An Unlikely Devotion

Chapter Two

A/N: hey y'all! hope you liked the last one, i've got loads where that came from haha. comments are my lifeblood!

—————

Later that night Alice lay contemplating long after Josef had fallen asleep. She'd gone to bed a few hours before midnight and had laid staring at the plaster detailing of the high ceiling since, save for the fifteen minutes between Josef entering the room at half-past two and the beginning of his heavy snores when she pretended to be asleep so as to not have to interrupt her thoughts with conversation.

She'd told him near the end of their conversation how long they'd need to stay in Her London for, and he hadn't taken too kindly to it initially but as the day waned on he grew more comfortable with the idea. Josef had no desire to leave Vasily or Svetlana behind, though was comforted by the idea that it would be simply a weekend without him for them, even though it would be two months for himself.

Josef lay stiff on his back, still strong and commanding even in sleep, though the tension in his forehead and along his jaw grew slacker the deeper into sleep he drifted. Alice hated to watch him in sleep at first, noticing how small he looked in their big bed away from all the stresses of political life. More recently, she also began to notice how aged he began to look at night. The old pockmarks in his oft-tanned face grew deeper with the shadow tricks of the moonlight, and the smile lines at the ends of his eyes widened and deepened with each passing day. She'd found no more than three greying hairs as of yet, but those even were plucked out quickly before either of them were able to give it much thought. It was only on nights like this, when she laid awake deep into the early morning with nothing but her thoughts, did she think again about those grey hairs. The creaks of his bones on cold mornings, and the way he slept in every day until nearly noon were dreaded upon as well.

Alice had never considered the thought that Josef might die before her, and had certainly never entertained any thoughts of the realities of her life afterwards. There was no way she could, in good conscience, leave Sveta by herself even if she was of age to marry by then. Sveta would technically have Vasily as well, though Alice worried very frequently about him and the paths he was taking.

She lifted her head where it lay on the linen pillowcase and placed it instead on his shoulder, resting her cheek against the fabric of his sleeping tunic. His skin was almost too warm for her to stand on the unusually temperate Moscow night, but Alice endured it - going so far as to snake her right hand down within the bedclothes to grasp his own. Josef stirred a moment, before rolling ever so slightly towards her. Alice tried not to notice where his own hand had nestled itself on top of her stomach. She found herself hoping that his fingers could not feel the slight swell, and with that thought found she could no longer hold back the flood of grief that had until that moment threatened to consume her very soul.

She had been an expert at weeping without sound during her childhood, when she and her sister Margaret were forced to share a bedroom. She hadn't had to exercise said skill in quite a few years, however, and thus it was only a short moment before she felt a stir at her side.

Realizing she was with child only a few weeks prior had been the most terrifying experience of Alice's young life, and that, given her extensive adventures thus far, was saying something indeed. She had no idea at all how she would tell Josef, or Svetlana and Vasily for that matter, but figured she must get it over and done with before they left, to avoid as much discomfort as possible.