic Millie had brought over for her a few minutes before, in between dances. She picked it up and took a sip. “We’re too old for all this nonsense.”

Iris shook her head, amused by her practicality. “It’s been a beautiful day.”

It had been a beautiful day. Edward and Rusty had said their vows in a small ceremony at some local ornamental gardens, and followed that with a considerably bigger party in a marquee in the grounds of a historic building. It had been lovely to watch them being so clearly happy, and surrounded by people who loved them, especially after everything they had been through to be together. (When Jean read opinion pieces about how homophobia was a thing of the past, it was their experiences, rather than hers and Millie’s, that she primarily thought of when she shook her head in disbelief).

“I didn’t say it wasn’t beautiful nonsense,” Jean said. She noticed a drip of condensation roll off the bottom of her glass and onto her skirt. It was her usual wedding skirt (which was incidentally also her interview skirt, and the one she wore on the rare occasions that the memory of her father prompted her to go to church), but she had been persuaded to wear a new blouse that Millie had picked up for her on a recent shopping trip, with a buttonhole attached which matched Millie’s bouquet. Millie’s outfit, a claret satin jumpsuit, had been provided for her due to her hybrid best woman/bridesmaid role, and this was ultimately the only reason Jean believed they had been able to arrive anything resembling on time. “Besides, we've been like an old married couple since before we were even together. It feels like any wedding of ours should have been years ago.”

“Straight off the plane, you mean?” Iris joked.

“At San Francisco International, right after we got our passports stamped.” Jean imagined, briefly, what her past self, made redundant when barely over the trauma of a car accident which she had been told would affect her mobility forever and finding it hard to believe she was being taken along on a great adventure by an ex-colleague ten years her junior for any reason other than pity, would have said to that. (She would have dismissed it as absurd, of course, like she would have done many things about her life here.)

“Now there’s an image,” Iris said with a laugh. “You might have missed my talk with all that wedded bliss going on though, and who knows where we would be now?”

They had been friends for more than half a decade, ever since Jean and Millie had been the only people Iris didn’t already know who turned up to a public lecture she had organised about women in computer science, early on in what was intended to be a year in San Francisco for them. Hailey had attended too (she was twenty-three at the time, just getting started on her PhD and keen to do anything Iris asked of her, something Iris had expected to wear off with time but had turned out to just be the younger woman’s personality) and gave away her rural roots by being unashamedly fascinated by the British women. Her enthusiasm, coupled with Jean and Millie’s impressive knowledge of the Bletchley Park women and their contributions to the development of modern computing (“It’s just a hobby really,” Jean had insisted, “My area of expertise is much more in the women’s suffrage movement”) had meant that Iris had found herself agreeing to carry on the conversation over drinks, and their friendship had grown from there.

“Oh, with far inferior friends, I’m sure,” Jean said with a small smile.

Iris returned her smile. “I’ll drink to that.”

As they clinked their glasses the sound of a mobile phone sounding came from Iris’ handbag. She took it out and had a quick look.

“It’s Marcus, he’s found a patch of reception,” she said. “Do you think the boys will mind?”

The two women scanned the room and seemingly at the same time caught sight of the grooms surrounded by a dozen or so guests, engaged in what appeared to be some kind of dance off.

“I think it’s fair to say they’ll manage a few minutes without your presence, dear,” Jean said dryly.

“Keep an eye out for the kids?” the other woman asked, eyes darting quickly to check that Cadence and Dennis were still where she had seen them last.

“Of course. I’ll intervene if I see Dennis with his ‘eat the rich’ face on,” Jean said, referencing Iris’ older child’s tendency to get into deep political discussions with strangers at social events, a habit which was both a cause for admiration and of concern. On seeing Iris' frown, she added: “I didn’t mean to suggest that was likely. It’s a meme.”

“I know it’s a meme, I just thought-" Iris said.

“I might have ‘1950s librarian vibes’ as Millie puts it, but I am not entirely devoid of popular culture knowledge,” she said, though she knew really that Iris’ surprise was not unfounded. Her Facebook account had only been set up when she had started volunteering with Rainbow Readers, an organisation which matched people up with older LGBTQ people to read to - Millie had come back from an afternoon shift at the café with a flyer and said “You'd be perfect, darling, that voice of yours in itself would give those old ladies more action than they've had in decades” - and her profile photo had been the same (a blurry shot of Millie making a kissy face at their tabby cat, a flash of Jean’s face just visible behind a feline ear) since she opened it. “Millie keeps me up to date. She says the sign that we are irredeemably old is that we don’t understand memes,” she conceded.

“That sounds like something she heard from a younger person.”

“I’ve no doubt about that,” Jean agreed. “I’m surprised I haven’t had to sign the Official Secrets Act to be allowed to know how close to forty she is.”

Iris laughed softly and then looked down at her phone again. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Take all the time you need, really.”

As Iris left, a group of young men walked past and Jean smiled at someone she recognised from what Millie exclusively referred to as the ‘Gay Brunch Club’. Almost everywhere they went, everyone seemed to know Millie, whether from her various occupations (it was her travel writing that had brought them here, specifically the very lucrative fellowship that she had been awarded, but it couldn’t be consistently relied upon to pay the bills these days, so she topped it up with translation work and occasional shifts in a queer venue that was a café by day and a bar by night) or from the varied social life she had when she wasn’t working, and most of the people who knew Jean only did so because of Millie. She had Iris and Hailey and a handful of friends she had made through her own work and volunteering, and then she had acquaintances she had met through accompanying Millie to events when the mood took her. She was by now very used to the sensation of people looking at her and feeling like she could hear their thoughts: “That’s Millie Harcourt’s girlfriend? With the stick and the stern expression?” She couldn’t say it bothered her; the people who got to know her generally liked her, but she had never been especially interested in persuading people to do so.

She sat alone at the table for a couple of minutes before Hailey appeared through the crowd.

“All this dancing has got me working up a thirst,” the younger woman said. She gestured towards Jean’s now almost empty glass. “Can I get you another?”

“Thank you, dear,” Jean replied. A mischievous part of her wanted to add ‘Any excuse for you to talk to that bartender again’ but she knew that Hailey would be embarrassed by her teasing.

“Where's the Prof?” she asked. It had been some time since her graduation but her nickname for Iris had stuck.

“Talking to Marcus,” Jean replied.

Hailey appeared to briefly weigh it up. “I’ll get a fresh one for her,” she said. She tapped the two pockets in her dress and then frowned. “If I only knew where I had put my wallet...”

As Hailey wandered around to the far side of their table to check her bag for her missing wallet, the DJ changed the track and Jean watched the customary movement of the crowd, some getting up to dance whilst others decided this was one they would sit out.

She spotted Cadence coming towards her shortly before the young girl spoke.

“Aunt Millie wants you to dance with her to this one,” she said matter-of-factly. She was holding Millie’s bouquet, as she had at virtually every opportunity she had been allowed to all day (which had been a lot – Millie wasn’t fussed on children, but she claimed that Cadence was the exception that proved the rule).

“Oh, does she now?” Jean asked, looking up to see Millie just behind Cadence.

Listening briefly, Jean recognised the song from a few weeks back, a rare morning when Millie was up before her, despite having done a shift in the bar the night before. When Jean had come into the kitchen it was to find her partner singing loudly to the radio, her oversized night shirt slipping off one shoulder, hair loose and held away from her face with a headband. This had quickly turned into Millie singing the lyrics to the song directly at Jean and trying to get her to dance with her, whilst Jean laughed and protested, before eventually pulling the other woman to her and kissing her firmly.

“She does, even though in this song it is a man singing to a lady but you are both ladies who like other ladies,” Cadence said.

“You know, I don’t only like ladies,” Millie said. Her hair was mostly loose, with just a few curls pinned back with a hair clip adorned with a large bow the same colour as her outfit (and her lipstick, naturally), and as she spoke and some hair slipped behind her shoulder Jean was reminded how little the straps of the jumpsuit did to disguise the butterfly tattoo on her shoulder (a product of her teenage rebellion that she wore with pride, in spite of how terrible the tattoo itself was). “I like all sorts of people.”

Millie described herself as ‘queer’ but for Jean, a woman who’d had an entire bookshelf in her flat dedicated to lesbian literature, but had needed more than 30 years and a man who she’d had a disastrous attempt at a one night stand with to suggest that perhaps her ‘interests lay elsewhere' before she realised she was into women, it never felt like the word she was entitled to use (it felt too self-aware, somehow).

Cadence frowned. “But you like Aunt Jean the best?”

“Of course, darling,” Millie reassured her. “The very best. That’s why she’s going to come and dance with me.”

“Okay, good,” Cadence said approvingly. She looked pointedly from Millie’s outstretched arms to Jean until the older woman took the offered hands. She watched Jean put her weight through Millie’s hands, establishing whether she needed her stick or not, and then, satisfied that the dance was going to go ahead, the young girl scrambled across the chairs to where Hailey, wallet now in her hand, had got distracted by something on her phone.

Millie and Jean could hear her saying “Aunt Hailey, do you think I will like ladies when I grow up? Or will I like all sorts of people like Aunt Millie?” as they made their way to the dancefloor and they shared a private laugh.

“You’re going to owe Hailey a drink for fielding that one,” Jean said. The dancefloor had cleared a little and, whilst Millie had made an effort to steer them to an edge on the opposite side to most of the tables, Jean knew she could find herself feeling a little exposed if she allowed it.

“It’s worth it to get a few minutes with you,” Millie said. “Hi, darling.” She wasn’t drunk, but the sparkle in her eyes and the softness of her features was at least partially as a result of the champagne she had been drinking since noon. She put an arm on Jean’s waist and pulled her closer.

“Hi yourself,” Jean said.

When they started to move their tempo didn’t match that of the music, but they swayed their way through the chorus regardless.

Millie’s eyes were fixed on Jean. “How did I get so lucky?”

“Oh, nonsense,” Jean said. She busied herself adjusting the lapels of Millie’s jumpsuit, which she suddenly decided were slightly askew from her last few dances, and then reached up to briefly kiss her lips. “Now, are you going to spin me or do I have to ask?”

“Oh don't you dare look back
Just keep your eyes on me
I said you're holding back
She said shut up and dance with me
This woman is my destiny
She said oh oh oh
Shut up and dance with me.”

Chapter Text

“It’s the Kardashians but with the letters of their names in alphabetical order!” Millie said quickly, a moment before the contestant on the TV made an incorrect guess. She had sat up in excitement when she figured out the answer and now leaned back again, resting her head on Jean’s shoulder.

“Very good dear,” Jean said, waiting to check the other woman was definitely settled before reaching for her tea and taking a sip. “That’s two so far tonight, you’re on a roll.”

Until recently it had been years since either of them had seen an episode of the show they were watching. It had come up in discussion during a charity quiz at the bar Millie worked at, when Jean had bemoaned the fact that she knew too many of the answers to feel any real sense of achievement when she got one right. (“I just like to feel challenged,” she had added, almost defensively. At the same moment, Iris looked over to where Millie was engaged in a heated conversation with the drag queen running the event and said “Oh, we know.”)

The programme didn’t air in the US but Hailey had done some dubious internet magic to get hold of the most recent series and they had taken to watching one a week, snuggled up on the sofa with some of the stash of proper tea and chocolate digestives that Edward had brought back from his recent visit to the UK. Some couples had date nights in fancy restaurants, Jean and Millie had theirs in their apartment watching an absurdly difficult quiz show.

“I've had three, darling,” Millie corrected.

Jean looked down at her, an eyebrow raised. “Are you trying to claim your vague assertion that the clues to one question ‘looked Slovenian’ as a correct answer?”

“I was in the right area,” the younger woman contested.

“You don’t get points for being ‘in the right area’,” Jean said with a small laugh.

Millie reached for the remote and pressed pause so they didn’t miss the next question. “Did you know it was Slovenian?”

“I didn’t, but that’s hardly the point,” Jean told her, reaching towards the plate of snacks.

“I let you have the Shakespeare one last week, you didn’t specify that all those plays were also set in Italy,” Millie pointed out.

“My answer was still technically correct,” Jean said. She held a biscuit to the other woman’s lips for her to take a bite and pressed play with her other hand. “Besides, it’s not my fault if you’re overgenerous with your scoring.”

Millie, outraged and with a mouthful of digestive, playfully swatted at her arm and snuggled in closer.

Chapter Text

“Explain to me why I have to do this again?” Jean asked, standing somewhat awkwardly in front of the kitchen counter whilst Millie messed around with her camera settings.

“They think we’ve broken up!” Millie explained, swiping the away yet another comment which she already knew was some variation on ‘Omg where is Jean? I hope you guys are okay!’

“And ‘they’ are... these hordes of strangers on the internet who like to look at photographs of our dinner?” Jean clarified.

“It’s not just photos of our dinner,” Millie countered.

“Oh yes, there are lots of the cat, too,” Jean said dryly.

“Would you please just hold up the cookies?” Millie asked.

Jean reached for the tray, but when she turned back around she scrunched her face up. “The sun is in my eyes, can we not do this somewhere else?”

“It’ll only take a second, and the light’s perfect here,” Millie said. “Can you look a bit more like you love me and we definitely haven’t broken up?”

“You’re making that very challenging just now,” Jean said, raising her eyebrows.

“Please?” Millie said, in a tone on the precipice between charming and whiny.

Jean sighed deeply. “You owe me.” She held up the tray and pulled her face into a smile whilst Millie took the picture.

“Thank you,” Millie said, kissing her on the cheek and snapping a selfie of them. When Jean huffed and she briefly put her phone down and captured her girlfriend's lips with hers. “I really am grateful.”

“You can show me how much later,” Jean said straightforwardly, briefly kissing the other woman again.

As Jean wondered out to the living room and back to her book, she could hear Millie saying out loud what she was typing (“No need to worry, guys, all is well with Jean and her delicious baked goods.”). She shook her head, but she was smiling.

Chapter Text

“Oh my God, this bloody song!” Millie said excitedly, gesturing for Jean to move her glass to the coffee table so she could take a seat in her lap. She was several drinks in, having played hostess for the majority of the evening, and a just a little unsteady in her movements in a way which Jean found endearing despite the (not unfounded) fear of Millie forgetting herself and putting too much of her weight on Jean’s weaker leg.

Millie spoke again, matter-of-factly. “You won’t remember, you never remember songs.”

“I have a great knowledge of music. It just happens to stop somewhere around 1955,” Jean replied.

“Very funny,” Millie said, and kissed her quickly on the nose before Jean could work out what was happening. “Work Christmas party, 2007. Lucy hadn’t long left that awful boyfriend of hers and she’d never been clubbing before, so we took her.”

“I remember,” Jean said. Most times she would had left them to it after the meal, a nightclub hardly being her scene, but she had been enjoying the company of her girls and the Christmas spirit (amongst various other spirits) had made her throw her usual caution to the wind.

“I was keeping an eye on Lucy, obviously, and at one point I looked around at her and she was dancing with Alice and smiling and she looked so young and so happy and so relaxed,” Millie said. “And this song was playing.”

Watching Millie smile at the memory, Jean felt a warmth bloom in her chest and she let her thumb trace the curve of her hip.

“You’re right to say I don’t remember that specifically, but I do remember Lucy having a lovely time,” Jean said. “All of us having a lovely time.”

“You danced with me,” Millie said suddenly. “Do you remember that?”

Jean remembered. Despite the effects of the alcohol on her memory, even now she could sharply recall Millie in her close-fitting, backless dress moving under the strobe lights, the smell of her hair and the heat of her body as they moved together. She had made a good effort to put it out of her mind afterwards, to attribute the tight knot in her stomach at the time to the drink and to the party. She recognised it now as the first time she had thought about Millie as something other than a colleague and a friend, but it had taken several years and a move halfway across the world before she had got to that point.

“I do,” Jean said.

“Do you want to know a secret?” Millie asked.

“Always,” Jean replied, trying to keep her tone light but somewhat distracted by the way Millie’s eyes had darkened.

Millie leaned forward and whispered into her ear. “I would have let you fuck me that night, if you had asked. You could have done anything you wanted with me.”

Millie leaned back and looked at her mischievously. Jean broke eye contact for a moment and glanced around the room, convinced as she always was when Millie pulled a stunt like this that the whole party was aware of the jolt between her legs.

“I had a massive row with Susan when we got back to mine that night,” Millie added. “She knew I wanted you.”

“Hadn’t she just got engaged to Timothy?” Jean said, distracted a little from the pulsing in her body.

Millie gestured vaguely. “That’s Susan.”

Jean tightened her grip around Millie’s waist, steadying the other woman in her lap. Whilst she certainly was aroused, and would be ready to act on that just as soon as Millie’s drunkenness and the inevitable hangover had passed, she primarily felt a little wistful, thinking of the time they had missed out on. It had never really crossed her mind that their feelings for each other could be traced back so far – they had never talked about it so specifically – and the fact that they could made her wonder all over again what had taken them so long, although deep down she knew the answer.

“I wasn’t ready for you,” Jean said. She nudged Millie towards her with her linked hands at her back and gave her a quick kiss.

“I don’t suppose I was ready for you, either,” Millie said, resting her forehead against Jean’s. “I would have given it a good go, though.”

As Jean breathed in Millie’s laughter, she allowed herself a moment to just be pleased they had got there eventually.

Chapter Text

“It can’t be a seven there, you need it for the row above,” Millie said, looking over Jean’s shoulder at the sudoku puzzle she was working on.

Jean pulled her glasses off her face and turned to look at Millie. “You said you didn’t want to join in. You wanted to watch this nonsense.” She gestured vaguely towards the TV, which was playing The Real Housewives of Beverley Hills.

“I can do both,” Millie replied.

“You know the rules - there’s no backseat puzzling in this house. You’re either in or you’re out,” Jean reminded her.

“That’s not what you usually say,” Millie said, raising her eyebrows.

Jean tutted. “I think it’s fair to say most people have different preferences for sudoku and sex.”

“I don’t know, you make a lot of the same noises during the two activities,” Millie said.

Jean sighed. She turned back to her puzzle and put her glasses back on. “I’m ignoring you.”

Millie laughed and reached for the TV remote to press the power button. She leaned forwards into Jean’s back with the dual purpose of kissing the other woman’s neck few times and getting a closer look at the book. “You really do need to move that seven,” she said.

Chapter Text

“My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard
And they're like, it's better than yours
Damn right it's better than yours
I can teach you, but I have to charge.”

As Jean stepped over the threshold the volume of the music and the flashing of the lights briefly overwhelmed her senses. After a few seconds to adjust, she scanned the room, quickly spotting Millie amongst the modest crowd, dancing around and laughing with various people as she collected glasses.

Jean took a seat on a stool at the end of the bar nearest the door, directly underneath a large rainbow flag, and waited for Millie to spot her.

“Darling, is everything okay?” Millie said, frowning slightly and raising her voice to be heard over the sound of the music.

“Yes, fine. I’ve-” Jean started, and then realising she needed to speak louder, tried again. “I’ve not long finished at Iris’s. The cab came in this direction so I thought I’d come to walk you home.”

Millie glanced at her watch. “Are you going to be okay waiting?”

Jean nodded. “I have a book with me,” she said, gesturing towards her handbag. “That and a drink and I’ll be fine.”

Despite being aware of the growing number of customers waiting to be served, Millie took a moment to lean over the bar and kiss Jean firmly. “I fucking love you, Jean McBrian,” she said against her girlfriend’s ear, sure in that moment that there was no one else as utterly perfect, as entirely herself, as this woman.

“Yes, I love you too, dear,” Jean said, pressing a kiss to Millie’s cheek as she pulled away. “I’ll have a gin and tonic when you’re ready,” she added, reaching for her bag to retrieve her novel and her glasses and preparing to settle in for a little while.

Chapter Text

“Now, what colour would madam like today?” Millie asked, gesturing to the multiple pots of nail polish she had arranged in rows on the table. “And would she care for a drink whilst she’s choosing? A juice, perhaps, or a glass of milk?”

Cadence laughed at her theatrics, and behind them, keeping an eye on the spaghetti and meatballs on the stove, Jean did too.

“Juice, please,” Cadence said, and then a few moments later, whilst Millie was at the fridge, she added: “Can I have this one?”

“Midnight blue? A fine choice!” Millie said, placing the glass down in front of the girl before breaking character. “And I checked with your Mum and she said you can keep it on for the whole weekend if you want, as long as you take it off in time for school on Monday.” She shook the bottle, at the same time becoming aware from the feeling against the skin on her chest that the clasp of her necklace had worked its way around her neck so it was next to the charm. She had lifted her hand to adjust it when Cadence spoke.

“That means someone has a crush on you,” she said, gesturing towards how Millie’s necklace was sitting.

Millie laughed. “What makes you say that?”

Cadence shrugged. “It's what the kids in my class say. If your jewellery gets all the wrong way around like that it means someone like likes you.”

“Well, if the kids in your class say it, surely its true,” Millie said. She gestured for Cadence to put her fingers down on the table so she could start painting her nails. “I think I might know who it is.”

“Who?” Cadence asked, immediately interested.

Millie moved closer to Cadence and pretended to whisper. “I think maybe it’s Jean,” she said conspiratorially. "She's always hanging around me and she did kind of follow me here all the way from England.”

Cadence laughed. “You’re being silly, you know Aunt Jean like likes you already.”

“Oh, two likes might be going a bit far,” Jean cut in, kissing Millie on the top of her head so Cadence would understand she was joking. “Now, less gossiping in the salon, we need those to dry before dinner.”

Chapter Text

“I can’t sleep,” said a small voice from the doorway.

Jean tried to conceal her frown as she looked up from her book. It hadn’t been more than a couple of hours since she had got Cadence to bed, time she had filled with reading whilst waiting up for Millie, allowing herself the luxury of a small glass of her best whiskey for having managed the babysitting solo. Whilst it wasn’t unusual for Iris’s youngest child to be in their apartment overnight, Jean’s role was usually a practical one, with her making dinner and running baths and giving reminders about bedtime whilst Millie got the gossip from Cadence’s elementary school class and bickered with her about which Taylor Swift song was the best. This time, though, the bar had been understaffed for the evening and Millie had been asked to stay on at work, so it had just been the two of them. She knew she hadn’t offered the most orthodox of entertainment for an eight-year-old – they had played a language game on the iPad for a little while so Cadence could practise the French Millie was teaching her, and then watched a documentary about penguins on Netflix (because they were the young girl’s favourite animals, after unicorns, of course) – but it had seemed to have gone down well enough. Now, with Cadence standing at the entrance of the living room, Jean regretted congratulating herself so soon.

“What’s the problem, dear?” she asked.

“I had a bad dream,” Cadence said. She shuffled a little timidly into the room, her usual bouncy confidence in their home worn away by tiredness and fear, and looked at the space next to Jean on the sofa.

Jean put her book down and patted the sofa cushion. “You can come and sit for a minute if you would like to.”

Cadence breathed a tiny sigh of relief. “Yes please,” she said, crossing her legs as she sat down and putting her teddy bear on her lap, folding her arms around the soft toy’s middle.

Jean couldn’t help but find herself wishing that Millie was there. She felt like she needed her partner’s skills in cheering and distracting because all she had to work with was her sincerity, which she wasn’t at all sure was going to be beneficial for getting a child to go back to sleep.

She turned to the girl next to her. “What do you do if you have a bad dream at home?”

“I talk to Mommy,” Cadence answered. Her eyes briefly lit up with an idea. “Can we call her?”

“Remember when we talked to your mother earlier she was just about to go to bed? It’s very late in Boston now and she has her big talk tomorrow,” Jean explained.

“Okay,” Cadence said, a little sadly.

“What would you usually talk to her about?”

Cadence shrugged. “Stuff. I don’t know. Mommy just makes things less scary.”

“Do you want to try telling me about your dream, see if I can make things less scary too?” Jean asked tentatively.

The little girl shrugged again. There was a long silence as Cadence played with the ears of her bear and Jean tried to work out what to do next.

“Did you know that grownups sometimes have bad dreams too?” Jean said eventually.

Cadence looked up at her, interested. “Do they?”

“Yes,” Jean said. “A long time ago I had an accident, and I have bad dreams about that sometimes.”

“About the accident when you hurt your leg?” Cadence asked.

Cadence had never asked a direct question about her mobility before; Jean suspected Iris had told her not to because it would have been quite impossible for it to have escaped her attention. She didn’t always walk with a stick these days but she did always have to take it steady, and many group trips out involved stops for Jean to rest, or the rest of the adults continuing conversation over the sound of Millie, in the most charming iteration of her voice saying “I’m very sorry to ask, but is this compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act?” as she gestured towards the steps.

(“I’m not an American with a disability,” Jean would say when they were finally seated somewhere appropriate. “The Act still applies to you, as you well know. I’m not having you struggling up a load of stairs because they can’t be arsed to open the section of the restaurant which is actually accessible,” or some other version of the same statement, was always Millie’s reply.)

“Yes, dear,” Jean said.

“It must have been scary, the accident,” Cadence said.

It was easier these days for Jean not to automatically flinch at the memory of the taxi breaking too late, the metal piercing her skin as they collided.

“It was,” Jean said calmly. “But I’m okay now.”

“Did Aunt Millie help you get better?” Cadence asked.

“She did, a bit, but,” Jean hesitated, somehow bashful about the idea of explaining to her that she and Millie had not always been, well, her and Millie. “But we weren’t together like we are now. She was close to someone else at the time.”

“She was called Susan,” Cadence said, straightforwardly.

“How do you know that?” Jean asked with surprise.

“We did a secret trade,” Cadence said. On seeing Jean’s frown she continued, speaking as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “One secret for one secret. I told Aunt Millie that the reason I was sad was because Madison Martin took my favourite pen without asking and broke it, and she told me that before she loved you she loved a lady called Susan.” She paused and then added: “I told her I wanted a good secret.”

Thinking back, Jean did vaguely remember Millie coming home from Iris's one evening seeming quite disproportionately outraged that another child had made Cadence upset in a way that she had written off as just Millie being Millie at the time. Now she supposed it must have also been a day when Millie had received one of the semi-regular messages from Susan which always left her both sharper and softer, somehow – snappy but uncharacteristically interested in non-sexual physical contact. That revelation aside, she appreciated the simplicity of Cadence’s worldview - she knew that Millie had once loved someone else, so it could only be that person that Jean was referring to.

“Well you certainly are in the know,” she said simply.

“Yes, I know lots of things,” Cadence replied. “Does Aunt Millie help you now? When you have bad dreams?”

Jean thought of the first time it happened when her and Millie were sharing a bed, how she had woken up crying and sweating and shaking in Millie’s arms, unable to articulate what the problem was for several minutes. She remembered how, after a few minutes of just holding her, Millie had reached for the nearest book and started reading out loud (“Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself,”), an action which she would never have thought of but which soothed her enormously.

“She does,” Jean said. The nightmares were less frequent these days, and her reactions to them were less intense, but she was still grateful for having Millie to hold her and read from that battered copy of Mrs Dalloway when she needed it. “Now, I’ve told you my secret. How about a secret trade?”

“You are supposed to both say yes before you start. But I guess you don’t know the rules,” Cadence said, rolling her eyes a little.

“If you let me off this time I promise to remember in the future,” Jean said, thankful for the experience her dry sense of humour had given her with maintaining a deadpan expression.

Cadence looked down at the bear in her lap, as if it might be able to tell her whether this breach of etiquette was permitted. “I dreamed that I was at home but I was on my own and a big monster was chasing me all around the house and every time I hid it found me and started chasing me again.”

“That certainly does sound scary.”

“It was. I know monsters aren’t real but it felt like it was real,” Cadence said.

“Yes, dreams can be tricky like that,” Jean said gently. “Does it feel less scary now you’ve told me?”

“A little,” Cadence answered.

“Do you think you can manage to go back to bed?” she asked, vaguely aware of the sound of a key in the lock whilst she was speaking and looking up to see Millie leaning against the doorframe.

Cadence followed her gaze. “Aunt Millie!”

"C'est quoi ça? It’s well past your bedtime. Has Aunt Jean been a bad influence?” Millie said.

“I had a bad dream, but I’m okay now,” Cadence explained.

“Well, that’s because you’re remarkably brave, I suppose,” Millie said, and watched as Cadence beamed.

“Go and pop yourself back into bed sweetheart, and Aunt Millie will come and check on you in a few minutes,” Jean said.

“Okay,” Cadence said. She took a few steps towards the guest room before stopping and turning to look at Millie. “No offence, but could Aunt Jean tuck me in instead? I can give you a hug now?”

Millie briefly clutched her heart as if she was wounded and then laughed and held out her arms to Cadence.

“You smell funny,” the small girl said as she pulled away.

“That’ll be the sweat and debauchery,” Millie said. When Cadence looked confused, she added “I’ll explain what it means in the morning. Goodnight, mon petit chou.”

“Bonne nuit!” Cadence said happily.

“Excellent accent,” Millie called after her. She leaned in to give Jean a kiss. “Look at you, turning into Supernanny whilst I’m at work.”

“Oh don’t,” Jean said dismissively, resting her hands on the other woman’s shoulders. “How was your evening?”

“Not as eventful as yours, it seems,” Millie replied, tucking a stray bit of hair behind Jean’s ear and brushing a thumb against her cheek. “Tea?”

“And the rest,” Jean said.

Millie laughed. “I’ll get the kettle on. When you let go of me, that is.”

Jean leaned in – part of her mind still focused on fear and darkness, both herself and Cadence’s – and kissed her again.

“Thank you,” she said, and hoped Millie understood she meant for much more than the tea.

Chapter Text

It had started as a teasing suggestion on Millie’s part, as so many things did.

“Hey, this says I should dress up as you for Halloween, darling,” she had said, flashing her phone in Jean’s face for just enough time for her to see the result of ‘Sexy Librarian’ on a Halloween costume generator site. In response to the sight of Jean’s raised eyebrows she had added: “Yes, I know you are an archivist and not a librarian and that people and fought and died through very boring meetings for that distinction to be made, but I think we can agree that when it comes to Halloween costumes the difference is negligible,” and then “Would you be mad if I actually did dress as you?”

“Oh, feel free, my love,” Jean had replied. “But don’t think I won’t reciprocate.”

From there things had turned (again, quite inevitably) competitive, and the fortnight that followed had been full of visits to thrift stores and furtive trying on of various items from each other’s wardrobe.

Millie had been quietly confident in her own effort. She’d paired a long cardigan of Jean’s and a plain t-shirt of her own with a mid-length checked skirt she had found at Goodwill, and added some woollen tights and the flat shoes she wore for waitressing. Her hair in a bun and she was wearing Jean’s reading glasses on a chain around her neck. However, even she could admit when she had been outdone.

In her outfit – a red satin blouse, a black skirt which reached her mid-thigh, meeting sheer black tights and heeled ankle boots - Jean not only looked like Millie, but she looked phenomenal. As she finished applying her lipstick, she turned around to speak.

“Will I do?” she asked, in a tone of someone who very much knew that she would do, and quite unlike her usual one.

“I know we were a little worried that our costumes weren’t that Halloween appropriate, but let me tell you that finding out you’re basically attracted to yourself is pretty scary,” Millie said, by way of answering.

Jean laughed. “Well, I’m glad you like it.”

“Honestly, I’m inclined to suggest we skip the party because you look so good, and I don’t know what that says about me,” said Millie.

“There is perhaps a touch of narcissism in it, dear,” Jean said, adjusting her curled hair with recently-painted nails. “Anyway, we can’t skip the party, quite aside from the amount of effort we’ve put in, Hailey will never let us live it down if we don’t see her Holtzmann outfit in the flesh.”

“I am looking forward to Iris and Marcus’s Zombie Eliza and Alexander, too,” Millie said, watching as Jean leaned over slightly to pick up her handbag and the skirt rode up her thighs. “But they could send pictures.”

“We’re going to the party,” Jean said, rolling her eyes. She turned to leave the room, and when there was no sound of movement behind her, said “Come on, Millie!”

Millie raised her eyebrows, but followed. “We can stay in and read!” she said, grabbing the novel she had taken from the bookshelf earlier to accessorise her costume. “I’ve always been much more of a homebody, me, not one for parties.”

Jean shook her head, putting her prop cigarette into her bag. “We’re going.”

Millie sighed. “Okay, but can I just-” she leaned in to kiss her but found herself blocked by an arm on her shoulder.

“My lipstick!” Jean said, offering her cheek instead.

Millie laughed. "Such a diva."

“I’m just in character, darling,” Jean said.

Millie found she couldn’t argue with that.

Chapter Text

“Ouch!” Jean said, reaching around to rub the sore bit of her head.

“Stop wriggling!” Millie said, exasperated. She was holding several sections of hair and trying to add to them whilst also keeping them taut.

“It hurts, Millie,” Jean said. “I don’t know why my scalp has to suffer because of your lies.”

“I didn’t lie,” Millie replied, making a frustrated face when she lost her grip on a few strands.

“You told Iris you would help with hair braiding at Cadence's birthday party, which does rather imply you can do it,” Jean pointed out.

“Which is not a lie,” Millie said, giving up and unravelling her work for the fifth time. “French braiding was one of the major currencies at boarding school. The amount of cigarettes I got in exchange for a good braid...”

“I know how close to forty you are is not a topic I am generally permitted to bring up, but I would just like to say that it has been some time since you were at boarding school,” Jean said. “Ow!”

Millie made a small noise of frustration. “You just have so much hair,” she whined, looking in despair at Jean’s head as she picked up the comb and started sectioning it off again.

Jean turned her head a little, giving her a warning look.

“And it is beautiful, darling,” she added. “But it is a lot to work with.”

“Funny, I’ve often found myself thinking the same about you,” Jean said.

“Hold please,” Millie said, reaching for Jean’s hand and thrusting a section of hair into it. “And sit still, would you? I’m sure I could do it if you would stay in one place."

“I’ve hardly moved, dear,” Jean said. “Anyway, I can hardly see a group of overexcited children hyped up on E numbers sitting perfectly motionless for you so you can braid their hair, so any movement I’m making can only be helping you have a reasonable experience of the conditions you will be working under at Iris’s.”

“Jean, please,” Millie said, dropping the hair she was holding. “I’m really quite stressed about this.”

Jean turned around to look at her. “Are you serious?” she said, frowning.

“Yeah, sort of,” Millie said. “I really thought I could still do it.”

Jean put her hand on one of Millie’s, which was placed on the back of the chair.

“Iris won’t mind at all, you know that,” Jean said.

“I know, I just don’t like not being able to do things,” Millie said.

Jean raised an eyebrow. “And?” she said.

“And maybe I wanted to be Fun Aunt Millie, here for party games and great braids,” Millie said.

“You’re upset because you want a group of elementary school children to think you’re cool?” Jean said.

“I want everyone to think I’m cool,” Millie said.

Jean looked up at Millie, fully aware of how unruly her hair must look and the fact that she probably had printer ink smudged on her face from when she had been trying to fix the machine earlier. “I think you’re very cool,” she said.

Millie rolled her eyes, but she smiled. “Well, thank goodness for that,” she said.

Chapter Text

“No worries, Hails, I'll let her know.”

Jean looked up from her knitting at the sound of Millie’s voice and listened with a vague curiosity to the conversation.

“I hope the appointment isn’t too horrendous,” Millie said. “Thoughts and prayers and all that, Nancy only has to see the carry cage and she hates us. See you soon lovely.”

Jean watched as she glanced at the screen of her phone and then put it in her pocket.

“Hailey can’t come over today darling, she has to take Katy Purry to the vet,” Millie said. “She did try to phone you, but surprisingly your phone doesn’t ring when it’s switched off on the coffee table.”

“You’ve mentioned that before, I never do seem to be able to retain that bit of information,” Jean said dryly.

Millie laughed.

“One day you’ll accept that we don’t live in the Dark Ages, my love,” she said.

“It’s not living in the Dark Ages to want a break from the incessant beeping,” Jean replied.

“Wait until you hear about silent mode!” Millie said with mock excitement. She leaned down to kiss Jean, a casual brush of her lips against her partner’s. “What great plans did you have with Hailey anyway?”

“We were going to make a start on putting together that wardrobe for the spare room,” Jean answered.

“Oh, well, I just have that pitch to work on today so I can help instead if you want,” Millie said.

Jean laughed.

“The thing is, dear, that I was rather intending to still be in a relationship with you tomorrow, and I’m just not sure that will happen if we attempt to assemble flat-packed furniture together again.”

“Come on, we’re not that bad at it,” Millie said, sitting down cross-legged just in front of her partner.

“It’s not our competence that’s the issue,” Jean said, affectionately brushing her thumb against Millie’s shoulder. “As much as the fact that every time – without exception – you get the whole lot out of the box before I even get into the room and then decide it’s too confusing, which it would not have been, had your first action been different. Not to mention how often you then inexplicably disappear and leave me to the chaos you have created.”

“That’s preposterous,” Millie said, laughing as she caught Jean’s thumb between her fingers. “Practically slander.”

“Is it?” Jean said, raising an eyebrow. Looking down at her lap, she extricated her hand from the other woman’s and returned it to her knitting to prevent the needle slipping.

“In my defence, I have a select attention span, and DIY doesn’t play to my strengths,” Millie admitted.

“Hence my asking Hailey to come over and help,” Jean said.

“Hmm, I suppose when you put it that way,” Millie said, resting her hand on the other woman’s thigh. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Jean replied, reaching down for Millie’s hand and bringing it up to her lips.

It was a moment or two before Millie spoke.

“It’s strange, isn’t it, that we’re not very good at doing flat-packed assembly together?” she said.

“What makes you think so?” Jean asked, slightly raising an eyebrow as she wondered where the question would lead.

“Oh, it’s just that historically we're very good at putting Tab A into Slot B...,” Millie said, winking quickly at the other woman before she laughed.

“Camilla Harcourt, are you attempting to charm me into bed using terrible DIY-themed innuendo?”

“That depends,” Mille replied, reaching forward to run a fingertip up Jean’s thigh. “Is it working?”

Jean shook her head and smiled.

“Against my better judgement, it is,” she said. She put down her knitting and gestured to her lap. “Come here.”