OOOOhhhh its good to be finished with this chapter... Right, ok. Thank you to my lovely review type people, and a special huge wonderfully loving THANK YOU to Hannah and Corinne for all your help, i really couldnt have done this one without you! Mwa!

The rest of the day passed without great event – Tara and Dèsirèe very coolly and civilly made clear their dislike of each other (without the others catching on of course), they wrestled Vince into a beret, despite his protests about what it would do to his hair, and they stopped at a lovely crêperie for lunch.

It was now early evening, and they had reached the Eiffel tower. Tara took a few photos, but was careful not to take too long for fear of everyone else getting bored. When she was done, they began the long ascent of the stairs. They stopped to look around a little on the two lower platforms, but the sun was sinking fast, so they decided to hurry up to the top.

There was a huge crowd of people by the lifts, and Vince, Howard, Dèsirèe and Bollo managed to stick together, but Tara and Naboo got separated, and subsequently had to take a different lift. Although they were right at the front of the queue, their small statures meant that they got jostled into a corner by the huge crowd, and ended up with Tara pressed up against the wall, Naboo pressed up against her by a large American woman behind him.

Their eyes met for a moment, and they both smiled before looking away, embarrassed.

'Sorry about this' he said, steadying himself against the wall behind Tara so he didn't get pushed right into her.

'Its ok, I don't mind. I mean,' she hastily added, 'its not your fault.'

They made a quick stop at the intermediate platform, where some people got off, giving Naboo room to step back a little. Unfortunately more people then got on, which mean that there was just as little space as before, only now the large American woman was stood between them. She looked strangely familiar.

'Are you ok?' Naboo asked Tara, who had been looking a little uncomfortable, over the woman's shoulder.

Before Tara could reply, the American woman, apparently thinking Naboo had been talking to her, answered. 'Well I'm just dandy thank you hon, and yourself?'

'Uh, yeah, great.' He muttered, trying to ignore Tara's giggles.

'You been to Paris before sugar?'

'Uh yeah, a little while ago.' In fact, Naboo has spent quite some time in Paris, during the bohemian revolution, dealing silk scarves and saffron.

'Its my first time' she beamed. 'Its not often I have a first time at my age.' She added, nudging him suggestively, which made him stumble into a nearby security guard.

Seemingly unperturbed by Naboo's obvious disinterest, she carried on. 'You're from England aintcha? I've just been over there visiting my nephew, Bobby. He runs a zoo.'

Tara, who throughout this 'conversation', had been stifling laughter, pulled herself together to ask 'He's not called Bob Fossil by any chance, is he?'

The woman, lets call her Betty, turned around, noticing Tara for the first time. 'He sure is, why, do you know him?'

'I only met him once, my brother used to work at his zoo.'

'Oh really? What was your brothers name?'

'Vince Noir.'

'Oh well sure, Bobby mentioned him! Said he was a great keeper, and had lovely hair?'

'Yep, that's Vince.'

'He also mentioned another fellow though, that he used to associate with, someone called Moon?'

'Howard Moon, yeah.'

'Bobby said he was terrible, always getting your brother into trouble and messing up things wherever he went.'

'That's not true.' Said Naboo. 'Howard was a good keeper, things just tended to go wrong when he was around…' he finished pathetically.

'And I expect it was Vince who was a bad influence on Howard, not the other way around!' added Tara.

'All I know is what I heard' replied 'Betty'.

'Well, yeah, course you have sorry. But Howard and Vince are here, if you wanna talk to them as well.'

'Oh, I would love that! I'm sure Bobby would like to hear how they're doing. Where are they?'

'They went up already, but I'm sure if Fossil described Vince adequately, you'll be able to find him!' Tara grinned. However, she wasn't so much grinning at the woman, as what she imagined happening when Vince and Dèsirèe were ambushed by this woman… That should provide some entertainment if things get a bit dull.

Meanwhile, Howard was in a spot of bother. He had consumed three bottles of water walking up the stairs, and was now hearing the call of nature very loudly, and it wasn't about to leave a message and ring back. He couldn't see a sign for toilets anywhere, and Tara was nowhere in sight either. He'd have to use the vague memories he had of doing French in school, and ask someone.

He sidled casually up to the information desk. 'Bonjour, ou est le garcon si vous plait?'

'Ou est ce qui?' asked the woman behind the counter.

'Le garcon.' Howard suddenly realised that 'garcon' wasn't the word he was searching for. 'Pardon, le hommes, ou est le hommes?'

The woman looked bewildered.

'Le hommes, je veux le hommes, où suis eux?' He tried to indicate going to the toilet, but ended up miming something very different indeed. Luckily at that moment, Tara spotted him and came to the rescue.

'Howard, what on earth are you doing?'

'I'm trying to find out where the sodding loos are, she doesn't seem to understand what I'm saying.'

'What are you saying?'

'"Ou est le hommes, je veux le hommes", that's right isn't it?'

'That's 'where are the men, I want the men'! And with that mime, I'm not surprised at the look she was giving you!'

'No, but, wouldn't, it'd be obvious- oh, forget it, just tell me where they are please?'

'Over there' she pointed, and Howard scurried off while she tried to straighten things out with the poor woman Howard had been harassing.

The shop assistant had disappeared by the time Howard came back, he gave Tara a sheepish grin as they began to wander about, talking.

'Where are the others, surely they coulda helped you out a bit there?' asked Tara.

'I don't know, Vince and Dèsirèe disappeared as soon as the lift doors opened, and I think Bollo went to the gift shop. They wouldn't have been any good anyway, they cant speak French. Well, except Dèsirèe.'

Tara made a small noise of contempt in her throat.

Howard continued. 'They wouldn't want to help though, they'd prefer to sit back and laugh at me.'

'Come on Howard, I'm sure that's not true!' He looked at her. 'Well, ok, maybe a little, but they'd help in the end. That's what you four do isn't it, help each other out when you're in a fix?'

'I guess so, yeah.'

'You're pretty lucky to have friends like that.' Tara said quietly.

Howard nodded thoughtfully. 'But you must have loads of friends though, y'know, trucking about.'

'I did.'

'Did?'

She sighed. 'Yeah. Don't get me wrong, I love the friends that I have, but I seem to have less and less. Vince is pretty much my best friend, how pathetic is that?'

'That's not pathetic, its quite nice.' Howard said insistently.

'Maybe.' They'd reached the balcony, and looked out over the majestic view. 'I used to have quite a lot at school, because we saw each other all the time, and went out and stuff, but that doesn't happen so much any more. And every time I see them now, it seems like we've drifted a little further apart, y'know? And I'm just really afraid that one day I'll see them and not know them at all'

'Don't you ever get together or anything?'

'We used to get together almost every week, they'd always call me whenever they were arraigning anything so that I could get to them in time, if I wanted to go. Well, they used to anyway.'

'Used to?'

'Yeah, I haven't been hearing from them so much recently.' Howard looked down at her. 'well, I mean, they're probably busy and stuff y'know… forgot about me I guess…' she looked away.

Howard frowned. For the first time, he was getting the feeling that Tara might actually be lonely. It had never occurred to him before, she'd always seemed very happy, driving around and being able to please herself, but now it seemed that perhaps that wasn't the case.

Tara was muttering under her breath, half to herself. 'They've got new friends now.. private jokes…' Tears were beginning to form in her eyes as she stared out ever the Paris skyline, not actually seeing any of it. Realising this, she hastily wiped them away, embarrassed. 'Oh god, look at me.' She attempted to regain her composure. Howard moved to hug her, but she held up her arms as a barrier.

'No, I mean, thank you Howard, I appreciate the gesture really, but – if you hug me, I know that I'll just break down completely.'

Howard nodded understandingly. 'Ok. You know, if you ever need to talk again…'

She smiled. 'I know, thank you.' She turned to leave, but then added 'oh, um, don't tell anyone will you please Howard? Especially Vince, he'll only freak out and start clinging to me, asking me if I'm alright ever five seconds. I'm not putting up with that again'

'Sure. Where is Vince anyway?'

'Oh, I think he's over-' she had turned around to look for him, and now spotted him next to the pay-telescopes, with his tongue seemingly halfway down Dèsirèe's throat. 'There' she finished, before stalking off in the opposite direction.

'Tara?' Naboo called.

She wandered over. 'Yeah?'

'Can you read this please?' he asked, pointing to a sign in French. He then pointed again, this time in English.

She looked at it, scanning through before she read it aloud. 'Ok, but this isn't word for word mind… when the Nazis were here in 1940, the French people cut the lift cables so Hitler would have to climb up the steps if he wanted to get to the top. The parts to repair them were allegedly impossible to obtain because of the war, though they were working again within hours of the departure of the Nazis. Soldiers had to climb all the way to the top to hoist the swastika from the top, but the flag was so large it blew away just a few hours later, and they had to go back up again with a smaller one. Hitler chose to stay on the ground. A Frenchman scaled the tower during the German occupation to hang the French flag. In August 1944, when the Allies were nearing Paris, Hitler ordered General Dietrich von Choltitz, the military governor of Paris, to demolish the tower along with the rest of the city. He disobeyed the order.'

'Cool' Naboo looked impressed. 'Where did you learn such good French?'

'Not at school, that's for sure! There used to be a French family living down the road a bit, this is after me and Vince left the forest, they ran a café, so I'd go down there and listen to them chatting to each other, and I picked some stuff up, and they taught me a bit. I used to get in trouble at school for skipping French lessons to go down there instead. Dunno what the big deal was, I learnt a lot more there then I would've in class, and I got lots of croissants too!'

'You got into trouble at school?'

'Yeah, quite a bit.. it wasn't for anything really bad, like being rude to teachers or not doing work or anything, it was mostly just for skipping classes to go to places I deemed more important, like the café or museums or whatever. They couldn't really complain though, because I always knew more when it came to exam time because of all the other work I'd put into learning stuff!' She looked thoughtful for a moment. 'I did almost get expelled once though.'

'Expelled?!'

'Yeah. It was this guy I was going out with, he was really sweet and funny, but he was only after one thing. And when I wouldn't give it to him, he tried to take it anyway.'

Naboo looked shocked. 'You mean-?'

'Yeah. But don't worry about it, I dealt with it, broke his arm. He tried to get me expelled for it though. The bastard.'

Howard sauntered over to Vince, who was surprisingly stood alone. 'Hey'

He turned round, to reveal the massive grin on his face. 'Hey Howard, you alright?'

'I suppose I can guess why you're looking so happy. Things going well with Dèsirèe are they?'

'Really well. I'm if lucky, I'll maybe try my luck at the Paris three-way' Vince said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively

Tara had been standing nearby, and now cried out 'oh, I didn't need to hear that!' before shaking her head and walking away, as 'Betty' noticed Vince, and began waving at him.

'Coo-ey!'

(Info about the Eiffle Tower from Wikipedia). Hope you liked that, please review!