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The evening of 1942 was filled with the now familiar mechanical sounds of the bombe machines and the occasional creaking of the wooden floorboards of hut eight. You sit hunched over at your usual desk, attempting to focus on the latest set of intercepts that required your dedicated work and attention. However, your mind was stuck, overwhelmed with something else that needed your attention all the same.
Alan sits across from you as his own desk, deep in concentration and focus with his work as is usual for him. The two of you had become close almost as soon as you met when working at hut eight together. Both of you are quieter than others, both of you have a special kind of understanding for things that most others do not. The two of you know things about one another that no one else does. The relationship is special and unbreakable. You almost hate yourself for not going to him by now, for keeping it to yourself and letting it disrupt your focus instead of telling the person that you trust the most and the person you know cares the most.
Your inner self resentment is interrupted by a gentle but undeniably curious call of your name from Alan. You look up from your desk, looking over at him as he stares back at you. “I was asking if you believe we could-” Alan cuts himself off, his eyebrows stitching inwards. “You look strange.” He announces. You snort, though the sound is nowhere near as humoured as it usually is. “Thank you very much, Alan. That is always what a lady loves to hear.” A shy, apologetic smile twitches upwards on his lips as he shakes his head at himself. “M-My apologies. I did not mean it like that. You look a bit pale is all-” he glances down at your desk. “-and you have not said a single word or even moved at all for a worrying amount of time for your usual self.” His voice is riddled with concern and his blue eyes soften as he studies the slight bruising beginning to form beneath your eyes from exhaustion. Alan looks around the room and drops his voice to a hushed, private murmur. “Is it still upsetting you?” He does not have to say what “it” is for you to understand.
You had been in somewhat of a relationship with a man; Charles. Alan is the only person who ever knew anything about it. It was nothing serious and if you were to be truthful, you would not even call it a relationship at all. It was a mere bit of fun to take the weight from each of your shoulders. Charles was an officer who would appear into and disappear from your life over and over again. Whenever he appeared, the two of you would spend time together as a way to relieve the inescapable stress and ever intensifying demands of wartime. Then, he was assigned to North Africa. You and Charles had spent one last weekend together before he left for the scorching desert landscape.
It was not long after that last weekend together that you found out Charles would never be returning again. He had fallen. He had been made into nothing more than another number on the ever growing casualties of war list. Alan was the first person you went to when you heard the news. There was no one else you could go to and no one else you wanted to go to. The feeling of grief that you had felt was complicated and strange and overwhelming. Yet, Alan had been the one you went to without a second thought. He was the one who had guided you through it the best he could. Now, a meagre week later from the weekendˏ the sickness had began showing itself on a regular basis throughout the days.
Your train of thought is once again interrupted by Alan. “It is okay if it is. I… well, I know how it can feel.” His voice drops into a quietˏ hushed whisper. Your eyes soften. You know what he means. You know the things, the people, that he does not talk to anyone else about. You clear your throat, the sound is choked and shaky. “No, no. It is… it is not that. Not entirely at least. I will tell you on our way home. I promise.” You offer him a reassuring smile, though the attempt at seeming fine does not quite reach your eyes and he can tell. Alan hesitates, opening his mouth before closing it again with a gentle nod. “On our way home.” He confirms. His gaze lingers on you for a moment longer before falling back to his desk, less focused and more worried than before.
-
Later that night, the two of you are walking home together. The sun is setting and casts a dark, warm golden glow across the blacked out, desolate streets. Of course, you do not live together but more than close enough to where walking home together has become a ritual as often as walking to work together has. Alan walks beside you, pushing his bike alongside him instead of riding it. His gas mask hands from one of the handlebars.
You can feel him glancing over at you every few seconds. You are walking far slower than usual without even realising it, something that makes him slow his own steps to remain next to you. When the two of you close in on a bench, you pause in your steps. “Could we sit for a moment?” You askˏ your voice trembling in itself. Alan nods, giving a quiet and careful response of “Yes. Yes, o-of course.” You sit on the wooden bench and tuck your face into your hands in a desperate attempt to console yourself. Alan leans his bike against the bench before sitting down beside you. “Is it… because of Charles? You have a right to still be upset. I wish you would have come to me far sooner. I can tell you haven’t been sleeping, you know.” He rubs his palms against the knees of his trousers, cracking a small smile as he waits for your usual cheeky rebuttal to his last statement. The rebuttal does not come, something that makes him frown with deepened concern. You know he worries about his abilities to offer comfort. You know he thinks he is rather awful at it. “It isn’t that.” You respond, wiping away the tears that had began to fall from your eyes as you lift your head to look at him. Alan is looking at you with the most concern and care you think you have ever seen from anyone. The strong blue of his eyes is warm and gentle, reassuring. The colour feels so safe and secure.
You swallow, clearing your throat and sniffling. “Alan…” you hesitate, your voice trembling. “Alan, I’m…” you can feel your eyes burning and your throat tightening. “I’m pregnant.” You finish, feeling both a weight be taken from your shoulders as you finally say it aloud to someone and a new weight be placed on your shoulders from what he will say. Alan is quiet for a moment but he does not recoil away from you in shock, nor does his gaze become filled with disgust. There is a moment of silence before he speaks. “I see. Given the timeline at hand, I assume the child is his?” He asks, his tone is the gentlest you have ever heard it. All you can do is nod and release a shaky breath. “Yes.” You answer, bringing a hand up to wipe at your wet cheeks. “Oh, god. What am I going to do?” You know that you are not even asking him. It is a desperate question for yourself spoken aloud, directed to yourself. “I will have to go to one of those homes. Or move back with my parents and they will never look at me the same, if they ever look at me again at all, they will never treat me the same. God, they will hate me. The things people will say…” Your speech is frantic, your breaths are choked and your voice trembles with every word spoken. You are not even looking at Alan anymore. Instead, your gaze is glued to the floor beneath your feet. You stare at the pavement as though an escape, or an answer will appear in the rough asphalt.
The feeling of a cautiousˏ gentle hand touching your shoulder snaps you out of your spiral. Your gaze snaps to Alan, who is looking at you with a mixture of calculated determination and warmth. “Slow your breathing before thinking about any of that. Deep breaths now, in and out.” He instructs. His hand is slightly awkward on your shoulder. You know how he can be with physical touch like this. It is not his forte in the slightest. Yet, despite that, he attempts to rub comforting circles through the soft material of your blouse as you calm your breathing and lean back on the bench.
Alan stands up from the bench and begins to pace around in a small circle in front of you, one of his hands coming up to run through his brown hair as he delves into his thoughts. “Well, this is more complicated than I had presumed it would be.” He mutters, more to himself than to you, but somehow, it makes a slight watery laugh spill from your lips. Alan pauses in his circling, glancing up at you with a small smile before rushing back to sit beside you on the bench again. This time, he positions his body to face you. He almost looks as though a light bulb had popped above his head like in a moving picture. “I think I may have a… solution, of sorts.” He says. You crack a small smile, shaking your head as you look back at him. “Alan… this is not a code to be broken. There is nothing I can do now, except for get on with it.” He shakes his head. “No. I shall not allow you to be… shamed and tarnished for something like this.” He sighs, wringing his hands together and picking at some stray threads on the cuffs of his blazer.
He clears his throat, his blue eyes becoming glazed with a layer of vulnerability of his own. One that you know well by now. “This world. It can be a rather cruel, dangerous place and we… we are both rather complicated people. You know that I have… preferences, in life and in romantic attraction. Preferences that, if discovered, could get me in quite a bit of trouble. It is like walking a never ending tightrope for me.” Both of you know that it is a massive understatement. It would get him into far more than a bit of trouble. It would result in awful, unimaginable things for him. Both of you have heard the stories. Stories of people being sent away for inhumane “treatment” and returning to irreparable reputations. He would be done, ruined. For nothing more than being human. He had confided in you about his preferences and you had guarded his secret ever since. “But if I were a married man… the marriage could act as a shield, because of course a married man raises no real suspicion to an average person. The married man is a simple, inconspicuous and honourable pillar of society and nothing more. As for a married woman…” he clears his throat, casting a fleeting glance at your stomach that still has yet to be rounded in a bump. “Well, the child of a married woman belongs to no one else but her and her husband. No one could say otherwise. Both by law and by custom. Both of you would be safe. I would make sure of it. Neither of us would ever be made to feel shame for who we are.” His speech is fast and chaotic, eager to explain his point.
You stare at him, your heart tightening in your chest as you read the pure sincerity on his face. “Alan… what are you saying? You do not mean that-” you can see him swallow thickly, his adams apple bobbing behind the pale skin of his throat. “I do. I mean it. We should get married as soon as possible. Before you… begin to show. We can raise the child together. It could be born and raised a Turing. I believe I would quite like to have a child to teach things and watch them grow up little by little.” He interrupts you, his voice quiet and breathy.
You shake your head, biting the inside of your gums and picking at your cuticles. “No, Alan. It… it would not be fair to you.” Your voice drops to a mere whisper as you stare at him. “What if you find someone later in life? Someone that you want to be with? Someone that you love? You deserve true happiness, Alan. Not to be chained down to me and my own silly complications.” Alan huffs, a heavy and tired sound.
Alan reaches out, his hands hovering above yours for a nervous, uncertain few seconds before he envelopes them in his own. His skin is warm, ink stained and calloused in texture from working with machines. “Even if I did, the world would never allow it. You and I both know that.” There is a hint of bitterness in his tone. Not directed at you, but at the world that criminalises who he is. “And I would never be chained down.” He continues, growing firmer in his words. “In your own unique, strange way, you make me far happier than most, and you must know that I love you very much. Perhaps not in the usual way that a man may love a woman, but in a way that is dear to my heart nonetheless.” His hands squeeze your own as he continues, his tone vulnerable and desperate with an ache for your companionship. “Most of all, I will not allow you to be far away in one of those dreadfully miserable homes for so called fallen women and I will not allow you to be shamed for something so innocent. Not when you are as brilliant as you are.” His lips curl up in his usual smallˏ almost shy smile. “If you went away, I would not be able to bear it. You are my dearest friend. The best I have ever known. If you were to leave, who would remind me to drink my tea before it goes cold every time I make one? Who would make sure that I am getting the sleep my body requires when I try to put it off to do more work?” You let out a watery laugh, attempting to blink away the salty water that is beginning to blur your vision. The sound makes his smile widen with reassurance. “I would not be able to function without you. I would be unbearably miserable. We are two connecting pieces of the same puzzle, in our own way. You have helped me more than I can say and now you must let me help you.” Alan finishes, sounding slightly out of breath as he subconsciously strokes your knuckles.
Your tears spill over and trail down your cheeks. You throw yourself into him, wrapping your arms around him in a tight, desperate bear hug that communicates a thousand things at once. “Oh!” Alan breaths, staring over your shoulder before resting his chin down and setting his palms on your back. You sniffle, squeezing him. “Oh, Alan… You lovely, selfless man.” You sob. “A Turing… a little Turing.” You sniffle, smiling into his shoulder as you think about your child being able to be raised a normal child, with no one looking at them with cruel or pitiful gazes, with no questions about why they are not like all the other children who have a father. All thanks to a man who had to requirement to do what he is doing. All thanks to a man who is far more selfless than he ever lets on. Alan hums in agreement, squeezing your shoulder with one of his hands with a small smile. “Yes. They will be a Turing.” He confirms.
The two of you sit there for a moment, in a comfortable silence broken only by gentle breathing and your occasional sniffle in an attempt to spare his neat blazer from the wet drops of your tears. Alan glances down over your back at his wrist watch that peeks out of his cuff, sighing when he sees the time. “We should get going, before it gets dark and the temperature drops. You cannot catch a cold now that you are… growing a life. If you were to get sick, it could cause-” You pull back with a quiet chuckle, patting his shoulder as he goes to trail off into a stuttered, rambled, scientific explanation of the risks and probabilities of you catching a cold.
You pull back from the embrace, holding his upper arms from a passing second, and wipe the wetness from your cheeks. Alan stands up from the bench and outstretches his hand, holding it out for you to take with a nervous and shy smile. The cool wind of a sudden breeze blows at his neat chestnut hair, a clear sign of the night growing darker and later at a faster pace. “Come on then, up you get before I have to carry you back myself.” You laugh, shaking your head as you take his hand and stand up in front of him as he moves to grab his bike. “Yeah right, you wish.” You tease.
Together, your steps fall into line beside one another once more. You walk with no unbearable, secret weight pushing down on your shoulders and threatening your sanity with an unrelenting force. Insteadˏ you walk with your head high and a new, warm veil draped over your heart. You feel light. You and Alan occasionally glance over at each other between the comfortable silence. The space between you is filled with something new; a new kind of promise of protection for each other and your secrets and a new unbreakable bond of friendship and companionship even stronger than it was before.
You know that no one else would ever understand. No one else would respect either of you if they knew the truths. But you do, and Alan does, and that is all you can find yourself able to care about.