A/N: Wow, I am blown away by the enthusiasm for this new story. So much so I've written a little more. Thank you!

In which Charles Carson's Molesley limits are pushed and all he wants is to take Elsie to lunch before Beryl ruins it.

Chapter Two

Charles finds himself held up no less than five times between his office and Elsie's; a journey that should take no more than five minutes takes almost half an hour and by the time he reaches her door he feels like his blood pressure has risen another couple of pegs. At this rate he'll work himself into that heart attack she's always warning him about, before he's sixty. And there aren't even any students about yet. He isn't sure he's ready for the break to end yet, he hardly feels like he's had any time to relax at all. Except for that day in London, that was truly a highlight of the holidays.

Huffing he tugs at his cardigan, straightens out the pockets of his trousers and raises his hand to rap his knuckles against her door.

He steps through before she calls out to him - as he has since her first day; it's become a bit of a tradition now - and stops short a foot into the empty room.

"Blast." He mutters, one hand clenching into a fist, the other still curled around the door handle.

Damn Joseph Molesley and his incessant questions anyway; twice he caught him in the history block. Charles isn't even sure how the man got ahead of him to catch him the second time, he's sure he walked off the other way.

The worst part though is that all of his questions will be covered in tomorrow's morning meeting, if he could have just waited. And now he's managed to miss Elsie.

He'd hoped to be in time to invite her to lunch before Beryl did; there's a new bistro opened up in the village and he wants to try it before the picky cook ruins it for him. He can't even look at a Wetherspoons without the things she told him coming to mind and putting him off his dinner.

But he seems to have been picked at the post. "Damn."

"Such strong language, Charles Carson. I'm shocked!" He jumps at her voice behind him and spins around to face her. Elsie stands in the doorway, a stack of papers held up to her chest and her glasses perched on her nose. Somehow even with her head tipped up to look at him, she still manages to peer over the rims. He swallows, his heart pounding at the surprise of her presence, his palms clamming up.

"You're here." He states dumbly.

She raises a delicate eyebrow and makes a production of glancing at her name plate on the door. "Is there somewhere else I should be?"

On the familiar ground of her teasing he clears his throat with a cough. "I came to invite you to lunch, I thought I'd missed you."

"Ah, I see. Is it that time already?" She sidles past him and drops the papers onto the edge of her desk, a tower of files wobbles alarmingly before steadying again.

He checks his watch; half-one. "Passed it, actually. I'm afraid I got held up on the way over."

"Well, whoever they were, they did you a favour. You'd have been standing here like a lemon if you'd come any earlier. I've been fighting with the copier for the last half hour."

Ah, the copier. He doesn't envy her, he lost one of his better ties to that last December. "I see."

"Of course if someone would stop arguing against the university adopting a completely electronic resources system, I wouldn't need to copy anything at all and we could just chuck the old thing away."

He shifts uncomfortably under her glare; all the more terrifying for coming from behind those wire-rimmed glasses. Sometimes she reminds him of the Librarian of his own school-days, always glaring at him for whispering too loudly or humming while he studied. "Yes, well, let's not rehash that argument."

"Hmm, perhaps not. You're looking harried enough already." She slips her glasses off and folds the arms carefully, tucks them into their case on the desk. "Do you even have time for lunch now? Don't you have a meeting with our esteemed Dean this afternoon?"

"Yes, but not until half two." He answers while she slips her jacket on over her jumper, picks up her bag from the bottom drawer of her desk.

"Oh I see." She says, turning back to him and reaching up a hand to flick her hair out from where it's caught up in her collar. "So a short lunch then. Did you have somewhere in mind?"

He holds the door open for her as she steps through, his hand hovering for a moment at the small of her back, before he lets it fall with a mental sigh.

"A new place has just opened up on Willow Street, next to the bookshop. I thought we might give it a try."

She catches his eye as they walk side-by-side along the corridor, smirks knowingly. "I see, and Beryl hasn't had a chance to rate it yet, I suppose?"

"No, for the moment it remains unsullied by her words and horror stories."

Her laugh echoes off the walls. "Very well, I'll give it a try. But be warned Charles Carson; if I come down with a case of food poisoning again, you can be the one to explain to Crawley why he's down an English professor on the first day of Term."

He raises an eyebrow at her. "Consider me warned." He takes a couple more steps before adding thoughtfully; "Perhaps I'll mention it to him in our meeting later, lay some groundwork just in case."

She stops suddenly and stares at him. "Well thank you Professor Optimism; now I'm just full of confidence in the place."

"It'll be fine, Elsie. Of course it will." He says, waving a hand to gee her back into moving.

"Hmm. Well, never mind. So long as they have tea; I've some news for you about my Miss Baxter and your Mr Molesley."

He groans and pushes the call button for the lift. "He is not my anything." And he has had quite enough of that man for one day.

She eyes him as the lift doors open and they step in. "There's a new story to that groan." She says, pressing the button for the ground floor. "You can tell me over lunch."

Great, he thinks as the doors close and they start to descend, won't this be a fun lunch now.

Meet Carson; Professor Grouch.

Key:
Wetherspoons - a chain of pubs that serve cheap and mostly reheated food. I have nothing against them, they were a staple of my own Uni days, but Mrs Patmore would not approve in any universe and could probably come up with some gruesome stories.