SO IVE COME UP WITH ABIT OF A SMALL PROBLEM, A FEW OF THE RECENTLY CHAPTERS HAVE HAD STUFF REMOVED BECAUSE THEY DONT PARTICULARLY FIT INTO THE CHAPTER LIMITS IMPOSED BY WEBNOVEL SO IVE BEEN SHORTENING THEM TO MAKE THEN FIT, BUT THATS BEEN MESSING UP THE QUALITY OF THE STORY, SO IM GOONG TO BE SPLITTING THE CHAPTERS UP SO I CAN KEEP THE QUALITY I LIKE.
...
On their last morning in Chicago, Joseph met Helen beside Lake Michigan.
They had decided upon the lake the previous evening, although neither of them had been particularly decisive about anything once the theatre was behind them and they were walking back towards her building in Lake View. The city had grown quieter around them as the evening went on, restaurants closing one by one, lamps disappearing from shop windows, motorcars becoming infrequent enough that their engines could be heard approaching from several streets away. Helen had taken his arm somewhere along the walk and had never quite found a reason to give it back. Joseph, for his part, had discovered that he could make a journey last considerably longer than necessary when there was no officer waiting at the other end to ask what had delayed him. Only outside her building, when there was nowhere farther to walk without making their intentions ridiculous, had the following afternoon forced itself into the conversation. Joseph had told her that Nathan expected him at Dearborn Station well before their train departed for Kansas; Helen had asked exactly how early well before meant to Professor Drake, and Joseph had admitted that Nathan's understanding of railway punctuality bordered upon a personal distrust of timetables.
"I don't want the last place I see you to be a railway platform," Helen had said while they stood at the bottom of her steps, one hand still resting in the crook of his arm despite the fact that they had technically finished walking several minutes before. A motorcar went past behind Joseph and briefly washed the front of the building in its headlamps, illuminating the little wisps of brown hair the evening breeze had pulled loose beneath her hat before leaving them once more beneath the softer streetlamps.
"Unless you've found another way of putting me aboard a train, I think the platform is unavoidable," Joseph had answered, and the dryness of it had earned exactly the expression he expected: Helen's eyes narrowing while the beginning of a smile betrayed that she knew perfectly well he was being difficult for the pleasure of watching her react.
"You know what I mean," she had told him, giving his sleeve a small impatient pull before finally letting go and turning towards the steps. She had climbed the first one, then turned back before Joseph could say goodnight. "The lake. Tomorrow morning. Nine o'clock. You can give Chicago one last opportunity to convince you that Lake Michigan is actually a lake."
Joseph had looked down the street as though considering whether the city deserved such generosity. "I'll consider the evidence," he had said, and Helen had laughed before telling him goodnight and disappearing inside.
At eight forty-three the following morning, Joseph was already waiting beside the water.
He knew the exact time because he had checked his watch upon arriving, and the sight of the hands had made him stand for several seconds with the open case in his palm, considering whether seventeen minutes constituted sensible preparation or something he would have mocked mercilessly had Nathan done it. Traffic had been lighter than expected. The motorcar outside the hotel had been available almost immediately, its engine had behaved itself for the entire journey north, no wagon had broken down across an intersection, no streetcar had trapped them behind it, and Chicago had produced none of the small inconveniences Joseph had allowed for when deciding how early he ought to leave. The result was that he had been deposited beside the lake with enough time to become intimately acquainted with his own impatience.
He had finally decided that it was simply good planning, snapped the watch shut and put it away.
There was nobody there yet to dispute the conclusion.
The morning was cool enough that his black wool coat still felt welcome over the dark three-piece suit beneath it. Joseph had dressed more carefully than he ordinarily would for several hours on a train and had been irritated with himself when he noticed. His white shirt was freshly pressed, his shoes had been polished the previous evening, and his tie was dark and understated, although it was not the tie he had first put on. That one was now folded in his luggage because Joseph had stood before the hotel mirror at an unreasonable hour, looked at it, decided he disliked it, changed it, and then stared at his reflection with the growing suspicion that three days in Chicago had done something profoundly undignified to him.
He had also left without breakfast.
That had seemed unimportant while he was in the hotel. Beside the lake, whenever the wind changed and carried the smell of bread from a bakery somewhere inland, it seemed considerably less so.
Joseph put both hands into the pockets of his coat and turned towards Lake Michigan.
The lake had not improved since their first visit.
It still stretched farther than Joseph believed a lake had any right to stretch, pale blue-grey beneath the thin morning haze and merging eventually into a horizon that offered no hint of land. Gulls wheeled above it with the same self-assurance they displayed over the sea. Farther out, several vessels were visible as dark shapes against the growing brightness, one trailing a narrow line of smoke that the wind pulled sideways almost as soon as it rose. Small waves moved towards the shore and broke against the stones below with a repetitive washing sound, gentler than the sea but similar enough that Joseph remained convinced somebody had made an error when naming the thing.
The first time Helen brought him there he had asked where the opposite shore was.
She had pointed vaguely east and told him several dozen miles away.
Joseph had asked whether anyone could see it.
Helen had said no.
He had asked whether the water was salt.
No.
Whether there was a proper tide.
Not in the way he meant.
Joseph had considered all of this and pronounced the lake suspicious.
Helen had laughed hard enough that two people passing behind them had turned to look.
He was remembering that laugh when the city behind him began properly waking. A streetcar bell sounded somewhere inland, answered a moment later by the metallic rumble of wheels. Delivery wagons had started appearing on the roads, horses breathing pale clouds into the cool air while men unloaded crates outside shops. A motorcar coughed repeatedly before its engine finally caught, followed by an enthusiastic horn as though the driver deserved congratulations. Somewhere farther away a factory whistle held one long note over the rooftops, and several birds rose together from a nearby building before settling again once the sound died.
The wind off the lake was cleaner than the air between the streets. Whenever it came directly across the water it smelled of cold stone and dampness; whenever it shifted inland, coal smoke and horses and that maddening bakery returned with it.
Mrs Hargreaves would have considered his failure to eat breakfast evidence of moral decline.
Nathan would probably agree with her simply because doing so would annoy Joseph.
The thought made him smile, and he was still smiling faintly when he heard Helen behind him.
"I said nine," she called, her voice carrying easily over the sound of the water, and Joseph turned to find her coming towards him along the path with one hand holding the brim of her hat against the breeze. She was not hurrying exactly, but there was enough purpose in her stride that the skirt beneath her dark-blue walking coat moved around her ankles, and the colour the cool air had put into her cheeks deepened when she saw that he had plainly been standing there for some time.
Joseph's prepared defence disappeared.
Helen had dressed warmly but practically, the coat fitted at the waist and falling below her knees over a lighter dress, with brown leather gloves and low-heeled shoes that were already carrying a faint dusting from the streets. Her hat had evidently been arranged with greater confidence before she left home; the lake wind had worked several strands of brown hair free near one temple, and she was trying to tuck them back while continuing towards him. Another gust undid the effort before she reached him.
Joseph smiled more openly.
"Don't," Helen warned as she came to a stop in front of him, abandoning her hair long enough to point one gloved finger at his face. The severity of the gesture was ruined by her own smile, which appeared almost immediately when the wind pulled the same strand across her cheek again. "I've been fighting with this since I turned the corner, and I am losing badly enough without commentary."
"I didn't say anything," Joseph replied, taking one hand from his pocket and making a show of innocence while his eyes betrayed him by following the loose strand of hair. Up close he could see that the walk had warmed her despite the cool morning; there was colour high in her cheeks, and a little quickness remained in her breathing.
"You were about to," Helen said as she turned towards the lake and came to stand beside him. Her shoulder brushed his upper arm, and she tipped her face towards the water for a moment as if checking that it had remained where she left it. "It is beautiful this morning, though. Look at that."
Joseph looked at her.
The sunlight had strengthened during the last several minutes, breaking through the haze in wider patches and catching the loose brown hair around her face. Helen seemed not to notice his failure to follow the instruction immediately. She slipped one hand into her coat pocket, the other still holding her hat whenever the wind threatened it, and watched the silver bands moving over the water.
"You picked a good day to leave," she added, and the moment the sentence was out she glanced towards him as though realising how it sounded. Her mouth tightened apologetically. "For the weather, I mean. Not because Chicago is eager to be rid of you."
"That's reassuring," Joseph said, though his attention remained on her long enough that Helen finally caught him. He shifted his gaze towards the horizon a fraction too late and found himself suddenly interested in a vessel he had already watched for ten minutes.
Helen studied him. "Were you even looking at the lake when I told you to?"
"I could see it," Joseph answered as they began walking, matching his stride to hers after the first step reminded him how much shorter hers was. The path ahead followed the shoreline beneath trees only beginning to fill out after winter, their young leaves trembling whenever the breeze moved through them. "It's rather difficult not to. It occupies most of the horizon."
"That isn't what I asked," Helen said, taking his arm without ceremony once they were moving. Her gloved hand settled against the black wool just above his elbow, and Joseph felt the contact as something already familiar rather than surprising. "You were looking at me."
"You happened to be standing in front of it."
"I see."
"It's a question of geography."
"Of course it is," Helen murmured, and although she looked ahead, Joseph could see the smile she was trying to hide.
They had gone perhaps twenty yards before her attention shifted from the lake to something else. Joseph felt it before he saw it: her hand tightening slightly on his sleeve while her eyes dropped towards the waistcoat visible through the opening of his coat, where the watch chain disappeared into its pocket.
Joseph knew what was coming.
He continued walking.
"What time did you arrive?" Helen asked, and the innocence with which she asked it convinced Joseph immediately that she had already formed an estimate. She adjusted her pace to stay beside him while they passed an older woman walking in the opposite direction with a basket hooked over one arm.
"Nine," Joseph said, keeping his eyes forward as though the matter required no further discussion. A gull descended towards the water to their left, and Joseph briefly considered whether pointing it out might constitute a sufficient distraction.
Helen stopped.
Her hand was still through his arm, so Joseph stopped too.
"Joseph," she said, turning towards him until he had little choice but to look down at her. She had released her hat now, apparently willing to risk its survival in exchange for concentrating fully on him, and the breeze immediately lifted another piece of hair across her forehead. "What time?"
He looked at her for a moment, then towards the lake, where nothing helpful presented itself.
"Approximately nine," he conceded, and when Helen continued waiting without saying anything, Joseph sighed softly through his nose. "Eight forty-three."
For several seconds she merely stared.
Then the corners of her mouth twitched.
"Eight forty-three?" Helen repeated, and the attempt at disbelief collapsed into laughter before she finished the words. She resumed walking and tugged Joseph with her, keeping hold of his arm as though he might otherwise escape the interrogation. "You were here seventeen minutes early."
"I allowed for delays," Joseph explained, moving her gently towards the inside of the path when a woman with a perambulator approached from ahead. He took the side nearer the road without consciously deciding to, giving the carriage enough space to pass while Helen glanced down at where he had placed her and then back at him. "Traffic. Mechanical failure. Road obstruction."
"The motorcar worked," Helen pointed out once the perambulator had gone by, looking over her shoulder briefly at the infant buried beneath blankets before returning her attention to Joseph. The sun had reached this section of the path more fully, and she loosened the fastening at the throat of her coat with her free hand as they walked.
"It did," Joseph agreed, feeling the same warmth beginning to gather across the shoulders of his black coat whenever the breeze dropped.
"And there was no obstruction," Helen continued, moving a little closer when another pair of walkers approached them. One of the men tipped his hat; Helen returned a polite nod without losing the thread of her argument.
"Fortunately."
"And apparently no traffic."
"Very little."
"So nothing went wrong," she said, drawing the conclusion with the satisfaction of somebody closing a trap. "You simply arrived seventeen minutes early."
Joseph considered disputing the word simply, but before he could, the street behind them filled with the harsh engine noise of a passing motorcar. Helen waited for it to go, her hand still resting in the crook of his arm, and when the noise faded she looked up at him again. "You could just admit you wanted to see me."
The words began playfully.
They did not quite end that way.
Helen's eyes left his and moved towards the lake, and the hand on Joseph's arm loosened a fraction, as though she had only just heard what she had asked and was preparing to give him an easy way around it.
Joseph felt the instinct to make a joke.
He ignored it.
"I did," he said, and when Helen turned back towards him he continued walking rather than allowing the admission to become something they had to stand still and examine. His stride had shortened naturally to hers now, their shoulders close enough that they touched whenever the path narrowed. "I wanted to see you. I also prefer being early to being late. Both things can be true."
Helen watched him for another few steps. The uncertainty disappeared from her face so gradually that Joseph might not have noticed it had he not been watching for it.
"Seventeen minutes is quite early," she said eventually, but there was warmth in the teasing now. Her fingers settled more comfortably around his arm, no longer tentative. "That's enough time to do a respectable amount of wanting to see somebody."
"I wasn't counting."
"You knew it was eight forty-three."
"I own a watch."
"You checked it."
"That's generally how watches work."
Helen laughed and leaned into him for half a step before straightening again, and Joseph found himself smiling at the path. He could have continued defending himself, but there was no victory available that seemed preferable to hearing her laugh.
They walked without choosing a destination. The lake gave them one direction and the city the other, and for the moment that was sufficient. More people had begun appearing as the morning advanced. A nurse passed briskly with a folded newspaper tucked beneath one arm; two women stopped near a bench and became absorbed in conversation while a small boy belonging to one of them climbed onto the back of it despite repeated instructions not to; farther ahead an elderly gentleman was being pulled along by a terrier with far more enthusiasm than his own.
The terrier noticed Joseph before Joseph noticed it.
The little animal changed direction abruptly, dragging its owner several feet towards them before stopping directly in front of Joseph's polished shoes. Joseph halted. Helen halted with him. The terrier sniffed one shoe, then the cuff of Joseph's trousers, then sat down and looked up at him as though awaiting the next stage of an interview.
"Sorry, sir," the old man said, giving the lead a tug that produced no result whatsoever. He removed his hat briefly in apology, exposing thin white hair flattened beneath it. "Albert. Come along, you ridiculous creature."
Albert remained seated.
Joseph looked down at him.
The dog's tail began to wag.
Helen's hand tightened around Joseph's arm.
He heard the first little breath of laughter she was trying to suppress and kept his eyes on the dog. "Don't."
"I haven't said anything," Helen protested, but the words were already breaking around a smile. She bent slightly to look at Albert, who acknowledged her existence for less than a second before returning his attention to Joseph.
"You're about to," Joseph said, and Albert chose that moment to sniff his shoe again.
"He likes you," Helen observed, giving up on restraint. Her laughter made the old gentleman smile apologetically as he tried once more to persuade his dog onward. "Perhaps he can sense character."
Joseph turned his head slowly towards her. "And what does that imply about mine?"
Helen looked from Joseph to the dog and back again, pretending to give the question serious consideration. "Either you're trustworthy or you smell interesting."
Joseph's expression made her laugh harder.
The old man finally coaxed Albert away, though the terrier looked back twice as he was led along the path. Joseph watched him go with a faint crease between his brows.
"You've made a friend," Helen said, settling her hand into his arm again as they resumed walking. The amusement remained in her voice, and she had to push another strand of hair from her face when the breeze caught it.
"I stood still," Joseph replied, glancing back once at Albert before the dog disappeared behind another couple.
"Perhaps that's what he liked."
"An excellent foundation for friendship."
Helen laughed again, and their conversation wandered elsewhere without needing to be steered.
The sun rose with them.
Joseph became aware of the change gradually rather than all at once. The black wool across his shoulders, which had been welcome when he arrived, began storing warmth whenever they walked through an exposed patch of sunlight. He unbuttoned his coat after another ten minutes, pulling the sides apart enough to let the cooler air reach the waistcoat beneath. Helen had already opened the top of hers. Her gloves remained on, but she had stopped trying to repair her hair every time the wind interfered; one strand now lived permanently against her cheek, and every few minutes she tucked it away only for it to return.
They reached a sheltered stretch where the trees and nearby buildings interrupted the wind almost completely. Helen slowed and then stopped, her hand sliding down Joseph's arm until she held only his sleeve.
"Oh, that's better," she said, tipping her face towards the sun. She closed her eyes for a moment and let the warmth settle over her cheeks, the morning light catching the brown strands around her temples and turning them almost copper where they were thinnest.
Joseph took one more step before realising she had stopped.
He turned.
Helen remained there with her eyes closed, enjoying the sunlight.
Joseph watched her.
Without opening her eyes she said, "You're doing it again," and the small smile appearing on her face told him she had known exactly where his attention was.
Joseph put both hands into the pockets of his open coat. "Doing what?"
"Staring," Helen replied, opening one eye to look at him. The sun had warmed her face enough that the pink left by the wind was fading, and she looked entirely too pleased with herself.
"I was wondering why we'd stopped."
"You could have asked."
"I just did."
"No," Helen said as she opened her other eye and began walking again, catching his sleeve as she passed him so he would come with her. "You defended yourself. There's a difference."
Joseph allowed himself to be pulled the first step before falling in beside her. "I'm learning."
"Slowly."
"Harsh."
"Accurate."
The conversation drifted from there into England because Helen had apparently decided that Chicago's improving spring morning was a suitable basis from which to romanticise English weather.
"I've always wanted to see a proper London fog," she said while they moved beneath the sparse young leaves of another tree, sunlight breaking over them in pieces as the branches shifted above. She had finally removed one glove and was using her bare hand to keep the troublesome strand of hair behind her ear.
Joseph looked down at her with genuine concern. "You've seen paintings."
"I've read books."
"That's worse," he told her, adjusting his pace when she stepped around a shallow puddle left beside the path. He crossed it without needing to alter his stride, then waited half a step for her to join him again. "Now you've been misled by professionals."
Helen tucked the glove into her coat pocket. "It sounds beautiful."
"It sounds beautiful because nobody writes, 'I went outside, became damp and couldn't see anything.'"
"Atmospheric damp," Helen corrected, taking his arm again once they were beyond the puddle. Her bare fingers were cooler than the wool beneath them, and Joseph noticed the difference immediately.
"Cold atmospheric damp."
"I own a coat."
"It gets into the coat."
"I own more than one."
"Your shoes, then."
"I have shoes too."
"Your house."
Helen laughed, looking ahead towards the glittering water. "You're doing a dreadful job of selling your country."
"I didn't realise I was selling it," Joseph replied, though the idea of Helen in England had already appeared in his mind before she said anything further.
"You are now," she told him, squeezing his arm lightly as if making the appointment official. "If I'm going to visit one day, I need to know what I'm being offered."
Joseph's next answer did not come immediately.
Helen seemed to realise what she had said only when the silence lasted longer than expected. Her fingers went still against his sleeve.
Joseph looked towards the water.
The train existed again for the first time in several minutes.
Until then the morning had been permitted to behave like any of the others they had spent together. They could talk about weather and dogs and whether a freshwater lake had honest intentions because the station was somewhere else and later was still later. But visit one day belonged to a world in which Joseph left Chicago and Helen remained behind.
He could have let the phrase pass.
"When you come," he said instead, "I'll find you some fog." He kept his eyes on the path, but he felt Helen's fingers tighten around his arm before he looked down at her.
"When?" she repeated, and the question came with a smile that was smaller than the ones he had been earning all morning.
Joseph met her eyes. "When."
Helen held his gaze for another second before turning towards the lake again. "That's very confident of you," she said, and although the humour had returned, her bare hand remained where it was against his arm rather than retreating to her pocket.
They reached the part of the shoreline Helen had shown him on their first morning without either of them consciously choosing it. Joseph recognised the low stone edge and the uninterrupted horizon; Helen recognised it almost simultaneously, because she nudged his arm and looked towards the water.
"Well?" she asked, and instead of leaving the single word hanging between them she waited until Joseph followed her gaze before gesturing broadly at the lake with her free hand. "You've had several days to consider the evidence. Have you decided to accept that it's a lake?"
Joseph studied Lake Michigan as seriously as he could while sunlight moved over its surface. "No," he said, and the answer came with a faint narrowing of his eyes as though the water had personally failed some test. "It still refuses to show me the other side."
Helen laughed and let her hand fall. "Millions of people have managed to live around it without becoming suspicious."
"Millions of people can be wrong."
"About a lake?" she asked, looking up at him while the wind returned strongly enough to push the skirt of her coat against her legs. She caught her hat with one hand again, the battle apparently renewed.
"Especially about a lake," Joseph replied, and when Helen shook her head at him he looked back towards the horizon with the satisfaction of a man whose argument required no evidence beyond his own distrust.
"What do you think it's hiding?" she asked once her hat was secure, slipping closer to him as they walked into the wind.
"The other side."
"Why?"
"I don't know." Joseph looked down at her. "That's what concerns me."
Helen laughed against his shoulder.
Two boys hurried past them a few minutes later with schoolbooks under their arms, one trying to fasten his coat while running and nearly colliding with a lamppost. Helen watched them disappear inland and immediately began telling Joseph about a pupil who had recently arrived without his arithmetic exercise.
"He said his younger brother stole it," she explained while she removed the troublesome glove entirely and caught the hat pin beneath the brim. They slowed because she was trying to repair her hair while walking and had already nearly missed a crack in the path. "The problem was that he'd spent the entire previous week complaining that he was an only child."
Joseph stopped with her while she pulled the pin free. "Poor planning."
Helen held the pin between her lips while gathering her hair with both hands. She gave him a disapproving look over it, fixed the loose section as best she could and took the pin from her mouth. "Lying," she corrected as she pushed it carefully back through the hat and hair. "It's called lying."
"The two aren't mutually exclusive," Joseph said, waiting until she had finished before they began walking again. He offered his arm without thinking; Helen took it with equal lack of ceremony.
"When I reminded him he didn't have a brother, he stared at me for about five seconds," Helen continued, pulling her glove back on finger by finger. "I could practically see him building a new family."
"What did he settle on?"
"A cousin," she said, smoothing the glove at her wrist before looking up at Joseph. "Apparently a cousin had stolen the arithmetic."
"Adaptable."
Helen groaned softly. "You're admiring him."
"I'm appreciating the recovery."
"He is ten."
"Then he has time to improve."
"At lying?"
"At preparation."
Helen looked at him with the expression of a teacher reconsidering whether an adult ought to be allowed near children. "You would be dreadful in a classroom."
"I've taught people things," Joseph said as they passed the bench they had noticed earlier. The small boy was still climbing along its back while his mother talked to another woman, apparently having learned nothing from his earlier fall.
Helen pointed towards him. "Have you taught twenty-eight of those arithmetic at half past eight on a rainy morning?"
Joseph watched the boy lose his balance, land safely on the seat and immediately climb back up. "No."
"Then it doesn't count," Helen said, lowering her hand as the child's mother finally noticed what he was doing and ordered him down. The boy obeyed just long enough for her to turn away.
Joseph watched him climb again. "Persistent."
Helen sighed. "Tuesday."
That made Joseph laugh.
He answered her story with one about a soldier who had managed to lose the same piece of equipment three times in one week. The location vanished before Joseph told it. So did the unit, the year and several men whose names would have pulled the conversation too close to things he did not want to explain. What remained was the harmless absurdity: the first disappearance blamed on another soldier, the second somehow attributed to mud, the third expanded into an increasingly ambitious account involving a damaged supply wagon, two men from another unit and an officer who had been forty miles away at the time.
"Did the officer ever find out?" Helen asked as they walked, looking delighted by the idea of an unsuspecting man being drafted into somebody else's excuse. She had finally stopped fighting her hair; the wind had won one strand permanently and it moved against her cheek whenever she turned her head.
"Eventually," Joseph replied, his mouth twitching at the memory. "He was not pleased."
"And where was the thing actually?"
"He'd left it somewhere."
"All three times?" Helen asked, incredulous enough that she slowed and looked up at him.
"Three different places," Joseph said, and her laughter followed them along the shore while he carefully left the rest of the memory where it belonged.
Helen did not ask where.
Joseph noticed.
She did that often.
When he stopped a story before it naturally ought to end, Helen allowed it to end. When he said he had barely known his parents, she had not asked what happened to them. When he explained that he had met Nathan during the war and had eventually gone to work for him in security and field operations, she had recognised the missing pieces without trying to prise them loose.
She was curious. Joseph had no doubt about that. She watched too carefully not to be.
She simply did not treat curiosity as permission.
Joseph had spent much of his adult life among people trained to notice weakness, secrets, omissions and lies. A silence invited questions. A locked door invited somebody to find the key. Helen seemed capable of seeing the door, understanding that it was closed and continuing down the corridor.
He trusted her more because of it.
It also made every omission harder.
She knew nothing of T. The armour, mask, dark lenses and weapons were packed away with the rest of Joseph's equipment, waiting to travel west while he spent his morning in a black coat arguing with a schoolteacher about lakes. Helen did not know how Nathan had found him or what had been left of him by then. She did not know what Nathan had changed, repaired or given back. She knew only that Joseph had served, that Nathan had met him through the war, that their relationship had somehow outgrown employer and employee, and that Joseph followed him into places where a professor ought not ordinarily require a man like Joseph.
None of that was false.
It was simply incomplete.
For three days Helen had known Joseph Taylor without the letter T attached to him.
He had discovered that he liked being Joseph Taylor.
The thought stayed with him until his stomach interrupted it.
The sound was quiet enough that Joseph hoped the lake might cover it.
Helen turned her head.
Joseph continued walking.
"Was that you?" she asked, and the suspicion in her voice told him immediately that denial would not survive long. She glanced around them anyway, finding nobody close enough to provide an alternative culprit.
"No," Joseph said, keeping his face entirely composed while the smell of bread returned faintly from inland at precisely the wrong moment.
Helen looked at him.
Joseph looked towards the water.
"The lake," he added.
For a heartbeat she simply stared.
Then she laughed so suddenly that a woman walking several yards ahead glanced back at them.
"The lake?" Helen repeated, pressing her hand more firmly around his arm while she tried to recover. "You are blaming Lake Michigan for your stomach?"
"I've already established that it can't be trusted."
"You didn't eat breakfast," she said, and the laughter began to fade as she realised the more obvious explanation. Her brows drew together. "Did you?"
Joseph's pause answered before he did.
"Joseph."
"I intended to," he said, and when she stopped walking he had to stop with her. The sun was warm enough now that his open coat felt almost unnecessary, while Helen's own coat had been unfastened halfway down during the walk.
"What happened?"
"I left."
"Before breakfast?"
"That generally follows."
Helen stared up at him. "You came seventeen minutes early because you skipped breakfast."
"Those facts are unrelated."
"They are absolutely related," she said, and the indignation in her face was so familiar that Joseph found himself thinking of another woman an ocean away.
He smiled.
Helen narrowed her eyes. "What?"
"Mrs Hargreaves would like you," Joseph said, and the accusation immediately disappeared from Helen's face. He began walking again, gently bringing her with him by the arm. "Far too much."
"Would she?" Helen asked, pleased enough by the idea that she temporarily forgot to scold him. She had heard enough about Nathan's housekeeper over the last few days to have constructed an opinion of her without ever meeting her.
"There would be two of you."
"Good," Helen said, leaning against his arm again as they walked. "Perhaps between us we'd have a chance."
"Against what?"
"You."
Joseph laughed quietly. "Unlikely."
The mention of Mrs Hargreaves led them back to England, and England led Helen into talking about travel. She had wanted to see it since she was a girl, she told him, then France and Italy if life ever gave her enough money and time. Her mother thought wanting to go everywhere was evidence that Helen was not satisfied anywhere.
"I don't agree with her," Helen said as they came to a quieter stretch of shore, her attention divided between Joseph and a gull standing on the stones below them. "I like Chicago. I liked New York. Wanting to see something else doesn't mean I want to throw away what I already have."
"Mothers generally discover disagreement eventually," Joseph said, watching the gull stab at something between the rocks before deciding he did not particularly want to know what it had found.
Helen looked up at him. "Yours did?"
The question was gentle.
Joseph's expression changed before he could prevent it.
He looked towards the lake.
Helen saw the answer he had not given.
She did not ask again.
Instead she allowed several seconds to pass while they continued walking, then slipped her bare hand—she had removed the glove again at some point—more securely through his arm. Her fingers were cool where they rested against the cloth of his suit sleeve inside the open coat.
"When the war is over, I want to come to England," she said, turning the conversation without making the change obvious. Her thumb moved absently once against his sleeve while she looked across the water.
Joseph turned towards her. "You should," he replied, and the speed of the answer made Helen glance up.
"I was going to ask whether you'd recommend it."
"I do."
"Despite the damp?"
"Despite the damp."
Helen smiled. "Then perhaps you can show it to me."
Joseph did not answer immediately.
The lake moved beside them. The city sounded farther away here because the road had curved inland, leaving the washing of water against stone more distinct. They had been walking for close to an hour now. The sun was high enough that Joseph could feel heat gathering beneath his waistcoat, and Helen's cheeks had lost most of their earlier cold except where the breeze occasionally restored it.
She watched him.
Joseph pictured England.
Then, without invitation, he pictured Helen there.
Helen beneath a London sky complaining that the fog she had romanticised was cold. Helen somewhere green beyond the city. Helen asking questions about buildings Joseph had stopped seeing because he had known them too long. Helen sitting with Mrs Hargreaves, an image so dangerous that he immediately suspected the two women would establish an alliance against him before tea was finished.
He found himself smiling.
"What?" Helen asked, and her own smile appeared in response even though she had no idea what had caused his.
"I was imagining you meeting Mrs Hargreaves," Joseph said, looking down at her while they slowed almost without noticing.
"And?"
"It would be catastrophic."
"For whom?"
"Me."
Helen laughed and tightened her arm through his. "Then I definitely want to meet her."
Joseph shook his head, but the image remained pleasant.
"If you come," he said, and Helen's laughter quietened because of the change in his voice, "I'll show you England."
Her expression softened.
"Properly?" she asked, and as she spoke she turned more fully towards him, forcing them both to stop unless they intended to continue walking sideways.
"Properly," Joseph answered, allowing her hand to slip from his arm into his as they stood beside the water. "Whatever you want to see."
"Within reason?" Helen asked, recalling his earlier caution, and her fingers folded naturally through his before either of them seemed to consider the intimacy of it.
"Within reason."
"I want the fog."
"I'll find you some."
"You can't promise weather."
"I work for Nathan Drake."
Helen laughed. "Does Professor Drake control the weather now?"
"He'll tell you he does if you ask incorrectly."
The laughter lingered between them, but neither resumed walking.
A vessel moved slowly in the distance. A gull cried overhead. Behind them somebody passed along the path, footsteps approaching and then receding again without either Joseph or Helen turning to look.
Helen watched their joined hands for a moment.
"It's strange," she said, and rather than leaving the thought there she rubbed her thumb lightly along the side of Joseph's hand while looking back towards the water. "You've only been in Chicago a few days. It doesn't feel like that."
Joseph followed her gaze. The Twentieth Century Limited seemed considerably farther away than several days. He could remember Helen sitting across from him in the dining car, but the memory had already acquired the peculiar distance of something belonging to a different part of the journey. "No," he said, his fingers closing a little more securely around hers. "It doesn't."
Helen turned towards him. "That was almost sentimental."
"Don't tell anyone," Joseph replied, and the faint smile he gave her was accompanied by a glance over his shoulder as though Institute security might somehow have followed him to the lakeshore to record the admission.
"I might put it in a letter," Helen said, and the joke softened before she finished it. Her thumb stopped moving against his hand.
A letter.
Joseph looked at her.
The afternoon train seemed suddenly nearer.
Helen looked down at his coat instead, perhaps because it was easier than looking at his face. The breeze had caught one open side and folded the lapel back, and she released his hand long enough to catch it.
"Honestly," she murmured, stepping closer as she pulled the coat straight. Her bare hand smoothed the black wool over his chest and then moved to the other lapel, adjusting that one too although nothing was wrong with it. "If I let you arrive at the station looking like this, Professor Drake will think Chicago has been neglecting you."
Joseph looked down at her hands. "Is it serious?"
"Very."
"Fatal?"
"Potentially."
"I travel with a physician."
"A physiologist," Helen corrected, remembering the distinction Nathan had apparently made at some point during their acquaintance.
Joseph raised an eyebrow. "You've been listening."
"Occasionally."
Her hands remained against his coat after there was nothing left to fix.
Joseph noticed.
Helen noticed that he noticed.
Neither moved.
The sun had warmed the wool beneath her palm. Joseph could not truly feel the heat of her hand through coat and waistcoat, yet he was conscious of its position with absurd precision. From this close he could see the faint freckles the brighter daylight brought out across her skin, the brown of her eyes and the loose strand of hair that had finally defeated every attempt to contain it.
"I've enjoyed these last few days," Helen said, and the words came more quietly now, her fingers making one final unnecessary adjustment to his lapel before becoming still. "Very much. I was actually worried after the train that I'd been too forward giving you the Bell and Crown."
Joseph's first instinct was humour.
He could have told her that her methods were efficient. He could have made her laugh and moved them both around the discomfort.
He did not.
"You weren't," he said, bringing one hand over hers where it rested against his chest. Her fingers were cool beneath his palm after being exposed to the lake air. "I wanted to come."
Helen looked up at him.
Joseph's thumb moved once across the back of her hand. "I wanted to see you again," he continued, and saying it aloud felt less dangerous than leaving it implied. "I'm glad I did."
Helen breathed out softly. "So am I," she said, turning her hand beneath his until their palms met. The little movement brought her closer without either of them consciously stepping forward.
For a few seconds they simply stood there.
The world around them remained ordinary. A child farther down the shore was throwing stones into the shallows while his mother repeatedly told him not to go closer to the edge. A motorcar sounded its horn somewhere beyond the buildings. The gull on the rocks had found something worth eating and was defending it from another gull with considerable hostility.
Helen glanced towards their hands.
"There was something I wanted to ask you," she said, her fingers tightening slightly around his while she looked at their joined hands rather than immediately at his face. "Would you write to me?"
"Yes," Joseph answered before she could continue, and he saw the tension leave her shoulders almost immediately. He shifted his grip until their fingers sat more comfortably together. "I'd like that very much."
Helen looked up, surprised by the speed of the answer. "I had a longer question prepared," she said, the nervousness giving way to a smile while her free hand remained against the front of his coat.
"You don't need it."
"I was going to explain that I know you'll be travelling."
"I'll write."
"And that the war makes addresses difficult."
"We'll manage."
"I hadn't finished."
"Sorry," Joseph said, though the smile appearing on his face made the apology useless.
"No, you're not," Helen replied, and she gave his hand a small squeeze before becoming mock-serious. "Proper letters, Joseph. Not three lines saying you're alive."
"That's useful information."
"It's the minimum amount of useful information," she said, lifting her free hand from his chest to count the requirements against one finger at a time. "I want to know where you are when you're allowed to tell me, what you've seen, whether Professor Drake has got you into trouble, and whether you're eating properly."
Joseph's expression changed at the last one. "You sound like Mrs Hargreaves."
"I told you, I like her."
"You've never met her."
"I intend to."
Joseph looked at her.
Helen realised what she had said and smiled rather than taking it back.
"When I come to England," she added, and this time she did not make it sound hypothetical.
Joseph's smile returned slowly. "When."
"When," Helen agreed, and her hand rose from his coat to his collar while she looked at him.
Joseph had spent enough time around danger to recognise changes in distance. He knew when somebody moved into reach, when a room became too small, when a hand was approaching a weapon.
None of those instincts were remotely useful now.
Helen's fingers slipped lightly behind his neck.
Joseph became very still.
"You're very tall," she said, and the words carried the smallest trace of laughter while she tipped her face upward. Her other hand remained in his, leaving her stretched between the two points of contact.
"You've only just noticed?" Joseph asked, bending slightly without thinking when he saw the angle at which she was forced to look at him. The movement brought his face close enough that the humour in hers changed before either of them said anything else.
"My neck has noticed," Helen murmured, and instead of following the words with another joke she let her hand settle more securely at the back of his head, her fingers brushing through the short hair there.
Joseph bent farther.
Helen rose onto her toes.
She kissed him.
For the smallest fraction of a second Joseph remained motionless, caught not by reluctance but by the strange fact that something he had understood was about to happen could still surprise him when it did. Helen's lips were warm against his despite the cool air, her fingers tightening gently at the back of his head as though making certain he did not straighten too soon, and then Joseph's free hand found her waist.
He held her carefully.
He was always careful with ordinary people, though rarely in circumstances like this. Strength had become something Joseph managed without conscious thought: how firmly he gripped a man's arm, how hard he closed a door, how much weight he put behind a movement. With Helen he became aware of it again because the hand at her waist felt enormous against the fitted blue wool of her coat.
Then she moved closer herself.
Joseph stopped worrying quite so much.
He kissed her back, bending enough that she could lower her heels without breaking it, and felt her relax against him. The lake did not fall silent for them. Water continued washing over the stones. A gull shrieked overhead. Somewhere behind them a man laughed at something Joseph would never know, and a motorcar horn sounded twice from the road. The sun remained warm across Joseph's shoulders while the wind touched the exposed skin above his collar.
Helen's coat had warmed in the sun too. Beneath Joseph's palm he could feel the difference between the smooth cloth over her waist and the raised seam beneath his fingers. He caught the faint smell of soap in her hair and something floral beneath it, so subtle he had noticed it only when she stood this close.
The kiss lasted seconds.
Neither of them treated it as though the world were ending.
That made the fact that Joseph was leaving feel worse.
Helen drew back first, lowering herself fully onto her heels while Joseph remained bent towards her for an instant longer than necessary. When he realised and straightened, she was smiling.
Colour had risen strongly into her cheeks.
Joseph could feel warmth beneath his own collar and suspected he was not presenting the impenetrable figure he preferred either.
"I expect letters," Helen said, leaving her hand behind his neck for another moment before drawing it down to his collar. Her fingertips passed over the edge of his tie, and she immediately began straightening it despite the fact that it had not been crooked before she kissed him.
"So you've mentioned," Joseph replied, watching her pretend to concentrate on the tie while the smile refused to leave her face.
"I'm reinforcing the point."
"Effectively."
"Proper letters," she reminded him, smoothing the tie down against his waistcoat and then returning, inevitably, to his coat lapel.
Joseph glanced down. "You're fixing things that aren't wrong now."
Helen did not look up. "I don't know what you mean."
"You're a terrible liar."
That made her eyes rise to his.
Joseph smiled.
Helen laughed and gave his chest a light push that did nothing whatsoever to move him. "You started that."
"I know."
"And you still haven't eaten."
Joseph's smile faded into resignation.
Helen looked delighted to have remembered. "Before Kansas."
"I'll eat."
"Before the train leaves."
"Yes."
"Professor Drake too."
"That may require violence."
"You look capable," she said, and the remark was so innocently accurate that Joseph nearly laughed for an entirely different reason.
He settled for shaking his head.
They stayed by the water far longer than they should have.
The morning changed around them while they delayed leaving it. Joseph's coat remained open now, too warm to button unless the wind strengthened. Helen eventually removed both gloves and put them in her pocket, preferring the feel of Joseph's hand without leather between them. The path filled steadily as Chicago moved deeper into its day. The children on their way to school disappeared. Mothers with younger children replaced them. Men crossed towards the streets on errands. An elderly couple took the bench where the climbing boy had been earlier. The long shadows Joseph had seen when he first arrived shortened and withdrew towards the trees.
They began walking back eventually, though neither said that was what they were doing.
Helen took Joseph's hand rather than his arm.
Their fingers fitted together easily now.
They talked less.
It did not feel like running out of things to say. The opposite, perhaps. There was too much that neither wanted to force into the remaining minutes simply because a train existed.
At one point Joseph looked down at their joined hands.
Helen caught him.
"What?" she asked, and she did not leave the word by itself; she swung their hands once between them as though presenting the evidence and looked up with a smile that dared him to invent another explanation involving the lake.
Joseph considered it. "Nothing," he said, letting his thumb move once across the back of her hand before looking ahead again.
Helen waited three steps. "That wasn't nothing," she said, borrowing his own earlier tone while she leaned her shoulder lightly against his arm.
Joseph smiled. "The lake."
"It's on the other side."
He looked.
It was.
Helen laughed before he could recover.
"You're a terrible liar," she said, and her laughter softened as she rested her head briefly against his upper arm while they walked.
"I've been told otherwise," Joseph replied, keeping their pace deliberately slow as the city grew louder ahead of them.
"By whom?" Helen asked, lifting her head to look at him while the breeze brought the loose strand of hair across her cheek again.
"People I've lied to," Joseph said, and he reached across with his free hand before thinking better of it, gently brushing the strand away from her face and tucking it behind her ear.
Helen went quiet.
Joseph's hand lingered for only a second before he lowered it.
She smiled.
They continued walking.
By then Joseph no longer needed his watch to tell him the morning was disappearing. The position of the sun did that. So did the thicker traffic inland, the warmth beneath his coat and the growing number of people around them. His sense of time, trained by years in which minutes could matter enormously, had been warning him for some while.
He ignored it.
Helen eventually noticed him glance towards the city.
"You need to check," she said, squeezing his hand as though giving permission rather than reminding him. Her smile had weakened slightly, and she looked at the watch chain visible beneath his open coat before returning her eyes to his face.
Joseph reached into his waistcoat pocket.
The watch told him exactly what he expected.
He closed it.
Helen did not ask what it said.
"We have to go," Joseph told her, returning the watch to his pocket while neither of them made the slightest effort to move. The sun was warm across his face now, and the lake beside them had lost almost all of the morning grey, blue stretching away beneath the brightening sky.
"I know," Helen replied, looking towards the water rather than the city. Her fingers remained locked with his, and after a moment she gave his hand one slow squeeze.
Joseph waited.
So did she.
A wave broke against the stones.
A streetcar bell sounded somewhere inland.
People walked around them.
"We genuinely have to go," Joseph said after another half-minute, but he was still facing the lake when he said it, which rather undermined whatever authority he intended the statement to possess.
"I heard you the first time," Helen replied, finally looking at him. There was sadness in her expression now, no longer hidden completely beneath amusement, though the corner of her mouth still lifted when she glanced down at his unmoving feet.
"You didn't move," Joseph pointed out, looking down at her before following her gaze towards the shoes that had betrayed him by remaining exactly where they were.
"Neither did you," Helen said, and as she spoke she stepped half a pace nearer instead of towards the city, resting her free hand against his arm.
Joseph looked at his shoes as though the accusation required verification.
Then he looked back at her.
"Fair," he admitted, and the smile that followed was quieter than the ones she had drawn from him earlier.
Helen squeezed his hand again.
This time Joseph moved.
She went with him.
They did not turn sharply away from Lake Michigan. They followed the shoreline back towards the streets, letting Chicago return around them in pieces. The road drew closer first, bringing engines, wagon wheels and streetcar bells back into the foreground. Coal smoke began to overwhelm the clean smell of the water whenever the wind weakened. Buildings gradually rose between them and the lake until the enormous blue-grey expanse appeared only in gaps.
Joseph's open coat moved around his legs as they walked. Helen stayed close beside him, her arm eventually returning through his when the pavement became busier, though their hands remained together between them.
At the last clear gap between two buildings, Joseph looked back.
Lake Michigan shone beneath the late-morning sun, still stretching to a horizon that refused to reveal another shore.
Helen noticed where he was looking.
"Still suspicious?" she asked, drawing closer against his side as a delivery wagon rattled past and briefly filled the street with the clatter of wheels and harness. She waited until it had gone before looking up at him, the wind from its passing lifting the same stubborn strand of hair one final time.
Joseph looked at the lake, then at her.
"Completely," he said, and instead of leaving the answer bare he lifted their joined hands slightly and guided her around a puddle near the curb, keeping himself between her and the traffic as naturally as he had all morning.
Helen laughed and allowed him to do it.
For another few minutes the station did not exist. Neither did Kansas, Nathan's reports, the cases waiting farther west or the train that would carry Joseph away from Chicago. There was only the warmth the sun had gathered in his black coat, Helen's bare hand inside his, the faint lingering memory of her kiss, the city alive around them and the enormous suspicious lake shining behind the buildings as they walked inland together.