Alex enlists Hal's help to tick another item off her "kicked the bucket" list.
This won't make any sense if you haven't seen the 'extra footage' videos on BBC Three's website/Youtube.
Armadillo!
"I still can't believe you talked me into this," Hal complained as he tried to pick the lock, something he was a bit rusty at. Well, he hadn't needed to for a long time, and there had been people to do things like that for him, on the occasions he hadn't wanted the door broken down instead.
"Well, it wouldn't be any fun on my own, now, would it?" Alex replied, peering impatiently over his shoulder. "And I don't think I could Rentaghost this far on my own, not if I haven't been here before."
"Why didn't you ask Tom?"
"I did, but he'd show up on the CCTV. We don't. Plus, he's too close to the wolf this time of the month; he didn't think it'd be a good idea to be this close to all the animals."
"Good point. There's an ocelot in the next enclosure. I don't think they'd get on."
Alex giggled, hopping from foot to foot in excitement.
"Hurry up, will you? It's freezing out here!"
"Well, we are in West Wales at midnight," Hal pointed out. He frowned.
"Can you even feel the cold?"
"Not really. But I can remember what it's like and that's bad enough!"
Hal finally managed to open the lock, and the door to the enclosure swung open. He made a courtly gesture with one arm.
"Ladies first."
"Squeeeee!"
Alex hurried over to the den. The two slumbering creatures stirred at the interruption.
"I don't believe that's an actual word."
"Hush, you. Don't go spoiling this," Alex scolded, although she was too giddy to care.
"Oh, they're so cuuuuuute!"
Both armadillos were awake now, snuffling their way out of the burrow to investigate the intruders.
Hal gave them a look of mild distaste.
"Are you sure this is something that should be on your list?" he asked. "Holding an armoured mammal?"
"Why not?"
Alex reached in and picked up the nearest, cuddling it against her chest. The animal didn't seem to mind – apparently being held by a ghost wasn't that weird, after all. Hal had been concerned they wouldn't be able to see her, or would freak out at being picked up by a dead woman, hence their breaking in at night, instead of risking it during the day.
"ARMADILLO!"
Alex whisper-shouted, grinning.
"You know, my dad used to say that all the time when I was a kid. It was really random. Think it was from an advert or something."
Hal, having no idea what she was talking about, cast an eye over the board on the wall.
"You're either holding Donny or Marie," he told her, speed reading. "They're brother and sister."
"What, like the Osmonds?"
"Who?"
"You don't know who the Osmonds are? You've got no excuse; you were alive in the seventies. Sort of. What were you doing all that time?"
"Trying not to kill people," was Hal's rather curt reply. "That tends to take up a lot of one's attention."
"Well, aren't you Mr Positivity this evening? Tell me more about this wee fella."
Alex was stroking along the yellowish shell of the armadillo in her arms.
"He's a six-banded armadillo, from South America," Hal read, but Alex wasn't really listening.
"I think that one's getting lonely," she cut in, nodding at the second animal, scurrying
backwards and forwards in the den. "Why don't you give it a cuddle?"
Hal's face said quite clearly what he thought of that idea.
"This is your list. Not mine."
"Hal! Stop sulking and pick up the armadillo, will you?"
Hal sighed. He knew from experience that there was little point in trying to argue with Alex when she was in this mood; the woman was utterly incorrigible. Instead, he took refuge in one of the first techniques he'd used when Leo had begun helping him to 'dry out' – counting in his head. He could hear Leo's voice echoing in his mind:
"Don't think about fighting it, Hal. Just breathe. Concentrate on breathing."
"I don't breathe!" Hal screamed back at him.
"God, don't you know anything about vampires?"
Leo had remained implacable.
"Why should I? I didn't know anything about werewolves until one of them attacked me."
For some reason, this had broken through the fever raging in Hal's brain and he clung onto the idea, like a drowning man clings to driftwood. At times of stress, he still found himself slowly counting inside his head, focussing on the pattern, the routine, the comfort he could take in the reliability of it all – one number follows another, unchanging.
Steeling himself, he reached down, and captured the wriggling armadillo.
"I'm warning you. If this urinates on me, I'm holding you responsible. I like this shirt."
Alex rolled her eyes.
"Lighten up, will you. Look at its little hands!"
Hal chose instead to look at Alex. Clearly, she was thrilled with the experience, and Hal found himself hoping this wasn't really going to be what made her door appear. He didn't believe it was, but he wasn't ready to say goodbye to her yet. Irritating she could be, in the extreme, but she had more joie de vivre as a ghost than most of the living.
"Happy now?"
Alex stroked the armadillo a few more times, then put it back down.
"It's times like these I really wish I could take a photo of you," she remarked, smiling at the sight of her vampire housemate begrudgingly holding one of her favourite animals.
"It's times like this I'm glad you can't," came the retort.
Alex glanced around.
"No door. Guess that wasn't the one."
Hal returned the struggling creature to its pen.
"Apparently not. Can we go now? It's a two hour drive back."
"Sorry. I couldn't find anywhere nearer than here that has armadillos, surprisingly," Alex replied, a little sarcastically.
"Be thankful it wasn't Edinburgh Zoo."
Hal ignored that.
"Shall we?"
He gestured toward the door, but Alex was engrossed in snapping a picture of "Donny and Marie" on her phone.
"Not yet. Besides, I haven't decided what's next to tick off my list."
She pulled the piece of paper from her pocket, crossing through "hold an armadillo."
"Let's see – done that one... and that one. You wouldn't let me do that one..."
Hal waited, with dwindling patience.
"The week at Alton Towers... we need to get Tom first. So – learn to dance."
"That one," Hal remarked tartly, wincing inwardly at the embarrassing memory of the trick Alex had played on him and Tom.
"Has been well and truly crossed off."
Alex grinned, clearly enjoying the memory far more than Hal.
"Not really. I mean, that was fun, but I never actually got to learn to dance."
"Hardly surprising, when your idea of dancing is jigging about like an idiot. When I think of all the formal dances that used to be in fashion..."
"Like what?" Alex's eyes sparked with interest. Hal occasionally forgot how young she was, that she'd experienced so little comparatively and was therefore fascinated by what he could tell her of the past.
"Well, you've seen films of Jane Austen novels, haven't you? Like that."
"Did you and Lady Mary dance like that?" Alex's expression grew mischievous.
'Before you drained every drop of blood in her body,' the other voice in his head added.
Hal forced himself to ignore it, counting slowly once more.
"Something like that."
Alex's whole face had lit up and Hal wondered what she was picturing in her head.
Placing one arm behind his back and extending the other toward her, he performed an ornate bow.
"Miss Alexandra. Would you do me the honour of granting me the next dance?"
"What, here?"
Alex glanced around the armadillo enclosure, her heart fluttering within her. Well, not really; her heart didn't beat anymore than Hal's did, but it felt that way, and she didn't care.
"There's no music."
Hal straightened up, taking her hand in his.
"Do we need any?"
And placing his other hand on her waist, he began to waltz her elegantly around the room.
Alex was delighted. Maybe some things from the past really were better – she wouldn't have given up clubbing in exchange for this as a teenager, but when your best friends were a werewolf who'd grown up living rough in the woods and a five-hundred-and-something-year old vampire... well, you rolled with the punches, didn't you?
Their eyes locked together, they managed to avoid bumping into anything long enough to lose themselves in the moment, forgetting the curious armadillos watching them.
Perhaps, had they gone interrupted, the romantic tension would have reached its natural conclusion. But sadly, it was not to be. A patrolling keeper, attracted by the light they'd switched on, chose that moment to begin to crunch up the path to the armadillo house, forcing Hal and Alex to abandon their waltz with haste and hide.
The keeper wandered in, saw the two occupants who should have been there, failed to see either the ghost two feet from him or the vampire ducking under the table in the corner and left again, switching off the light but thankfully not locking the door again.
Alex breathed a sigh of relief.
"Phew! That was close."
"Yes, that could have been... awkward to explain."
Hal brushed himself down as he emerged, taking Alex by the hand again to lead her back outside.
"Time to go."
"But I haven't finished learning to dance yet!" she protested.
"Can't it wait until we get home?"
"I don't want to go home just yet," Alex pouted. Then her expression changed again, eyes lighting up.
"I know! It'll be daytime in America, right? I can go and find Robert Downey Jr!"
"Alex."
Hal was firm.
"You are not kissing that man without his knowledge. And if you can't Rentaghost to Tenby from Barry, then L.A. is much too far to even attempt."
But Alex was not easily discouraged
"Don't be boring, Hal."
And she vanished, leaving Hal standing in a closed Folly Farm by himself in the middle of the night.
"Alex! Confound the woman!"
Had she really tried to go all the way to America? Surely not. But if she was making a point, then it was well made.
Hal sighed, and headed back to the car. It was going to be a very long drive back.
Disclaimer: no, not mine, yadda yadda yadda.
I don't know if anyone's done this already, but I thought it was a cute idea.
The advert Alex mentions was for Dime Bar, in 1995, starring Harry Enfield. Youtube it.
While Bristol Zoo is closer and does have an armadillo, it would be more difficult to break in there at night (it's in a residential area; my boyfriend used to live in the next street and we'd get woken at 5am by the gibbons hooting at each other), plus they only have one, but Folly Farm really does have two named Donny and Marie. I haven't been there, so I don't know what the enclosure looks like; I based this on the information on their website.