A/N: Sorry for the delay in this, it seems I can't write on weekends and the first part of this week is manic at work. However, please enjoy this chapter and thank you so so much for your reviews and comments! I love them so much!

In which Elsie knows everything and Joe still can't do a Scottish accent.

Chapter Twenty-Six

"So what sorts of things do they ask then?"

Elsie looks away from the telly, over to where Beryl's curled up in the corner of the sofa. Bill's disappeared outside for a bit; something to do with his car. She hadn't really been listening; likely wouldn't have understood if she had.

"Who?"

"This website you're on."

"What website?"

Beryl rolls her eyes and waves a hand around. "This dating site."

She could, she supposes, be embarrassed or surprised that Beryl knows about that. Instead she just sighs, it was rather inevitable. Evidently nothing spoken to one Mason - or soon-to-be Mason - stays secret from the others for long.

"I'm not going to ask which of them told you, because it was probably both of them. But I am going to say what I said earlier; I'm not telling you anything."

She looks back to the telly but the picture pauses as Beryl huffs.

"I said I was sorry! I only told your Phyllis, the others must have overheard."

"Why were you even telling Phyllis?"

Beryl shifts awkwardly and Elsie narrows her eyes. "It's that bet, isn't it?" More shifting and a conspicuous lack of denial. "Beryl! You promised me you'd shut that down."

"No, no I didn't. You made what I felt was a rather hypocritical request that I never got around to doing anything about."

Elsie glares at her. "I wonder why we're friends sometimes."

"No you don't."

No, unfortunately she doesn't, although sometime she does question her sanity.

"Well, now you can do something about it. Shut. It. Down, before someone lets slip to Charles."

Beryl rolls her eyes. "No one's going to let him know and even if he did overhear something, he wouldn't get it."

Elsie's not so sure. Charles isn't quite as oblivious and people seem to think. Not about everything anyway. He just might not tell anyone what he knows, but he knows it just the same.

"Beryl."

Beryl raises her hands, the remote still held in one. "Alright, alright."

Elsie stares at her a moment longer, but then the telly starts up again and she turns back to it.

"So these questions…"

She closes her eyes and groans; it's going to be a long evening.

-x-x-x-x-

It's only later, tucked up in checked pyjamas and her duvet; that she realises Beryl still didn't actually agree to end the bet.

It shouldn't bother her, especially not now when she's finally getting used to the fact that Charles doesn't see her that way. Now she's letting herself get used to that.

But it does. Maybe it's because she doesn't actually like to be the subject of gossip and speculation; she's never got used to that, it was one of the benefits of being a journalist - she was always on the other side of the news.

Maybe it's because now that she's decided to move on from Charles, she wants everyone else to move on from that too. She's always known what they say about their friendship, and of course there's the bet that she's known about for a long time too. She understands it, after all; she does the same with Phyllis and Joseph, Charles's little 'Lady Mary' and whoever happens to be her flavour of the month.

And it isn't as though she and Charles haven't given them all plenty to talk about over the years; it is rare to have a friendship as deep as theirs after all.

But now that she's accepted that it is just a friendship, no matter how unique a one, she wants everyone else to accept it too. Otherwise, she'll be right back where she's been these last thirteen years, wondering if maybe she's wrong and everyone else is right and she should just wait Charles out a little longer.

She groans, drops her head into her hands and scrubs. No, no. She's not doing this again. She's not going to let her friends do this to her.

Let them think what they want, she knows what's better for her and it isn't waiting and wondering. Not anymore. Not if she doesn't want to end up living alone.

There's a part of her that knows that she'll never actually he alone, she has Beryl and Charles, Becky and Anna and John. But there's another part of her that also knows that one day Charles is going to find someone else and Elsie needs to be ready for that.

She jumps at the ring of her mobile, the sound low but the vibrate strong enough the thing almost shakes itself off her beside table before she can grab it.

It's not that late yet, even if she is ready for bed, still she's not expecting a call.

"Hello?"

"El?"

Twenty years and she still knows that voice.

"No one's called me that in a long time." She runs the volume right down on the TV, slumps back against the headboard. "Hello Joe."

Joe laughs, it sounds almost as natural as she remembers. That's Joe; he always seemed so comfortable everywhere, she evened that. "I'm not surprised; you always said you hated it."

She smiles, pulling her knees up and resting her elbows on them. "I didn't hate it. I said it was lazy; Elsie's already an abbreviation-"

"-so people could at least take the time to say that in full. I remember."

She laughs. "You should, I said it often enough."

"Mmm, still let me call you El though."

"I didn't think I could make you stop. You were quite stubborn back then, Joe Burns."

"Still am, if my son's to be believed."

It's odd, the way that seems to jerk her back, as though she's just remembering that it's been twenty-years since she last spoke to him. He must be thinking the same because before she can say anything, he's talking again.

"I've missed your voice." She swallows. "You know, afterwards, I still kept expecting that Tuesday phone call."

"I kept picking up the phone to make it." She admits quietly. That phone call had been a part of their relationship for three years then, a part of her routine. For a couple of months she'd think of him every time it got to eleven-eleven on a Tuesday morning. Even now, if she glances at a clock precisely at that time, she'll think of those calls.

"I wish you had."

She closes her eyes, her throat feeling swollen and tight. "No, you don't."

They wouldn't have made it, she and Joe. Not in the long run.

"Maybe not. Still would have been nice to hear your voice. No one calls me a 'silly fool' the way you do."

She laughs, the sound bursting through the lump in her throat. "Still can't do a good Scottish accent can you Joe?"

"I'll have you know, I've been practicing that."

"Don't give up your day job just yet." He laughs with her. "Speaking of which; organic farming, really?"

"You have to move with the times El. As I believe a very beautiful woman once told me."

Still a charmer then. She rolls her eyes because he can't see her. "Shut up and tell me the things you left out of your letter, you silly fool."

He laughs. "Ah, there it is."

She wriggles deeper into her duvet. It is good to hear from him after all.

Key:

I'll...uh, I'll add this when I'm on the bus. :P

Okay...I came back but actually, I can't find anything *to* add. Let me know if I'm wrong about that though!