Persuade Me. By Ena

The modern Persuasion.

Author's Note: A rather short chapter update to tide you over as I celebrate the acing of my final exam of my degree. ;) We're almost there. Hang on. Read, enjoy and please review!

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With only a couple of hours before the dawn, I'm awoken by someone roughly shaking me awake. The arms around me tuck me in closer and I try to snuggle back into the warmth provided by their owner, but the hand shaking my shoulder persists. Blearily I open my eyes to see Liz's dimly lit face a little too close to my own. It occurs to me that neither Fred nor I are clothed, and I tell my sister as much.

'I don't care that either or you are naked, right now you need to get up and help me.'

'What's happened?' I go into nurse-mode, I'm still half-asleep, but if need be, I could probably perform CPR, insert whatever needles, medications and liquids needed to save a life.

There's a beat where I can tell she's paused, or I've fallen asleep again, but the hand on my shoulder tightens and my eyes open again, Liz sits down gently on the very edge of the bed,

'Penelope's been cheating on dad.' Is the first sentence out of her mouth. At this I bolt up straight, clutching the sheets to my front as the arms around me slide down to my hips. He might be mostly unconscious, like I wish I was, but I can tell Fred is awake and listening.

'What!' is my only coherent response, the idea that Penelope would cheat on Dad has always been something that I've mulled over, and then tossed aside as an errant thought, one to be laughed at.

Penelope is nodding though, 'it all came to light when we were out at the club tonight. That's what they were fighting about before dinner too. She's been shagging that McCall bloke that Aunt Agatha has been trying to set you up with for ages. She bought a little love nest for the two of them back in London, Dad found the papers for it this afternoon in her bag. Wanna get dressed and help me shame the bitch?'

I groan, and glance over at the clock on the bedside table, it's four in the morning, I'm running on three hours of sleep and my flight leaves in six hours. Shaming my "step-mother" is a little lower on my to-do list this morning.

By now, Fred is properly awake, like me and sits up behind me, resting his chin on my shoulder.

'I'm up for it,' he mumbles, 'only if we get pancakes for breakfast and someone can bump up my flight so I can get back to the UK this afternoon with Anne.'

My sister regards him for a moment, a tiny grin on her face.

'Done. Be ready for action in five minutes.' She announces with a smile. She stands and leaves, closing the door behind her.

I groan and flop back down onto the mattress, trying to reclaim my warm spot. Unfortunately it's gone and I've lost the comfortable feeling I had before. We get up, as promised, and make sleepy attempts to dress. Fred wearing his pants and singlet, me in my pyjamas and fluffy pale pink robe; we venture out into the living room, blearily blinking away the last remnants of sleep as our eyes adjust to the harsh lights.

Penelope is out of sight, in the master bedroom filling another suitcase that will accompany the two already sitting by the front door. Liz is seated on the couch facing outwards, casually buffing her nails as her laptop sits on her lap.

Yawning I ask what time it is in Australia, before the tinkling sound of glass breaking from the master bedroom echoes out towards us.

'Midday, Robin's just gotten back from his morning training sesh.'

'Tell him hello from me' I say again, just before another monster yawn hits me.

'Who's Robin?' Fred asks, just before his yawn echoes from mine.

'Liz's Australian boyfriend, he's a pro-footballer over there.' I mumble, leaning back into him as his arms curves around me.

'Sounds like a decent bloke.' Is the mumbling reply.

Stepping back, Fred leads me towards the couch so he's seated next to my sister, and I'm seated on his lap, curled up towards him. I swivel so I can still see my sister, and the rest of the open-plan area. For Penelope to bring out her third suitcase she would need to pass us.

'Where's dad?' I ask, when it becomes clear to me that our father is nowhere to be seen or heard.

Liz shrugs, 'I left him at the club in town with Aunt Agatha and the Musgroves. They'll take care of him. I'm pretty sure Mrs Musgrove mentioned something about making sure he crashes at their suite tonight. Dad'll be horrified at the prospect of sleeping on anything but his Egyptian cotton sheets, but that'll be for him to worry about when he sobers up.'

'How drunk was he when you left?' I ask,

'He'd gotten through more scotch on the rocks than was in the bottle, even managed a few shots with Hen and Lou, which was hilarious, and when I was leaving he had ordered a triple of something. So when he wakes up he'll have quite the headache, on top of the one he'll have about Penny.'

I groan, and sink further into Fred's embrace.

'Wait,' Fred pipes up, 'your dad was having shots with Lou and Hen?'

Liz nods, pulls out her phone and unlocks it, 'It was about ten minutes after Penny had scampered off to a corner to make phone calls, he was already smashed, and Hen offered to buy a couple of rounds. Got it on video too.'

She had indeed caught most of it, my grey and balding father doing a line of shots with the sisters of his son-in-law.

If I wasn't so exhausted, it'd be even funnier.

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In all, we manage to give Penelope a good half dozen dirty looks as she emerges several times over the following hour, each time with a full bag to set down by her things. No one says a thing when she's in the room, but the moment she leaves Liz happily defames the woman she's always considered a confidante and friend.

My head starts to feel heavy and the yawns get more and more pronounced. Liz is determined to stay awake until Penelope leaves, as evident by her large steaming mug of coffee. I'm quite content to rest my head on Fred's shoulder as he watches my sister pull up the exclusive airfare website that she uses to score him a flight that leaves Milan only an hour after I do. The last thing I remember is the clock on the wall passing four am, just as Penelope's hired help takes the brunt of the baggage out the door and into the taxi waiting below to whisk her away. The warmth of Fred's embrace is the thing I note next, combined with the way the rising sun trickles in through the curtains.

It feels heavenly and I am loathe to move. My phone beeps insistently, rudely, so I give it my attention. It's already half past seven, and I have an hour and a half to be at the airport and fully checked in, ready to leave. I have to shower, pack and try to not repeat last night's activities because otherwise I'll really miss my flight.

Hesitantly I pull myself out of Fred's arms, trying to not fall back into sleep all the while. He's out for the count, deeply asleep after having no more than five hours sleep the night before. I leave him in bed and go to shower, the apartment silent aside from my footsteps. Clearly Liz has wiped all images and memorabilia of Penelope from the house before she went to bed. Photos have been ripped from their frames and I spy more than one broken frame in the trash. There's also evidence in the bin that Liz used unnecessary force extracting the photos, if the shards of glass that glitter in the morning light are any indication.

Back in my room I resist the temptation to wake Fred up by jumping on him, instead I pull out my small travel bag from the wardrobe and start to pack my meagre belongings on the bed next to him. He's completely asleep and in the end I do jump on him, wriggling on top of him until he cracks open one eye and a small little smirk appears.

'We get to go home today,' I mumble, 'away from the madness.'

He pulls his arms free from the doona and traps me in a hug, his lips finding my hairline and pressing a kiss gently there. Exhaustion is still evident in the way he sighs and yawns at the same time and I roll off him, making him roll with me onto his side. Blearily he checks his phone as I stand and zip up my travel bag, checking that my passport, phone and wallet are ready to go in my handbag.

'I have to go to the airport soon, otherwise I'll miss check-in and then I'll be stuck here for another day.'

'I could always smuggle you in my hand luggage on my flight?' is the sleepy response I get, marred by the fact he's snuggled back up. I sit back on the bed and poke him until he's sitting up, he needs to get up too, since his flight leaves only a short time after mine and his things are still at his hotel. I get up again and leave to let him shower, calling the cab company to organise a driver to take me to the airport.

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The trip to the airport is uneventful, with a pit stop on the way to drop Fred off at the hotel he was staying; I end up at the airport with ten minutes to spare before check in closes and then another twenty minutes to wait before boarding starts. I leave a quick voicemail for dad; letting him know I've made my flight and I'll call him again when I'm back in England, then spend a few minutes texting back and forth with Liz before they call my flight. Out of the corner of my eye I see her, Penelope, all dolled up to the nines at lunchtime, but it's who is with her that gives me a surprise. There are two men sitting with her, one I recognise, and the other I eventually place given the fact he's the splitting image of his father. The man I recognise is Reginald McCall, grey, slightly balding and moustached, his face still giving off the sheen of the freshly botoxed complexion. The younger of the two must be Elliot, and the way he's got his arm wrapped around Penelope suggests they've been together for some time. I'm still in line waiting for my ticket to be checked, with at least thirty people ahead of me, so I pull out my phone again and surreptitiously take a photo of them and send it to Liz, who will either be incensed anew, or she'll add it to the ever-growing pile of reasons to socially burn Penelope from every list that exists. The line has halved before I get a short reply from my sister, the words "the bitch is going down." flashing on my screen. I don't even have time to respond to that when I get another, "I sent it on to the girls back home. I don't expect she'll get the warm welcome she was hoping for on her arrival. Dad's home, hung over, I sent him to your room to sleep since I haven't cleared out the master bedroom yet."

That's the last I get before it's my turn to have ticket checked, and then I'm on the plane, in my seat and I have to turn the phone off.

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The two-hour flight back to England is as short as I can make it, by napping most of the time away, and sketching in my drawing pad for the remainder. I flip through my sketch book, trying to not wince at the really bad attempts in the first half of the book, before I can tell where I started taking advice from the internet and the sketches get considerably more tolerable. My half dozen sketches of Italy are probably my best yet; I linger on the page with the greyscale work I did in the park of the ducks and Sforza Castle, remembering how relaxing it was to sit under the tree with my music and to just exist in the moment. Something I haven't done terribly much of for as long as I can remember. I always feel like I'm taking care of someone, or someone's problems, but that afternoon was bliss, just as last night was bliss, aside from the Penelope drama.

The pilot announces our descent and I pack away my sketch book, instead watching the clouds zoom past the small oval window as we soar through the layers of white wisps. Eventually I can make out London, and minutes later, we land at Heathrow. No one is there to greet me at the airport, but I assumed that, since my entire family is in Milan for the rest of the week at the very least. After baggage claim I still have half an hour to wait until Fred's plane arrives, so I sit in the airport café and order a tea and a scone while I wait. The minutes tick by so slowly until the arrivals board announces that the Milan flight has landed. I walk to the gate he's arriving at and stand near the glass sliding entrance, in a tactical spot where I'll be able to see him descending the stairs.

He looks more awake than he did a few hours ago, and the smile that graces his features when our eyes meet is enough to have me breathless again. He's real, he's here and for all intents and purposes, he's mine. Still, when he clears the final glass door separating us, the hug we share would be enough to make any passer-by think we had been apart from each other a lot longer than three hours.

We're home.

Fred has no checked in luggage, so we're free to go. The cab driver's eyes light up when he hears just how far he has to take us, and I send up a little prayer to above that cabs nowadays take eftpos. The drive back to my place is unmemorable, aside from the weather notching up a few degrees and the constant warm pressure of Fred's hand around mine.

Finally, we're really home.

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