Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Evangeline shifted the sizzling batter round the pan while Wolf stood over her shoulder, eyes narrowed at the stove.

“Are you sure I shouldn’t fix that?”

She shook her head no, smiling, “It’s not a bother.” One side of the pan burned hotter so there was always a pancake, or an egg, browner than the others. But that just meant Eva had to pay a little more attention.

When they were done, she dabbed off the extra oil, flipping their breakfast into the plates. Wolf carried them for her to the table where she already set out coffee and fruit, and a bowl of yogurt she had fretted over before deciding to bring it out, smoothing the table cloth as she did so. Sunlight streamed through the open blinds, casting a glow on their table and the man sitting down at it, a hand held out to her.

They always ate breakfast together when Wolf was home. Even if he had to rush out early, he’d wake her, and Eva would come along, yawning, so they’d have some coffee together. Today, they could take their time eating, talking about nothing but her garden and the coming peace. For the first time in a long while, she might have him with her.

She didn’t want to spoil this serenity, but Eva had been fretting about this idea since she saw the hoload on a modest counter at the supermarket. It wasn’t something she could ask Wolf via letter; she rarely asked him anything then, he had more important decisions on his mind. Then, afterwards, there were the preparations to stop the Alliance rebels once and for all. Now was the best time.

“Wolf,” she said, and her tone must have piqued his attention because he stopped eating his yoghurt. A strawberry seed was stuck in the back of her teeth, and she quickly swallowed it and asked,

“Can I go back to school?”

His eyes widened in surprise. “School?”

She nodded and brought out the holodex, the holograph hazing into view, shading Wolf’s face.

He read through, scrolling down, a wrinkle forming between his eyebrows. “It was started by a former noble.”

“Yes, but the Ministry of Education gave them a grant and permission to teach commoner women,” she had this rehearsed. “Because of Prince Lohengramm’s new policy.”

Wolf doesn’t say anything at first. Then he shakes his head.

Eva’s stomach twists.

“I do want you to go back to school, Eva,“ he starts.” I think it’s good that you want to. But school is better when you don’t have people lording things over you.” He turns the holodex back to her as if she hadn’t seen the teachers’ list and all the ‘vons’.

“We can find somebody else,” he says, ”they can’t be the only people in the Imperial City. Or,” the idea lights him up, “I could get you tutors. Anything you want to learn.”

Under the table, Eva bunches her robe together in her hands. It wasn’t just learning how to read better or the math she hadn’t gotten a chance to know. These were noblewomen; they all talked in precise, elegant tones, and they walked with their backs straight, hands graceful and always knowing what to do.

Wolf reaches across the table, cups her face. “My salary is the highest it’s ever been, and we live well already. The cost is nothing. Please let me do this for you.”

She should say yes. Not many husbands offer this to their wives. But she wouldn’t know how to ask for a tutor in Politeness and Etiquette. At her first officer’s ball, she had tried to walk the way the women did - gracefully - and her neck reddened in shame when she caught sight of herself in the mirror, awkward as a baby goat.

Eva collected herself. This is part of what she wanted to stop doing. Wolf was a man of solutions, and because he was smart and knowledgeable, Eva usually took his answers. But her inability to disagree with him, to say what she wanted, had once led to a spell of months-long misery.

“I want this school because they are noblewomen. They can teach me some of the things I don’t know.”

His mouth fell open. “None of those things are necessary anymore.”

“But there’s still a difference.”

“It’s not one that matters.”

“It matters to me.” She stands up from her seat, smooths her robe. “I think I do my job as your wife well, but there are parts I fail in. I am trying to represent you well in public. If I could have done this years ago, and believe you me I did try, I would have.” She heaves a breath.

Somewhere, in the middle of it, Wolf had gained a stricken look.

“Eva,” he starts, gently, slowly. “When you say 'fail', please, you’re not still trying to make up for -“

She immediately realizes and shakes her head. Perhaps she should have just taken the tutor offer.

“Are you sure?” he asks.

She nods her head.

Wolf leans back in his seat, his lips a tight line. He closes his eyes as he thinks, releasing tension with a huffed breath.

“I have two conditions,” he says. “There have to be more than five women in the school. Second, if anyone makes you miserable, you’ll leave.”

“If I leave,” Eva runs a finger over the hem of the tablecloth, “can I still get tutors?”

“Yes.”

She rounds the table and hugs him from the side, his chair shifting from the force. “Thank you,” she says.

Wolf runs a hand through her hair and kisses her cheek.

Chapter Text

Well, what do you think of that? / Naked as paper to start / But in twenty-five years she'll be silver
The Applicant, Sylvia Plath

The school was a vision a long time in the making, she learns at the orientation. True to Wolf’s conditions, she only registered because there were six other women aside from her. They were the inaugural set. The plan was to take this ‘initiative’ outside of the Imperial City, to as many ordinary women as possible, these women forced into farm work and childbirth and homemaking without the chance to explore how far their minds could take them, how far they could go.

The hall shimmered lightly with the sheen of the gold spray paint Wolf had told her had become fashionable in noble homes some years ago. Eva took notes in her mind, of the way each of the teachers stepped, of how they seemed to shape the air around them as they spoke.

The other women, her new classmates, nodded alongside each word, one of them, an older woman, dabbing tears. Eva’s heart went out to her, to each one of them.

She won’t say it in this company, but she hadn’t felt robbed. Her schooling would have ended either way, given her father’s death, and 12 years of age was more than many girls she knew got. When she left, there was only one other girl in the school.

Herr and Frau Mittermeyer were so kind to her, and their home was a little bigger than she was used to. She didn’t bring enough with her to fill the room given, but over the years, their generosity expanded the space she took up.

And then there was Wolf. He was like an older sibling at first, guiding and protecting her, showing her all the new things about the world that she would have been too incurious to discover. The repeated absences meant that each time he returned, there was some new change about him that she hadn’t seen coming, that she could take her time to ponder on by herself.

One day, she came home and saw him in the greenhouse, conversing with his father. She had rushed in, barely made sure the potatoes from the shopping didn’t roll around the kitchen, and then she ran up the stairs and shut her room, splattering herself against the door, heart pounding.

He looked like a man.

Broad-shouldered. Tall. His body filling out his uniform. With a hand at his hip, the other cradling the leaves of a plant, his father was gesturing at. At dinner, when he spoke, she tried to remember if his voice had always sounded like that. Strong and purposeful.

When he asked her to marry him, it wasn’t a total surprise. His mother had hinted at it for months by then, and in her heart, she knew to wait for Wolf. If he hadn’t picked her, she doesn’t know what she would have done for a husband.

The girls in the neighbourhood all told her how jealous they were, how lucky she was. Before the wedding, he’d found a way for her to visit her home planet, and she got to see some of the people she’d grown up with. Not everyone was still there, but some were, including a girl she’d been friends with since they were five.

Anna-Lena was five months along, but she had twins, so by then it was very obvious that she was pregnant. She let Eva cradle her belly, feel the warmth and the squirm of her children. They danced together, little twirls around the kitchen, when Lena learned she was getting married. Her husband was out, so the girls talked freely, doing some mending in the airy space.

Frau Mittermeyer had already taken on the task of telling Eva about sex when Eva had asked about sanitary products. Her teaching was a bit more insightful than her father’s fumbling around it but still Eva hadn’t wanted to unnerve Frau Mittermeyer with any specific questions.

But she had offered up the knowledge that it would hurt the first time, but that was why you only did it with your husband - he was the only man outside your family who you could trust had your good in mind. And in return, you were to keep his home, keep his standing. Give him children.

Lena had confirmed it: it would hurt the first time.

“Then all the other times,” she’d said, turning a sock inside out, “it would hurt much less but the hurt and the not-hurt,” she’d picked up another sock and wiggled them together, “they go side-by-side.”

Eva nodded, turning the information over.

“There are good things about it,” Lena had clarified. “At times, you can see why those kinds of girls do it all the time with just anybody. The ending of it is nice, and since your Mittermeyer sounds like a good man -“ she lowered her voice then, ”my neighbour? Her husband forces her sometimes. She’s told me about it.”

Eva had gasped. Having an understanding of the mechanics of it made the idea of being forced sickening. For years after, whenever Eva prayed, she’d pray for all women who had ever been forced.

She wanted to trust - she decided to trust - that Wolf would never do that to her. The idea of being bare like that in front of a man distressed her somewhat but Eva was determined to go through with it as best she could — it was a thing that seemed important to men after all. Lena had given her the good advice of using a finger or two to ‘root around in there’, (they’d collapsed into giggles at this), until it felt good because it made what came next easier.

Then it turned out Eva didn’t need that advice at all because Wolf did it himself.

It had felt like twin fireworks went off in her brain and between her legs, sparking their way through the rest of her, lighting and fizzling things. It wasn’t the first time she realized the magnitude of her luck, but it was the first in a series of memories that confirmed just how lucky she was.

Wolf letting her go to school was another one tacked onto a long list. One of the women had gingerly stood up when given the prompting and told them she was only here because her husband had died, so there was no one to stop her.

They were shown around the expansive building, each class with a dedicated room. Basic Sciences, Fine Art, Civic Education, Planetary Science, Politeness and Etiquette, Mathematics and finally Writing and Language.

Her classmates had stopped schooling at different times, some younger than her, so some things were going to be repeated but Eva didn’t mind. It had been 13 years since she had last been in school - a realization that had taken some air out of her.

She wasn’t as young as she was anymore. Certainly not as young as when she and Wolf had gotten married. The Empire was changing; the times were changing. Eva needed everything she could get to keep up with Wolf. To support him.

The day rounded up deep into the evening. By then, Eva had begun to look forward to more than just the Etiquette classes. A little worry of her had dissipated too. None of the teachers seemed to know her.

The women all wished each other a safe trip home and Eva exchanged videophone addresses with her new schoolmates.

When she got home, two voices were talking over each other, coming from the dining room. Admiral Rueunthal and her husband were there in full uniform, having dinner, a chilled bottle of champagne dwindled between them.

“Eva!” Wolf brightened and came up to Eva with long steps, pressing her to himself lightly so as not to squash the loaf of bread she had brought home. “How was it? How was your day?”

“It was exciting,” she grinned. “I’ll tell you about it after your dinner.”

“There’s no need to wait, Reuenthal and I were just talking about the shield upgrades.”

“It might be frightfully boring fare for Frau Evangeline,” Admiral Reuenthal sipped from his glass, “don’t you think?”

“That’s why we’re going to listen to Eva talk about her day,” he replied. Then to Eva, “I dished out your dinner just in case. You should go get it and sit with us.”

Eva nodded and went into the kitchen to drop off the loaf and get her food from where it was kept warm. On her way back to the dining room, an incredulous, “School?” jumped out of the open door.

Then she pretended she didn’t hear Wolf kick Admiral Reuenthal in response. The Admiral, on his part, found it funny enough to laugh out loud.

“I’m just surprised that’s all,” he said.

“I figured you would be. Work through that surprise before Eva comes back here.”

“But what is she doing with it?”

No response comes. Just the swishing of alcohol in a glass. The large old clock chimes.

“Think about all the wives you’ve met. Of men our rank or higher.”

The silence starts up again. Then, the Admiral says, “I see.”

“Prior, there were even more nobles.”

“Or women rich enough to ape nobility.”

“My point exactly. I knew it bothered her, but not to this extent.” Wolf sighs, and it tugs at Eva’s heart. “I should have done something sooner.”

“You should have,” Admiral Reuenthal agrees. “Then again, women rarely know what they want. Fickle creatures.”

Another kick.

“Mittermeyer, those boots are heavy.”

“Keep that in mind.”

“Are they even regulation?”

Eva decided this was the best time to walk in, a smile on her face. The shoe Wolf had used to walk all over who knows where was held up too close to the table for Eva’s liking, so she shifted her seat away from the two.

“Frau Mittermeyer,” the Admiral greets her, then says, “Your husband has iron in his shoes.”

“Precaution. Not all of us excel at hand-to-hand.”

”You’ll shatter your toes.”

“Small price to pay.”

Something passed between them.

Admiral Reuenthal dropped the shoe. “We can’t all be skilled at everything,” he intoned, dusting his hands off. “For instance,” he waved a hand to Eva, “Frau Mittermeyer, your roast duck was exquisite.”

Wolf gave a mischievous grin behind the Admiral’s back, so Eva accepted the praise. And because it would make Wolf laugh, she said, “The key is the lime juice.”

He did bark a laugh, satisfying Eva. “Your day,” he prompts her.

She tells them about the school, and they listen intently, the Admiral making a face when he hears the owner’s name.

“Do you know her?” Wolf asks.

“Casually,” he says. “A crusader that one, but only when it doesn’t inconvenience her. I’m near-certain she’s elated she could squeeze money out of the government for this.”

“But, she’s not a bad person?” Eva asks.

“Bad is subjective,” he replies. “She’s probably genuine about this, but don’t be too surprised if your school shutters midway. How long is it for?”

“A year,” she replies, then tells them about the classes and how the grades work.

“No English?” Wolf asked.

“English would overwhelm them,” Reuenthal replied.

“The galaxy is changing; they may need it soon.”

“I doubt those women have even learned it.”

“The Basic Science class has too much to cover, in my opinion,” Wolf shifted the subject.

“I thought so too, but I suppose ‘basic’ is the keyword here. If you don’t understand what you’re taught, what will you do?” The Admiral asks her directly.

It feels a little unnerving to be under his stare.

Wolf looks between them.

“Umm,” Eva places her fork and knife on her plate. “I will ask the teacher. And go to the library.”

“There’s a librarian?”

She nods.

“What are you going to do about time? Homework? You have other duties.”

To her side, Wolf’s frown deepens, but he didn’t intervene.

“I was going to discuss it with my husband.” Eva suddenly felt like a child whose reasoning the adults were poking holes into.

Later that night, when it was just her and Wolf, she asked, “Is it okay that I will be away for so much of the day?” The weight of the decision had been draping itself over her. She was whittling down their precious time together with her own hands.

Wolf dried off his face as he came to where she’d gathered the duvet around herself. She reached up to his hair, twirling a damp lock in her fingers.

“I considered the time cost when you asked.” He pressed a kiss to her head, “Don’t pay Reuenthal much mind. I don’t know how to ask you the hard questions so I suppose he considered tonight a favour to me.”

Neither of them knew how to say the hard things to each other, perhaps even more now that they were supposed to have learned their lesson.

It’s why, instead of responding," she said, “The housekeeper would have more work to do.”

“She can get a raise. And I can cook for myself,” he added.

“Don’t worry, I’ll do that before I leave and on the weekends too. Left to you, all of Odín might run out of ducks.”

“It’s a hearty meal,” he smiles smugly. “And, apparently, I make it ‘exquisitely’.”

Chapter Text

    The gods have spun for all unlucky mortals / a life of grief, while nothing troubles them.

            The Iliad, translation Emily Wilson

Wolf was fast asleep but Eva watched the clouds through their window, drifting past the moons, blinking their light. There was much on her mind and she didn’t know where to start from, what thread to pick up and follow to its end. Each day felt new. Like a cut apart from the fold she’d lain. She wants to roll over to Wolf, rest across his back, but she didn’t want to risk waking him in case he had important things to do in the morning.

Chief Commander of the Space Fleet. 

She’d watched the men with their flowing capes on the newscast as a child and now her husband was one of them. Eva had been surprised the cape was attached to their dress jackets, she expected the ensemble to be more complicated, but nevertheless she told him how proud she was. It wasn’t worth much, her pride, but she told him this every time he was promoted. And in return he’d give her his golden smile.

It made her happy to see him happy. She also understood that this was true for Wolf as well. Eva reaches out to him, feels the ends of his hair between her fingers.

Perhaps she should start her Writing project now. For all the classes, they were supposed to start and complete a project that would make use of everything they learned over the year. Writing and Language required a 5,000 words write-up that used at least five of the vocabulary words they were going to be given. It didn’t matter what they wrote about, it just had to be ‘cohesive’. 

She left the bed, careful not to let it creak. Wolf had given her advice - a dedicated assignment notebook for each class - and she took one of them to Wolf’s study pulling her legs up underneath her in the plush seat. The desk was cold on her arms as she uncapped her pen and began to write.

Dear Wolfgang

She stopped. What was she going to say to him? 

She twisted the pen in her hands. For Writing and Language, Eva had chosen to write a letter to Wolf. She’d always found it hard to do so not because she had nothing to say to him but because she had so much and none of it useful. 

Sometimes she imagined him, after a long day of battle, of making decisions to preserve his mens’ lives, to make sure he came back home to her, he’d sit down only to find Eva writing him about the price of fish or some other mundane insignificance. The thought always choked her and over the years she’d thrown letter after letter away, wracked with guilt because the mail would come and all the other men would get letters and photographs from their wives and girlfriends. And Wolf would be left with none.

He only mentioned it once, asking her to start again if for nothing but for his heart, when her efforts had trickled to a halt, the early-marriage delight of a husband to write to overcome by the realization that she had nothing to say then choked further when she realized time after time, that she wasn’t pregnant. 

It’s why she started the garden. To have something to say. To have something to prove that she could coax life into the world. 

That night, about a year ago, Wolf had asked her to stop thinking like that. He was rather drunk and so was she but she remembered every word he said, clinging to the ones she needed. But Eva still couldn’t help it.

When she’d see a mother with a child, a mother with child, her mind still seized up with the question: why not her. What had she done for Freyja to curse her body, to not permit her even one child and then the one time life had managed to blaze its way into her it was shred out, bloody, and so painful she’d thrown up.

Eva had prayed desperately. That the letter had never made it to him. That he would come home and never even know that once, she had been pregnant. No such luck was to be hers of course.

Perhaps this is what she could write to him about. Not the miscarriage itself but his fortitude. It won’t count towards the necessary words she needed for the class - this was between her and Wolf - but the teacher had told them sometimes you needed to write just anything that came to mind, then after you clean it up you’ll end up finding the things you wanted to say.

Eva leaned across the table again, shifting the paper beneath the embattled moonslight.

Dear Wolfgang,

Often times I think about how good you are to me and in what ways I could not help but fail you and how much I can depend on you. I was very sorry to have lost our child, broken your heart 

 

Eva ripped out the page, heaving as she squeezed it. Then tore it into pieces. 

What was she thinking?  Choosing that of all things to say to him?

Her knees hit the floor and she folded herself into her robe, seeking solace in the silk. 

Eva wanted to be a different woman. She just wanted to be a different woman. 25 years was more than past time. 

She crawled to the desk, pulling herself up with it. One more try. Something easier. Something she wanted to say to Wolf but never had the courage to.

Dear Wolfgang,

Once, your mother had told me to make sure I brought my problems to you. It was fair advice as we were getting married and as a husband you should know your wife’s needs and how to solve them. But I quickly realized it was beyond that. I’ve never seen a problem make you quiver. No matter how bad, no matter how close to your heart. 

I can’t imagine how I looked at the spaceport that day but you quickened your steps to me, as always, but this time asked me if I had been well. Hearing your love, your concern, I could no longer speak, to say to you the things I had memorized, to keep us both together until we arrived home.

You put your arm around me quickly, perhaps sensing the issue, and arranged for a car. I was worried. Driving so soon after making planetfall wasn’t advised. But you drove slowly, taking us a little ways away,  where no one could see me cry.

I should have stayed home that day. You would have had longer to think all was ok, to bask in the joy you thought you had. I made things difficult for us. 

You didn’t cry. Not then. When you called my name, my full name , bringing me out of that keening choked breath that wouldn’t even let me tell you what I did what happened, I looked up expecting anger and frustration, but there was only worry. 

You are an extraordinary man. I’ve known you were extraordinary for a long time but the knowledge impressed itself on me that day. No one would know that you had just found out you lost a child. I hadn’t even been able to say the words. I still can’t say them. But you could tell.

And now, I’ll never learn how you felt upon getting my letter. Oh, how your heart must have soared.

We’d kept hope for this, you and I. Perhaps it’s why we delayed checking which of us was at fault responsible why we kept putting off my surgery, why we dragged the surrogate search on for so long.. 

It came. And it was taken.

Fate is so cruel, my darling..  So directed. So demanding. 

My good fortune overbounds. Skuld couldn’t sit by. I had to have a misery to match my joy. 

I can only beg her to be merciful to you.