Disclaimer: I own nothing of the All Creatures Great and Small world.

Note: In this AU, a teenage Tristan impregnated and married a girl named Cecilia, who died in childbirth. The baby, Madeleine, stayed in the care of Siegfried and Evelyn while Tristan went to school. This story takes place seven years later, shortly before "You've Got to Dream".

. . . . .

When I come through the front door, Mrs. Hall is right here, sweeping the foyer. Which is not ideal. Mrs. Hall is one of my three most favorite people in the world, make no mistake, but her being right here, sweeping the foyer, right now . . . No. Not ideal at all.

She stops mid-sweep, eyebrows close together. "What are you doing back already?"

I usually come home for lunch, but there's still an hour or so before lunchtime, so it's perfectly reasonable of Mrs. Hall to ask this question. I don't answer her anyway. I just walk past her, quickly, holding Miss Stirling's pencil box tightly between my hands, tightly against my belly. "Where's Uncle Siegfried?" Surgery and the exam room are to my right, the parlor is to my left, and the doors to all three rooms are open. Uncle Siegfried is in none of them. "He's not out, is he?"

"Just finished an operation. What's – "

"Uncle Siegfried!" I walk down the hall and turn the first corner, so I'm at the foot of the stairs. I think about going up but don't, because at this time of day, Uncle Siegfried is more likely to be in the dispensary than anywhere upstairs. I walk on, taking a deep breath. "Uncle Sieg – !"

My uncle comes around the hall's next corner just as I'm about to. I only just manage to get out of his way. He's wearing his white coat and his glasses, and, because he's busy frowning at a piece of paper in his hand, I'm not even sure he's noticed me until he says, "Don't shout in the house, Maddy."

It's not the first time he's given me that instruction, but it's an utterly ridiculous instruction for him to be giving anyone, as I've pointed out before. I might have done so again, were this a different situation. But it's not. And there are more important things.

"Uncle Siegfried –"

He's already passed by, though, and this time when he turns a corner he nearly runs into Mrs. Hall, who's left her broom somewhere. I think she was following me. Mrs. Hall is not my uncle. Things cannot get past Mrs. Hall.

Uncle Siegfried pushes his glasses up so that they're sitting on his head. "Mrs. Hall, the Watermills' sheep, the one with the limp. How bad did Marcus say it was?"

"Said she'd had it for a few days, but were keeping up with the flock well enough 'til this morning."

"A few days – for God's sake." Uncle Siegfried walks past Mrs. Hall now, and I do, too – again – and follow him to Surgery. He steps through the door, peeling off his coat. "It never fails with Marcus. He waits too long to call us, the animal suffers, his livelihood suffers, and who does he blame for the results of his own incompetence?" He hangs his coat. "Never himself, certainly, no, absolutely not." And my uncle passes me by again, without so much as a pause. "The man'll never learn."

"Uncle Siegfried –"

"I am working, Maddy." He gives me a pointed over-the-shoulder look. "For heaven's sake, child, have some patience. Mrs. Hall, when is Mrs. Sturgis bringing her dog?"

"Two o'clock."

"Excellent. I'll drive up to the Watermill farm now, and with any –" Uncle Siegfried snaps his head my way, eyebrows close together, the way Mrs. Hall's were before. He pops out his arm, checks his watch, and looks back to me. "Why are you here? What's wrong? Has something happened?"

Every second since I stepped into the foyer, I've been desperately trying to get his attention. Now I have it. I shift my feet, adjust my hold on the pencil box, and open my mouth.

"Um . . ." is what comes out.

I had no doubt about this plan when I assured Miss Stirling my uncle would know what to do. No doubt as I made my way home as fast as I thought I could without moving the pencil box too much. But now – now, Mrs. Hall and Uncle Siegfried are both staring at me. And Uncle Siegfried has noticed the pencil box. His eyebrows are still close together, but he's squinting his eyes, too. "Maddy?" he says in the slow way he says things when he wants answers but he's not sure he'll like them.

I look between him and Mrs. Hall – she has her head down and one eyebrow up – and I lick my lips, bite down on the bottom one, and pull back the lid of the pencil box. Uncle Siegfried and Mrs. Hall step closer. I tilt the box towards them as much as I dare, which is only a little. I don't want to disturb the contents.

A moment passes. Uncle Siegfried lets out a long sigh.

"Are those what I think they are?" Mrs. Hall's voice is low.

I glance down at the four of them, tiny, pink, and just a bit wiggly. They're not old enough to be more than a bit wiggly, I think. "They're babies," I say, because Mrs. Hall likes babies, baby humans and baby everything-elses.

Well. Most everything-elses.

"I can see that. Of what species?"

It's Uncle Siegfried who answers her, in the tired tone he usually only uses at the end of the day. "One which belongs to the genus Rattus, Mrs. Hall."

Mrs. Hall rolls her head back before giving me the look she gives me when I've – as my uncle puts it – dumbfounded her. "You brought rats into this house?"

"They're only babies!" I look at Uncle Siegfried, who's still looking at the rats. His mouth is tight in a way I can't read. "Miss Stirling found them at school. They were in the storage room. There are rat traps all over the storage room right now, Mr. Clooney insisted on putting them there, because – well, there's a bit of a rat problem."

"You don't say?" says Mrs. Hall.

"Their mother was got by a trap this morning. Miss Stirling thinks that was their mother, anyway. She didn't know what to do when she found the babies. She didn't want to just . . . kill them. Or let Mr. Clooney kill them. So I told her I would take them." I swallow and, in a small way, shrug. "I couldn't just let them die."

Uncle Siegfried reaches out to me – no, to the box. Slowly, gently, he closes it. "Darling –" And his voice has gone soft, far too soft – "most likely they'll die no matter what we do."

I clutch the box even more tightly and move back a little.

"And even if they didn't, even if they made it to adulthood, they'd never be able to survive on their own out in the world."

"I'll take care of them!"

Uncle Siegfried's head sort of twitches back. Mrs. Hall turns to him, and my uncle mutters, "Yes, yes, thank you, walked right into it, I know . . ." and scratches his head, eyeing the floor.

My throat is closing up, and I don't want it to. I'm trying to stop it, but I'm not sure I can, and I have to work too hard to say, "Please, Uncle Siegfried. Please." I put my hand on top of the pencil box, and before I know it my fingers have wrapped around the box's edge to grip the wood so tightly it hurts my bones. "We can't just let them die." I've already said that, or said close enough, but it's all I know to say now. It seems like the most important thing.

Mrs. Hall, she's giving me a certain look, the same one she gave me the time I'd been running in the house and had accidentally knocked a bottle of Uncle Siegfried's whiskey off a table and broken it, and Mrs. Hall felt sorry for me but knew she'd have to tell him – well, make me tell him – what had happened anyway. I hated this look then, hated it hated it hated it, and I hate it even more now, hate it hate it hate it hate it hate it hate it hate it.

Uncle Siegfried looks again at the box and then to me, but I look back at him for only a second because after that my sight goes blurry, and that's when Uncle Siegfried says, "Yes, well," and touches my hand, the one gripping the box so tightly, and nudges it away to make room for his own. He lifts the box from me. "As I said, they'll probably die no matter what we do, so don't be upset when that happens. Or, well – be upset, that's fine, but don't be surprised. Come, come." He puts his hand on my back and guides me into Surgery. "If they're to have any chance at all, we have to get them warm. And you'll have to learn to feed them, young lady, they're your responsibility."