Chapter Text
The wind buffeted so hard around Francesca’s face it almost hurt, leaving little stings in its wake. Her lungs burned with each intake of breath, her arms pumping hard. Giggles echoed out from in front of her, strength out-pacing the length advantage of her legs.
“Michaela! Slow down!” She panted, almost tripping as her friend turned around flashing her a grin but not slowing down.
The race, as it always was, was lost the second it started; both girls sprinting into the rolling gardens the second they’d been given permission, desperate for the greenery and adventure the summer brought after so long inside all term.
The Bridgerton family had spent the summer holidays in the Highlands for generations, Francesca’s mother running through these same fields with Michaela’s own, their mothers before that, and their mothers before that. Sometimes, when she was staring out the school windows, she had visions of women lifting their petticoats, gorgeous silks surrounding them as they ran.
The ragged band of children had mapped the hills, duelled to the death with their wooden swords in the fields, and climbed every tree worth climbing as a rag-tag band of ten: Anthony, their neighbour Kate, Benedict, Colin, Eloise, Michaela, little Gregory and Hyacinth (as soon as she was allowed), and perhaps most surprising to their mother, her quietest, Francesca, rounding out the bunch.
One by one, as they had grown and matured, the boys split off into summer sports, Eloise to exploring with Penelope in the surrounding villages, and legs growing longer just like the summer days. Every year, as promised when they were married by Anthony under the old Scots Pine at the corner of their land when they were just 5 years old, Michaela bounced on her toes waiting for Francesca to arrive from school in England. And just the same as every year, as soon as her bags were inside, kisses pressed to her mother and Helen’s cheeks, they were out of the front door and running into the wild.
Now, at fifteen, Francesca had shot up like a weed over the spring, and Michaela found herself having to lean her head back to make eye contact with her oldest friend that had been level with her just the summer before. They’d joked about it in their letters back and forth throughout the year, small comments from Francesca about how Michaela hadn’t grown since they were 11, and witty replies along the lines of the Jolly Green Giant.
The other thing that had appeared frequently in their letters were their adventures planned for the summer. Whilst she’d been home at Christmas, Michaela had uncovered one of the old stone bridges over a wide creek had collapsed, leaving a mound of stones that were begging to be scrambled over and conquered. She’d written to Francesca of it repeatedly in London, telling her how she wanted to wait for her, desperate to add it to their list of monuments scattered around their hand drawn map in their room.
Francesca had written back, as she always did, painting pictures of regulated and industrial London, a whole world away from their green paradise. She told Michaela of her siblings, of her mother, of her lessons, but the part that Michaela found herself reading over and over again, tucking under her pillow before it went into an old wooden wine crate under her bed (never to be looked at by anyone but her), was the three paragraphs at the end of every letter where Francesca, for the only time ever in her life, shared her own thoughts, dreams, and secrets about herself - begged Michaela to wait for her so they could conquer it together.
Now, as they collapsed into the warm grass, chests heaving and legs burning, Michaela felt her heart swell inside her chest. School had been hard this year, lessons becoming harder and fraying her brain which itched to be outside and climbing mossy hillocks. She’d confessed, embarrassed, to Francesca in a moment of weakness that she felt like she was failing at something. Her brain was unable to stay still for more than a class period, she’d start one thing and suddenly, without realising it, had moved onto three more things without finishing each. Her teachers were becoming frustrated with her, leading to detentions, which further frayed Michaela’s brain and found herself jumping from thing to thing at a higher pace, leading to more frustration, and a deeper sense of not fitting in properly. She’d written of finding the only moment of calm when she was in PE, outside in the rough Scottish weather, pushing her body harder and faster and finally feeling complete. (Not mentioning that the only other time she felt that was when another (very specific) person was by her side).
Her moment of weakness had provided her strength in Francesca’s response. Quiet understanding and deep compassion, giving her (as always) a soft place to land and just be herself. The envelope that had brought the response had been thick, little articles that had been photocopied and hand cut, folded together on mechanisms for her to focus, little tips on dealing with school, the sweetest handwritten notes on ADHD and in tiny purple cursive, four lines at the bottom that reminded Michaela that this made her more special and more important than she could ever imagine. Her most treasured possession became the little watercolour sketch of their Scots Pine and their green hills, a small penciled ‘soon, M’, placed next to the FB in the corner.
Francesca’s eyes were closed beside her now, her lovely face tilted into the sun, short little baby hairs frizzing around her face from their run. Michaela knew that her friend, while more clever than she could really fathom, had not found school easy either as she had entered this year. Her desire for order and calm separated her from their peers, needing clarity and specifics above all else made her look difficult at times and she’d shared stories that had broken Michaela’s heart of sitting all alone in the dining hall until Eloise sat her tray down next to her, bringing Penelope and Cressida with her.
“I’m so glad we’re here,” she whispered into the space between them, pinky reaching out to link with the longer one next to her.
Francesca turned to look at her, nose scrunching in response as she squinted into Michaela’s face.
“Tell me about our latest mountain then, Miss MacInnes?”
Michaela, grinning at the mention of her favourite climber, sat up, crossing her legs and inching closer to Francesca’s side, pulling her friend’s hand into her lap and playing with her fingers as she told her about the rocky mound, large and grey stones piled messily one on top of the other, the stream running underneath, unexplored territory on the other side.
She painted the perfect picture, Francesca realised, standing on the bank and looking at the pile nervously, once they’d caught their breaths. Michaela chattered on next to her about the different paths they could take, how they could go one way and come back another. Her own eyes ran across the stones, mind whirring with calculations, voice quiet.
She rocked back and forth slightly, unable to stop herself, or her fingers tapping out a rhythm on her leg, as Michaela took the first scramble onto the rocks. She watched as fingers gripped to mossy rocks tightly, boots tucking into crevices as she moved sideways, grinning back up at Francesca with so much joy she actually felt tears prick in the corner of her eyes.
It happened in a second, one that Francesca would play over and over again in bed that night, one that she should’ve stopped before Michaela’s feet had even left solid ground. She’d reached, one hand holding her position, the other aiming for a rock just further down, her boot slipping on a wet rock too close to the stream, a little shriek coming out without permission as the ice cold water slammed against the exposed skin at the top of her sock. Francesca had leapt forwards without even thinking, arm closing around Michaela’s waist and pulling her tight to the rocks before she’d even realised she was falling.
Breaths came hard and fast, Francesca’s hand not leaving Michaela as she found her footing again, double checking her hold before moving forward again, more diligent than before. It wasn’t until they were both safely on the other side, more breathless than they had been before that she even dared to break the silence.
“Thanks for having my back there, Spotter,” she teased, knocking her shoulder against Francesca’s tense one. Eyes tracking over the little frown in the centre of her friend’s face.
“I need you to be more careful,” she whispered back, voice shaking slightly, “I can’t be responsible for every slip and fall you make because you’re too headstrong for your own good.”
Michaela laughed, pressing harder into Fran’s shoulder until she turned to look at the shorter girl, “too late, that was decided about ten years ago.”
Her companion huffed in response, but leaned back into Michaela just as much, fingers repeating their rhythm on Michaela’s knee instead of her own, the world carrying on around them.
“Besides,” Michaela broke the silence once again, eyes following the tapping on her leg, “I can’t remember a single day of my life you haven’t been looking out for me.”
Fingers faulted in their rhythm, just for a second, before picking back up again. Francesca blinked hard, once, twice, three times, before nodding and whispering a soft, “good.”
With Francesca’s guidance, the traverse back across the rocks was much less eventful, and the two girls landed back on their bank safely, climbing up the hill that was tucked into the bend in the creek. The gnarled oak at the top acted as a backrest for Francesca as she positioned herself carefully against it, pulling her sketchbook out from her pocket and pencil getting to work on their latest adventure as Michaela ran up and down the hill, placing little treasures at her knee. Eventually, as always, the unease in Michaela’s body softened, and without disturbing the artist, she dropped herself down on the grass, arranging herself until she was laid out with her head on Francesca’s thigh, looking up at the frowns and pencil sounds coming from above her.
She knew how lucky she was to be one of the three people Francesca allowed to touch her without warning. She still remembered Eloise’s warning when they were tiny, tiny children that she and her mother were the only contact Frannie allowed, and the shock in her face when her sister had slipped her fingers around Michaela’s pulling her up the tree they’d been climbing. She’d valued that gift ever since, calm settling inside her body the second her best friend permitted Michaela’s tactile nature, and even better (though much rarer), when Francesca reached out first.
The sun was settling into a late-afternoon haze by the time her artist spun the sketchbook around to face Michaela, who, without even realising it had started dozing, finally content down to her very being. She’d awoken to light finger brushes along her hairline, one down her nose, and a smile cracking her sleeping facade.
The sketch was perfect, oriented on the paper in a way that made the rocks feel real, the moss still alive, and a little line from where she’d slipped noting the danger point. Michaela knew exactly where it would fit on the map they had built in their shared bedroom. She traced her finger over the rocks, the little grass marks on the other side, squinting slightly at the two tiny marks indenting where they had sat together, smiling to herself.
Later, after showers and dinner, stories regaled dramatically by Michaela to the rest of the family. They were shepherded to their bedroom by a tired Francesca, desperate for the quiet of her routine at the end of the day.
She folded herself into the single bed that had been hers since she was old enough to leave her crib. Once it had been the bottom half of a bunk bed shared with Michaela, Eloise had slept across the room in the other single bed, until she’d begged their mother to share with Penelope in the room next door, passing little notes to her favourite sister through the gap in the skirting boards instead.
Their room was a chaotic mix of both of them, Michaela’s chaos calmed with the protectiveness she felt for Francesca’s own routine and safety, creating this little haven that filled the secret back pages of every single one of Francesca’s sketchbooks. Above her bed, three neat shelves held years upon years of sketches, tucked cleanly into matching little navy blue books, spines clean apart from a precise year on each. At the end of each one sat rocks that had been collected for her by her explorer, each one carefully picked and its importance explained before it was allowed on her shelf.
She tucked herself under the cosy quilt on her bed, eyes drifting across to the other side of the room where Michaela’s arms stretched above her head fastening her scarf around her hair, an assortment of bags pushed out from underneath her bed like they were trying to escape. Her bedside table was overflowing with trinkets, papers, observer books, and ordinance survey maps, not a single inch for anything new. Above her headboard, a little mural of individual watercolours painted by Francesca matched with tiny little notes written by Michaela with their provenance, that nobody else was ever allowed to read.
Across from the beds, the wall that they had begged their mothers to paint held proof of their adventures throughout the years. It had taken Francesca a whole summer to paint the map of their property with her mother. She treasured the memories of those long days where Violet taught her about shading and blending, whispering little secrets about each part of the grounds that she and Helen had discovered when she was Francesca’s age. It was, she reflected, one of the most important summers she had ever had. Developing emotions helping her to realise that this was her mother loving her and understanding her just as she was, embracing how she was different from her other siblings, and crafting a safe space within her chest just for her as she was.
Once it had been finished, she’d been nervous to pin their treasures to it, not wanting to tarnish the memories of creating it, but as their map grew and developed, Francesca began to treasure it more and more. As she looked at it now, her pencil sketches intertwined with leaves, moss, and other treasures of Michaela’s, she wondered how she will ever be able to create this in every home she ever lived in, but knew in her heart that no home she lived in would be complete without it.
Michaela wriggled as she tucked herself into the bed across the room, turning to face Francesca and pressing her cheek into her palm, eyes drooping as she watched her write the notes from their day. Their perfect day. She found herself smiling softly as her heart thumped away in her chest, she would repeat this every day for the rest of her life if she could.
“Goodnight, Spotter,” she called softly across the room, not wanting to disturb Francesca’s process too much but knowing she preferred to know when Michaela had drifted into sleep.
Blue-Grey eyes lifted up from their pages, softening around the edges as she looked over, Michaela watched as the corner of her mouth lifted in a soft smile that she stupidly imagined was just for her.
“Goodnight, trouble. Sleep well.”