DISCLAIMER: I don't own All Creatures Great and Small. Just borrowing the characters for a little while.

A/n: Hey all. Me again. I decided to have a rummage through my fic drafts and unearthed this little idea from last October - somewhat ironically, considering what could occur in the last episode of season 3... As with every episode we've seen so far, I'm looking forward to it with nervous anticipation. Also, I can't believe we're nearly at the end of the series already! Please do read and review if you have the time. I'd love to know your thoughts. As always, enjoy x


MAYBE TOMORROW


'I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany…'

All is quiet in Skeldale House, save for the wireless, the broadcast from 10 Downing Street bearing news they had hoped would never come. The unimaginable at last revealing itself as the inevitable. Sunshine dances across the sitting room carpet, golden and ethereal. Yet there is a coldness in the air. An unearthly, unbearable cold. In a matter of minutes, their steadfast way of life in the Dales has been left without permanence, and any certainty regarding the future is now tainted with mercurial reserve.

Gradually all gives way to a shimmering opaqueness, blurred by tears that do not yet possess the conviction to fall. Still she cannot prevent herself from shaking. Or perhaps it is only the earth trembling around her, tremoring with the knowledge of things yet to come.

'And now that we have resolved to finish it, I know that you will all play your part with calmness and courage.'

The voice of their Prime Minister seeps into the room with sombre commitment, a flood of foreboding doom and optimistic hope as he calls them to their duty. A prayer that they will, as they had all those many years ago, endure.

'May God bless you all. And may He defend the right, for it is evil things that we shall be fighting against – brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution; and against them I am certain that right will prevail.'

There is a strange tranquility in the silence that follows. A precarious calm that waxes and wanes with every passing second. The world becomes motionless, like an ocean beneath a hazy sky, stretching on into a limitless horizon with no wind to ripple its surface.

She's seen shell shock before, has witnessed its aftermath on the poor souls who had returned from Marne and Passchendaele, and countless other places along the Western Front. And this, she supposes, is the closest she'll ever come to experiencing it.

A quiet whine; Jess nudges her hand, settling at the housekeeper's feet and resting her head on her paws as if she too understands the gravity, the magnitude, of the hour.

Eventually James reclines, his face pale, muttering words incomprehensible to all but himself, head titled toward the ceiling as if there he might find some rational thought to reason with.

On the floor opposite, Tristan blinks in disbelief, his boyish grin replaced with the sobriety of someone thrice his age. The glass of whiskey in his hand remains untouched. It is a dreadful thing - watching what little remains of his youth slip from his grasp.

And Mr Farnon, having spent the entire speech standing, sinks onto the sofa without a word.

His palm is warm as it comes to rest atop hers, hesitating only briefly, clammy fingers sliding between her own. She can feel every curvature of his shaken bones, the violent thrumming of his pulse melting into her own. His heart laid bare through a palpably distressed rhythm. Knuckles whitening. Grip fervently tight. Grounding amidst the tremors of newly declared war.

When at last she summons the courage to look up at him, there's such a well of grief in his eyes, such longing and fear and hope, it's all she can do to maintain his gaze. As fragile and fleeting as it is. Yet, in those few interrupted seconds, she sees beyond it. Sees the man haunted by a past that rises unbidden, beckoned forth in a rush of half-buried memories.

Still she holds his hand, unwilling to relinquish what little sense of reality remains.

Words are meaningless, insufficient to describe the enormity of the future that lies before them. A future paved with uncertainty. A war as dreadful as the last, no doubt, but wielding all the power and terrors of a new, modern age. Not even they, with all their prior experience, all their knowledge, can surmise what this war will bring. What world will dawn come morning light.

When he turns away it is with an air of shaken confidence, but he does not let go of her hand. Even now, upon the declaration of war, he attempts to pull back, to conceal everything beneath the surface so she cannot see the truth. And yet, despite his best efforts, it remains. She sees it all. In the rigidity of his posture. His shallow breathing. Swaying in the fragile space between them.

Courage flails and withers. One word is all it would take. One word to tip the balance and erase all hope of maintaining their composure.

"I'll go and make a pot of tea, shall I?"

Her voice quivers, the smile forced, threatening to crumble. There is no answer, but his short nod is acknowledgement enough - even as he eyes the decanter and considers pouring himself a generous glass of whiskey.

The kettle whistles loudly on the stove. Fresh rosemary from the garden hangs on the drying rack and the breeze drifting through the net curtains is warm with the sweetness of late summer. On the chopping board: an array of root vegetables lies abandoned, the beginnings of a Sunday roast spread across the kitchen table. She's half donning her pinny, half considering sinking to the floor and refusing to get up again. But life, as ever, must go on. There are animals to attend to. Farmers to reassure. Tea to brew. Dinner to be made.

And so she begins to chop, slowly, purposefully at first, and then with a strangely desperate alacrity. It becomes increasingly clear that, try as she might, she cannot bury her feelings in the menial, ordinary tasks of the everyday.

Tears prick and burn, threatening to overflow. She blames the onion. Gathers and sets the crinkled skin to one side. Presses the inside of her wrist between her brows and forces her lungs to inhale air that is inexplicably thin.

A brush of soft fur; Jess bumps against her leg. Huffing out a distressed breath, the retriever settles herself beside the housekeeper, intent on keeping guard against whatever unseen terrors might come a-knocking at the back door. Forever a watchful and trustworthy companion.

"Hush now, Jess." She leans down to smooth fondly behind the dog's ear. Large, perceptive eyes meet hers with warm deliberation. "Don't you go worrying yourself."

Absently, she remembers she hasn't yet poured the tea. The kettle ceases to whistle as she removes it from the heat, and the kitchen once again falls into contemplative silence. The shadows of things to come will find no welcome in her domain, no nook in which to dwell, yet she can almost hear their whisperings in the breeze as it brushes lightly against the windowpane.

"Mrs H?"

She barely has time to turn around before the boy's arms wrap around her waist, holding on for dear life. As if, without an anchor, he might run aground, his spirit liable to shatter and splinter upon the rocks.

"We'll be alright, love," she murmurs against his ear. A deep-set knowledge, a certainty that rises from within, clashing against every fearful instinct. "We'll be alright."

His reply forms as a muffled sob; her hand weaves into his hair, holding him as she might her own child. Because though she is neither his mother, nor sister, nor any namesake connection, he means as much to her as her own flesh and blood. He, James and Helen, and Siegfried - to her they are family. And the thought of losing them, of having to surrender her boys to the battlefield, is more than she can bear.

So she holds him, rocks him, even as she tries to erase the face of her own son from her mind. Along with all the men and boys she has come to know in this small Yorkshire village. Another generation on the brink of adulthood. Another generation she must wave goodbye to from the relative safety of her doorstep. Their uniforms immaculate, boots shined, standing tall and proud amongst their comrades in arms. Off to fight for God, King and country.

God only knows when, or if, they will return.

James comes next. Hesitant. Quiet. Walking without aim until she grasps him by the hand and squeezes some reassurance into his palm, willing the shadows to clear from his young face. Gradually, Tristan lets go of her, rubbing at his eyes and sinking into the chair she guides him into.

"It's really happening, isn't it?" James breathes, the words dull and hollow.

"Yes, love."

"I had hoped..." He trails off, mind elsewhere, traversing over the vegetables until the clouds of shock dissipate into clarity. "Helen!" He spins toward the back door, turns again, torn between two places at once. "She's up at Heston Grange. I should- I mean, I need to... You'll be alright, here?"

She sends him on his way with a faint smile and several slices of paper-wrapped Parkin cake. He'll be there the rest of the day, she suspects, and rightly so.

"Tell me what I can do," Tristan says at last, a question for the here and now, a scramble for something to occupy his mind.

"You can take washing out and hang it on the line," she decides. The basket feels unusually heavy in her hands - or perhaps it is only aided so by the weight of her own troubled thoughts. "And then you can ask your brother what needs doing."

Only when Tristan has entered the garden and Jess sprints out to meet him do the walls begin to crumble. The brave facade built out of necessity. Of a need to protect and be protected.

His footsteps are quiet in the passageway, moving in a ghost-like stupor. She pretends not to notice the way he slumps into the chair opposite, staring at some far flung place beyond the small jug of primroses. Horror soon gives way to an expression of ominous indifference. An immaculate canvas of nothingness.

"It hardly seems real, does it?"

He is all gruff and strained, as if something tight were wound about his neck; her reply is coarse like sandpaper, scratched with deliberate concealment.

"I'll fetch you that cup of tea, Mr Farnon."

The teapot is warm, the cup too as she slides it across the table toward him and places a gentle hand on his shoulder. His muscles tremble beneath her fingers, tense and rigid and brittle all at once. And then he murmurs something. Her name, she imagines, for one intangible second.

The kitchen table blurs beyond recognition, and she cannot quite find her way back to the chopping board. Cannot resign herself to finish the task at hand. She hears rather than sees him approach, unable, unwilling to seek his gaze.

"Oh, my dear Mrs Hall."

She falls into him slowly, like snow upon a hillside. Forehead resting against his shoulder, face lowered so he cannot see the cascade of emotions that have escaped through the cracks, through the unbearable compassion in his voice. The shared truth they cannot deny.

She doesn't make a sound as her hands come to rest against his chest, his arms moving, gently easing her into an embrace he should have offered long ago. Tears fall in resolute silence, without shame or indignity. Here, in this moment, consumed by a tide of love and grief and fragile hope, there is room only for tenderness.

He smells of pine and peppermint and strong whiskey; she of rosemary, palma violets and shortbread biscuits.

There is nothing disconcerting about the way his fingers smooth over her shoulder blades, seeking solace and comfort, giving what he can in return. The way he whispers quiet nothings and half-remembered psalms against her hairline. Promising that, whatever odds they may face in the coming days and years, Skedale will be as it always was.

War may loom beyond the craggy fells, its blackened touch may seep over Britain's green country, over the hills and the dales, into every household and far-spread corner of their country, but Skeldale will stand firm.

They, Darrowby, this found family, they will stand together.

No matter what the future may hold.