#fred torvaldsen

[mercurygray]

hiiii could i pls ask about any fred/brady wedding and/or honeymoon thoughts? i love them a normal amount — @shoshiwrites

Being completely transparent here, I haven't thought about this at all, so this is very rough. (And now it's getting long??)

I have this vision that after the stalag, the flight that John is on goes to Paris, where they find Fred working in the Red Cross Club there. The mail's been wild for a few months, and she wanted something new when sticking around Thorpe Abbotts started to feel like a burden she didn't want to carry any more.

and they spend as much time as they have getting to know each other again shhhh.

John goes straight home after that - Paris to England, England to New York, New York to the loving arms of Mom and Dad and the rest of Victor, wondering what he's going to do with his life now that he's not a bomber boy. Fred has to stick around for a bit in Europe until everything wraps up, so it's John who's meeting her boat at the terminal, looking strange in civies and a fedora that doesn't look like it belongs to him after so long seeing him in crusher caps.

Maybe he has a ring that day. He's had enough time to think about it and he's not letting her go again.

(This does not surprise or alarm his parents. He's been talking about her for a while, and they know their son.) They swap her train ticket for one going upstate and go to meet the folks, and Fred calls her parents long distance to tell them that she's engaged. (I think Mr. and Mrs. Torvaldsen are a little more alarmed, but that's only because they've never met the guy, and Fred talked about everyone.)

Everyone's still working everything out, after the war - John's trying to figure out back pay and the GI bill and where they're going to live and find a job so it's just easier for Fred to go home first and get her feet under her. They write constantly and call whenever they can. John decides to take his teacher license exams and Fred coaches him by mail until she can move to be closer to him and start her classes to officially convert to Catholicism. (This is more of a formality for her, but it's important to his parents, so they're doing it. I don't see her as a particularly religious person, but it's not a huge swerve from her Lutheran upbringing.)

Small Catholic wedding - bride in tea-length white dress with a blusher veil and a hat and gloves. (It was expensive but what else was she going to do with that back pay? She's going to dye it afterwards, for a going-out dress.) Her something blue is a piece of her ARC uniform pinned inside her bodice and the silver sixpence was sent from England by her landlady in Thorpe Abbotts and she's borrowing a pair of silver shoe-clips from a friend to dress up her heels. They're absolutely thrilled to pieces that as many people as they get come - Crank made it in from Boston at the last minute, and a few of Fred's Clubmobile friends, and so so so many people send cards. A mountain of cards. ("It's almost like people like you, Freda," John says, very much teasing. "They're sure as hell not for me.")

Honeymoon is probably Niagara Falls, honestly. Or maybe Montreal? A train trip for a couple of days where they can be alone and in love and spend a lot of time with their clothes off and maybe do some touristy things.

...hhhhh this is so long i am so sorry.

[blind-dates-fest]

2024 Blind Dates Fest Submissions

Anne Julia Randall | Outlander | @aloveforjaneausten

Anthony "Tonk-Tonk" Roberts | Foyle's War | @darkhorse-javert

Cressida Dorrance-Jones | Masters of the Air | @basilone

Eliana "Ana" Holloway | Masters of the Air | @jump-wings

Freda "Fred" Torvaldsen | Masters of the Air | @mercurygray

Florence "Flo" Godfrey | Masters of the Air | @wexhappyxfew

Genevieve Laurent | Masters of the Air | @latibvles

Lavinia Fennimore | Masters of the Air | @loveduringthewar

Lisbeth Hahn | Masters of the Air | @fidelias

Lucy Jones | Masters of the Air | @basilone

Magdalena "Maggie" Zielinski | Masters of the Air | @trenchenjoyer

Marion Brennan | Masters of the Air | @mercurygray

Patsy Harangody | The Pacific | @noneedtoamputate

Paulette Schafer | Band of Brothers | @shoshiwrites

Samantha "Mandy" Majors | The Pacific | @softguarnere

Simon "Sim" Stewart | Foyle's War | @darkhorse-javert

Winifred "Winnie" Harris | SAS: Rogue Heroes | @ladyyennefer

We did this for fun, to try something new, to try a new fandom, to get back into writing, to challenge ourselves, to keep it short and simple, to get an idea that wouldn't leave us alone out of our heads, and I love this for all of us.

A huge round of applause to everyone who participated this year as a writer, reader, or general-hanger-on.

[mercurygray]

The Unquiet Tide

I am happy to report that - after a little bit of work - most of my MOTA OC work is now up and available for your reading, commenting and subscribing pleasure on AO3.

Since Masters of the Air lends itself to a more episodic approach, each of these stories will take place as a series of short format pieces posted more or less in chronological order. Much of the work is being driven by prompts from readers like you! I will still be posting updates here on tumblr, but will probably be linking directly to the full text on AO3.

The three fics are collected in The Unquiet Tide, so if you're on AO3 and would like to subscribe to collection updates for easy notifications, you can now do that!

Pavilioned In The Fields - Cordelia Callaway (John Egan x OFC)

Cordelia Callaway knows planes - she grew up building them and watching them be flown, and there is no one better in the entire Army Air Forces for keeping a level head while one of them comes in for a landing in flames. If the only way she can contribute to the war is making sure all these man land safely, then there's no one else you'd want in your control tower, because she doesn't do things by halves, either. Unfortunately, that also means holding grudges - and if you're the 100th's executive officer, that means you might be in for a very, very long war.

Your Best Girl - Fred Torvaldsen (John Brady x OFC)

Someone said this war would come with donuts, and Freda Torvaldsen is here to make sure they’re right. As a somewhat new replacement for the Red Cross Clubmobile team at Thorpe Abbotts, Freda - or Fred, as she's usually called - is still learning everyone’s name (and everyone is still learning hers!) but she’s confident with time that she’ll fit right in - and a certain clarinet-playing captain is hoping she fits right in with him.

Seek To Hold The Wind - Marion Brennan (Neil Harding x OFC)

It is one thing for the Army Air Forces to send planes out, and quite another to bring them back home. Someone must be there at the end, to gather all the pieces up to make sure what has just happened makes sense. That's Marion Brennan's job, and she's damn good at it - a life spent in the Army will do that to a woman. She's also here to do it without distractions - though a certain former football coach and commanding officer is making that rather difficult.

[mercurygray]

Spent a non-zero amount of time last night thinking about Fred and Brady and intimacy, and how that starts post-Regensberg.

If anyone cares.

[mercurygray]

how to get home, for Cord? 💙

The days feel longer here.

It feels strange to say that, as they move into December and the dark descends before the sun's even had a chance to get her coat on, but wars don't run on business hours, and everyone can pull out their desk lamps and continue calculations well into the wee hours of the evening if that's what conditions demand. And the war demands a lot, always.

The new men coming in think that this is just the way that Thorpe Abbotts has always been - that the ops officers are seldom in the officers club, that that ground crew don't know your name. No one bothers to correct the impression, except perhaps Rosie Rosenthal, who even Colonel Harding will agree is in a class by himself.

Everyone is different after Munster, and none of the old hands want to correct assumptions. Harry Crosby is a loner, Ev Blakely tells fewer jokes, and Cordelia Callaway is an ice queen who's married to her job and never smiles.

Let 'em, Cord thinks to herself, finishing the last touches on the week's accident reports and watching out of the corner of her eye as a few new WACs go by, whispering. Why should it matter? She stands up and stretches, concious, as she has not been for a while, of the tension in her shoulders and the twinge in her jaw.

"Lieutenant Callaway, do you have a minute?" Cord looks up to see Fred Torvaldsen standing in the doorway, her homemade red scarf vivid against the blue of her Red Cross uniform and the gray outside. "I've got - something for you."

It's an odd request - Cord doesn't know the woman over and above a few cups of coffee, a good singing voice, and a heart for stray cats. (Anita spent a whole day talking about spark plugs before it was explained that she meant the Aero Club's new kitten.) A mittened hand holds something out - a letter. "It came to me, but it's - it's for you," Fred explains. "I think they wanted to - get it around the censor. I hope you don't mind I opened it."

The poor-quality paper is crumpled, the handwriting messy and rushed. There's only one person who writes like that. Cord finds herself leaning against the wall. (Fred, she notices, hasn't moved. How many letters like this has she delivered?)

Dear Cord,

I don't know what to say except I'm sorry.

And that's it. That's all there is. Ten words that hit her like a ton of bricks. Sorry, Bucky? You're sorry? What does that even - sorry? Sorry for what? Sorry you're not here? Sorry you're alive and you didn't think it would be important to tell me? Sorry?

It is so maddeningly and frustratingly him that she can hardly think - the wall is holding her up and she wishes it were him. You're a thousand miles away and you're right here in this paper, and I miss you so much, Bucky, your shoulders and your smile and the way you make me laugh…

The words have been struck through, heavily, with a pencil, and as she reads them a fifth and sixth time, she can almost see him, hunched over a table in a chair that is too small for him, struggling with the words and then deciding they're not worth the paper they're written on, striking them out and throwing down the pencil and crumpling up the page. Underneath there are a few more lines, added in a script she knows is Gale's -

Sorry you haven't heard from him sooner. He's started this letter five times and I thought you ought to at least get one.

I think if he missed you less, he'd be able to talk about it more. He hasn't said your name since we got here.

We're all doing okay, and hope you are, too. Say hi to everyone for us. Gale.

That, too, is a new wave of tears - classic Gale. At least he knows how to get home. She hopes for a tearful moment that Marjorie Spencer has gotten the letters that she knows Gale has written like clockwork in his fine, neat hand. And she has ten words. Ten words, struck out for being written, and her name, and 'Dear', and all of that somehow not good enough to actually send. John Egan, if you were here I don't know what I'd do to you. Kiss you, kill you, or never let go of you.

She looks up, wipes her eyes on the back of her hand, and realizes Fred is still standing there, smiling faintly, a handkerchief in her hand. Cord sniffles and takes it, grateful. "There's paper at the club, when you want to write him back."

"No if?" Cord asks, blowing her nose and trying to find the ice queen again behind the hot tears on her cheek.

"No one I know cries like that over ifs," Fred replied with a little smile. "Mary's baking shortbread later. We'll save you some."

Later that night, when she has been installed in a comfortable chair with a cup of tea and three of the promised cookies, she finds herself staring at the paper feeling blank. "Well, what would you say if he were here right now?" Mary asks, sitting down with her own cup of tea and gesturing to an empty chair like it will somehow conjure the man.

Cord stares at the empty chair, and then writes down the only words she can think of, picturing him.

You stupid, stupid, stupid man.

The only apology I want is for not writing sooner - and for thinking that I wouldn't want a letter. What kind of woman do you think I am? Jack Kidd was kind enough to give me your jacket - the one I said I hated. It's in my room now. I'll return it to you when you get back - or not. The weather's been getting colder and a girl might need it…

[mercurygray]

Blind Dates Fest 2024 - Freda Torvaldsen, ARCS

A few days ago I asked for MOTA prompts, and @junojelli delivered:

A MOTA scene prompt for you: a new arrival is amongst the clubmobile ladies at the local pub one evening. Of course, it would only be right that they give her the lowdown on the men they can see in the bar, and the recent gossip on possible nocturnal escapades of course 😏

So! An extra Blind Date! You can learn more about @blind-dates-fest at their blog.

Fandom: Masters of the Air

It was only a matter of time before the subject came up.

“Can’t say I’ve ever met a Freda before.”

It was always like this, her first day in a new assignment, where you been, where you from, what do you do. And then inevitably someone would work around to the obvious. So... what’s a name like Torvaldsen doing with a name like Freda?

“And neither had my mother,” Freda said with a resigned smile, sitting down heavily and nodding thankfully to one of the other girls for the beer. “After my father and brother were both Peters I think she just wanted something interesting.” She shrugged. “She told me once she found the name in a short story in a woman’s magazine. Never got confused with another girl in class, though! Fred’s just fine, for every day use. It’ll get tossed in eventually, so we may as well start there.”

Fred was easy - approachable, even. A good way to start a conversation, a quick, easy joke to set everyone on the same level. Who’s on shift today, girls? Rose, Laura, and Fred. Wait, Fred? And she’d stick her head out from wherever she was hiding, and the boys would all have a laugh that Fred was really a twenty-six year old blonde from Madison, Wisconsin with a big smile, and not the paunchy driver from Brooklyn they all pictured when they heard the name. She didn’t mind the jokes, really - it made the whole job easier. So what’s your name, solider? You have a nickname, too? Where you from? The whole reason she was there, in three questions or less - to make the average G.I. feel at home, seen, valued and wanted.

“Where’d you say you were, before this?” Helen asked. At least, she thought it was Helen - or was it Ellen? Honestly, Tatty had run through the team of three pretty quickly this morning and she might have misheard. Tatty, of course, was easy to remember - Katherine Spaatz, with a last name the papers wouldn’t soon forget and a face that liked being photographed. Mary Boyle was the other, a sparkling-eyed Irish girl from Des Moines who looked like just the kind the fellows all liked to spin around a dance more than once. She couldn’t remember the name of the girl she was replacing, either - not that that mattered much. She was going home with the one non-communicable disease the Red Cross didn’t want to deal with - pregnant, Mary had mouthed across the table when they’d first met this morning, her fresh off the bus from London and Tatty skating artfully around the subject.

“Did a spell at the canteen in Washington, another couple months in London in a few different spots,” Freda offered. “I guess I’m a professional replacement at this point - which is either a compliment or a curse. You’ll have to tell me which.”

“Well, we’re happy to have you, for as long as we’ve got,” Tatty said with a nod. “Did they tell you what the work would be like? Working a base is different than canteen service.”

“The hours, for a start,” Mary said, rolling her eyes.

“If they’re running a mission, they’re up and at ‘em at 4:30 for a 5 am briefing, which means -”

“Service ready for 4:45,” Freda filled in, nodding along. “Means we’ll be starting about...three thirty, maybe, to have everything hot and ready?”

“Will that be a problem?” Tatty asked, her eyes dark and decisive across the table.

Freda shook her head. “Always was more of a morning person. How long are they usually out for?”

“Longer runs...six, seven, eight hours at a time? Tower will give us a ring when they’re expected back in, and then we rack up donuts and coffee in the interrogation hut. You’ll need to be sharp on that shift,” Tatty warned. “They don’t always come back looking pretty.”

“Doctor’s usually on hand to evaluate anyone who can walk. If they’re still standing he’ll turn ‘em loose on the interrogation team,” Mary explained. “Captain Brennan and her girls run that room - she’s nice, you’ll like her.”

“You’re not there to make small talk for that one - pass out coffee and get ‘em to their table as quick as you can. Each crew runs through the whole mission - what they saw, who they shot at, bombs dropped. The after-action report. Once they’re done, they’re free to leave, and so are we. We’ll do dishes and clean-up, and then get the coffee urns ready to drive ‘round to the crews. Can you drive?”

“Well enough for Wisconsin,” Freda offered with a shrug. “We had a Ford I could grind through.” She didn’t say anything about the last time someone had asked her if she knew how to drive, and how she’d nearly run over the campus mascot trying to muscle a Clubmobile into a turn.

“Sounds like you’ll be driving our Jeep, then. We’ve got one assigned to us.”

Freda nodded, trying to maintain serenity. Well, that’s all right. A Jeep’s not a remodeled London bus, and it sure as hell doesn’t drive like one.

“The planes are parked out on hardstands and the crew basically live out there while they’re working,” Tatty went on, “So we take coffee and sandwiches around once the planes come back in. They’re good guys out there - better than the flyboys, sometimes.”

“Now, Tatty, don’t go turning her head the wrong way,” Mary interjected, before Freda could ask what a hardstand was. “They’re all nice. Just take some getting used to.”

“Anyone I’ll need to watch out for?” Freda asked, glancing around the club, which was gradually beginning to fill for the evening - officers in their Class As, the gilt on their wings like sunshine, laughter like a river. The knucklehead who knocked up your friend, for instance?

Tatty made a gesture across the room towards the biggest group. “The tall one horsing around with the dartboard is John Egan - Major Egan, rather. Or Bucky, if you want nicknames. He’s mostly harmless, but he’ll flirt with anything. Just give as good as you get and you’ll be fine. Man next to him is Major Gale Cleven - also Buck - who you’ll wish was single and isn’t.”

“He’s got a girl back home in Wyoming,” Helen (Ellen?) put in, her smile a little wistful. “Ask him about her sometime.”

“Man with the permanent frown is Major William Veal - Bill, sometimes. He’s all business, you’ll never see him dance, so don’t ask. Tall fellow next to him with the lighter curly hair is Major Jack Kidd, also mostly business.”

Freda’s eyebrows went up. “Mostly?” Now there’s a word with a story.

It was Tatty’s turn to smile. “We think he might be sweet on Mary, when he lets himself.”

Mary rolled her eyes. “Only because the rest of you gang up on him!”

“Those are the squadron commanders, anyway - the other pilots and navigators and crews report to them. It’s a lot of names,” Tatty said, almost dismissive.

Notice how she didn’t say I’d learn them, Freda thought to herself. They’d told her that much in London, when she’d gotten her assignment. Don’t get too attached to your post, or the soldiers there. They can change or leave at any time. It’s a war, not a weekend.

“Ladies! And how are we all on this fine evening, eh?” Here it was - faces up. Freda found her smile and turned to see who it was - a young man with black hair and blue eyes and a smile just this side of mischievous. And this one is named Trouble, I’ll bet. First lieutenant with flying wings - a pilot. “You all over here plottin’ somethin’ we fellas need to be made aware of?”

“Just introducing the new girl around, Curt.” Tatty gestured to Freda, on the other side of the table, who raised a hand and nodded hello.

Trouble (Curt?) smiled a little wider, his hand on Tatty’s shoulder, leaning closer over the table. “Oh, the new girl, eh? And does the new girl have a name?

“New girl answers to Fred,” Freda said with a patient smile, trying not to smile too hard at the patently obvious big-city, big-spender feeling rolling off of the lieutenant in waves. New Yorkers. You could run them off a press like that. It was funny, sometimes, how much they tried not to be types - but she’d known far too many men like him. That was the trouble with canteen service - you saw so many they all started to look the same. “And she’s not looking for another drink, before the lieutenant starts asking.”

“Tough customer!” He laughed at that. “Curtis Biddick, at your service, Fred. Now, if any one of these jokers starts anything or gets fresh, you come find me, alright?” He pointed, for emphasis, and she took note of the knuckles of his hand, the shortness of his nails. “Gotta take care of our girls, you know, since you’re always taking care of us.”

“I’ll certainly keep it in mind, Lieutenant.”

Biddick waved the rank away like it was a fly he were swatting. “Now, none of this lieutenant crap, Fred. My friends call me Curt.” He fixed his eye on her and she smiled, and nodded - heard and acknowledged. Confident they had an understanding, he clapped Tatty’s shoulder again and stood up. “Tatty. Mary. Helen. Fred. Yous all have a good night, now.”

“Well, there you are, Fred. If Biddick likes you you’re set. He was serious about finding him, too - he’s the company boxing champion.”

“Of course he is,” Freda said with a smile, finally able to place where she’d seen hands like that before. And a total sweetheart underneath all of it, if I read him right.

And a soldier, something in her head reminded her. That’s the trouble with working a base - they won’t just be here for a night. You’ll have learn their names, and their girlfriends, see them day in and day out - until one day you don’t.

She took a deep breath and a sip of her beer, still glancing around the room, at the laughing men at the dartboard, the craps game, the piano, everyone alive and free and full of life. Maybe it had been a bad idea to start with names.

---

Eagle-eyed readers will notice that I have name-dropped several new characters in here; one of them, Marion, is my other Blind Date this year. You'll meet her on Saturday!

[mercurygray]

hiii friend, could i send "coffee splatters on paper" and/or" the smell of fresh coffee" and/or "empty coffee cup" (basically, any of the coffee ones) 😅 for fred and jo, please? <3 — @shoshiwrites

Shoshi, thank you so much for trusting me again with Jo. She is, as always, a joy and a delight. For those of you who don't know her, Jo Brandt is Shoshi's War Correspondent OC who has made several appearances in the TDS multiverse and appears here by kind permission from her author.

It was easier writing at the Aero Club.

There was always the extra work of bringing her typewriter with her from her room, but the portable was built for outings like this, and, too, there was something…comforting, about writing her column from the middle of things, or at least, as close to the middle of things as Jo was able to get at Thorpe Abbotts without being a security risk. Everyone came to the Red Cross club at some time or another, and the constant stream of chatter in the background made a nice change of pace from the birdsong and quiet tree rustles of the back garden.

And there was the bottomless coffee, of course. And the cat.

"Well hi there, mister, how are you?" Jo asked, as Spark Plug came up to rub against her chair and buff his head against her leg a couple of times. The black and white cat purred for a moment and then took the opportunity to jump up onto the table, narrowly missing Jo's empty coffee cup, and scratched himself against the side of the portable's carriage return a few times. "You're lucky you're cute," Jo said quietly, waiting for the animal to move out of the way before she started typing again. "Usually I charge for spelling errors."

"Excuse me, Miss, is this cat bothering you?"

Jo didn't need to look up at Fred to see that the woman was smiling at her own joke, coffee pot at the ready as she did her rounds of the room. "Yeah, as a matter of fact," she said, sitting back in her chair and holding tightly on to her empty cup before Fred could try filling it. "He was just yowling at me about when I'm going to do that piece about his owner."

The Clubmobile woman deflated a little. "Jo, I'm not -"

"But you are," Jo said, cutting into Fred's excuses about 'not being very newsworthy,' still guarding her cup so Fred wouldn't fill it and run. "You're the one everyone wants to read about! When all those mothers read about their sons they're sitting at home hoping someone's taking care of them -- and that's you."

Fred's smile could best be described as 'flat'. "Interview Mary - or Tatty! They've got much better stories than mine."

"Freda Torvaldsen, from Madison, Wisconsin, is very used to managing rambunctious attitudes," Jo said in a fake newsman's staccato. "Twenty-six years old, she put her career as a kindergarten teacher on hold to go overseas and entertain America's flyboys. From slinging doughnuts to singing tunes, there's nothing Fred, as she's known around base, can't do - and that includes rehabilitating stray animals." She paused for effect.

"You're making me sound like Snow White."

"I'll bet if I asked nicely I could find you seven guys to be dwarves," Jo shot back without missing a beat.

She was serious, and Fred knew it. "Please don't."

"And anyway, she's a brunette," Jo added, for effect. "Thirty minutes. And a picture. With the cat."

"No one wants -"

"Everyone will want a picture with the cat," Jo cut in strongly. "Especially after I tell them where he came from."

Fred got into enough arguments on a daily basis that she could tell when she had lost one, and she sighed (somewhat dramatically) and sat down just as the door opened and a fresh group of flyers rolled in. Most of them gravitated towards the counter and Mary Boyle, but one of them broke away to stand behind Fred's chair as if to look over her shoulder at Jo's typewriter.

"What's this? Fred Torvaldsen is sitting down? On a Tuesday?"

"I'm being interviewed," Fred said, looking up at the pilot with a fondness in her eyes that was hard to hide. Jo bit back a smile and allowed the pair their moment - Clubmobile girls weren't supposed to have favorites, but John Brady was one of Fred's. (If he had his way, he'd be more than a favorite, if Jo was any judge, but she supposed there would be time for that later. Hopefully.)

"Is our trusted correspondent going to write about how we'd all fall apart if you weren't here?" Brady asked, with absolute seriousness.

"I am, Captain Brady, thank you so much for suggesting that," Jo said strongly, before Fred could get a word in edgewise, grinning at him.

"You both are being very mean," Fred said with another one of her exasperated smiles.

"We are," Brady confirmed with a sly smile that did nothing to hide his delight. His hands never left the back of her chair, but there was something in his eyes, too, that was doing a lot of very heavy lifting for his favorite who wasn't supposed to be a favorite.

"There a party here I don't know about?" John Egan's voice came booming from behind Jo. When had he come in?

"I'm being interviewed," Fred cut in, before anyone could say anything else. "Jo's going to add me to her Rogue's Gallery for the Clarion."

"Excellent. Best news we've had all day. You'll make us all look good, Fred. Are you putting in a good word for her, Spark Plug? Are you?" The cat, which had formerly been relaxing next to the typewriter, had stood up as Egan approached, yowling softly for attention and closing his eyes to lean into Egan's large, warm hand and its energetic scritches, the cat's expression perhaps best described as 'pleased'.

Jo looked away to see Fred was watching her with an odd look in her eye and a secretive smile. "What?"

"Oh, nothing," Fred said mildly, sitting back in her chair. "Are we starting this interview now, or what?"

[mercurygray]

Internally consistent chronology, who does that??

Spent some time updating (and revising) the prompts I've done for Cordelia and Fred and adding them to their collections on AO3!

Your Best Girl - Freda Torvaldsen

Pavilioned In the Fields - Cordelia Callaway

[mercurygray]

The Only One I've Got

This one goes out to the anonymous Fred Friend.

It looked like it was going to be sunny today.

After the long slow slog through October and November's sleets and snows, sunshine would be welcome, even if it was only for a few thin December hours. The weather was pressing in on them just as much as the missions were, and so far 1943 had not had much to recommend it except that it would soon be ending.

(Their director had asked quietly at Thanksgiving if a reassignment would be welcomed, but she didn't really want to go. If she left she'd lose so many good memories.)

"I left the mail on the table," Tatty said, coming in from the front where they usually parked the jeep. "I didn't see what's there."

"Thanks, Tat!" Fred said, brushing the last of the toast crumbs from her fingers and going to look at the pile. Helen, Helen, Mary, Tatty, Helen - and a small square of what looked like cardstock, stamped several times in purple and red with a very serious German word in the upper left corner, and her name, Freda Torvaldsen, written in careful block script in the address.

She must have made a noise, because Helen was suddenly there, and maybe Tatty, too, and she couldn't remember sitting down in the chair, and the rest of the mail had fallen on the floor. Her vision was swimming a little.

She wanted it to be from him. Maybe it wasn't.

"Fred, honey, you need me to read it to you?"

She shook her head, her hands shaking as she tried to turn it over to open it and nearly ripped the thing in two. Tatty took it from her and eased the seal open before she handed it back.

It was dated three months ago - October.

Dear Fred,

I'm hopeful that maybe you've tried to get news about me before now. If not, my new stationery should inform you - I am alive, and a guest of the Germans in a Prisoner of War camp. I'm sorry I haven't written before now. Now that we are settled we are permitted to send three pieces of mail a month and I needed to tell my folks first.

It feels very strange to write your name at the top of a letter. I've never had to write to you before. I'm hopeful that maybe we can keep this up, if you still feel the same way you did several months ago. Quarters here are close and I couldn't keep who I was writing to private. I need to let you know there have been some complaints. Lots of guys from the old outfit are here with me, and many names that you would know. (I'm not listing them, as I think the censor will black them out.) Hopefully you don't hear from them, too.

I just realized I'm using the word hopeful a lot, but it's the only one I've got. Hopefully Yours, John

PS - There are a few guys here who are not getting mail. Can you share my address with Ma Brennan and see if she could write something? It would be nice to share a little of the news from home and let them know that they aren't forgotten.

She read it through three times, vision increasingly blurry, realizing, belatedly, that the pencil was getting on her fingers. Hopefully yours. She held it to her nose and thought she could smell pipe smoke, and it was the best gift she'd ever gotten.

Of course I'm yours. You're the only one I've got.

-

A big thank you to a friend who is asking to remain anonymous for sharing images of what POW mail looked like. Some of it was on pre-printed postcards and some was on a message blank, which is what I'm describing here. The big German word Fred can't read is Kriegsgefangenpost, prisoner of war mail. I also just found a website online that has a ton of pictures of what this looked like.

[mercurygray]

5. Seeking solace for Fred and Brady please.

Also, love your writing and I hope you’re doing well. :)

The 1920s AU won't leave me alone, so here's some Fred and Brady.

Fair warning: it's a little sad.

--

She'd seen her share of drunks, but not like this. And never him.

The Bloody Boys didn't drink in her father's bar, and never to get drunk - a shot in the afternoon while they were collecting, or the better part of a beer to be sociable, perhaps, but rules were rules and manners were manners, and it was Fred's father who paid and they who collected, which meant that they got their drinks elsewhere.

But here John Brady was - drunk on their doorstep. He looked up with bleary eyes when she opened the door, her coat thrown on over her nightgown and robe, and squinted.

"Fred. Didn'…didn' know where else to go."

His coat was open, usually neatly parted hair mussed and falling in his eyes, and there was blood on the front of his shirt, strangely far down. She had a sudden thought of stabbings. "Jesus, John, are you hurt?

He looked down, as if just noticing it for the first time. "It's not mine. 's Curt's."

That didn't help her. "Is Curt hurt? Where is he? Why's he not with you?"

"He's dead," Brady said, wavering. "Bled out in my lap at the fight." He gestured half-heartedly at the stains like that would explain it. "Bloody nose wouldn't stop. Doc said…knocked his spine loose." he looked up at her again. "I didn't…didn't know where else to go. Didn' wan' to… be alone."

Fred nodded, trying to make sense of all of it, trying to make her mind move forward when all it wanted to do was sit on the stoop with John and cry.

"Why don't we get you inside, huh? Can we do that?" She stood up and tried to pull him with her, and the dead weight of him nearly pulled her back down. Eventually he found his feet and staggered up, following her inside so she could deposit him into a chair. "Sit - sit there. I'm just going to - to make a phone call, okay?"

Her whole body was buzzing, waiting for operator to ask for the number in the tiny little cabinet behind the bar. Come on, come on, it's two in the morning, who the hell else are you helping? And then the pause and clear air and Number please? Abbott 4378, and the operator's bored, tired Connecting you, and the dull ring of the buzzer on the other end, and then a gruff voice picking up, the club noisy in the background. "Yeah?"

"It's Freda, at Torvaldsen's."

"Ayyyy, Fred! What's the matter, gorgeous, you lonely?"

"Save it," she ordered, impatient and angry. "John Brady's in our taproom stinking drunk. Can someone get him?" She took a breath, let the words out in a rush. "Curtis Biddick's dead."

There was a pause on the other end - the jokes were gone. "Yeah, we heard. Keep him there, will you? We'll send someone round." She nodded, her throat still tight, fighting back tears of her own. "Shame about Biddick," the voice on the other end said. "He was a good guy."

Fred nodded, her lips in a tight line, too afraid to agree aloud. He was so good - the best. "Be seeing you. Bye."

She stepped back from the phone and hung up the handset, ringing off so the operator would know the line was free, and turned back to the bar, trying to quickly wipe the tears out of her eyes. Curt, dead. And John was here.

Her guest had made his way to the piano, picking at the keys and plinking out what sounded like an off-key version of Danny Boy. Fred's mind filled in the words as he went, too familiar after too many nights with too many drunks and too many funerals. The summer's gone, and all the roses falling, It's you, it's you must go and I must bide.

He looked at her with watery desperation, his hair still hanging in his eyes. It was a strange look for him, who was always so well dressed and so well mannered. He'd shrugged off his overcoat and was sitting on the piano bench in his shirtsleeves, his bloody shirt now fully visible. "Play somethin' for him, Fred. Somethin' pretty. He liked when you played."

Fred sniffed and wiped her eye again. She could just see the man himself at the bar, all twinkling blue eyes and wry smiles, with his clobbered nose and burly shoulders, always looking like he was ready to do battle. How you gonna fight tonight, Curt? Like a bird! They won't catch me. "All right. Something pretty." The only thing she could do was play.

She sat down next to him and found that every single song she'd ever known had gone clear out of her head. Something pretty. What the hell's pretty on a night like this?

Her fingers found the keys, trying to remember the notes and the right key, but a few false starts soon put her right. He used to whistle this, sometimes. And Brady was right there, right next to her, his shoulder pressed to hers, still smelling like desperation and the gutter.

And she must have been doing an okay job, because Brady joined in, his church choir tenor surprisingly good, for a drunk man.

Pack up all my cares and woes, here I go, winging low Bye, bye, blackbird Where somebody waits for me Sugar's sweet, so is she Bye, bye, blackbird

No one here can love or understand me Oh, what hard luck stories they all hand me Make my bed and light the light, I'll arrive late tonight Blackbird, bye, bye.

She could barely see the piano keys, her eyes too full of tears. Bye bye, Blackbird.

Suddenly Brady's head was on her shoulder, his nose pressed into her neck, and she could feel hot tears on her skin. Her hands left the piano keys, wrapped themselves around his shoulders and pulled him close, and for a moment it didn't matter that he was nearer now than he had a right to be when she was dressed like this. She closed her eyes and let him be, finding some small solace in the warmth of him.

--

The next morning John woke up on a couch in the club's backroom, an overcoat thrown over him and Jim Douglass snickering to see him looking like something the cat dragged in.

"But you and Fred had a nice time, huh? Her in her robe and all?"

John held his head and hid his frowns, drinking the whiskey Jim offered to take the edge off his headache. He didn't know what hurt worse - the hangover or the loss of Curt, or the thought that he couldn't remember just what it was he'd done with Fred.

[mercurygray]

Hello! Your Fred-needs-a-hug anon here!

So…….. since I am insatiable and I need more, would you be open to write something for Frec with prompt #16 “a glint in your eyes”??

Feel free to refuse, I don’t want to force you! 💖🥰

I think it's safe to say everyone needs more. Fred and Brady seem to have stolen our keys! We're taking baby steps here, Fred Friend. This scene takes place during 1.2.

A part of her was still in the interrogation hut.

Fred knew her job as well as any of the women here - better, even. She'd had a few more assignments than some of them. She was there to pass out donuts, and dispense coffee, and smile. That was it - that was all of it. Others would take care of cuts and scrapes, and the hospital quarters, and counting the planes in, and yet - She'd studied every man's face as he came in to interrogation, naming their planes and crewmen, finding the gaps at Brennan's tables while the coffee cooled and the blank edges of the maps filled in.

And today they'd been missing someone, and some of the men walking in hadn't been able to meet her eye.

Major Cleven had stopped, on his way out the door, returning his empty coffee cup to the rack, just like he always did. "Curt had some engine trouble on the way back," he'd said, his voice low and matter-of-fact. "Had to make an emergency landing over Scotland." His eyes were like chips of ice, though there wasn't anything cold about the way he'd met her eye. "Thought you'd like to to know."

She'd nodded, speechless, and let him leave knowing he would not have more answers. Emergency landing. Scotland. Engine trouble. These words meant things to him that she was still learning, every day, against her will, things she was still thinking about hours later in the officer's club as everyone smiled and danced and Major Egan stole the band's microphone and sang off-key.

Leave it at the door, Fred, she'd told herself as they were getting ready that evening. All the men in the room are all the men that have ever been there, or ever will be again.

But as hard as she tried, she could still see the gaps.

She tried to stick to the edges of the room, knowing she wasn't particularly good company tonight, but someone was going to come and find her. Someone always did.

"Captain Brady. Not playing with the band tonight?" He was in his full uniform, and the band was usually in shirtsleeves.

"We just got a phone call," he said, his voice somehow kind. "It was from Curt. He's in a place called Fraserburgh. Should be home as soon as they can get him a truck."

Fred let out the breath she didn't realize she'd been holding in. "And he's - he's fine?" she said, trying to moderate her tone. "Crew's fine?"

"Sounded like he was having a great time," Brady assured her with a smile before he looked down at his shoes. "He, ah, gave me an assignment, before he got off the phone - told me I was supposed to find his best girl and get her a drink."

The moment he said best girl she could see Curt, clear as day, grinning around the bar, eyes bright and merry, and a sudden wave of emotion came surging up from somewhere in her chest, threatening to drown her.

"Will you excuse me for just a moment?" she said, pushing past him and walking quickly and decisively towards the door.

The air outside was cool and bracing, and she let the change in temperature hit her like the slap in the face she'd needed all day. Come on, Torvaldsen. Pull yourself together. It's one man, and one plane.

Suddenly she wasn't alone again, because of course she wasn't. They didn't leave men behind if they could help it - or let their friend's best girl get herself into trouble. "Fred, are you okay?"

No, I'm not. "We're not -" She paused, trying to find the right words with tripping over something - or crying. "We're not supposed to have favorites." He's not my favorite, and I'm not his, I know that, that's just the way he is, but it's… "We're not supposed to be anyone's best girl. And I know he meant it as a joke, but he -" She took another breath and looked at him again. There was no joke in Brady's eyes - only earnest concern. "There's three hundred and fifty of you." It wasn't what she really wanted to say out loud, but it was part of it. I'm supposed to be fair. And sometimes there's no happy phone call after. And that's just the way it has to go.

It can't be like this. It can't always be like this - the waiting, and the fear. There's three hundred and fifty of you, and there will be three hundred and fifty more.

But it seemed like Brady had heard what she couldn't say aloud. "It's nice to have someone to come home to," He offered, hands in his pockets. "And it's nice to know that…if there wasn't…a phone call, that we'd be missed. You're all everyone's best girls, you know - you and Helen and Mary and Tatty. Even if they don't say it the way Curt does."

Fred nodded. That's the job, isn't it? The girl back home but over here. That's what they hired me to do. Everyone's sister, everyone's girl worth writing to.

For a while it was only the distant sounds of the officers club, the music heavy on the brass. Somewhere out in the night there was whispering and a quickly hushed giggle - getting up to mischief where prying eyes couldn't see. "Listen, if he comes home and finds out I didn't get you that drink I think he'll clock me."

She had to laugh - she could just see Curt doing that, too. "Wouldn't want to ruin that handsome face of yours," she said, just say something.

He saw the opening and took it, a daring glint in his eye. "So you think I'm handsome?" She gave him a withering look. "I'm teasing. What'll you have?"

"Whiskey soda."

He nodded wisely and glanced inside - the music had stopped and someone was shouting for something. "I'll bring it out here. It's too warm inside for me."

[mercurygray]

Fred Torvaldsen - Masterlist

Someone said there would be donuts, and Freda Torvaldsen is here to make sure they’re right. Joining the Red Cross Clubmobile service from Madison, Wisconsin, Freda (or Fred, more often) brings a Midwestern sense of hospitality and generosity to her work making sure that all of the men on base feel at home and cared for. As a somewhat new replacement for the team at Thorpe Abbotts, Fred is still learning everyone’s name (and everyone is still learning hers!) but she’s confident with time she’ll fit right in - and a certain clarinet-playing captain is hoping she fits with him.

The New Girl (June 1943) Rosy Cheeks (June 1943) Whiskey Soda (July 1943) Watching The Rain (July 1943)

Sunset (July 1943) Sunrise (July 1943 - the next day)

Sweetness (August 1943)

Pipesmoke (October 11, 1943)

The Only One I've Got (February 1944)

[mercurygray]

27 & 42 for Fred & Brady? 💙

How do they say “I love you” non-verbally?

Fred's whole job is serving people - she'll show that she loves someone by spending more time with them than she does the other people in the room. I also think that she and Brady share a lot of quick but very intense moments of eye contact to sort of reaffirm that while she might be with someone else in the moment, she's always with him.

I think that doing this nonverbally is is something John is still working on, in a big way, and so he tries a lot of different things. Casual touches while Fred is working and doesn't have time to chat, bringing her food or fresh coffee, and those really significant glances across the room. I also think letting her sleep in late is an act of love, sometimes.

What’s their relationship like with each other’s friends/families?

John's family loves Fred. It's hard not to - that's why she got the Clubmobile job. She can talk to anyone, about anything, she's good with kids, and she's really friendly. And she makes excellent coffee. His work friends we already know about because they've all met her, and I suspect his college friends will give him a little bit of ribbing for falling for a teacher.

Fred's family...is a little reserved about John. That's not to say they don't like him - they do. They're just Norwegians and Midwesterners and they take a little bit of time to warm up, particularly Fred's dad. Her mom loves him - he's a pilot and a musician and he is in love with her baby girl and that is all the romance novel she needs. Fred's brother, Peter, thinks he's all right, and he can respect his war record. But Mr. Torvaldsen was a soldier, too - he fought in World War One so he could become a citizen, and he knows what wars do to men. It takes a long time for him to get to the point where he trusts that this relationship is a good one. (He wants his daughter to be happy.) Maybe at some point they'll open some beers and talk about the war. Maybe.

[Thirsty Thursday: Ship Game Asks - The Basics]

[mercurygray]

How do Fred, Cord, and Marion fit into the 1920's TDS AU(which I think might be my favorite of your AUs)? Or which AU is best for your new MOTA girlies?

Oh, Val, I think the 1920s au is one of my favorites, too, and I'm not even sure why! (Is it because Joan's un-apologetically in charge? is it that one scene? Is it the clothes? I have no idea.)

I haven't done quite as much AU stuff for the MOTA gals yet, but this is as good a place to start as any!

The minute I read this ask I thought about Cord - her father is the outfit's bookkeeper, a critical functionary who's taught his daughter everything he knows about keeping and cooking books. She's in this world but also somehow not of it - comfortable with guns and vice and everyone knows her, but she's somehow off limits.

(This is your regular history note that I think the mob did fly booze in from Canada, at some point.) So here Bucky can still be a pilot, beloved of his men, handy with a gun, always talking a big game and always betting on the Yankees, and here's the only girl he sees on a regular basis who isn't a whore and isn't here to laugh at all his jokes. Buck is his silent, hard-as-nails friend, the one who shoots first and asks questions later.

Fred I can see as a girl whose father owns a bar - a local watering hole, tied house kind of place, popular with the stockyard and mill workers, the kind of joint no one pays attention to and stumbles along well enough after they've paid their protection money. Popular enough with some of the guys to come and have a drink and a smoke and a chance to listen to the fight on the radio, and maybe get an eye in at Mr. Torvaldsen's pretty daughter, who sometimes tends the bar and can sometimes coax a tune out of that rickety old piano in the corner.

Marion…for Marion I have some options. Part of me likes the recently widowed wife of an outfit kingpin, a woman who knew her husband's business well enough to run it herself, looking for an alliance more than a marriage. I also thought about making her a madam - a shrewd woman of business catering to the more discerning tastes for sin, someone who intimidates both Fred and Cord for slightly different reasons.

anyway if anyone wants to talk about this or any other aus please hit me up because i'm still waiting for news on my offer and ready to throw my phone out a window.

[mercurygray]

Masters of the Air OCs

1st Lt. Cordelia “Cord” Callaway [tumblr tag]

Very solidly middle class, Cord's father flew for the Signal Corps in the last war and currently works as a supervisor for Curtiss-Wright in Dayton, Ohio, where she grew up around factory floors and technical specs. Her father took her up in a biplane when she was about ten, and she’s never looked back, transitioning straight back to the factory herself after her degree was finished. She might have had a direct ticket to the test field at Dayton if she hadn’t elected to go overseas first. She’s not a flashy flier, but a reliable one - a woman that other people look to for answers and reassurance. Answers willingly to Cord, Cordelia, or Callaway, and grudgingly to Cordy. Since they won’t quite give her a plane, she’s working the flight control desk, and will be damned if a single one of these deaths is her fault.

Freda “Fred” Torvaldsen [tumblr tag]

Someone said there would be donuts, and Freda Torvaldsen is here to make sure they’re right. Joining the Red Cross Clubmobile service from Madison, Wisconsin, Freda (or Fred, more often) brings a Midwestern sense of hospitality and generosity to her work making sure that all of the men on base feel at home and cared for. As a somewhat new replacement for the team at Thorpe Abbotts, Fred is still learning everyone’s name (and everyone is still learning hers!) but she’s confident with time she’ll fit right in.

Cpt. Marion Brennan [tumblr tag]

This is not, as they say, her first rodeo. A career army officer who joined the WAC when she was fresh out of high school, Marion Brennan has served in a variety of posts all across the country, leading finally to her first overseas posting at Thorpe Abbotts as the head of the Women’s Army Corps contingent at the base. In addition to being in charge of general group welfare, Brennan also serves as an Intelligence adjutant, helping Captain Bowman run post-op interrogations. Though she’s only five or six years older than some of the officers she supervises, the base affectionately refers to her as ‘Mom’ (though not often to her face) and her calm and patient approach to problem solving is seen and appreciated by everyone. Brennan has now seen several commanding officers come and go, and takes her own role as a fixed point in the lives of these young men and women very seriously.