Growing Up

"Christopher Robin?"

"Yes, Roo?"

"What's it like to grow up?"

Christopher laughed, as only a man of his age could. With shaking, withered hand holding onto battered cane, he slowly took a seat on the log that looked over the Hundred Acre Wood.

"There we go," he murmured, his buttocks finally making contact with the wood. His trousers would get a bit dirty, but that was par for the course when visiting the wood that his friends called home. Sussex had changed. England had changed. Over the course of eight decades, the entire world had changed. But in that period, this wood, this place between worlds, had remained the same.

"Christopher Robin?"

"Hmm?" He looked down at Roo. Still a bouncing marsupial that had somehow ended up on the wrong side of the world. Still living with his mother after eighty years.

"What's it like to grow up?"

He leant forward, putting old, withered hands together. "Why do you ask?"

"Because…you've changed, Christopher Robin. Mama's told me not to say it. Tigger thinks that I'm wrong. The others say nothing. But…"

"But when people say nothing, they're really saying a lot?"

"Yes." He hopped up and down again. "Yes yes yes!"

Christopher Robin smiled, cracked lips drawing the symbol of sadness upon his face. "You'll find that's true of a lot of people."

"Yeah." Roo paused. "So what's it like? I want to know! Mama says that one day I'll grow up, but it's like…like I never do. But you grew up. You've changed."

"Haven't changed that much Roo."

"But you have," the marsupial said. He began hopping around the old man sitting on the tree stump, his face to the race and his back to the trees. "You don't fight heffalumps anymore. You don't eat as much at rabbit's tea parties, and you never touch the cake. I don't see you climbing trees after Owl, or diving into the river to rescue Eeyore. And the stump…" He stopped bouncing around at met Christopher's eyes directly – black, pupiless ones meeting the narrow gaze of one whose world had become so very small. "You take so long to crawl through the stump Christopher Robin."

He shrugged slowly. "Guess I'm just bigger."

"You're not that bigger Christopher Robin. Just…slower."

There was the rub, he thought to himself.

"So what's it like?" Roo asked. He began to bounce up and down on the spot again. "Growing up?"

"Well…"

"Mama says I'll grow up. And I thought I wanted to grow up, because then I'd be able to go on more adventures and not have to worry about being late for tea. If I was bigger, I could fight heffalumps with you, and throw rocks even further, and-"

"Roo…"

"And where's Evelyn and Madeline? I don't see them anymore."

A shadow passed across Christopher Robin's face, and not only because of the setting sun. "Madeline is in America," he said. "She actually has a son of her own now."

"Oh, like me?"

"Kind of, Roo."

"Oh. That's nice. I like people like me." He paused. "What about Evelyn?"

The shadows of man and nature darkened. "Evelyn is…no longer with me."

"Oh? Is she with Madeline then?"

"No."

"Oh. Where'd she go?"

"Away, Roo." Christopher Robin looked to the east – away from the setting sun, to the place where light might again rise, if not life. "Evelyn went away."

"Will she be back?"

He turned his gaze back to the child in front of him. "I don't think so Roo."

"Oh." Roo didn't comment on the tears in Christopher Robin's eyes. "Is that what growing up is life? Do people just decide to leave you?"

He shrugged – Evelyn had never 'decided' to leave, he reflected.

"That doesn't sound very nice. I wouldn't leave Mama, and Pooh would never leave us."

"Good for Pooh," he murmured.

"But you left," Roo said. "You left us."

"I know Roo."

"But…" A smile crept over the kangaroo's face. "But you came back, didn't you Christopher Robin? You came back, and defeated the heffalump, and saved us!"

Christopher snorted, though it was more a mix between laughter and weeping. "I guess I did Roo."

"So, if you came back, maybe Madeline will come back, and Evelyn will come back, and-"

"No, Roo. Sometimes people just…don't come back."

"Oh." Roo's face dropped. "Is this what it's like to grow up Christopher Robin? Is this what being old means?"

"Oh Roo." He sighed, and patted the young lad's head. "That's what it means Roo. Growing up means being alone. It means losing all the friends you make along the way."

"But…if that's what growing up means…why grow up, Christopher Robin? Why did you decide to grow up?"

"I…" He sighed, taking his hand away from Roo's head. He looked at his palm – wrinkles and scars ran across it, marking the wounds made by the hands of time. He didn't know how to explain that for those outside the Hundred Acre Wood, growing up wasn't a choice. But then…

"Roo…where are we now?"

"Where are we?" Roo asked, clearly confused.

"Where are we?" Christopher Robin repeated.

"We're…" The kangaroo looked around. "We're in the Hundred Acre Wood."

"More specifically."

"Specik…spekif…spelik?"

"More…precisely." The look on Roo's face told Christopher Robin that he was still confused, so he jumped to the chase. "We're on the top of a hill, Roo. And growing up is like…climbing a hill."

"Climbing a hill?"

"Climbing a hill," Christopher Robin said. "You have to climb it. Along the way, you may stumble. You may fall. But the climb to the top is worth it Roo, because of all the things you see, all the things you do, all the people you…meet."

"But…you have to climb down again, don't you?"

"You do Roo, you do." He sighed. "That's the other part of growing up Roo. You always have to start climbing down the hill again. Saying goodbye to the people you met on the climb up."

"Oh." Roo put a paw to his chin. "Then I guess…when I grow up…I'll climb to the top, and I'll never go back down!" He looked around. "Say, we're at the top of a hill now."

"You are, Roo." Christopher Robin sighed. "You are."

"But so are you, Christopher Robin."

"No Roo, I'm...near the bottom of it."

Roo gave him a funny look. Eventually, he said, "would you like to come to Mama's? She's having tea with Rabbit. We can even get something other than cake."

"You go on Roo," Christopher Robin said. "I…want to stay at the top of the hill for a bit."

"But I thought you said-"

"Go, Roo."

"Oh. Okay." Roo paused. "I'll see you there, Christopher Robin. You do remember the way, don't you?"

"Yes Roo, of course."

"Oh. Good. Because it seems like it takes you ages to get there sometimes."

"When climbing down the hill Roo, it pays to go slow."

The look on Roo's face told Christopher Robin that he didn't understand. But he bounded off regardless. Back into the Hundred Acre Wood. Into the shadow of the trees, protecting its people from sun and rain, wind and hail, and above all, the grasping hands of time.

Christopher Robin remained on the hill. Watching the setting of the sun, as it cast its last rays upon the grass that led from where he sat to the lands below.

Watching the way down.

To the bottom of the hill.

A/N

So, having seen Christopher Robin, I suppose the question can be asked why none of the characters of the Hundred Acre Wood age, even when Christopher does? I mean, considering that the wood is treated as some kind of pocket dimension, maybe they shouldn't be expected to be, but I can't help but wonder how Roo would feel stuck being a child all his life. Or, heck, Kanga being a mother from day 1 to day infinity. Or...maybe I'm overthinking this too much.

Anyway, drabbled this up.