Alfie stood behind the bar of The Queen Victoria, devoid of the features which had led to his being perceived as something of a cheeky chappie. He was for the moment running the bar alone, although this would not pose a challenge even for Roxy with the current state of affairs; the seating areas were sparsely populated with a number of ageing men leaning over what looked to be copies of the day's Walford Gazette, and who had been nursing the same half-pints for almost as long as Alfie could remember. It was as if the establishment had converted overnight; to a library. Rather more accurately, Alfie was slouching against the said bar, his eyes searching the room aimlessly. What could he possibly be looking for? A particle of dust perhaps, given that Roxy had had him down in the bar at what he could only describe as an ungodly hour, armed with the vaccum, a duster and a brand new tin of polish; shortly before her announcement that she would be heading into town that morning to have coffee with an old friend. The turn of events had left Alfie with nothing to do other than to ponder his thoughts, one of which was that this wasn't the fun-loving individual that he had become acquainted with upon his return three long years ago. Alfie's boredom had been exacerbated by the fact that the bottling up had been completed, and that they would not be expecting a delivery for the foreseeable future, having taken receipt of one the previous day. For one such as Alfie whom had been in the pub game for some years now, this of course was something that should be foreseeable, and which they ought to be able to predict with some degree of accuracy. When he had been running the pub with Kat, they could take delivery of a given quantity of lager or another commodity, and be fairly sure as to when they would require a subsequent delivery. The reality of late was some way from this; one week they would be on par with the pace of business that he and Kat had seen, while the next it was as if they'd imposed an entry fee; the entry fee being mandatory attendance of bible classes alongside Dot Branning. Was Roxy the cause of the fluctuations in the Vic's business? Alfie was unable to comprehend an alternative potential cause.

The large double doors of the pub suddenly opened, and Alfie's eyes darted across with the aim of discerning the identity of the most recent entrant to the bar. It transpired that Alfie need not have been poised to scan the recesses of his mind for the identities of their more occasional customers.

"Tyler!" Alfie called enthusiastically, as his cousin near glided toward the bar. "You're looking much more chipper today," he remarked, pulling out a pint glass from below the bar and holding it in Tyler's line of vision.

Tyler was unable to suppress a grin as he propped himself up against the familiar entity, nodding. "I am mate. Me and Whit… we're sorted."

An expression of surprise crossed Alfie's features for a brief time, as the memory of recent events washed over him. "Yeah?" Alfie said, almost questioning whether or not he had heard correctly.

"Yeah. Aren't you happy for us?"

"Course I am … just… well a bit surprised I guess. I thought she was on self-destruct?" Alfie recalled, an element of sadness within his tone. He was quietly pleased with his efforts, having succeeded in avoiding repeating Joey's name. There had been three people in his marriage upon more occasions than he cared to recall, and it wasn't the first time that a Branning had got in the way of a beautiful relationship. The murky coloured liquid almost spilled over the rim of the glass as Alfie momentarily became lost in his thoughts. He swiftly pushed the pump to its usual vertical position and placed the glass on the shiny surface for his cousin to take. It was almost as if the bar were a mirror, Alfie realised, given the ridiculous standard of cleanliness that he'd been forced to scrub it to that morning. He smiled slightly as he remembered the times that Kat had drawn her trademark picture in it; no chance. It seemed like a million years ago.

"She's over it," Tyler stated confidently. "I had a think and I've been an idiot. She made a mistake and I'm not going to throw what we've got away. God knows I've made the same mistake enough times, so who am I to talk?" he questioned rhetorically.

"I'm happy for you cous," managed Alfie, noting that Tyler seemed much happier irrespective of Whitney's indiscretion than he was in his respective relationship. 'Marriage doesn't solve everything' seemed to be another one of those sayings which had become ingrained within many people's minds, and Alfie was slowly but surely beginning to realise that this was extremely true. "What happened?" he enquired, but notably without his usual sense of confidence.

"Oh… something Kat said."

The level of attention that Alfie was devoting to the exchange heightened as he heard his wife's name. "Oh yeah? What did she say?" he asked, hopefully.

Tyler took a sip of his pint. "No idea Alf. Must have been something quite big though, to make Whit stop letting Tony and that Rob bloke win. They were all I'd heard about for the last week, until today."

Nodding, Alfie made a mental note that he'd have to check on her later. He knew instantly what she'd had to revisit to produce such a change in Whitney. Not that he really needed a note to remember anything about his wife.

Tyler had taken his leave after an hour or so, leaving Alfie to endure his daily dose of bullsh*t. It seemed inevitable, as none other than Michael Moon had just sauntered in. Alfie concluded the tale of Roxy's earlier cleaning demands as Michael downed his second whisky and slammed the tumbler down onto the bar, causing an ice cube to come flying out and to land on the bar in front of him. "What would blondie say?!" he quipped in a false, dramatic tone.

Alfie made no comment, turning around to refill the glass.

"She ain't the right one for you, Alf," Michael remarked as the third whisky was deposited within his reach.

"Who is then? Kat?"

"Well, yeah.."

"So right for me that you were one of the people trying to f*ck up everything that we had."

"I weren't trying to f*ck up nothing," insisted Michael, suddenly finding the still deserted bar interesting to look around.

"What did you expect to happen when you slept with her then?!" barked Alfie, suddenly becoming more angry than he'd been in a long while. One or two of the customers looked up from their literature at the commotion, but didn't seem to be able to ascertain its cause. The movement reassured Alfie a little; with the current clientele, it was almost as if they'd opened an old people's home, and Alfie had been beginning to wonder whether one or more of them had shuffled off of their mortal coils. "Can't even look me in the eye, can ya?"

Michael turned back to Alfie, not looking quite as smug as he normally did, but he still seemed too pleased with himself for his cousin's liking. "Not this again; we were drunk, it was a mistake, it meant nothing." "Nothing," he repeated.

Shaking his head repeatedly in Michael's direction, Alfie spoke up. "It meant something alright. She was just a trophy to you, weren't she? You make me sick!" Having concluded his outburst, Alfie then retired to the hallway, busying himself with opening the new boxes of crisps, retrieving any remaining packs from the old boxes; before breaking down the old boxes for recycling.

Once this was done, Alfie made his way back out into the bar. He was disgruntled to see Michael still standing there, bold as brass. "What are you still doing here?!" he demanded grumpily.

"Hang on a minute Alf; I didn't make Kat go with Derek and I didn't get you into this farce of a relationship with blondie."

Alfie had more than had enough by this point. Maybe Michael had been talking sense at a point today; Kat being right for him, he and Roxy being a farce; but there were always limits with Michael. "Derek might have finished us off but you bl**dy started it!" he snarled.

It was a rare event, once in a lifetime even; Michael had nothing with which to answer back, and left.

Six hours later, Alfie had just returned to the hallway having changed a barrel when he heard the turning of a key in the lock of the back door. He poked his head into the bar and called, "Keep an eye on the bar for us for a minute, would you Trace?" knowing that he needed to have more than a few words with his fiancé.

"Hey Grandad," Roxy called, catching sight of Alfie as she attempted to stuff her keys back into her handbag without looking at what she was doing.

Still agitated from his earlier words with Michael, Alfie was shorter with Roxy than he would have intended. "What were you doing, growing the coffee beans yourself! You've been gone for over eight hours!"

Roxy rolled her eyes at the greeting that she had received. "Now you sound like Kat," she said simply.

"What do you expect?! I was married to her for ten years!"

Her expression fell upon hearing this response, and was in danger of turning into a dustpan as Alfie announced, "I need to go out."

Outside, Alfie looked across to the familiar gardens as he heard the beeping of his phone. Predictable, he thought, Roxy's apology. Surely it had to take longer than that if it was sincere? Pulling the handset from his pocket, Alfie was surprised to learn that the message was actually from Michael. Yet another person that he had no desire to speak to at the present moment. He figured that as he was holding the phone in his hand, he may as well read the message. That wasn't to say that he had any intention of responding to it, because it was the last thing on his list of priorities. In fact, achieving world peace ranked more highly. With this, he robotically clicked the 'read' button.

I'm sorry. She'd have you back in a heartbeat.