Her thoughts turned to Mary Lars for a brief moment. Mary had died back in November from pneumonia. Tara had given up trying to make Mary like her a long time ago and while she took the baby over from time to time to see her grandparents, she simply let Mary's sarcastic remarks wash over her and then shook them off. Mary's opinion no longer mattered to her. When James called her one night to tell her Mary was in the hospital and wasn't expected to live, Tara rushed over to be with her, but by the time she got there, she was too late. There were no last words of forgiveness to be exchanged, but James, grief stricken at the loss of his wife and son in the same year took her hand in his and told her something that eased the pain in her heart at the lost opportunity. Two days prior, as Mary lay in the hospital with James holding her hand, she turned to her husband with tears in her eyes.
"I'm going to see our son James. I only hope he can forgive me for the horrible way I treated the one woman in the world who brought him such happiness as Tara did these past four years. If I don't get the chance, tell her for me that I'm sorry." After a few words of love and endearment for her husband, she said no more and a few hours later she slipped into a coma. When she died, there had been a soft smile on her face and James knew she was holding their son in her arms once again.
Impulsively, Tara tried talking James into coming to live with her. The house was certainly big enough and she loved her father-in-law very much, but he refused saying he wanted to live out his life in his own home. Giving him time to grieve in his own way, Tara visited him frequently in order to keep him company, much in the same way Steed had done for her. After several months passed by, Tara asked him to head the board of directors of the Roger Lars foundation. He accepted immediately, happy to have something to do in memory of his son. He refused any payment and often contributed to some of the expenses out of his own pension.
The thought of Steed suddenly flashed in her mind. She hadn't seen him in months though he wrote or rang her often. He was off and running again, this time with two young protegees. Mother had retired taking Rhonda with him. The agency as Tara had known it, no longer existed. Gone were the days of spies and intrigue. From Steed's description, it sounded more like extended police work then anything else. Sweet Steed. He had moved on to bigger and better things, though he was starting to feel his age he said. Whenever they talked, they would reminisce about the cases they had worked on and compared them to his current cases. Modern technology had seemed to have taken out the finer points of espionage. Now computers analyzed the data that was found, looked at the clues without the human emotion that she and other agents had been subjected to, and came up with the answers much more quickly then she and Steed ever had. She didn't envy him one bit. It all sounded extremely boring to her and she felt sorry for him.
The world was changing as was she. Her thoughts were interrupted by Elizabeth who had crawled over to her and patted her knee.
"Mum. Mum. Bo." Tara laughed as she picked up the baby in her arms.
"You want Mummy to blow you some bubbles? Okay love. Sit here on Mummy's lap." Tara sat the baby down and picked up the small bottle of bubble mixture and started to entertain her little daughter, leaving her thoughts for another day.
Steed shielded his eyes from the sun as he looked around the park. For a moment, all he could see were trees, flowers, and a few children running across the grounds. Then he saw the most incredibly beautiful sight ever, just a few yards straight in front of him. So pretty was it, that it made his breath catch in his throat as he stood there and admired it for just a few moments. A beautiful, slender woman dressed simply in a black jacket, pink silk blouse and black slacks sat on a blue blanket. Her now shoulder length hair was pulled away from her face with a black ribbon with just a few stray curls surrounding her pretty face. The longer hair softened the sadness that had remained in her eyes for the past year. She was incredibly beautiful just then, but that was only part of the picture. In her lap sat a little mite of a child, clapping her hands gleefully as the woman blew bubbles with the small plastic wand. The child's delight made her mother laugh, and that laugh was what made John Steed a happy man. He enjoyed the scene being played out in front of him for just a few moments more and then walked over to them.
"Now if all the world could have seen the pretty picture I just saw, peace and love would rule the land." Steed said as he sat down on the blanket next to Tara and kissed her cheek. He then reached over and chucked the little girl under the chin.
"Steed! Oh it's so wonderful to see you again! Why didn't you tell me you were coming out?" Tara said with undisguised joy in her voice as she reached over to him and hugged him fiercely.
"I wanted to surprise you. I have a two week holiday coming to me and I thought I'd like to spend it with you. I've neglected you horribly these past few months."
"You've done no such thing. You've been busy saving the world from crime of which I am eternally grateful."
"Hardly. Purdey and Gambit are out having all the fun. I usually just sit back and let them do all the work."
"Steed, twenty years from now, you will still be knocking the bad guys about with your bowler and umbrella. You could never stand idly by. Remember when you were laid up with a broken leg?"
"That was just one man and you did all the leg work if I remember correctly. No pun intended. It seems to me I remember a certain young lady, with a beautiful, but misaligned tibia, taking on two men all by herself."
"That was purely survival instinct."
"Ditto."
Tara laughed and Steed smiled. He was not about to tell her that his job had grown significantly more dangerous then when the two of them had worked together. She had enough worries and he wasn't about to add to them. Changing the subject he looked back down at Elizabeth.
"And how's Tara junior doing today?" Steed asked her as she lay her head against her mother's shoulder and looked at him shyly through the brown curls that fell over her eyes. Tara looked down at her and brushed her hair away from her face.
"Don't call her that. And since when did you become so shy?" Tara asked the child. Steed chuckled as the little girl closed her eyes and then opened them up again very slowly.
"I don't think she's being shy. She's flirting with me. She has all her mother's tricks and graces and she knows just how to win a man's heart. Obviously she has good taste too."
"If you say so, but just so you know, she did the same thing with an eighty-eight year old admirer yesterday."
"She likes older men. Which brings me to my next statement. I need a date for this evening, you know, fine dining, dancing, a nightcap at my place. May I take this opportunity to ask your permission for the loan of this lovely lass for the evening?"
"Her curfew is five pm"
"Oh dear. When will she be old enough to have a seven pm curfew?"
"When she's thirty."
"Oh. Well I'm very disappointed of course so I guess I'll have to ask you. When is your curfew?"
"Well normally my carriage turns into a pumpkin at ten sir, but I suppose I could ask my fairy godmother for an extension for one evening. If I can get someone to take your first choice for the evening."
"That's already been arranged my dear. Rhonda is coming over to take care of her."
"And was Rhonda coming over to take care of me if your first choice had been available?"
"Well actually, I knew that the poor child's mother was an evil woman who never let her charge have any fun, so I took a risk to see if I could talk the mother into going out with me. I'm hoping my natural charm and good looks will soften her cold, cruel, heart."
"It's not likely, but you can give it a try for the evening and see what happens." Steed started to say something, but Elizabeth had picked up the bubble wand and held it out to Steed.
"Bo. Bo." she said. Steed looked at Tara inquisitively.
"Uh..translation please?"
"Now John, if you can't speak the native language, however do you hope to procure my permission to date my daughter?"
"Bo!" Elizabeth demanded. A light dawned on Steed's face as he realized what the child wanted.
"Oh! You want me to blow you some bubbles! I see. Well, I'm quite sure your mother is better at this then I am, but we'll give it a try." Steed said as he took the wand, dipped it into the small jar, and started to blow a stream of bubbles. The baby laughed and clapped her hands as she pulled away from Tara's arms and tried to chase after them. She was still learning to walk and soon tumbled down, but she wasn't fazed in the least bit as Steed blew another stream for her and then another. She soon tired of the game though and crawled back over to them. Holding her arms out she looked at Steed.
"Up?"
"Now that's a word I understand." Steed said as he picked the child up in his arms and cuddled her. Tara reached over and brushed the hair away from her face. Elizabeth lay her head down on Steed's shoulder and started to fall asleep.
"She's such a love of a child. I still can't believe how quickly she's growing." Steed said as he settled back against the tree behind them and cradled the baby in his arms.
"She is. And so curious about everything. There are days I'm lucky if I can sit down for five minutes when she's awake. She's into everything. She's such a good girl. She hardly ever cries. And the other day when I was feeling a bit down thinking about Roger, she came up to me, patted my knee, shook her little head and said "sad sad..no no." I couldn't help but laugh and that made her laugh too. She's been such a comfort to me."
"How are you doing for the most part?"
"All right I guess. The nights are hard still. And sometimes I swear I hear him coming up the walk, or I see him on the street. And then I remember he's gone and it hurts. Not as bad as before, but still. Sometimes I think I'm going crazy, that I should be over this by now. It's been a year after all and Elizabeth is such a wonderful distraction. And you too. You've helped more than you could ever know."
"I'm glad to know that things are going a bit better for you love. It's been a hard year for you. And you're not going crazy. There's no time line for grief."
"I know. Working on the Foundation has helped greatly I think. James is doing well too now that he's busy."
"Do you get to see him much?"
"Oh yes. Nearly every day. Nothing delights him more then to hold Elizabeth and play with her. She's started calling him pop pop and he smiles every time she does. He's away just now, visiting family in Paris. He'll be gone for a month. I miss him terribly. So does Elizabeth..."
Steed smiled again as he listened to Tara talk. His one deepest regret was not being able to find the man who had killed her husband. They had tried, but after six months, Mother reluctantly put the case to rest. Tara had taken the news with quietly enough. Actually she had been a bit surprised that the investigation had continued on as long as it had. She was never told that only Steed and Mother had continued the case.
He watched her as she kept her eyes on the sleeping child in his arms. A sweet smile played at her lips as she caressed the tiny leg closest to her. Oh how he had missed her over these past few months. Purdey was a sweet girl. He liked her very much and she was an incredible agent, but she wasn't Tara. To be fair, Tara hadn't been Mrs. Peel and Mrs. Peel hadn't been Cathy Gale, and so on and so on. Each and everyone of his partners had had his or her unique qualities that he had admired and missed greatly as each one had gone on to different things and different lives. But Tara, she would always have a very special place in his heart. While he had been saddened to see his other partners drift away from him, he had let them go without reservation, but Tara, he couldn't let her go. Not yet.
Tara had gone quiet as she watched Steed's face while she talked. He had definitely looked interested in what she had to say while she said it, but now he looked lost in thought. Had he grown board with hearing her talk continuously about Elizabeth? Had she become the type of mother she herself avoided if she could, the type whose whole life centered around her child? She hoped not. She loved her little daughter more then words could say. Each milestone the child achieved gave her great delight, especially when she thought about the fact that her prematurity could very well have kept her from learning to ever walk or talk. But the doctor's were extremely pleased with her progress saying that while she was still a little small for her chronological age, she was developing normally and had no long term health problems. She was a very normal, very beautiful little girl. But Tara tried hard not to make her the single subject of every conversation.
"Steed?" Tara asked softly as she put her hand over his with a questioning look in her beautiful green eyes. He smiled at the touch and clasped her hand into his.
"I'm sorry my dear. My thoughts seemed to have drifted off a bit. I was just picturing Elizabeth twenty years from now. I wonder if her taste in clothing and colors will match a certain young woman's I once knew."
Tara laughed. Looking down at the simple black outfit she had chosen to wear and the simple, common sense outfit she had dressed Elizabeth in, she realized her tastes had changed as well as everything else. She detested the fashions that were now part of the seventies life style and refused to wear them. She wondered what the fashion would be like in the eighties when Elizabeth was old enough to care about such things. With the way the world was changing, she wouldn't be surprised if everyone just ran around naked in which case, she would take Elizabeth away and live in a cave until the world made sense again. She shook her head and laughed again.
"I don't know. I hope not. Now Mr. Steed. Did I, or did I not, hear an offer of dinner and dancing for the evening? It's getting late and I'm famished." Tara said as she stood up and took the baby from him. Steed didn't move a muscle as he watched her cuddle the baby in her arms. She had the sweetest look on her face as she gently kissed the child's head. She had suffered so much grief and pain over the past three years with the loss of her father, her first child, and then her beloved husband. It would have made many women bitter, but not her. He hoped her suffering was finally over and that she would be able to find and keep the happiness she deserved. He stood up and took her in his arms and kissed her cheek.
"Come along love. Let's take this little princess home and then go out for dinner. I'll catch you up on all the doings of Purdey and Gambit." Steed said as hand in hand they walked to his car.