#flo and harry confiding in each other bc they've both lost important people to them? YES

[wexhappyxfew]

"walking in the park" for your new girl Flo? 💚 I have yet to read her blind date, but I bet this prompt will be fun for her!! 😊

hi killy! so sorry it's taken me some time to get to this - as you know, busy schedule and courses i'm in the midst of, but!! i have been working on this for a bit and finally feel that it is ready to get out to the world. it's definitely angsty though - i feel i've just taken some of these prompts and pushed sadness into them lol. BUT, i can absolutely say it was a joy to write and to dig into this side of her character. so THANK YOU!

prompt: 'walking in the park'

featuring: Florence 'Flo' Godfrey and Harry Croby (and Meatball haha!)

Quiet was probably the scariest five letter word she could think of at the minute.

Thorpe Abbotts was always loud, an almost more comforting four letter word that was always in her mind.

The small park on the edge of the center square in Langmere was a far cry from that. Because it was simply that, quiet. Something that was never a guarantee.

She'd frequented this small park throughout the summer months - now with the bitter chill of the wind and the fading of green leaves from trees, it filled the pit in her stomach with more remorse and sadness than she would've liked.

The bench was cold, but she wasn't lonely - the sun was out, shining brightly, warming her cold hands. Meatball was wrestling a patch of leaves, rustling about, tearing at the dried bit of life. There were some families here with their kids, a few older couples walking dogs or feeding the birds. There was still joy even in the midst of wartime. She shut her eyes and took in a breath.

"This seat taken?" Flo looked up from her spot on the bench she'd found, and saw the shadowed and sunny figure of Harry Crosby, lead navigator of the 100th, stood there. Flo looked up at him and swallowed briefly before nodding.

There'd been some run-ins on base here and there - even a few conversations as of late. And if anything, he was starting to be one of the last familiar faces on base for her to see about. She offered a weak smile.

Crosby sat beside her, stiffly at first, before relaxing and looking down to his interlinked hands. They sat in a quiet bit of silence for a moment of time, the two of them listening to the world around them, far away from war for the time being, yet still on the border where it was enough to overshadow how peaceful the place truly was.

"Everything alright?" he asked her and she spared him a glance and nodded.

"Yeah, just, thinking a lot if I'm being honest," she told him with a nod, before noticing the soft look on his face and smiling a bit, "yeah, too much thinking." Harry let out a laugh and looked towards her and offered a somewhat sad smile, the light in his eyes dimmed but not gone, persistent, but flickering.

"You're the last familiar face for me on base," Flo whispered quietly, "besides maybe Rosie. Or Lemmons or Wink. But otherwise, everyone else….."

"Yeah." offered Crosby, his voice a delicate calm and quiet that settled the uncontrollable tremors of her nervous legs or twitch in her eye, "It's nice to see you though." He looked over at her with such a sincere look on his face that she were sure she could've broken down at the drop of a hat just at his words.

At the realization, at the break of his voice, the oddity of it, the heartache, the unusual feel of having to experience that.

That.

Losing all they had in the past few months.

It hurt to think about, to even relive.

Flo gently reached forward and looped her arm through his and gave it a comforting squeeze - she knew Bubbles death had hit him in harder ways than he had cared to admit. She remembered how she'd see them in the flying club, out on the tarmac, in the summer warmth, bathed in the sun's rays as they lounged in the green grass under the blue sky. Now, he seemed a shell of who he once was, broken by that horrid thing called war and what it meant to lose someone. Her eyes welled.

"You holding up okay?" he asked her quietly, glancing her way, earnestness in his voice and tone that made her shoulders go ridged and her mind go numb.

Everyone on that base was suffering about something in their own way.

Whether it was grief wrangled into a tightly wound ball, waiting to burst, or a certain sadness that even a morning sunrise couldn't hinder, it was something they were all dealing with - and in their own ways.

Lemmons had mentioned it the other night, when she'd finished some last minute details repainting something on one of the planes - he'd told her to hit the hay, take the night. He always seemed to know when she was lost in that daze she couldn't pull herself out of. She knew he could always sense it, see it. Between the look on her face, or that look in her eye. He always knew when her head was somewhere else and that she was trying to distract herself somehow.

Sometimes it was because she was thinking too much, or too hard about something, usually a certain someone that had occupied the greater part of her mind for months, who was suddenly gone.

Or sometimes it was because she wanted to take Meatball on a walk and try to help clear her mind.

Sometimes, it was her curled in her cot, Meatball's head cuddled in her lap, his gentle eyes looking up at her as she stared numbly out of the window by her cot.

He seemed to know, Meatball that is, that there was something going on. It was almost like she didn't know what else to do and had resorted to just always having Meatball close by - at breakfast, out on the tarmac, late nights spent staring at the stars, just her and Meatball side by side.

Flo felt silly sometimes, sitting out there telling Meatball all the deepest parts of her, but then her eyes would well with tears and he would sit and stay like the good dog he was, and listen, even if it meant the occasional treat or extra leftover of something off the table after dinner.

Sometimes she wondered if Meatball realized he was gone. That he wasn't just gone on a trip or gone for a few months, that he wasn't returning and coming back.

Sometimes she wondered if he knew somehow in his mind that Benny was gone.

Flo looked to Crosby and nodded.

"Yeah," she managed out with a nod, like she was half-convincing herself that she was okay, "yeah, I'm okay." Crosby offered her a crooked smile and she tipped her head towards him.

"How about yourself?" she asked him, trying to put on her best smile his way, "I know you've been working hard; we come in at the end of the night and you're still up." Crosby let a grin grow on his face and chuckled before looking at her and nodding.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Crosby said, "writing to Jean, or well…..trying, is the better word for it." Flo watched his face; the way his mouth seemed to frown and his eyes looked sadder and more sullen, the far-off look distant in his orbs that flickered in and out when he glanced someone's way.

"It's hard," Flo whispered, her voice dropped to a resolute tone, the emotion simmering at the brims, "to try and tell someone what it's like, to be here. Experiencing it. Living it." Crosby looked to her and she tilted her head.

"My Ma and Dad always write, asking how I am, how the boys are…." Flo felt her throat tighten, thick with grief for a split second and shook her head, "ask about Benny, too, any news. It's just…." Flo stared out to the park, her eyes watering as she felt her shoulders drop. She was never great at feeling her emotions - sure they were there, but she could never really explain them in a way that made sense. So when she got to writing, it was usually a blank page for minutes before she could even write "Dear….".

"No one really understands unless they're here." Crosby said quietly, before gently placing his free hand over the one curled around his arm, "We'll find a way to be okay again." Flo watched him and then nodded, something in his voice and his eye convincing her that he was right.

Crosby was always right.