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emotionalcadaver · 11 months

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Part 4: Scabbed Over

Fandom: Dunkirk

Pairing: Shivering Soldier x OC

Summary: For the first time in years, Daisy returns to her hometown.

Word Count: 4,545

Notes: Warnings for depictions of PTSD and references to past eating disorder, past cheating, and past abuse. Henry Wilson is the name for the Shivering Soldier created by the lovely people over @henry-wilson.

Masterlists: Main • Series

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The delicate China clinked softly as Daisy balanced the two saucers holding the teacups in her palms, carrying them with intense care from the kitchen back into the living room.

“Thanks, Dais,” Violet said, taking the cup of tea from her, sipping at it lightly. Sinking into the spot next to her little sister on the couch, Daisy took a gulp from her own teacup, thankful for the comforting warmth that the tea brought.

Violet had arrived in an hour or so ago from the train station, having gotten settled enough for them to begin to chat.

“How’s the wedding planning coming along?” she asked. Violet sighed heavily.

“Stressful. Mum’s been driving me insane. I got told off the other day because she didn’t like the flower arrangements I chose. And then there was all this drama between two of my bridesmaids last week…honestly, I’m thankful to have gotten away for a little while.”

“I bet.”

“Speaking of which…”

Sighing, she set down her teacup on the table. “Vi…”

“I’m not trying to pressure you or anything, but it really would mean the world to both me and Mickey if you came.”

“You do realize if I come you’re running the risk of the mother of the bride chasing the sister of the bride around with a broomstick, right?”

“She wouldn’t do that,” Violet hesitated. “I think.”

Daisy looked at her sister’s big, pleading eyes and sighed. “I’ll think about it.”

“Thank you.”

“How’s Dad?” she asked finally, after a moment of silence that seemed to stretch on forever. As it always did whenever they approached the awkward subject of discussing their parents.

“Oh, fine. Getting slow. His knees have been acting up,” Violet took another sip of her tea. “I keep trying to get him to go to the doctor about it, but he’s so stubborn,” she shot another look Daisy’s way. “He misses you.”

“Mm,” she picked up her tea again to take a deep drink so that she wouldn’t have to answer. “I thought that we could just go to the pub for dinner. I invited Henry to come join us. I hope that’s okay.”

Violet’s eyes glimmered to life excitedly. “Not at all! I can’t wait to meet him, after everything that you’ve told me,” she shook her head. “I still can’t believe that you met on that boat you took out with the Dawsons during the evacuation. That is so romantic.”

She wanted to tell her sister that it really wasn’t. That the whole experience had been terrifying and by the end she’d been covered in sweat and oil and surrounded by dead-eyed, terrified men, with her friend dead below the deck. But she kept her mouth shut.

“Look, Vi, he can be quite…shy and skittish, so please–”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be nice,” Violet raised an eyebrow, lips pressing into a smile.

“What?”

“Your face changes when you talk about him,” she said, grinning. Daisy groaned, lifting her teacup back to her lips.

“Shut up.”

∗ ∗ ∗

A twinge of anxiousness clenched in his chest as the pub came into view. Daisy had said that her sister was nice and easy going, if a little overenthusiastic at times. He hoped with queasy nervousness that things went well. Violet was the only member of Daisy’s family that he knew of with whom she had a truly positive relationship. He wanted to make a good impression on her.

He spotted them in a booth near the back of the pub. Daisy waved to him when she spotted him, and the woman beside her looked him up and down, assessing, as he approached, leaning over to whisper something into Daisy’s ear that had her rolling her eyes.

Violet looked a lot like Daisy. Which shouldn’t have really been all that surprising; they were sisters after all. But it still caught him off guard. They had the same brown hair and hazel eyes, but Violet’s hair was longer, her face more oval where Daisy’s was more rounded.

He shook her extended hand nervously in greeting, sliding into the booth to sit beside Daisy. Violet was nice enough, if a bit overexcited about everything.

There was a shock of panic that spread through him when Daisy murmured something about needing the ladies’ room, sliding out of the booth before he had time to fully process that she was leaving. For a moment he stared at Violet a little like a deer caught in headlights, unsure of what to say.

“It really is nice to meet you,” he said timidly. Violet smiled at him, taking a sip of her drink.

“Likewise. I’m glad that Daisy has someone. And that you can look out for her. I worry about her, down here all on her own, you know?”

“Oh, um, it’s no problem.”

“She mentioned that you were a soldier?”

His shoulders tensed at the mention, looking down at his hands. “Yeah. Was discharged after Dunkirk.”

“My Mickey was discharged after he took a helping of shrapnel to the leg. He has to walk with a cane now,” she shook her head. “I’m sorry, for whatever it was that you had to go through.”

“Thank you. I’m…sorry about your fiancé.”

Violet shrugged. “I don’t mind. I didn’t fall in love with him for his mobility,” she cracked a bitter grin. “The only one who seems to care at all is Mum. She keeps telling me that I deserve better than a cripple,” she shook her head, a shot of anger twisting her features, but only for a second. “I told her that if she wanted an invitation to the wedding, she needed to cut it out with that type of talk, but I can still tell that she’s thinking it.”

“Your mum sounds like a real piece of work.”

“Ah. So Daisy’s already told you about her. Yeah, she is. If it weren’t for Dad, I probably would have moved away too. Or at least put a little more distance between myself and her,” she picked at her salad, eyes glancing over the plates of food on the table. Chewing slowly, her brows furrowed together, gaze faraway like she was remembering some distant memory. “Has she been eating alright?”

“What?”

“Daisy. Has she been eating alright?”

“Oh,” another wave of awkwardness washed over him. After Daisy had told him about her past issues with food when she was a teenager, he’d made a silent mental note to keep an eye on how she was eating. He’d never really noticed anything out of the ordinary. “I-yes?”

“Good,” Violet nodded, looking back down at her salad. “I always worry so much about her…”

He opened his mouth to say speak, but before he could get the words out, Daisy was sliding into the spot beside him again, smiling at them both as she picked up her burger and took a bite from it. Her side brushed slightly against his where they were squeezed in next to each other. Warm. And when she giggled at something Violet had said, the way that her entire face lit up and her nose scrunched slightly made him want to wrap an arm around her waist and press his lips into her hair.

Clearing his throat roughly, he glanced quickly back at his food. Before his mind could get away from him.

∗ ∗ ∗

“Henry seems nice,” Violet commented, grunting as she adjusted her grip on her suitcase. “I like him.”

“I’m glad,” Daisy murmured, Violet shot her a look and she rolled her eyes. “What?”

Her little sister grinned. “He’s handsome.”

“Vi–”

“Relax, I’m happy for you,�� Violet grinned. “You really will think about it? Coming for the wedding?”

Daisy sighed. “Yeah, I will.”

Her little sister beamed, throwing her arms around Daisy’s shoulders and squeezing her, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “Ring me as soon as you know.”

“I will. Call me when you get it?”

“Will do. Love you.”

“Love you too, Vi.”

She watched as her sister boarded the train, waving as it pulled out of the station and began to chug away. Hands in her pockets, she turned on her heel, listening to the little clicks of her shoes against the cobblestones as she walked the short way home. Ghost greeted her at the door with a wagging tail and happy yips.

“Where’s Henry, boy?” she asked, following the dog to the backyard, where Henry was kneeling in the garden. “Hey.”

He looked up. “Hi,” tugging off his gloves, he rose, brushing soft dirt from his pants. “Violet’s train got off okay?”

“Yeah,” she sat down in one of the chairs on the patio.

“What’s wrong?”

“She wants me to come up to Newport for the wedding.”

“Oh,” he inclined his head. “You’ve never gone back home.”

“No, I haven’t,” her shoulders slumped. “I want to say no, but…she’s so hopeful about me coming every time she brings it up, and after everything she’s done for me in the past…really, I should be able to suck it up and spend one weekend back there for her.”

“So what’s holding you back? Is it your mother?”

“My mother, Adam, Claudia…everyone. I don’t know how I’m going to handle all of the questions, the stares…” just the idea of it all was enough to make her heart thunder painfully in her chest. “And I’ll be going alone, on top of that,” she let out a small, self deprecating chuckle. “I can only imagine the things that everyone will be saying about me behind my back.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t go alone, then.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “You can’t mean–”

“Why not?” he shrugged. “If it’ll help make the whole thing more bearable for you, I don’t mind.”

“Henry…”

“It’s just an offer,” he strode to her, pressing a kiss into her hair. “Something to think about.”

“Okay,” she wrapped her arms around herself, leaning closer to him on instinct. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

∗ ∗ ∗

“Did you hear?”

“Hear what?” Adam grunted, not glancing up from his cards. A few of the other boys at the table exchanged looks.

“Daisy Preston’s back in town.”

“Oh, shit, really? I didn’t think she’d show,” Donald said.

“She and Violet are close. If anything was gonna get her to come back down here, it would be Vi and Mickey’s wedding,” John added.

Adam swallowed, taking great care not to show too much emotion at the mention of his ex-girlfriend. “Where’s she staying?”

“Violet’s. I think Hattie and Mary ran into her when they were there for some bridesmaid’s business.”

“That true, Mary?” he asked as one of the aforementioned women stepped into the room, hauling another ice chest of beers for them.

“Is what true, Adam?”

“You saw Daisy at Violet’s?”

“Oh,” her eyes widened, just a bit. “Yeah, just briefly, though, yanno? We didn’t really get much of a chance to sit down and talk with her.”

“How’d she look?”

Mary shifted from foot to foot, clearly uncomfortable. “She, uhh, she looked good, Adam.”

“Tell him the other thing, Mary. That you told me,” Donald ordered his wife. She stuttered, looking reluctant as she pressed her lips together.

“She wasn’t alone.”

“What?” Adam asked.

“She brought some guy with her. Name’s Henry. He was a soldier at Dunkirk before he was discharged,” and then, gaze fixed down onto her shoes, she mumbled, “he was nice.”

“She’s married?”

“No. No, not married,” Mary’s cheeks turned bright red. John hooted, looking down at his cards and shaking his head while he grinned.

“I always knew she was a slut. What was he like?”

“He, um,” Mary glanced nervously at Donald. “Like I said, he was nice. Quiet. Daisy really seems to like him.”

Adam stared at one single spot on the table, jaw flexing. “Thank you, Mary.”

“Sure thing, Adam,” she mumbled, rushing from the room back to the kitchen. Adam’s finger tapped irritably against the cards in his hands. Over the years, he’d imagined what a reunion with Daisy would look like over and over again. More times than he could count.

In not one of those scenarios did she return to Newport with another man.

∗ ∗ ∗

She braced her hands against the vanity, drawing in slow, deep breaths as she did her best to keep herself from the brink of having a panic attack.

“You okay, love?” Henry asked, approaching her slowly. They’d barely been in Newport for over twenty four hours, the entire goal of the weekend to get in for the wedding, then out as soon as it was done.

“Mhm.”

He moved to press himself against her back, rubbing his hands up and down her arms. “You’re lying.”

“I’ll be fine,” her voice broke on the last word, greatly undercutting her argument.

“Daisy, Daisy, shh,” Henry cooed. “It’ll be okay,” he dropped his head so he was speaking directly into her ear. “I’ll be with you the whole time.”

“I wish that I’d just stayed home.”

“I know, I know,” he said. “But this’ll make Violet happy, right? And then we can go home. On the first train tomorrow. Just one more day. That’s all you have to do.”

She closed her eyes, nodding as he threaded his fingers through hers, squeezing. “Thank you for coming with me.”

His lips brushed her forehead. “Of course,” glancing up at them in the mirror, he smiled charmingly at their reflection. “You look beautiful.”

She blushed, scrunching in on herself, which just resulted in her leaning back further into his chest. “You’re just trying to charm me.”

“Mm,” his nose brushed along the sensitive skin of her neck. “Is it working?”

“Hm. Maybe,” she giggled, letting her head fall fully against his chest, looking up at him lazily. He pecked her lips, then took her hand.

“Let’s go. Otherwise we’ll be late.”

Still a little shaky, she linked her arm with his, allowing him to guide her down the stairs of Violet’s house and outside, down the path that led towards the little church where the ceremony would be held. Already, there was a decent amount of people gathered inside, milling around and chatting to one another. A few of them cast stares their way and Daisy fought the urge to shrink in on herself.

“That’s my dad over there in the front row,” she didn’t see her mother. Probably off tending to Violet.

“You want to go say hello?”

“Probably should.”

Henry steered them through the rows, shooting polite smiles to the few guests that they passed.

“Dad?” Daisy rested a hand on her father’s shoulder timidly. He looked up from the program and smiled.

“Daisy, you came!” he stood a little unsteadily and pulled her into a hug. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too,” she cleared her throat. “Dad, this is Henry.”

Her father looked her plus one over appraisingly, but with a big smile. He shook Henry’s hand enthusiastically. “Yes, yes. Violet’s already told me all about you.”

“Pleasure to meet you, sir,” Henry said, and she squeezed at his arm reassuringly. Of her two parents, her father was the easy one.

“Are you sitting up here with us?” her father asked. Daisy shook her head.

“No, I had Violet put us further back. I didn’t want to steal away any attention,” not to mention the thought of sitting beside her mother through the whole ceremony filled her with anxious nausea. Glancing around the church, she froze at the sight of a couple walking into the church, arm in arm. “What are Adam and Claudia doing here?” she knew for a fact that Violet hadn’t spoken much to either of them, after what they’d done. She couldn’t imagine her willingly inviting them. Her father looked down at his feet with a deep sigh.

“Your mother insisted that Vi invite them.”

“Why?”

“Something about them being practically family.”

Daisy felt her stomach turn.

“It caused quite a row between the two of them, if that makes you feel any better.”

“Mm.”

Henry gave her a tiny tug on the arm. “We should go find our seats.”

“Yeah,” she glanced to her dad. “We’ll talk later at the reception.”

“Okay, honey.”

She could feel his sad gaze on her back as she let Henry lead her away.

“You alright?” he asked, dipping his head to murmur in her ear. They slid into their assigned pew, Daisy fiddling with her program while Henry rested his palm on her thigh.

“Yeah. I should have been prepared for it. Mum adored Adam. And she liked Claudia probably more than she ever liked me.”

Henry slipped his arm around her shoulders comfortingly, kissing the top of her head in silent encouragement.

∗ ∗ ∗

He stared at her from across the pews, seated beside a handsome man with dark hair and striking blue eyes. As Adam watched, the man wrapped his arm around Daisy’s shoulders, pressing a kiss into her hair. She looked more or less the same. Round face, big hazel eyes, short brown hair. She wasn’t as skinny as she had been when they were teenagers, and where she had been bony and gaunt before, there were now soft, filled out curves. But her legs still looked strong, from what he could see of them. He wondered if she was still skating, or if after everything that had happened she’d soured towards the whole experience. She fiddled with her program, face serious and grave.

Then the man beside her said something, mumbled into her ear, and her face changed, lips pulling upwards, cheeks dimpling as she turned to look at her date, grinning at him, then giggling, smiling down at their hands as they intertwined.

Adam barely even recognized her.

∗ ∗ ∗

The ceremony was lovely, and went off without a hitch. And then they were all being herded outside, towards the venue where the reception would be held. Daisy continued to cling to Henry’s arm like a lifeline, as the time grew nearer and nearer to when she knew that she would have to at least say hello to her mother.

Hopefully that would be the beginning and end of it, and she wouldn’t have to speak to her much more after that. In the entranceway, there was a huge collage of pictures from both Violet and Mickey’s childhoods, all the way up to the present day. Henry nudged her, pointing to a picture.

“Is that you?”

“Yeah,” it was a photo of her and Violet as teenagers, sitting out on the porch together. It wasn’t lost on her that there weren’t any other pictures of her outside of that one. Violet must have managed to sneak it in somehow. She stared at the gaunt, frighteningly skinny girl in the photo and shivered at the memories it coaxed up. Henry squeezed her waist.

Their assigned seats were at the table with the rest of the out of towners, and she silently thanked Violet for the thought. It meant less awkward conversation, at the very least.

“I didn’t expect your mum to look so much like you and Violet,” Henry commented, eyeing the table where the parents were seated.

“What did you expect?” she asked around a mouthful of soup.

“Honestly? Cloven hooves and horns wouldn’t have surprised me.”

She snorted, almost choking on her soup, and he shot her a conspiratorial grin. Violet came bounding over to them eventually, pulling Daisy into a strong hug that squeezed her ribs.

“I’m so, so glad you came,” Violet whispered genuinely into her ear. “Really. It means a lot.”

Daisy nodded. “Of course.”

For the most part, everything was going fine, until dinner ended and the dancing started.

“Incoming,” Henry managed to provide her with some semblance of a warning. She looked up just in time to see her mother making her way over to them, one hand holding her shawl tight around her shoulders, lips pursed and head high.

A sudden, violent wave of panic rose up in her chest, and she had to fight the urge to dive under the table or burst into tears. Oh, fuck. Fuck. She couldn’t do this, she couldn’t do this–

Henry’s fingers enclosed around hers, warm and comforting, and she latched onto the sensation frantically, shifting a little closer to him, until she could feel the warmth from his chest. Safe.

“Daisy,” her mother said stiffly, coming to a stop in front of them.

“Hello, Mum.”

Her mother’s eyes, the same shade of hazel as Daisy’s and Violet’s, slid over her, lips pressing together in disapproval. She wondered what aspect of her appearance so offended her. Was it the dress? Her hair? Her finally being at a healthy weight?

“Mum, this is Henry,” she said, hating how weak her voice had become. Her mother’s assessing gaze moved from her to Henry, looking him up and down. She didn’t offer to shake his hand.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” Henry said politely, carefully.

“Your husband?” her mother asked plainly.

“Erm, no–”

Her mother’s jaw set in silent, cold disapproval. “I would have thought,” her mother spoke slowly, deliberately. “That of my two children, you have been the one to be married off first. Being the eldest and all.”

Daisy swallowed hard. “I’m sorry that I didn’t get your timetable,” she bit her tongue before she could say something more inflammatory.

“I just mean…what could this one,” she gestured with a sweeping hand to Henry, “even want from you now? You’ve taken too long. You’re in your forties. That’s certainly too old to have children.”

“Actually, I don’t really think that I want–” Henry started to say.

“Quiet, boy.”

His eyes just about bugged out of his head, mouth opening to respond, but Daisy squeezed down hard on his fingers.

“Don’t talk to him like that,” she said firmly. Her mother’s brow rose. “And what I do with my life really isn’t any of your business anymore,” she turned away. “I’m here for Violet.”

A trembling anger filled her mother’s eyes. “That’s no way to talk to your mother, Daisy.”

“But you’re not my mother. Remember? That’s what you told me when you threw me out of the house all those years ago,” she shrugged. “So really, I don’t owe you shit.”

“You watch your language–”

“Henry, come on,” she grabbed him by the hand, rushing towards the doors that led to the patio outside. “Good bye, Matilda,” she said to her mother, beginning to walk away, then stopped. “And by the way, I’m not forty until next March,” beginning to walk again, she added under her breath, “you neglectful bitch.”

“Holy Jesus, how did you live with that for eighteen years?” Henry asked as soon as they were outside. “You okay?”

“Mm,” she massaged at her brow. Now that the interaction was over, she was beginning to feel shaky again. She leaned in closer to him. “Put your arms around me?”

He circled her with them, biceps flexing as he squeezed her in close. “She’s wrong, you know,” he said. Daisy nodded, closing her eyes as she settled against his chest.

“I know.”

∗ ∗ ∗

When he suggested to Claudia that they approach Daisy at least to say hello, she’d looked at him like he’d just asked her to drink spoiled milk, instead returning to her drink and her friends at the bar. Adam supposed that it shouldn’t have been that surprising, considering how ugly things had gotten between her and Daisy when his side thing with Claudia had come to light.

So, he wandered over to where she was standing with her date on his own. They were eating their slices of cake, chatting animatedly about something. Daisy’s smile faded when she spotted him approaching them.

“Hi, Daisy.”

“Hullo, Adam,” she said, blinking at him, once. He shoved his hands into his pockets.

“You look good.”

“This is Henry,” she said, not acknowledging the compliment. He nodded to the man beside her, who was looking at him with apprehensive, curious blue eyes.

“Hi.”

“Hullo.”

“It’s good to see you,” he tried again with Daisy. She looked at him with an expression that told him that she knew exactly what it was he was trying to do, and was thoroughly unimpressed.

“How’s Claudia?”

He battled back a wince and forced a smile on his face. Like his marriage wasn’t a complete and total disaster. Like he and his wife didn’t hate each other’s guts. Like he didn’t regret letting Daisy slip through his fingers when he should have held onto her. “She’s good.”

“And the kids?”

“They’re fine. They’re at their grandmother’s.”

“That’s nice.”

The awkwardness between them all was so potent, it made him want to scream. “Yeah.”

The band started to play something slow and sweet. Henry rested a hand on Daisy’s shoulder, leaning in closer to her. “You want to dance?”

Adam wanted to laugh. Of course she didn’t want to dance. Daisy hated dancing. And she was shit at it too. His toes throbbed from the memory of prom night, how she’d kept stepping on them. And alright, maybe he had lost his temper a little with her, but really. If she didn’t want to get yelled at she should have learned to dance properly.

“Sure,” Daisy said, taking Henry’s hand, and Adam’s jaw just about dropped to the floor. She shot one last glance his way. “Nice to see you, Adam,” but her voice sounded rather bored, like she was indifferent to his very existence. Slumping down into a seat on the edge of the dance floor, he watched with silent befuddlement as Daisy danced with Henry. She stepped on his toes a couple of times, but where Adam expected him to display annoyance at the action, Henry just grinned, like it was some adorable little quirk, pulling her close with a hand on her waist until she laughed, cheeks turning pink as the former soldier buried his face in her neck, open and blatant in his affection for her.

∗ ∗ ∗

They were sprawled out on Violet’s couch, both a little tipsy, with Daisy’s head on Henry’s chest, his hands curling through her hair. Violet and Mickey had caught a late night train to their honeymoon destination, leaving the house to Daisy and Henry for the night before they caught the early morning train back to Weymouth.

“Thank you for coming with me,” Daisy said, eyes closed as she cuddled closer to Henry’s chest. His shirt was half unbuttoned, leaving her to stroke a tentative finger along the exposed bare skin.

“Of course,” he nosed at her hair. “You ever think that you’ll be coming back after this?”

“I don’t know,” she sighed. “Maybe for a funeral if someone died or something…but other than that, no. I don’t think so.”

“I can’t say that I blame you.”

“Mm,” she reached up to rub at his jawline. “My insane family didn’t chase you away?”

“Of course not,” he adjusted their positioning, so that he was curled in behind her, his chest pressed firmly to her back. He kissed her neck. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

That morning, they got on the train to Weymouth. Not once did either of them look back.

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Masterlists: Main • Series

#shivering soldier #henry wilson #dunkirk #shivering soldier x oc #henry wilson x oc #daisy preston #daisy preston x henry wilson #daisy preston x shivering soldier #my ocs #my fanfiction #fanfiction #scabbed over

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