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Michelle Unwin wasn’t a stupid woman, and what’s more, she had a very long memory. She knew that voice the second it started speaking, stopping Dean from killing Eggsy. She’d never forget it. It haunted her nightmares. In some ways she didn’t remember the day a stranger told her that her husband was dead, not as well as most people would think. Some things were hazy. Others were so crystal clear. She doesn’t remember how Eggsy got the medal. She doesn’t remember exactly what was said (her nightmares assured that). But she remembered a voice and an impeccably dressed man. She didn’t remember a name or if he’d even told her what his name was.
She remembered that her husband was dead. She remembered that they got the body, clean up, but she wiped away from the makeup and saw the wounds. She was lucky that they’d been able to put his body back together so well. They still had a closed casket. There were no military honors and she could never get out of anyone why that was. She got the (smaller than she expected) pension, which she blew through on the funeral, and a severance pay from whatever Lee had been doing. She went through that all within two years.
Oh, but she never forgot that voice. It did haunt her. In her dreams it said her husband died so many ways. Sometimes it was as simple as “I’m sorry, but your husband’s dead”. Other times it was “I’m very sorry Madame, but I killed him.” The man’s face never changed in her mind and the tone never changed, just the words.
So it was as much horror as relief when that voice got Eggsy away from Dean. He was alive. For now.
She started getting calls every bit as vague as Lee’s had been. She didn’t know what Eggsy was doing, but she knew he was following after his dad. She started grieving him all over again. She wondered when the impeccably dressed man would return to her door step to give her another medal. Would it go to Daisy this time when she turned it away?
Would the man come for Daisy next? Would he wait the twenty some years for Daisy to be cannon fodder age?
Maybe she really would use the favor this time, see if the impeccably dressed man would come from Dean first.
She thought a lot about Dean while Eggsy was away.
Michelle had made a lot of mistakes. Dean was one of her biggest (and yet not because even Eggsy would say he’d rather suffer a life time of black eyes than have to give up Daisy. Michelle would suffer worse for her precious baby).
Dean had played the best game of any man Michelle had never met. He was always rough and gruff. She always knew he could be cruel. She’d seen him be nasty to his boys. But he was always so gentle with her. He made her feel special because he was so kind to her. And he was kind to Eggsy. He made it so Michelle could only work one job and get to spend time with her son.
He helped her pay bills. He bought Eggsy toys. Hell, he still bought Eggsy things. Eggsy had a nice wardrobe, nice stereo. Dean had always provided. The first time he hit her, he’d apologized. He’d been very drunk and he’d bought her ice when he sobered up. He applied salve. He bought her a nice coat. He bought Eggsy new sneakers he’d been wanting.
The hitting wasn’t common at first. Then it became common. Eggsy started stepping in. At first he stopped when Eggsy stepped in. Then he’d punch Eggsy to get to her. When she threatened to leave if he ever touched Eggsy again, he had some of his boys come around more often. They’d hold Eggsy down so Dean could hit her. But they never punched him. They never hit him. Eggsy’s bruises on his wrists were from his stuggling.
He asked her to leave Dean then. But she’d already begun to figure out what Eggsy would understand later: Dean was a powerful man. That was what she’d liked to begin with. He was powerful and he wasn’t going anywhere. She’d seen that as dependability. She thought of him as a solid wall that would protect her and her son. And Dean was powerful, and he wasn’t going anywhere. The Estate was his territory and she’d never be able to get out. She’d never be able to make enough to get out, especially because Dean would never let her.
So the next time he hit Eggsy and she threatened to leave him. He’d laughed and hit Eggsy again. He knew she wasn’t going anywhere and so did she. Eggsy didn’t understand yet the hole she’d dug them into. He wouldn’t see until later that she was trapped there for the rest of her life and that she was completely the reason why.
Eggsy never did get that last part.
“It’s all Dean, Mum. He got you good. He played nice until you couldn’t get out,” Eggsy would tell her.
But she’d still been the one who’d seen Dean was dangerous. She should have known that Dean wouldn’t treat her that special for long.
Well, he still did treat her special. He was monogamous to a point (he’d kiss other girls, but she was the only bed he kept). He might smack Eggsy, but he’d chew his boys out if they did the same, or every tried to hurt Eggsy’s friends. Michelle had bartered that. She bartered that with her body. He still mostly smacked Eggsy when Eggsy would get in between them. She still begged Eggsy not to. She’d beg him while they each helped each other apply salve or concealer.
Eggsy kept doing it. He was always so much like his father.
That was why she broke when he called to tell her how well he was doing in basic. She could hear him smiling over the phone. She could hear his father and that was what broke her.
It was the worst thing she’d ever done, worse than marrying Dean even. She couldn’t pretend like she wasn’t selfish after that. She just knew Eggsy was going to die in some far off desert like Lee (she didn’t actually know where Lee died, but she suspected in a desert, because those were where all the wars had been for a while). She could imagine having to bury her son, this time with full military honors and his room would be forever abandoned and she’d be left alone with Dean forever.
She begged Eggsy to come home. And he did, the loyal, stupid boy.
She laughed and cried herself to sleep the night Eggsy came home. He really was just like his father.
Then Daisy was born and basically everyone in their family was trying to make certain at least she could get out of the Estate. It was the only time she’d seen Dean and Eggsy put their heads together.
It was also the first time she smacked Dean.
“What good will it do any of us if Eggsy goes to prison?” she screamed at Dean when she found out that Eggsy had been breaking into homes and stealing to help finance a fund to help send Daisy to good schools. “He could turn you in!”
“He wouldn’t!” Dean snarled.
Michelle laughed bitterly because she knew that Eggsy never would. He’d never risk his mother or his sister’s livelihood. Then she made the third biggest mistake of her life.
“You really underestimate how much my son hates you,” she’d said quietly.
And that was the end of Eggsy and Dean’s partnership. Eggsy was never, ever going to be Dean. Eggsy, like Dean, like Lee, even like Michelle a little, he had violence squirming under his skin. But he also had gentleness in his heart and in his eyes. He reminded her of Lee’s father when he looked at Daisy like she was his whole world. She could see the kind old man she’d met the one time Lee had taken her to meet him before he died.
The old man had lost his mind years back, Alzheimer’s. He was all gentleness at that point. But Lee said as hard of a military man as his father had been, he’d never raised his hand to anyone he loved, or anyone who didn’t deserve it, not in civilian life anyway. Lee always said that he hoped their little Eggsy would be gentle like his father. That’s why he’d named Eggsy after the man, their little Gary.
Eggsy would never, ever turn Dean or any of his boys over. He’d never beat someone weaker than him bloody just because he was pissed, or just because he wanted to. But Eggsy was brilliant and he might have insinuated himself with Dean and his crew, become one of them, scum with a gentler heart.
At first Michelle was glad she’d stopped that. But Dean’s mistrust of Eggsy grew and grew.
And then he pulled a knife on Eggsy and Michelle realized just how mistaken she’d been to ever plant into Dean’s mind that Eggsy would be anything but loyal.
The impeccably dressed stranger saved Eggsy’s life that day. Michelle still wept bitter tears because she knew it was only a matter of time before Eggsy came home in a box like his father did.
She did get phone calls from Eggsy. A lot of times he was happy, completely vague, but happy. (So much like Lee). Sometimes he’d complain, mostly about the guys he was training with ‘bunch of wankers’, apparently. That made her smile to hear. So much like Eggsy.
He’d talk at length about his friend Roxy. He even put her on the phone a few times. (This would later be what saved her daughter’s life). Roxy was a very well spoken young woman, who seemed very fond of Eggsy, every bit as fond as he seemed of her.
Michelle started to wonder if maybe Eggsy would bring home a war bride. Or if maybe he’d be the war bride. Roxy was very competent and Eggsy talked about that Roxy could knock him out in some areas. Hearing about Roxy made Michelle start to feel some less scared. Roxy would protect Eggsy and Eggsy would protect Roxy. Roxy promised to come over for dinner when she and Eggsy finished whatever they were doing.
Michelle started looking for wedding dresses. (Turned out that she would need one before Eggsy would need one. Eggsy did eventually, one glorious summer day, look dashing in a white suit, but Michelle didn’t know that yet).
Eggsy showed up home one day. He had a melancholy way about him, like he was trying to accept that he didn’t deserve anything better than living on the Estate with her and Dean. But he also stood so much taller. Michelle again regretted keeping him from going into the military. He would have done so much better.
He left as quickly as he got there, leaving behind a pug (whose collar said JB and who Daisy instantly loved). Dean laughingly told her later how he’d come up to challenge him and then gotten scared and driven off. That didn’t seem right to Michelle. She sort of hoped that Eggsy had gone back to wherever he’d been. At least he’d been happy there.
The next time she heard from anyone was Roxy calling her frantically. She couldn’t tell her much except that she had to lock the front door with every lock they had, and then she had to lock Daisy in the bathroom. It sounded stupid, but Roxy sounded scared when she’d always sounded composed before. And Roxy told her that it was something Eggsy asked them to do.
So Michelle had done it.
It saved her daughter’s life.
Michelle had bruised hands. She hand splinters under her fingernails, and Daisy had been scared out of her mind, but she’d been safe.
She turned out to be a lot better off than a lot of people she’d known. Some of her girls were dead. Dean had broken ribs. He’d killed some of his boys. He wasn’t going to jail for it though. The Valentine’s Day Massacre had killed a lot of people, and no one was going to jail for the insane plan of a mad man (according to the people who’d been rescued from his secret bunker in the mountains).
A week later Eggsy came to get her.
She actually thought that maybe, just maybe he really was a tailor. She’d hoped anyway. Then he’d taken down all of Dean’s boys, and a couple of Dean’s boys (Poodle and Rottweiler) had about pissed themselves and actually run away. They promised they’d never touch Eggsy or his family again.
That was when Michelle really understand that Eggsy had become that impeccably dressed man.
He did bring her and Daisy to a new house. It was lovely and already furnished. Eggsy had gotten Ryan and Jamal to help all of them move. He’d hugged his friends (hurt was still alive) and promised to have them over after he’d gotten his family settled.
Eggsy had a semi eight-to-four. He had to go on ‘business trips’ a lot. But he got Daisy set up in a lovely daycare with other kids who lived on the same street, all posh and practically ridiculous. But Eggsy got them all nicer clothes, and he looked as posh as the rest of them in his bespoke suits and glasses (that Michelle knew very well Eggsy did not need. But they did make him look very handsome).
Roxy, it turned out, was every bit as delightful as Michelle had hoped. She fit in easily with Jamal and Ryan, though she was a posh as anyone else who lived on the street (and she did live nearby. She baby sat on her days off sometimes). She set up play dates with Daisy and Roxy’s niece Emily. The girls loved each other, and Roxy was happy to have some of Michelle’s girls bring their kids over to play with her niece as well.
Merlin was another pleasant surprised, Scottish and handsome and a pleasant man who seemed to think of Eggsy fondly like he might a nephew or another relative. And he spoke well of Eggsy (if vaguely), but Michelle thought that was normal now. It was her life and her son’s life. She had one job, and her baby in a beautiful daycare, and plenty of time to spend with both of her children, for the most part.
And Eggsy seemed to like his job, whatever it was. Yes, he did have to rush off sometimes. She thought of another impeccably dressed man telling her that what happened to Lee was classified.
“Do you work for him,” Michelle asked one day.
“Who?” Eggsy asked. He was bouncing Daisy on his knee and smiling at her.
“The man who saved you,” she said.
“Oh… he, um… Harry he… there was that… with Valentine, and-” His voice caught.
Michelle got up and put her arms around him. Eggsy had cried on her many times in his life. It always made her chest ache. This was no different. She still thought of the impeccably dressed man, Harry, as something like the harbinger of death. But he meant much more to Eggsy than that. She couldn’t understand it. But Eggsy was grieving.
She saw then that he wasn’t dealing with it well. She didn’t get a lot out of him about it. He hated Valentine though, hated him in such a specific and personal way. And he’d known about the plan of the madman before anyone else. He had saved her and Daisy. And Eggsy whispered he saw Harry die. She could put a few things together. Valentine killed Harry, probably directly.
She wondered if Eggsy had gotten a second medal. That thought hurt her so much that she hugged Eggsy too tight. But he clung to her and let out another little sob. He needed that comfort.
Their relationship changed after that. She knew that he couldn’t tell her a lot, but when he hurt or needed to just yell about something she gave him specific instructions to come to her. And to her surprise he actually did. He ranted about things that made no sense. Mostly about stupid people, especially stupid posh people. He grumbled about work being a pain in the ass and he groaned when he came home sore from a mission (‘business trip’).
She helped him apply salve and concealer again. He would grin and tell her that she really did not want to see the other guy. She would laugh and tell him that she believed him and she did. She would try not to think about that. Eggsy started collecting Sun papers. He framed them after missions and put them on the wall of his study.
“It’s something Harry did, yeah?” she asked.
Eggsy started a bit and blushed. “Yeah, he had a whole bloody room of them. And I mean bloody. Who paints a wall that red?”
She got a lot about Harry. Eggsy talked about him a lot. He talked about Harry beating this shit out of Dean’s boys. It made Michelle laugh.
“No wonder the puppies had been so scared,” she laughed. Eggsy laughed to.
He talked about Eggsy’s house and his stupid dog in the loo, and his ridiculous dead bug collection and his insistence that Eggsy was worth more and could be better.
Michelle apologized for making Eggsy come home from basic.
Eggsy waved her off. “My choice, mum. And I like what I do now a lot better.”
“I know you do,” Michelle said. “But I’m still sorry.”
“I know,” Eggsy said with a sad smile.
She got him to open up a little more about Harry, and how upset they’d been with each other at the end. Eggsy had failed some test that had to do with JB. (“Baby, you are just like your grandfather. No way the old man could have done anything to hurt an animal.”) He talked about how angry Harry had been. Eggsy wondered if Harry ever would have been proud of him after that.
Michelle hugged him and promised Eggsy that Harry would have been. She told him how proud she was of him for everything. He’d always been strong and passionate and kind.
“He was just upset,” she said, rubbing a tear from Eggsy’s cheek. “He wouldn’t have been upset if he hadn’t cared. You remember how upset I’d get when you got between me and Dean.”
“Yeah,” Eggsy mumbled.
“Baby, I was upset because you got hurt. I’ve always been proud of you. You’ve been a man far longer than you should have needed to be. You reminded me so much of your father in those times. I was always proud of you for it. But I’d have never told you then because I was scared you’d keep doing it. I’d rather have you think I was furious with you than have you be hurt.”
“I still did it anyway,” he pointed out with a rueful and impish smile.
“Yes, well. Imagine how much worse you’d have been if I’d told you what I really felt? I bet Harry felt like that,” she said. She ran her hand through her baby’s hair and watched him smile. She felt a weight on her heart ease a bit.
Her baby was still hurting and she couldn’t make the hurt go away. This was a hurt she’d never have been able to protect him from. But she could help him hurt a little less. It had been a truly long time since she’d really been able to do that.
She was surprised one day when Eggsy came down stairs with an overnight bag, looking as pale as a sheet.
“Babe, what is it?” she asked.
“Harry” Eggsy said. “He’s alive!”
“Are you going to see him?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Eggsy said. “He’s still, you know, out, but-”
Michelle raise a hand to stop him. “Go,” she said. “Call me at least once a day, okay?”
“Yeah,” Eggsy said. He went and gave her and Daisy a hug and then he was out the door, still in the chav gear he always preferred to wear at home.
He came home two weeks later wearing the same outfit. This time he had a man with him. He didn’t look like how Michelle remembered. For one thing he was older. For another he had a huge bandage over his left eye (she’d later be informed that it had been removed). His hair was clearly in the process of growing back after having been shaved. Given the scar tissue she saw peaking out under the bandage over his eye and what she saw on his scalp, she guessed the shaving was for brain surgery.
He was also in sweat pants and a tee shirt and coat, which he clearly wasn’t happy about.
Michelle didn’t ask questions, she just helped Eggsy help him to the downstairs bedroom (which Merlin and Roxy had come set up. Eggsy had begged her to let him bring Harry home. He’d apparently been in a coma for three months, through an exhausting moving process and physical therapy the last month).
“I brought Mr. Pickle, thought you might like something from home,” Eggsy said once they got Harry to the bed.
“Merlin’s idea?” Harry asked. His words sounded strange, like not completely right. Michelle had wanted to be a nurse once. A left side brain injury could affect language and speech.
“He brought the bugs,” Michelle said.
“And the sun articles,” Eggsy said with a grin. “Harry, this is Mum.”
“He knows,” Michelle said.
“Thank you,” Harry said. He sounded exhausted.
“Lay down and rest,” she told him.
She left him and Eggsy alone. She knew brain injuries could be traumatic. And Eggsy had really believed the man was dead. She went to make broth.
“He’s asleep,” Eggsy said. “The doctor’s said sleep is good, naps are good.” He sounded so nervous.
“I’m glad he’s alive,” she said. And she meant it. She still didn’t like him. But he was important to Eggsy and Eggsy wasn’t grieving anymore.
“Thanks Mum,” Eggsy said quietly. He gave her a hug and she hugged him back.
“You know, I’m a little surprised,” she said. “If he got hurt during VM day-”
“No, the day before, way, way before,” Eggsy said. “Merlin said that the ambulance got there in like a minute or two afterwards. Harry was through his first surgery and recovering when Valentine’s thing hit.”
Michelle nodded. A lot of patients had been spared if they were in comas or asleep. Something had registered in people’s minds that those people were “already down”, like they were dead when they weren’t. It saved a lot of patients, though not the doctors or nurses.
“He got lucky,” Michelle said.
“Very,” Eggsy agreed. He sounded relieved and grateful.
Eggsy stayed home for another two weeks to help with Harry’s recovery. A physical therapist came around three days a week. A speech therapist was there four days a week. Eggsy ran around to get Harry everything he needed.
Michelle tried not to spend too much time around the man, but when she did she could tell her was frustrated. He struggled with speech and sometimes switched into multiple different languages. Eggy started picking up Italian and Russian and Portuguese, trying to keep Harry from being so upset when no one could understand him.
Harry spent a lot of the day in bed. Eggsy moved the TV into his room. At first he’d tried and watched movies with Harry that clearly came from Harry’s move collection, but after the third time the man ended up near tears from frustration, Michelle suggested that Eggsy try things that had simply plots.
“Brain injury can mess up memory. Short cartoons, or like the Three Stooges, things that don’t matter for plot, even Laugh In is better than trying to watch My Fair Lady with him,” Michelle finally told Eggsy.
Eggsy had looked hurt, but over the next week Harry’s room became filled with DVDs for short cartoons like Adventure Time and Steven Universe, huge box sets of the Looney Tunes and a bunch of Three Stooges and Marx Brothers.
Harry also took to watching Daisy’s TV shows with her. They were equally plot short or irrelevant.
Actually, Harry was a very good baby sitter. After Eggsy had to go back to work (moving to evening hours so that he could be home while Michelle was at work and Michelle could be home while Eggsy was at work for about six-ish hours a day), Michelle would often sit Daisy and Harry on the sofa and turn on the TV. Harry would hold Daisy and let her play with his hands and his robe ties.
He always smiled at her like she was precious, which endeared him to Michelle greatly.
He lived with them for eight months. During that time his speech and reading improved greatly. He began to move around and cook for himself. He even began going for morning runs before he moved out.
Michelle found one day that she actually liked him. It was the way her was with Daisy. It was when he showed her how to cut up broccoli into spaghetti sauce so that Daisy could have veggies in her food. It was how grateful he’d been when she’d bought scar reducing cream at the store one day. It was the way he made Eggsy laugh. It was the way he made Eggsy smile.
It was his quiet humor and sarcasm. It was the way he broke the man’s hand when he tried to called Eggsy a rent boy and as a price. It was the way he comforted Daisy and read her bedtime stories. It was the way he groaned at the paper work he started getting the last month before he left. It was how very human he was.
It was the great respect he spoke with whenever he mentioned Lee. It was the total adoration in his voice when he spoke of Eggsy. It was the times she caught him and Eggsy sharing kisses, and the way Harry’s eyes always went to Eggsy first when he entered a room.
He loved her son and he grew to love her daughter.
Michelle wasn’t even surprised when she realized that she loved Harry too, the way she loved Jamal and Ryan and her girls, and Roxy (not like how she loved Merlin. That was different. She was pretty certain she loved Merlin like Eggsy loved Harry, which only made her love Harry more.) And Merlin loved Harry, and so did Roxy.
People she loved and cared about and deeply respected loved this man.
Most of all it was the day he sat down with her and told her that her son had saved the world from Valentine’s plan and that Eggsy was an incredible Agent and that told her as much as he could of what wasn’t completely classified.
He let her cry on him when she finally told her what happened to Lee. It made her hate him again, but not for long. Lee had been a hero. He’d grabbed Harry Hart and threw the man away from a grenade and jumped on it himself. He was a hero and foolish.
“If I have anything to say about, Eggsy will live to retire on a lovely pension and die of old age in his bed,” Harry told her. And from what she gathered, he did have a lot to say about it.
She didn’t have the whole scope of it, but when Harry came to get the day before he moved out and asked her for Eggsy’s hand in marriage, she had felt safe to turn her son over to him.
The wedding was ridiculous. Turned out Harry wasn’t just a gentleman but an actual Lord. The affair had enough pomp to make the entire Unwin family gag. But Eggsy looked beautiful in his white tux, and Michelle started crying as soon as she gave Eggsy away. The pair of them looked at each other like they were the world.
(Also, Michelle got to meet the lovely Swedish Princess Tilde, who Michelle recognized from TV as being the person who’d helped to keep the Scandinavian countries together after VM Day. The princess had introduced herself and thanked Michelle for birthing the son who rescued her from Valentine. That had been shocking).
And really, Michelle had been right. The impeccably dressed man had taken her Eggsy away, but only to live with him in a house three doors down from where Michelle and Daisy lived.