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zaubraFandom: UK Politics
Title: Her
Ship(s): Margaret Thatcher/William Hague, Ffion Hague/William Hague
Word Count: 1,881
Rating: PG-13
Summary: "Half of you won’t be here in 30 or 40 years time!" William Hague looks back on his lifetime of memories of Margaret Thatcher. For a prompt at the meme that said Thatcher/Hague was the one pairing they'd always wanted to see.
Disclaimer: This is a creative work of fiction, composed of fictional characters inspired by the public personas of living people. No injury or disrespect is intended to the persons named. If you've found this by googling yourself or someone you know, stop playing on the Internet and go run the country.
Her
Ffion finds him.
She stands with him for a minute, then touches him on the elbow. “Come to bed when you can.”
He inclines his head, listens to her footsteps pad away. He stares out into the darkness; he watches his own face reflected in the glass by the wavering candlelight.
~//~
1977
What do you truly remember from when you were sixteen? A jumble of bright colours; shards of memories; shockingly deep emotions, vivid and inexplicable; fragments of melody; something forgotten which you have lost.
He remembers the smoothness of his notes under his fingers, the lump in his throat as he began to speak, the exhilaration of having the entire hall under his spell, the stretch of his smile as he turned to see her clapping. He remembers the elation of his success, as he delivered the line that made the history books: “It’s all right for some of you. Half of you won’t be here in 30 or 40 years time!”
He remembers nerves, excitement, smiles, joy, applause. And her.
There was only ever one her.
~//~
1977
“Your speech was thrilling,” she said, and her voice was gracious, somehow both girlish and regal.
His first instinct was to bow, even as far back as then, but he managed an awkward little nod instead. “Thank you, Mrs Thatcher.”
They were in a crowded room, and he knew her time was precious, and yet she lingered by his side. For a moment, she met his eyes, and he felt his colour rising. Desperately, he plundered his brain for something to say, but all wit and wisdom had fled.
Even as he did so, her eyes slipped from his. “And how old are you, Mr...”
“Hague,” he said, turning even redder as her eyes swept slowly down his front, taking in the measure of the man he was becoming. “William Hague, Mrs Thatcher. And I’m 16.”
“Sixteen,” she repeated, her eyes sweeping back up his body – and the heat of the moment had led him to imagine things, for he would have sworn in that instant that her gaze lingered on his lips, before being raised once more innocently to his own eyes. “Practically a man, William – may I call you William?”
He managed to force words out, although he could hear that they were half-strangled, and the smile in her eyes grew, a private smile between the two of them that acknowledged his nerves and forgave them. “It would be an honour.”
“Well then, William,” she said – and reached a hand out to lay it on his arm, light touch searing like a brand – “I look forward to the day you join us in the Commons.”
Later he would be sure that when she left him, her hand slipped from his arm slowly, caressingly, almost sensuously; later again, he would laugh at himself, and chalk it up to a hormonal imagination; later still, he would wonder.
In that moment, she left him, and moved off in the crowd of admirers, and his eyes followed.
~//~
1979
Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.
She was never what he would have called a beautiful woman, but something about the way she spoke, something about the way she looked at you and through you, something about the way she smiled…
He closed his eyes and let the voice of his Leader – of his Prime Minister, how new and how breathtaking – wash over him.
And if his hand crept somewhere it shouldn’t, he was 18. Reason and pardon enough.
~//~
1987
They were winning, winning, winning.
Not his seat, of course – Labour could have run a horse in Wentworth and still won – but he still couldn’t stop smiling. Parliamentary candidate at last, and not even his measly chances could dampen his spirit.
She was no longer as young as he remembered her, but then he was no longer as young as he was. He was all of 26 now, an old man; she was on the verge of her third general election win, and already a legend.
He waved her banner high, and came a decent second with twenty percent of the vote.
Next time, he vowed to himself.
~//~
1989
“Luck has been with you,” she said, and her smile still touched something inside him.
He felt his mouth begin to tug sideways, and watched her eyes begin to gleam. “Indeed it has.”
No untested 28-year-old should have won that by-election, even if it had been a Conservative safe seat. Indeed, his own vote share had fallen by a wincingly high twenty-four percent. But Lord love them, the remnants of the SDP that had refused to acquiesce to the previous year’s merger with the Liberal Party had decided to field their own candidate. With the Liberal wing split neatly down the middle, he’d just managed to squeeze in.
Her voice, warm and just the littlest bit sharp, recalled him to himself. “I look forward to welcoming you into the Commons quite soon, William.”
This time, when she set her hand on his elbow, he was no 16-year-old youth, blushing and hormone-clouded, for all that he was still the youngest of her MPs. “Yes,” he said, and let the whip end of the smile stray into his own eyes, “I look forward to that as well.”
This time, when her hand slipped from his arm, he knew the promise it left behind.
~//~
1990
He watched her final speech in the Commons from the backbenches, a lone anonymous figure amongst the crowds.
On her feet, to Dennis Skinner’s suggestion that she might become governor of the new European Central Bank: “What a good idea.”
The house laughed, and he smiled. His voice sounded alien as he raised it with the Tory cheers; abstracted, as if it was not entirely under his control.
The curve of her arm, as she raised it.
– The feeling of that curve under his fingers –
She half turned toward them. “I’m enjoying this.”
The sharp jut of her chin.
– His lips, caressing that sharpness, tasting it –
That legendary hair.
– against his fingertips –
Another backbencher, pointing: “You can wipe the floor with these people.”
Laughter.
– her laughter, muffled in his shoulder –
He shook his head to clear it, and watched her work her magic, one last time.
~//~
“Shall I show you how we do things in the Conservative party?” she had said.
He had closed his mouth, and shut the door.
What else is there to remember?
The way she had made him strip, and had looked him over with that sparkle in her eye, ever-so-slowly?
The way she had merely tipped her legs slightly apart, and he had been between them in an instant – she, twining her leg around his naked shoulder, he, bending to his task with a will?
The way she had shown him what he could expect if he transgressed; the way he had shuddered against her, his own response to the pain surprising him (but not her); the way she had gone on without a word, until he was achingly hard and begging for release?
The way she had been completely unafraid of her own aging body, and in so doing had transformed herself into an ageless being?
The way she had let him touch her, simultaneously all woman and all master?
The way she had felt when he had at last surged inside, as she stroked his hair and whispered fond encouragement, even as she dragged her nails down his back, drawing blood?
The way she had touched him like she owned him?
The way she had lain after, sated, that smile in her eyes, while he felt like he would never move again?
The way she had laughed, when he joked that she ought to mark him?
The way she had done it, in bold dark strokes proclaiming him hers with a few flicks of the pen?
The way she had taken a part of him that night?
~//~
1991
He saw her in the tea room, laughing with Dennis Skinner for nearly an hour, with all and sundry craning to hear.
He was beyond that.
He caught her eye from across the room, and perhaps he imagined it, but her eyes seemed to linger on the spot where she had traced her name, all those months ago.
He smiled at her, and turned away.
~//~
1995
“Ffion,” he said, his voice failing to capture the Welsh lilt.
His new Welsh tutor smiled, and her eyes sparkled.
In a way, they reminded him of hers.
~//~
May 1997
“I…I have to run,” he told Ffion.
“But why?” she asked. “You’re still so young.”
36 didn’t feel young. And how to explain, even to the woman you loved - especially to the woman you loved - that you’d tasted power on another woman’s lips; that you’d drunk the heady smell of success from another woman’s touch; that you’d been marked for greatness, and could not stay your hand?
He ran.
~//~
June 1997
There was a moment, when Clarke bought Redwood’s support with the promise of the Shadow Chancellorship, that he thought he’d lost.
But she would not let that happen.
(He no longer knew if he agreed with her on everything; he was his own man, and the Major years had been long ones. She was the past, and he had never been more sure that he was the future.
But you did not turn her down, and he did not want to.)
With her standing at his side, with the cameras flashing, he felt invincible.
He won the next day.
~//~
The candle is burning down.
He watches the wax trickle.
~//~
What else is there to remember?
She disapproved of him sharing a room with Ffion at the party conference, two months before their wedding, and apparently made her displeasure known to quite a few people.
He cannot quite shake the feeling that she was upset not because of the immorality, but because of the passing of time and the fading of that mark upon his skin.
She refused to come to their pre-wedding party, because she was not invited to the tiny wedding. She claimed a prior engagement.
He thinks she must have thought that Ffion put her foot down. But Ffion does not know, has never known…it was he who wanted the pledging of his troth to his Ffion to be unshadowed by the past.
She still smiled at him at gatherings, and even as her eyes became increasingly weighted with forgetfulness, there still glittered some trace of memory.
He lets the memories wash through him; wash through, and over.
~//~
The candle burns down.
He blows it out.
There is darkness.
~//~
Ffion is warm. He spoons up behind her, trying not to disturb her, staring at the shadows of her hair. She is soft under his arm, the woman he loves, the woman who shares his life.
He presses a kiss to her shoulder.
“Have you put her to rest, then?” Ffion’s voice is small in the darkness. Gentle.
“Yes.”
Something in his voice must have given him away. She turns in his arms. “Are you…”
“I’m fine,” he says, and closes his eyes.
~//~
Title: Her
Ship(s): Margaret Thatcher/William Hague, Ffion Hague/William Hague
Word Count: 1,881
Rating: PG-13
Summary: "Half of you won’t be here in 30 or 40 years time!" William Hague looks back on his lifetime of memories of Margaret Thatcher. For a prompt at the meme that said Thatcher/Hague was the one pairing they'd always wanted to see.
Disclaimer: This is a creative work of fiction, composed of fictional characters inspired by the public personas of living people. No injury or disrespect is intended to the persons named. If you've found this by googling yourself or someone you know, stop playing on the Internet and go run the country.
Her
Ffion finds him.
She stands with him for a minute, then touches him on the elbow. “Come to bed when you can.”
He inclines his head, listens to her footsteps pad away. He stares out into the darkness; he watches his own face reflected in the glass by the wavering candlelight.
~//~
1977
What do you truly remember from when you were sixteen? A jumble of bright colours; shards of memories; shockingly deep emotions, vivid and inexplicable; fragments of melody; something forgotten which you have lost.
He remembers the smoothness of his notes under his fingers, the lump in his throat as he began to speak, the exhilaration of having the entire hall under his spell, the stretch of his smile as he turned to see her clapping. He remembers the elation of his success, as he delivered the line that made the history books: “It’s all right for some of you. Half of you won’t be here in 30 or 40 years time!”
He remembers nerves, excitement, smiles, joy, applause. And her.
There was only ever one her.
~//~
1977
“Your speech was thrilling,” she said, and her voice was gracious, somehow both girlish and regal.
His first instinct was to bow, even as far back as then, but he managed an awkward little nod instead. “Thank you, Mrs Thatcher.”
They were in a crowded room, and he knew her time was precious, and yet she lingered by his side. For a moment, she met his eyes, and he felt his colour rising. Desperately, he plundered his brain for something to say, but all wit and wisdom had fled.
Even as he did so, her eyes slipped from his. “And how old are you, Mr...”
“Hague,” he said, turning even redder as her eyes swept slowly down his front, taking in the measure of the man he was becoming. “William Hague, Mrs Thatcher. And I’m 16.”
“Sixteen,” she repeated, her eyes sweeping back up his body – and the heat of the moment had led him to imagine things, for he would have sworn in that instant that her gaze lingered on his lips, before being raised once more innocently to his own eyes. “Practically a man, William – may I call you William?”
He managed to force words out, although he could hear that they were half-strangled, and the smile in her eyes grew, a private smile between the two of them that acknowledged his nerves and forgave them. “It would be an honour.”
“Well then, William,” she said – and reached a hand out to lay it on his arm, light touch searing like a brand – “I look forward to the day you join us in the Commons.”
Later he would be sure that when she left him, her hand slipped from his arm slowly, caressingly, almost sensuously; later again, he would laugh at himself, and chalk it up to a hormonal imagination; later still, he would wonder.
In that moment, she left him, and moved off in the crowd of admirers, and his eyes followed.
~//~
1979
Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.
She was never what he would have called a beautiful woman, but something about the way she spoke, something about the way she looked at you and through you, something about the way she smiled…
He closed his eyes and let the voice of his Leader – of his Prime Minister, how new and how breathtaking – wash over him.
And if his hand crept somewhere it shouldn’t, he was 18. Reason and pardon enough.
~//~
1987
They were winning, winning, winning.
Not his seat, of course – Labour could have run a horse in Wentworth and still won – but he still couldn’t stop smiling. Parliamentary candidate at last, and not even his measly chances could dampen his spirit.
She was no longer as young as he remembered her, but then he was no longer as young as he was. He was all of 26 now, an old man; she was on the verge of her third general election win, and already a legend.
He waved her banner high, and came a decent second with twenty percent of the vote.
Next time, he vowed to himself.
~//~
1989
“Luck has been with you,” she said, and her smile still touched something inside him.
He felt his mouth begin to tug sideways, and watched her eyes begin to gleam. “Indeed it has.”
No untested 28-year-old should have won that by-election, even if it had been a Conservative safe seat. Indeed, his own vote share had fallen by a wincingly high twenty-four percent. But Lord love them, the remnants of the SDP that had refused to acquiesce to the previous year’s merger with the Liberal Party had decided to field their own candidate. With the Liberal wing split neatly down the middle, he’d just managed to squeeze in.
Her voice, warm and just the littlest bit sharp, recalled him to himself. “I look forward to welcoming you into the Commons quite soon, William.”
This time, when she set her hand on his elbow, he was no 16-year-old youth, blushing and hormone-clouded, for all that he was still the youngest of her MPs. “Yes,” he said, and let the whip end of the smile stray into his own eyes, “I look forward to that as well.”
This time, when her hand slipped from his arm, he knew the promise it left behind.
~//~
1990
He watched her final speech in the Commons from the backbenches, a lone anonymous figure amongst the crowds.
On her feet, to Dennis Skinner’s suggestion that she might become governor of the new European Central Bank: “What a good idea.”
The house laughed, and he smiled. His voice sounded alien as he raised it with the Tory cheers; abstracted, as if it was not entirely under his control.
The curve of her arm, as she raised it.
– The feeling of that curve under his fingers –
She half turned toward them. “I’m enjoying this.”
The sharp jut of her chin.
– His lips, caressing that sharpness, tasting it –
That legendary hair.
– against his fingertips –
Another backbencher, pointing: “You can wipe the floor with these people.”
Laughter.
– her laughter, muffled in his shoulder –
He shook his head to clear it, and watched her work her magic, one last time.
~//~
“Shall I show you how we do things in the Conservative party?” she had said.
He had closed his mouth, and shut the door.
What else is there to remember?
The way she had made him strip, and had looked him over with that sparkle in her eye, ever-so-slowly?
The way she had merely tipped her legs slightly apart, and he had been between them in an instant – she, twining her leg around his naked shoulder, he, bending to his task with a will?
The way she had shown him what he could expect if he transgressed; the way he had shuddered against her, his own response to the pain surprising him (but not her); the way she had gone on without a word, until he was achingly hard and begging for release?
The way she had been completely unafraid of her own aging body, and in so doing had transformed herself into an ageless being?
The way she had let him touch her, simultaneously all woman and all master?
The way she had felt when he had at last surged inside, as she stroked his hair and whispered fond encouragement, even as she dragged her nails down his back, drawing blood?
The way she had touched him like she owned him?
The way she had lain after, sated, that smile in her eyes, while he felt like he would never move again?
The way she had laughed, when he joked that she ought to mark him?
The way she had done it, in bold dark strokes proclaiming him hers with a few flicks of the pen?
The way she had taken a part of him that night?
~//~
1991
He saw her in the tea room, laughing with Dennis Skinner for nearly an hour, with all and sundry craning to hear.
He was beyond that.
He caught her eye from across the room, and perhaps he imagined it, but her eyes seemed to linger on the spot where she had traced her name, all those months ago.
He smiled at her, and turned away.
~//~
1995
“Ffion,” he said, his voice failing to capture the Welsh lilt.
His new Welsh tutor smiled, and her eyes sparkled.
In a way, they reminded him of hers.
~//~
May 1997
“I…I have to run,” he told Ffion.
“But why?” she asked. “You’re still so young.”
36 didn’t feel young. And how to explain, even to the woman you loved - especially to the woman you loved - that you’d tasted power on another woman’s lips; that you’d drunk the heady smell of success from another woman’s touch; that you’d been marked for greatness, and could not stay your hand?
He ran.
~//~
June 1997
There was a moment, when Clarke bought Redwood’s support with the promise of the Shadow Chancellorship, that he thought he’d lost.
But she would not let that happen.
(He no longer knew if he agreed with her on everything; he was his own man, and the Major years had been long ones. She was the past, and he had never been more sure that he was the future.
But you did not turn her down, and he did not want to.)
With her standing at his side, with the cameras flashing, he felt invincible.
He won the next day.
~//~
The candle is burning down.
He watches the wax trickle.
~//~
What else is there to remember?
She disapproved of him sharing a room with Ffion at the party conference, two months before their wedding, and apparently made her displeasure known to quite a few people.
He cannot quite shake the feeling that she was upset not because of the immorality, but because of the passing of time and the fading of that mark upon his skin.
She refused to come to their pre-wedding party, because she was not invited to the tiny wedding. She claimed a prior engagement.
He thinks she must have thought that Ffion put her foot down. But Ffion does not know, has never known…it was he who wanted the pledging of his troth to his Ffion to be unshadowed by the past.
She still smiled at him at gatherings, and even as her eyes became increasingly weighted with forgetfulness, there still glittered some trace of memory.
He lets the memories wash through him; wash through, and over.
~//~
The candle burns down.
He blows it out.
There is darkness.
~//~
Ffion is warm. He spoons up behind her, trying not to disturb her, staring at the shadows of her hair. She is soft under his arm, the woman he loves, the woman who shares his life.
He presses a kiss to her shoulder.
“Have you put her to rest, then?” Ffion’s voice is small in the darkness. Gentle.
“Yes.”
Something in his voice must have given him away. She turns in his arms. “Are you…”
“I’m fine,” he says, and closes his eyes.
~//~
