Chapter Five
I'm so sorry this has taken so long to write. I'm sorrier that it's so short. Life and love (the one far too busy, the other not nearly as busy as I wish!!!) just took over... my most heartfelt apologies.
Well, as for a disclaimer... "The Marthter owns everybody" do?
For once in his passionless life, Lord Vetinari was moved. He couldn't accept that two words had moved him so much that he really didn't know what to say. He realised that he really didn't know Vimes at all. He could usually direct him, play him like a marionette, pull his levers exactly as he chose. But not now.
No. Now he saw pain and self-loathing, emotions he had never assigned to the Duke. Guilt, too. He hadn't foreseen it and he was powerless to heal it. He had failed. This was something he could not control.
"I know of nothing for which you must apologise," he said, knowing even as he finished that his usual stiff, cool manner was the wrong note to strike. Perhaps there had been more in that kiss than he had known. Perhaps he did feel something for Vimes.
He too had forgotten so much in his years as Patrician. Now her face floated before his eyes. He hadn't thought of her face for months; it was surprising that he still remembered it. But he did remember it, he could trace every line from memory.
"No more. It was wrong." said Vimes. He had lost the jerky horror that had made him talk at first, but his speech was still not fluent. Vetinari, lost in his thoughts, nodded.
"Don't apologise to me. The fault was mine as much as yours," A new sensation, this, taking the blame for his actions! "Go back to your wife, Sir Samuel. She loves you; she claims you. Go back to Lady Sybil."
The door shut behind him, and Vetinari sat down at last. The vision of her face had faded, but he remembered his brief encounter with Vimes and he smiled.
A/N/ Shall I leave it here? Or do you want a Sam/Sybil bit, or Elikah Mownde turning up to cause trouble? I am entirely in your hands, my dear reviewers... (hint hint)
