It was a nice time of day to be walking, Tom thought as they started back towards the farm, all golden sunlight and light breezes off the hills that rose steeply around them. Beside him Andy was quiet. Lost in thought, Tom decided. He'd seen Annie get that look when she'd been remembering George, Nina and Mitchell or her old life in Bristol. It made him wonder who or where Andy was missing.

He knew people would be surprised that he'd noticed at all. People, especially normal human people always tended to assume he was a bit thick, like the manageress at the hotel. In some things, like book learning or social skills, Tom knew he was less than clued up and it was that that had allowed Kirby, Cutler and Larry to play him for a fool. Kirby had been malicious ghost and Cutler had been a vampire, but Larry had been a werewolf like him and that was why he suspected it had hurt so much.

All the lies Larry had fed him about the wolf, about what it did to you, about how it made you stupid and a failure, didn't hold up, not when he really thought about it. How could it be the wolf making him stupid? George had been smart despite the wolf? Nina had been a doctor both before and after she'd been changed, so smart and a success. And then there was Allison. He smiled, Allison had been brilliant, smart and funny and everything that he'd believed he was waiting for to find love. His smile faded. She wouldn't have stayed that way if she'd stayed with him. What happened afterwards with Annie and Eve, and with Hal and with Alex and Cutler and the Old Ones, she would have tried to fight or to understand and it would have killed her. Either actually dead or at least the brilliant, loving part that wanted to change the world for the better for everyone.

It had been for the best letting Allison leave, he told himself. He hoped she'd manage to get through university and become a barrister like she'd wanted. The world needed more people like her in Tom's opinion. The fact that he secretly had a thing for women dressed as judges or barristers was another. It was something that he probably wouldn't admit to anyone, rather like the feelings that he'd found he had towards Hal after they'd pretended to be a couple when Eve needed to see a doctor. It had been awkward, not so much because Hal was another bloke, but Hal was a vampire and after being brought up to stick pointy pieces of wood into them it was quite a thing to start wondering what it would be like not to just pretend to be a couple.

They got back to the farm with almost no conversation passing between, but Andy seemed happier as he let them back into the farmyard, tension dropping from him as he walked over the cobbles to the farmhouse.

There wasn't much to the farmhouse as far as Tom could see. Just a kitchen-living room with a couple of doors off it, which he supposed had to be a bedroom and a bathroom or maybe a kitchen. It seemed lived in though. Bookcases with a mixture of sci-fi, fantasy and non-fiction books, were pushed into a couple of the corners, while a table and chairs and a sofa filled a lot of the other floor space.

Going over to the range cooker that occupied one corner of the kitchen-living room, Andy opened the hatch to check the fire. "Oh well that's just brilliant."

"Has it gone out?" Tom asked. The wood fired cooker was like nothing that he'd used before, but he'd had enough experience of lighting camp fires that he knows he should be able to getting going with minimal difficulty. "Do you want me to have a go at getting it going again?"

Andy seemed to think for a moment, then said, "You can have a go, but it's temperamental thing. I should probably get it replaced."

"Nah, I think it's got character." Tom looked at the pipe leading into the wall. "Have you had the chimney swept?"

"Not yet. I was going to do it myself, eventually. It just didn't seem that important, not like getting the roof done." Andy tapped the pipe. "Do you really think it'll make much of a difference."

"Might do, depends how long it's been since anyone did it." Tom looked at the pile of wood and old pieces of newspaper in a bucket next to the fire. It probably weren't polite to ask if Andy had been lighting it properly, so he said, "I should be able to get it going though."

Andy looked at the pile of sticks and paper Tom was sorting through, trying to find the smallest pieces. "You were a boyscout, weren't you?"

Tom hesitated, wondering whether to tell the truth that he'd hadn't done any of the usual things kid did growing up or whether that would raise more questions that he'd find it difficult to answer. He realised his expression must have looked blank as Andy said, "You know woggles, dib dib dob and helping old ladies with their shopping."

Tom shook his head. His somewhat limited knowledge of what scouts were came from some comments Hal had made and honestly he wasn't entirely sure about how it all worked. "No, I just used to do a lot of camping with me dad." Tom snapped some of the smaller sticks into kindling and arranged it on top of the crunched up paper. "Well when we weren't in the van."

"I thought about getting a camper van, before I got this place" Andy said, getting some tins out of a cupboard. "Freedom of the open road and all that."

"They're alright." Tom held a match to the paper and watched the edges blacken before catching fire. "But they ain't much fun in the winter. You're better of with a house."

Putting the tins down on the table he looked curiously at Tom. "You actually lived in a van?"

"Yeah well mostly. I lived in this old hotel for a bit after dad." He added a few more sticks to the fire making sure they caught light before adding anything larger. "It were nice there by the sea, having a job like a normal person."

The look Andy gave him was somewhere between confusion and pity, and Tom suddenly felt very defensive of his past. Of course Andy wouldn't understand, he was just an ordinary person. This was why his dad had kept them hidden, kept them moving. Vamps might use you or even kill you, but it was normal people if they found out, if they told the world, who could really destroy you.

Andy seemed as if he was going to ask another question, then he shrugged and opened a drawer in the welsh dresser opposite the range. Getting out a tin opener, he said, "You don't mind if it's just eggs, chips and beans, do you?"

"Course not." Tom looked at the fire that was starting to burn brightly, the smaller pieces of wood alight enough to catch the couple of larger logs he'd put on top. "Is there anything else you want me to do?"

"You could do the potatoes," Andy said, then almost immediately shook his head. "You don't have to though. I mean you're a guest. My mam would never let me hear the last of it if she knew."

"Why?" Tom asked as he went over to the veg rack which had been pushed into a gap between the dresser and a bookcase. Taking out a few potatoes, he said, "You're giving me free grub, it'd be rude not to help. It's like holding doors open or ladies and old people or how you shouldn't steal from honest hard working folk."

"Really?" Andy said skeptically.

"Yeah, me dad was full of good advice," Tom replied as he started to cut up the potatoes. "He always knew what to do." He wondered what his dad would have thought about him setting out on his own or pitching up at the farm for a few nights. He hoped he would have been alright with it, especially as he was still trying to do what he'd wanted, to have a normal life. He'd only killed two vampires since leaving Honolulu Heights and compared to what life had been when his dad had still been alive it was almost like not fighting at all. Admittedly his dad had thought that he'd been leaving him at the hotel with George and Nina and Annie, the closest thing to fictional pack that his dad had invented when he'd been a kid to try and make their life more bearable.

Finding out all the stuff he'd believed about the pack, about what had happened to his mum and how he'd been born a werewolf was a lie and that his dad wasn't even really his dad had hurt like nothing else he'd known. Even the transformation in all it's bone-breaking awfulness was easier to deal with than that. They'd got through it in the end though and he would always think of Anthony McNair as his dad regardless of what had happened.

"I think those are small enough."

Tom looked down at the potato he'd been slicing. The chips were on the thin and decidedly wonky side, but not a complete loss. "At least they'll cook quick," he said scooping them up and dropping them into a pan on the top of the range.

"There is that," Andy replied, seeming amused rather annoyed at his lack of concentration.

With the chips frying in the pan and the beans beginning to bubble in another, Tom glanced round at Andy who was clearing plans, paperwork, DIY odds and ends and the cup and plate left over from breakfast from the table. Andy seemed like a good bloke. Not all lying flattery like Larry or Kirby had been or even full of slick half truths like Cutler, just interested in him and maybe a bit lonely. He didn't seem like the sort to be working alone, doing stuff like taking slates of a roof, not that Tom was sure what sort of person would be likely to, but Andy seemed rather lacking in some of the practical skills that he would have thought were necessary.

Giving the beans a quick stir, Tom wondered if he should say anything, maybe suggest that he could help out for a bit in exchange for letting him camp there. It was tempting, but with the full moon the following night, he decided that it was probably best to get that out of the way before asking for anything.

TBC – next part on Sunday.

Notes.

Sorry for delay on this, I know I said Wednesday and it's Friday, but I was getting everything transferred to a new laptop. The next part which is nearly written will be up on Sunday.

For readers not familiar with Being Human, Tom backstory, as incredible, sad and occasionally ridiculous as it is, is his canon one. Including growing up living in a van in the woods, pretending to be Hal's boyfriend, the situation with Allison, having a thing for female barristers and repeating back his dad's often rather odd combinations of advice – such as 'Always be kind and polite and have the materials to make a bomb.'