The Next Together

by Lauren James

  Katy blanched at the mention of her employer’s name.

  “I’m sure the army will take that as a very real threat,” she said weakly.

  “My biggest worry right now is that we’ll have to put up a tent. I’ve never done it before. We’re going to need some help getting it up.”

  “As the girl said to the soldier,” Katy said.

  Matthew looked horrified.

  Katy wasn’t sure if shocking a man was the best way to charm him, but she had spent a lot of time with servant boys and they had found her lewd humour amusing. She didn’t really have any other experiences to fall back on. Judging by Matthew’s reaction, it seemed to be working – if mortification could be considered a more intimate reaction than keeping a polite distance, which she had decided it was.

  She was going to charm Matthew with all she had.

  Folios/v3/Time-landscape-1854/MS-5

  File note:

  Draft of article for The Times by subject allocation “MATTHEW”

  CHAPTER 11

  Folios/v7/Time-landscape-2019/MS-149

  NOTTINGHAM, ENGLAND, 2039

  Spartacus – or Tom, as Kate was still struggling to think of him – lived off-campus in a student house. The walk there felt a lot longer than it was, mainly because Matt was quiet, still sulking about having to introduce Kate to his brother.

  Matt knocked on his brother’s front door. There were an impressive number of free newspapers jammed into the letterbox. Kate was a jumble of nerves. She was actually going to meet Spartacus. Fifteen-year-old Kate would have been giddy with excitement right now, but eighteen-year-old Kate was a lot more mature and calm. She only bobbed up and down on her toes once or twice while they waited.

  Eventually, a tall, lean boy opened the door, mid-yawn. He stretched, revealing a line of stomach as his old T-shirt lifted. Kate immediately found herself staring at the skin, thinking That’s Spartacus’s happy trail, right there in front of me. She blushed, looking away, while Matt frowned in annoyance.

  “Hey. Did we wake you?” Matt asked, too loudly. “You know it’s, like, four p.m., right?”

  Tom peered blearily at them, yawned again and then said, “Matt! Come in. Sorry. Late night.”

  Kate followed them inside, barely able to contain her excitement. This was where the magic happened.

  Tom wandered into the kitchen. After absently flicking on the kettle, he leant against the kitchen counter and scratched at his stubble, which released a few specks of glitter onto the floor. The kitchen was covered in dirty dishes. There was a plant pot in one of them, the dead houseplant inside wilting sadly into a crusty baking tray. Kate tried to hide her disgust and made a mental note not to drink any of the tea.

  Tom had clearly woken up a little because he pulled Matt into a headlock. “Where’ve you been, bro? Haven’t seen you for a while.”

  A muffled reply came from the vicinity of Tom’s armpit. “Avoiding you, obviously.”

  Matt managed to escape, but a second later Tom had hold of him again. The boys wrestled half-heartedly until Matt pulled away and glanced self-consciously at Kate.

  “Tom, this is Kate Finchley. Kate, this is my brother, Tom.”

  Tom shot Matt a significant glance.

  “Yeah,” Matt confirmed. “They’re related.”

  “How did you even run into her?” Tom asked.

  “It’s a long story.” Matt sighed, and he began making the tea while Tom looked Kate up and down.

  “Hi there,” Tom said.

  “Hi, Tom. I’ve been dying to meet you for years.” Kate shook his hand, politely, trying to hide a smile.

  “Ignore her. She’s apparently some sort of Spartacus fangirl,” Matt muttered.

  “Oh, really?” Tom rubbed his eyes and flicked away a lump of sleep. Suddenly, he was just a normal, kind of gross guy, and all of Kate’s awkwardness disappeared. Her huge crush didn’t seem so huge any more, not now that she’d met the real person behind the computer. But Matt was still pouting, and Kate decided that she could play up her admiration a little longer if he was going to be this grumpy about it.

  “Yeah, I’m a big fan of your work,” she said. “I didn’t think I’d ever meet you.”

  Tom beamed. “I’ve never met a fan in real life before.”

  “Oh, you have tons of fans. You’re a hero on the forums.” Kate said, relaxing into teasing him.

  “I’ll have to check that out, when I need a bit of a confidence boost, especially if they’re all as pretty as you,” Tom said smoothly.

  Matt snorted.

  Kate mouthed, “He’s sulking” at Tom, who grinned, then winked. After smoothing her face into an adoring look, she waited until Matt turned round with cups of tea and then she sidled up to Tom. “I’m pretty impressed, actually,” she said. “For someone who spends all their time on a computer, you’re pretty well-muscled.”

  Tom tried to hold back a snort and smiled seductively. “Like a feel?” He flexed his bicep. Kate gave an overdramatic sigh. She could almost feel the force of Matt’s annoyed glare.

  Tom schooled his face into a Faux Seductive expression as Kate ventured a hand up to his arm. She was just commenting on the raw strength he must have, when Matt finally felt the need to interrupt. “All right,” he said, “enough inappropriate touching! We have important stuff to be getting on with.”

  “Matt’s right, Kate. I really can’t have a relationship with my fan base.”

  Kate tried very hard not to laugh. She was beginning to like Tom a lot.

  “I suppose that makes sense.” She released his arm semi-reluctantly – those were some genuinely impressive muscles – and Matt quickly pushed the mug into her hand, presumably so she couldn’t do any more groping. He fetched his own from the kitchen counter and then came to stand next to her, slightly too close.

  Kate tried very hard to hide her smile. Matt was hilarious – and easily made jealous, apparently.

  Tom sipped at his tea, grimaced and then added more sugar. “So, what’s happening? Have you found something? I presume you didn’t come so Kate could meet me, however much of a fan she is.”

  “Kate and I have a job for you.”

  “Oh?” Tom led them through to his bedroom and sat down in his desk chair.

  Matt grabbed Kate’s free hand, pulling her down to sit next to him on the bed. He let go of her fingers slowly, just to make sure Tom got the message. It was probably less work than hitting him around the head with it, saying, “Look, this is a message.”

  As they drank their tea, Matt quickly filled his brother in on everything, including what they’d found in the loft. Tom was immediately excited about the laptop.

  “Can you decode the password?” Matt asked.

  “Sure! Gimme.” He held out his hands eagerly, and then connected the laptop to his computer.

  “So, I imagine it made the move to England a little easier, if Tom was already here?” Kate asked as they watched Tom work.

  “Yeah. I missed him a lot when he went off to uni,” Matt agreed.

  “You seem really close.”

  “We are,” Tom said.

  “Tom’s always been the adventurous one, getting me into trouble, as you can tell. He started this whole thing.”

  “Oi,” Tom said. He was leaning back in his chair, waiting for a program to download. “I’m pretty sure you caused just as much mayhem as I did. I’ve probably got evidence somewhere.”

  He turned back to his computer and then brought up a file of old family videos. He projected the images onto the wall behind them, and while he worked on decoding the password, Kate watched the adventures of tiny versions of Matt and Tom. Kate was in rhapsodies of delight, and Matt seemed resigned to embarrassment. Matt had been a tiny little boy in comparison to his brother, and quirky. In one video, he tried to interview his entire family about what they had been doing that day, with a spoon he was pretending was a microphone.

  “I wanted to be a journalist when I was a kid,” Matt told
her.

  “Didn’t you want to be a farmer for a while too?” Tom said. “Hey, don’t you still listen to those farm—”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, so shut up, please,” Matt hissed.

  Kate looked between them, intrigued, but then a new video started playing and distracted her.

  Kate’s favourite part of it was a shot of a naked boy covered so entirely in flour that it was impossible to identify him, which Matt made Tom quickly skip over.

  “Was that you?” she asked.

  “No,” Matt replied instantly and unconvincingly, “that was someone else. I’ve forgotten who he was.”

  “Tom just happens to have a picture of him, though?”

  Tom winked at her as Matt tried to distract her with a video of him wrestling Tom – the two of them were just as excitable as they had been when wrestling earlier that day. Eventually Kate found herself stretched out on the sofa, feet in Matt’s lap, stifling a yawn, as, eyes half-closed, she watched video after video while Tom quietly worked. Sitting this close to Matt felt strangely natural, like she’d done it hundreds of times before.

  Varna, Bulgaria, 1854

  Katy had never felt such relief as the first time she managed to clean herself properly after the voyage from Southampton. It was the evening of their first day back on land, in the camp at Varna in Bulgaria. Their tent was dark and small, with only a single tiny cot, but it afforded the privacy she needed to unwrap her chest, and it felt like a wonderful luxury. She scrubbed her skin until it was pink and the bowl of water Matthew had collected from the pump was brown and soapy.

  When she finally felt clean again, she went outside to where Matthew was waiting. They were sharing the tent, just as they would have been if she really was his manservant. They couldn’t ask for another and, besides, Katy had been sleeping in a hammock next to Matthew and dozens of soldiers for weeks now, so she didn’t think it would be awkward.

  “I’ll fetch you a fresh bowl of water,” she said. He nodded wearily. It had been a long journey from the steamer to the encampment, which sprawled outside the city of Varna, along the edge of a huge lake. Once they had arrived, they’d had to collect their tent and erect it. They were both exhausted.

  As Katy walked to the pump, she passed the campfire where soldiers were cooking the meagre rations they’d managed to get. Katy felt a pang in her stomach. They hadn’t had any food since arriving and probably wouldn’t until the next day.

  When she returned to the tent, Matthew was inside, shaving, having developed a layer of stubble during their voyage. She wouldn’t call it a beard exactly.

  “Thank you,” he said, washing off the soap with the clean water she’d brought him.

  “You’re welcome.” She sat on the cot and ran a brush through her hair, wincing at the build-up of tangles. She was going to need to get it cut soon. She’d kept it closely clipped ever since some of the other servant boys had teased her for her curls, saying they made her look like a girl. Now her hair was starting to curl up around her ears, and while she was androgynous enough to pass as a boy, it would be just asking for trouble to have long curly hair.

  She sniffed at herself. Since she’d washed she had become very aware of the smell of her dirty clothes. “Do you think if I wash my clothes they will be dry by morning? I don’t think I can stand to wear these again. They smell horrendous.”

  Matthew shrugged. “If they’re still damp then you can borrow some of mine.”

  She looked up in surprise. Although she knew that he’d forgiven her for lying about her gender, this new kindness was unexpected. “Thank you,” she said softly.

  He nodded, and returned his attention to shaving with an air of quiet embarrassment.

  She tugged at the loose hair on the brush, admiring the mix of strands, her ginger and Matthew’s brown.

  “Can I borrow some now? A shirt or something, to wear tonight?”

  Matthew focused more than was necessary on washing the soap off his razor. “Yes. Take whatever you need out of my bag.”

  Katy swapped her dirty shirt for Matthew’s clean one with relief. Matthew, who was washing his face, carefully kept his back to her. When she’d changed clothes, she sniffed herself again, but all she could smell now was a lingering trace of Matthew’s scent on the clean material.

  Katy then tried her best to clean her clothes with just a small bowl of water and cheap soap. By the time she was finished, and the wet clothes were hung outside the tent to dry, it was dark.

  Katy took a sheepskin off the cot and laid it on the floor, before making a pillow from a brown linen coat. The dirt floor didn’t look appealing, but she told herself it was better than sleeping outside, or on a ship, and settled down for the night.

  “What are you doing?” Matthew asked. Arms crossed, he looked like a man on a mission. He would have been quite intimidating, if it hadn’t been for the way his hair curled around his face as it dried.

  “I’m going to sleep?” she said.

  “No. Stop it.”

  She raised her eyebrows at him. “We’ve had quite a long journey. I think I deserve at least a nap.”

  “I’m not going to make you sleep on the ground. Obviously you will take the bed.”

  “We could always … share it,” she said. “Aren’t people supposed to huddle together for warmth in hostile conditions?”

  He rolled his eyes, but a hint of a blush rose to his cheeks and the tips of his ears. He began violently brushing out his hair, sending water droplets flying. “That’s in the Arctic. I don’t think you’re in danger of getting frostbite here.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t talking about me,” she said. “Me, I’ll be fine. I was talking about you. You’re so thin you might freeze completely through.”

  “I think I can handle sleeping on the floor.”

  “Well, don’t come crying to me if you’re a cold dead corpse tomorrow morning. You’re a delicate flower. I don’t think you can handle the floor.” Then when he didn’t respond, she added more firmly, “Matthew, I’m not making you sleep on the ground. I’ve caused you enough trouble as it is. Besides, I bet that cot is full of bedbugs. The ground is probably cleaner.”

  “I’m not giving in, Katy.”

  He started a brief staring contest, which was apparently his new method of persuading her to agree to his point of view without the hassle of actually yelling. She always squirmed under his steady gaze, but she was determined not to be the first to look away. However, this time Matthew was even more determined. She rolled her eyes, conceding defeat by overdramatically throwing off the blanket. It actually was quite cold on the floor, though, and she shivered involuntarily.

  Matthew punched the air. “I win!”

  “We will alternate nights. I’ll have it tonight and you can have it tomorrow. Otherwise we are both going to end up sleeping on the ground, aren’t we?”

  “We are going to have the same discussion tomorrow, because I’m never taking the bed from you.”

  “I’ll have a whole day to think of arguments,” she warned him.

  “So will I.” He smirked.

  Katy felt a rush of affection for him. She usually enjoyed their exchanges, and would have replied with something cutting, but today – in their new tent with a completely stationary floor and a proper bed, and not even one snoring soldier in here with them – she just wanted to be nice to him. He had been so forgiving and lovely to her since finding out that she was a girl, and she had never had the chance to return the favour. She’d have to wash his clothes for him and maybe find food for them both first thing tomorrow. It didn’t look like they’d be getting rations from the army any time soon. A sudden impulse overtook her and she stood up and wrapped her arms around him.

  “Good night,” she murmured into his ear. He was tense, but he relaxed slowly, finally pulling her tight against him and pressing his face into her hair.

  “Night,” he said back, a touch of something like surprise in his voice.

 
She stepped away, pulling down the shirt which had ridden uncomfortably high on her thighs. Then she climbed quickly into the cot and pulled the blanket over her.

  “Matthew, thank you, really,” she said. “You’ve been so good to me.”

  The corner of his mouth turned up. “It was a small matter.” He paused, and then added, “As the girl said to the soldier.”

  Katy let out a thrilled, too loud laugh, and Matthew settled into the makeshift bed on the floor with an unmistakable air of self-satisfaction.

  CHAPTER 12

  Folios/v7/Time-landscape-2019/MS-149

  NOTTINGHAM, ENGLAND, 2039

  “Kate,” Matt said, rubbing her shoulder.

  “What time is it?” she mumbled. “The meeting doesn’t start until nine.”

  “What meeting?”

  “The suffragettes, Matthew.”

  There was a long pause, and then Matt said, apparently addressing someone else, “She’s dreaming.”

  Kate opened her eyes to see who else was in their room, and blinked. Right. They were in Tom’s room, unlocking her aunt Katherine’s laptop.

  “Are you awake now?” Matt grinned at her, shaking his hair out of his eyes. “Tom did it! He broke Katherine’s password. We’ve got access to all her files.”

  Kate sat up and rubbed her eyes. “Really?”

  “Yeah!”

  Kate let out a relieved whoop. “Let me see. I can’t believe I fell asleep. Thanks for doing this, Tom.”

  “No problem. That’s the good news. The bad news is, well … see for yourself.” Tom gestured for Kate to look at the laptop and Matt pulled up a chair at the desk for her. After she’d sat down, he leant on the back of it, to look over her shoulder.

  The C-drive of the laptop was full of neatly labelled folders, of which Kate approved. She was a little obsessed with keeping her own files in order. She was clearly more like her aunt than she had ever realized. She scrolled down the list, scanning for any important ones, her eyes flicking through REPORTS, DATA, PCR RESULTS. She tried to open one, but it came up with an error message. Then she realized what Tom had meant by the “bad news”. A lot of the files were corrupted.