A/N: Oh I loved every comment, thank you so much! (And I aim to try and reply to as many as I can today, but the mobile version of this site is not a friend when it comes to that). Our favourite little non-couple will have a nice cup-of-tea-based scene together in the next chapter, and there's one chapter coming up I think you'll all love a little too. But first, Beryl pops in for a visit.

In which Beryl is a worse spy than Elsie {in fact she doesn't even try to be good} and Charles keeps his secret.


Chapter Twelve

Charles waits until he has a free gap between seminars before pulling the picture out from his top drawer.

Becky's pictures are always best enjoyed when he doesn't have to rush away. She is a talented artist, abstract on occasion perhaps but while her developmental age seems that of a young child, her art does not. He has seen things come out of the Art Department which represent their subjects with less accuracy than Becky's drawings.

Settled in his chair, he reads his name again on the paper and smiles.

It's even odds as to whether this'll be a picture taken from her favourite film of the moment, or if it'll be a picture of he and Elsie. He has in his small collection quite a mix of both.

He opens it and laughs, even as he feels his cheeks flushing. It could be from a film of course, but he would recognise those exaggerated eyebrows anywhere.

"What've you got there?"

He startles at Beryl's voice close to his ear and slams his hands together, closing the picture up between them.

"Don't you ever knock?"

She scoffs, pulls a chair up close beside him. "Twenty years, Charlie Carson. I'm not about to start knocking now."

He scowls, it isn't as though he hasn't tried to get her to knock over the years. The most annoying thing about it is that she'll do it for Elsie, only Elsie has told her not to bother when Beryl knows she's free.

They're infuriating.

Beryl reaches out and tugs at a corner of the picture. "So, what have you got?"

Carefully he pulls the picture out of her reach again, lays it on the desk with his palm down flat on top. He eyes her, the fidgeting, the way she can't look at him for long.

"You already know what it is." She flinches. "I cannot believe that woman." Elsie actually sent a spy.

"I just popped in to ask if you've changed your mind about Saturday."

He raises an eyebrow and watches with some amusement as she seems to shrink under it. Usually Beryl leaves the lying to Elsie; she's much better at it. "That's not why you're here and we both know it. Elsie sent you to look at the picture." He turns his eyes to his closed door. "Is she waiting outside for you to report back?"

Beryl hesitates only a moment before collapsing with a sigh, her body folding back into the chair. She waves a loose hand at him. "Alright, alright, you win. She's not outside, no, but she did send me."

He shakes his head at the both of them. "And what did she offer you in return for this little bit of espionage?"

He watches as she comes to a realisation, her forehead scrunching up. "Nothing, she- actually she…didn't...that that plotter."

He chuckles, he's called Elsie that himself before.

Beryl looks at him with wide eyes. "She asked if I'd come look or ask you direct and I told her I couldn't of course, that I wouldn't break your trust like that."

"Of course." He agrees with a smirk, not buying a word of it. Beryl would have said no, true enough, but she'll have said it because she knows he always catches her out even when she has better days than this.

"And then she started asking about Saturday and if I had any plans, that there was a poetry bash in the village and she thought she might go down there for the night. She was talking about buying tickets and reserving a table for dinner and I panicked."

He laughs, a low burst of it. "And you told her you'd come search my office now, just to stop her from talking?"

Beryl nods, shaking her head and rubbing at her eyes. "You know what this means? She knows "

"Of course she knows! She always knows."

"Hmmm, but this time she doesn't care that we know she knows."

It takes him just a second to untangle that one. "I think she just cares more about finding out what Becky drew and less about pretending to be surprised."

"And you're not going to tell me?" He has to give it to her, Beryl does look a little optimistic; it's a wonder she still has that in her, surrounding herself with people like he and Elsie as she does.

"No. But you can tell Elsie that I'm impressed she took it this far." It's the first time she's actually sent someone else to do her dirty work. He wonders if it has anything to do with their conversation yesterday about certain black pots.

"I don't know why she doesn't just look at the thing before she gives it to you. Save us all the trouble." Beryl rises from her chair, grumbling and he follows her up.

"Becky makes her promise, and you know how Elsie is about promises."

"Still...you could save us the bother if you'd just tell her what her sister draws."

He nods as he opens his door for her. "I could, but it's more entertaining this way; when does Elsie ever not know something?"

He expects Beryl to laugh, to agree that their friend can do with having some things kept from her. Instead she turns to him as she steps into the corridor, her face serious. "She doesn't know you plan to skip her birthday."

He sighs, feels that familiar knot forming; the one he gets whenever he thinks of the party and his decision. The one he has no logical reason for. She will understand. It's not the first social gathering he's missed that she might have expected him at. "Just her party, I'm not missing her birthday. I'll drop her present in to her, wish her a good day."

Beryl sighs, shakes her head again. Her finger pokes his chest, wrinkling his shirt. She opens her mouth and he waits for the warning he received yesterday, the threat that will convince him to change his mind, but after a moment she just sighs again and steps away.

He watches her make her way down the corridor to the lifts and for a moment he considers that she might be right, but he shakes his own head and closes the door.

Becky's picture still rests on the desk and he picks it up, flips it open.

If he ignores the church setting, the vicar and congregation. If he looks past the dark grey suit and white dress then he can see them there, a moment of their friendship captured on the page. Her laugh and his smile. Her attention on him, excluding everyone else, even as the Becky on the page pulls at her hand.

No, he decides, folding the paper again and tucking it into his briefcase to take home, he's right this time. She should enjoy herself at the party, spend time with her other friends. And she won't miss him, not for just one night; friends like they are, they don't have to spent every moment together.


Key:

poetry bash - a place or event where poets gather to...well, not so much read as recite their poetry.

I'm not going to explain plotter because that's canon. ;)