The Long Way Home

Disclaimer: all the usual ones.

Author note: some of these will be longer pieces, others shorter, and are largely missing-scenes, in between bits and possibly continuations from the show's original run.

1.Bedivere

Audrey watched the tall figure, with his armful of sticks, move from one side of the bridge to the other and back again. It did, she had to admit, look rather ridiculous from a distance; but touching, somehow, that he had taken it up. She would let him get on with it. After all, his desire for a little time and space to get to grips with his new role wasn't entirely unreasonable. And it weren't as though she enjoyed their encounters. And there wasn't anything that she particularly needed to draw his attention to.

At her feet, Bertie sat panting with the slightly stupefied expression of a well-exercised dog dreaming of his basket.

'One last run, Bertie?' Audrey stooped and released him from his lead. 'Go on, run about.'

He yawned widely.

'Go and find a stick. A stick, Bertie.' She blew out a breath, regarded her pet with irritation. 'Look! There's a man over there with a whole armful of sticks.' Audrey nudged him with her foot and Bertie, finally, shook himself and trotted in the direction of the bridge. Halfway there he paused, looking back at her, one paw raised.

'Go on!'she hissed.

Audrey gave him a few moments, during which she innocently raked the sky for any passing birds that might be of interest – if you were interested in birds. And then she started towards the bridge.

'Bertie!' A sing-song voice that he would ignore. Admittedly, Bertie ignored most tones of voice – coming-when-called was a concept with which he remained blissfully unacquainted. By the time Audrey reached them, Bertie was enjoying having his ears ruffled; Richard straightened up as she approached and smiled.

'Hello.'

'Oh, hello. Sorry for disturbing you,' she lied. 'Bertie's after one of your sticks.'

'Ah.'

Richard pulled one out of his bundle and waved it at Bertie. 'Here you go, Bertie. Good boy.' He threw the stick some distance into the grass.

Bertie remained at Richard's feet, gazing up at him with melting eyes and his tongue hanging out. He looked, Audrey thought, as though he were doing an impression of Marjory Frobisher.

'He doesn't seem very keen,' Richard said, regarding him uncertainly.

'He's tired,' Audrey supplied smoothly.

As though willing to back her up at last, Bertie lay down, his chin on Richard's foot.

'So I see.' Amusement coloured his tone.

'And I see that you're adapting to country life.'

Richard glanced down at his sticks. 'Oh, er… Yes.' He looked faintly embarrassed. 'I thought I'd give it another go. It's quite good fun, actually.'

Audrey smiled. 'Yes, it is.'

It wasn't just the Pooh-sticks, though. The jacket he was wearing was far more practical than the previous week's tweeds: waterproof and heavily splashed with mud from whatever it was he'd been doing. There was even dirt under his finger nails. The wind ruffled his hair. It suited him, she thought.

She suppressed that thought.

'I still can't believe that you have never heard of Winnie-the-Pooh.'

'I've heard of him!' Richard protested. 'I've just never read any of the books. Good, are they?'

'They're classics. I thought every child in England had read them.'

'Well, books were a luxury when I was a child; the printed word had to come second to food. I think that's how we got hold of most printed material, quite frankly – the newspaper wrapped around the vegetables. Besides, neither of my parents could read English very well at first.'

'Yes, of course,' Audrey murmured softly, her eyes wandering over his face. She shook herself. 'There must have been a library, surely?'

'Oh, there was. But a bomb got dropped on it,' he said, matter of fact. 'And the school didn't have many, uh, amenities. There was a chalkboard… Not that there was much chalk, though. By the time I could afford to get my hands on books, I was a little old for children's literature.' Richard flashed her one of those disarming smiles. 'Now you know almost everything.'

Audrey tilted her head. 'Almost?'

He hesitated, and then: 'Well, we did have one book – inexplicably, it was the tales of King Arthur. I think that's where I got my idea of the perfect English name from.'

'Oh, you fancied yourself as a Knight of the Round Table?'

Another pause. 'Not exactly.' A coolness in his tone.

fforbes-Hamiltons did not apologise. And they did not blush. But Audrey felt her cheeks burn and a pang of dismay. She hadn't meant it quite the way it had sounded.

Forcing a bright smile, Audrey talked on, hoping to reclaim something of the ease that had sprung up between them.

'Well, I always rather fancied myself as a knight. We used to play at being knights. Of course, being an all-girls school it was easier to take the part.' She turned to him then and his gaze was thoughtful, considering. 'I used to make Marjory be the damsel in distress – she'd be tied to a tree and I'd rescue her. Although, I did once forget which tree I'd tied her to and she was there for hours. Her parents were terribly cross.'

A breath of laughter, and amusement warmed his face again. 'Yes, I can well imagine you tilting at things.'

'It was good training.'

'For what?'

'Life.'

He watched her for a moment. 'Yes.'

Audrey held out a hand. 'May I have a stick?'

Richard regarded her doubtfully. 'You're not planning on running me through, are you?'

'Not unless provoked.'

His eyes crinkled. 'I'll risk it.'

Audrey accepted the proffered stick, held it between her fingers over the water. 'Ready?'

Solemnly, he raised his own stick like a duelling sword. 'Ready.'

'And no cheating this time.'

'I did not cheat!'

They dropped their sticks, then crossed to the downstream-side of the bridge, leaned against the railings.

'Congratulations,' Richard said when Audrey's stick floated out barely a second before his.

She nodded graciously.

'Best of three?'

Audrey shook her head. 'I always quit while I'm ahead.'

'Very wise.' Richard released his remaining load into the stream, brushed off his hands.

They stood side-by-side, enjoying the view (if not necessarily the biting wind), the peace punctuated by the occasional canine snore.

'At least you didn't go for Lancelot,' Audrey said suddenly.

'I'm sorry?'

'As a name. Lancelot DeVere. Not very…'

'English?'

'Not very.'

'Not unless I want to sound like a character from Wodehouse.'

Audrey's eyes widened slightly. 'You read Wodehouse?'

'Naturally. There was a Galahad somewhere in those stories.'

'Lord Emsworth's brother.'

'Yes, that's right!'

Audrey considered it. 'Galahad DeVere…'

They exchanged a glance and both shook their heads.

'Gawain DeVere?' she offered.

Richard was firm. 'Worse. Bedivere was the chap I liked and for the life of me, I can't remember why.'

'Bedivere. B. DeVere. That's quite clever. I take it that Bedrich is the Czech variant of Richard?'

'What? N-no. No, it's the Czech form of Frederick.'

'Frederick?!'

Richard shrugged lightly. 'Yes, I'm afraid so.'

Audrey frowned, shaking her head. 'Why not use Frederick?'

'Oh, I did for a time. But people kept calling me Fred. Or Freddie.' He made it sound like the worst possible occurrence and Audrey laughed. She looked him over.

'No, you don't really look like a Fred. Or a Freddie.'

'Thank God for that,' he said drily.

A banshee-like wail punctuated the air; they looked around and found Bertie staring at them mournfully. He yawned and whined simultaneously, producing another unearthly yelp. Richard's shoulders shook with laughter.

'He sounds the way I feel after a day of board meetings.'

'I should get him home.' Strange, that she should feel so reluctant.

Richard regarded him. 'Will he make it?'

Audrey bristled, affronted on her pet's behalf. 'Bertie is very active. You should see him after a fox.'

A sceptical glance was sent Bertie's way. 'I think I'd put my money on the fox.'

'Yes, probably wise,' Audrey admitted.

It had been a pleasant interlude, Audrey thought, as she tramped back towards the lodge with Bertie. And yet…

She was unsettled for the rest of the evening, and not just by thoughts of the ludicrously romantic figure he had cut, standing against the windswept landscape. Byronic, almost.

But no, it wasn't that.

It was a young family and a hazardous journey across a Europe on the brink of war. Arriving in a foreign country with nothing, and no-one, and learning an alien language with all of its impenetrable eccentricities from old newspapers wrapped around whatever food they could afford to buy. And a young boy dreaming of knights and wizards and kings.

After dinner – and a very inconclusive engagement with the cherry stones – Audrey found herself pulling out the few slim volumes that were the remnants of her childhood. A tattered account of King Arthur and his knights. She thumbed through it, stopping at pages towards the end. Of course. Bedivere was the one by the dying king's side, the one who returned Excalibur to the lake. She set the volume aside, picked up the even more worn copy of The House at Pooh Corner.

Why had she kept them? she wondered. Sentiment? Or for the children she had never had.

Audrey put the books back, curled herself onto the sofa and stared into the meagre glow from the fireplace.

And tried to ignore the even more unsettling notion that Richard DeVere was not going to be convenient at all.