A/N. Sorry, everybody. Months, I know. I was stuck. In fact, I'd almost designed it as a one-shot, but after posting it I thought that a trifle mean...! Well, when I say 'designed', I mean 'written at three o'clock in the morning in a fit of inspiration (or madness, if you like!) and left unfinished because I went to sleep'...



Thanks anyway, everyone who reviewed! There were a couple of points:



Yap, where did I say it had a cork???



Possum, Vimes is mostly upset because of what drink did to him - he really does care about Vetinari, although he'd never admit it, and he doesn't want to see him going downhill.



Anyway, now that's over, let's get on with it! Short and pointless still, I warn you. I'm finding out the plot as I go along too!



~~~



The stairs didn't shake to pounding feet. The door wasn't flung back open. Vimes was still alone with the incapable Lord Vetinari, who was now muttering happily to himself.



He sniffed the glass suspiciously. Not just any old whisky: the finest Lancre malt. Fifty years old when it was bottled in the Year of the Belligerent Donkey.* Older than him; older than Vetinari. Very nice indeed, from all reports though not from personal experience, but still surely not the drink to knock a man that senseless.

~

* Again, Vimes worked to the copper's first law of detectoring. The bottle was still on the desk.

~



Unless he drank a lot of it. The bottle was half-empty, and didn't look as though it had been touched for years. If he had drunk that much, now that he was firmly mounted atop the wagon, he would pass out just like Vetinari.



What could have made him that desperate, to drink half a bottle of Lancre whisky at a sitting? Lying, he thought, and giggled slightly. He'd sniffed it very hard.



Sweet, heavy vapours filled the room. If he concentrated as he breathed, he could taste it. Oh, such a taste! His tongue shivered with the shade of memory brought back. Four years, three months... he was mildly surprised that he could no longer remember it to the day. Soon, he supposed, he would forget altogether. Tempora mutantur, he thought, or would have thought if he ever used stupid poncy Latation phrases like that, echoing Lord Vetinari's earlier thoughts standing in the very same spot. In front of the drinks cupboard.



The heady scent was oppressive now, the memories it brought him less agreeable. If he had those memories, he wouldn't have drunk all that, Vimes thought as he stared down at the Patrician. It was not pleasant to watch the man to whom you owed loyalty lying insensibly drunk, without wanting to kick him for good measure. Vimes was worried to feel no such urge.



In fact, now that he thought about it, he was worried altogether. Why did nobody come?



Without even thinking about it, he pulled his notebook and a pencil out of a pocket. Crime? Drunkenness. Could someone be charged for drunkenness in their own home? But then, technically the Palace was the Patrician's place of work...



What was he doing? He had just decided that someone had forced him to drink! There was surely no way that the famous ascetic would have drunk himself into oblivion of his own free will.



That, he supposed, was the mystery. Dammit. And he had been going home after the meeting, as well...