Lady Sybil was cleaning out the dragons. There was a constancy to keeping dragons; there would always be dung to remove, egg fragments to clean up and illnesses to treat. The dragons would always be here requiring her attention and the mindless mechanism of shovelling, patting down and shovelling again prevented her thoughts from wandering too far away...

... Like the mountains. She laid the shovel against the wall and surrendered herself to the unavoidable speculation about the whereabouts of her husband. The wizards had tracked him as far as a mountain valley; he had crashed into a snow drift and wandered down into the village... and then he had disappeared. The wizards had simply lost him.

Sybil quietly wondered whether or not he would ever be found. It was most unlike her husband not to attempt to contact her in some way. Over the past few days she had caught herself watching the Clacks for news of Vimes, listening for the whir of pigeon wings or the flip-flop of Carrot's sandals as he ran down the drive to tell her 'He's back!'....which was absurd.

Sam started to cry. Sybil had found herself curiously morose when looking after her son currently. Even at his young age she found he reminded her so strongly of her husband it took all of her strength not to cry every time he opened his eyes (which were slowly but steadily turning brown) and opened his mouth to bawl (his chin so much like that of her husband it was uncanny).

Sybil washed her hands quickly and trailed into the house, moved upstairs to the bedroom and picked up her son. He stopped crying immediately with the smug air of one who knows every whim will be catered for and just wanted to remind all in the house in case they had forgotten. Not for the first time Sybil felt a sense of frustration building, tinged with the exhaustion borne of nights sleepless enough with the baby, not to mention worry for her lost husband. She wished, fervently, for Sam to return miraculously; for him to appear suddenly in the bedroom doorway smiling his faint and slightly worried smile that he always wore when returning from work late- the smile the apologised for his tardiness and expressed his mild anxiety about what duties he had missed; what wild scam his dragon-mad spouse had roped him into...?

But he didn't appear, might never appear, so she put Sam back to bed and sat for a moment, before moving over to her desk and starting to write.

*

Sam Vimes, beardless once more and with such a drastic haircut inflicted on him by the monks that he looked, from a distance, almost as bald as they did, walked somewhat stiffly towards Ankh-Morpork. He wasn't /quite/ sure how he had got here so quickly but Lu-Tze wasn't in the mood for explanations and for once Vimes didn't need to hear them. He wanted to go home, so badly now that he could almost taste the stale cake and concrete bacon that Sybil cooked, smell that alchemical stench of dragon... see the talcum powder hand prints on his clothes; the inevitable result of changing nappies.

But Ankh-Morpork was still a dark mass on the horizon and his accompanying escort of monks had fallen away; leaving him alone to follow the winding track home, his leg paining him and his back aching. He ignored the niggling twinges, the desire to get home alight like a fierce fire inside, powering himself forward.

However, he could not walk all night and all day with no rest. Eventually he would be forced to stop and sleep for a while... but for now that was far in the future and he concentrated on lengthening his stride. He didn't like sleeping at the moment; his dreams were full of monsters of his past and present - humans and Things alike. His nightmares always ended in a deathly fall onto blank expanses of snow and he would jerk awake to dwell on the images. He was practically hallucinating from fatigue, managing no more than four or five hours of sleep a night... but he knew that if he could make it home that he could find solace with the one person who he trusted to turn him away from the nightly terrors; who had done it before whether he had woken up sweating about a dragon's tonsils, a werewolf's eyes or a battlefield....

He broke into a run.

*

Lady Sybil hurried through the morning mists towards Unseen University, still not happy about leaving her son in the care of the butler. It was still far too early in the morning for the streets to be busy; the morning traders were yet to arrive and the late night shifts from bakeries and Watch Houses had gone home.

She glanced up as mismatched footsteps echoed down the streets. She stared. There was a skinny figure limping towards her, dragging one foot slightly, his clothes fluttering in the smallest of breezes they were so tattered. His head glistened; his hair was closely cropped. Perhaps it was a beggar? And yet there was something oddly familiar about that walk and the fighting stance as if held within the lean figure was a compressed power; waiting to explode.

She stood stock still. /Please please please please please.../ The strength of her plea erupted from her mind onto her lips. "Please please please," she murmured, "Please let it be him, let it be him."

And the stranger was upon her, his head strangely small without the shock of hair she was used to, eyes sunk deep into his skull with weariness and a chin blue with stubble, speckled grey. "Sam?"

He was almost past her, absorbed in his own thoughts yet he turned and his sunken eyes widened in shock. "Sybil?" His voice was hoarse.

"You're back then?" It came out lightly, joking.

"Why are you here?"

"I was going to the University..."

There was a brief pause during which Sybil felt the smile creep across her face. Sam's somewhat unemotional, interrogative response to meeting her might have been hurtful if Lady Sybil hadn't long ago gotten use to Sam's strange aversion to public shows of emotion. She was therefore shocked when her husband, face still frowning (which for Sam Vimes was the equivalent of a blank expression) enveloped her unashamedly in a bone crushing hug, burying his face in her shoulder. He smelt of sweat and earth. His shirt was torn, no buttons left so it hung open and there was a slash across his back so she found her fingers were inside his shirt tracing the scars of new wounds in great gashes across his back.

"Oh gods," he hissed into her shoulder as her hand moved over his skin, tracing the marks, the bruises, the scratches.

"I thought we'd lost you," she said in reply, surprised that her voice sounded clear as she said it, almost offhand.

Vimes laughed; it was almost a giggle, slightly hysterical. "...Like a boomerang..keep coming back."

"Where've you been?"

"Coming home. You spoke to Andrew." His tone was not accusatory.

"Yes."

"Did he tell you everything?" he asked, almost fearful.

"Not everything, no. Most things."

She felt him sag against her, as if his legs could no longer support his weight; although there was hardly any weight to him. His skinhead haircut completed his overall appearance of a skeleton with skin.

"I hoped... I never wanted you to find out. About what I was. Once."

"Why Sam?" she asked, "You thought I'd be ashamed of you? I'm not. And... there are things that you don't know about me. About my past," she paused, swallowed and then continued, "Horrible things. Perhaps not as terrible as what you left behind. But that's the thing about the past. It's /past/."

Vimes tightened his grip on his wife, wondering what on the Disc a young noblewoman could have experienced that could have been as horrific as his dealings with Ankh-Morpork's gangland.

He let go. "Look, I probably smell quite badly and I slept last night in a ditch. I'm filthy. I better clean myself up." He cleared his throat and Sybil suppressed a laugh. She hugged him again.

"Don't be daft, Sam Vimes. I thought we'd never see you again. I could hug you now even if you were covered in dragon dung."

*

Some time later Vimes eventually emerged from his bathroom, skin red from excessive scrubbing, a towel wrapped around his middle for modesty. Sybil had set out from the looks of things an entire first aid kit on the bed. "There's about thirty people wanting to see you."

"Can't they wait until tomorrow?" he said, already becoming exasperated, "I'd appreciate one night with my family before I have to brave public exposure..."

He lay face down on the bed with a sigh and felt his wife's practised fingers exploring his wounds, the cool stickiness of her various healing salves and he shifted position for her to wrap bandages neatly around him. It was overkill anyway, most of his wounds were already healed or healing but Sybil's remedies did have an unprecedented success rate in terms of reducing scar tissue. Vimes had too many scar to care much about a few more but he preferred to keep his skin whole where possible. There was also the fact that he had missed human contact, ashamed as he was to admit it; he had missed falling asleep with the sound of another person's relaxed breathing in his ears, missed burnt food and the smell of dragons, missed talking and listening and laughing and joking and... other human activities... hell, he'd even missed been woken up at three o'clock in the morning by a screaming baby.

"Thank you," he said when Sybil had finished, meeting her eyes with such a burning appreciation that she found herself blushing slightly.

"It's fine."

Rather apprehensively Vimes kissed her, not quite sure what to expect.

She gave him a kiss too.

He gave her another one, although technically it might be classed as an extension of the second kiss--

There was a knock at the door and Vimes sighed. "You don't have to answer it," Sybil said.

"I know... I know..." said Vimes, already moving to get dressed.

Sybil smiled and moved to open the door. Sam started to snuffle. Vimes picked him up gently, stoking his downy brown hair. He rewarded Vimes with a smile; Vimes had never seen Sam do that before, he wondered if Sybil had. Descending the staircase Vimes found most of what he mentally labelled the senior squad of the Watch assembled in his living room.

"Welcome back, Mister Vimes!" said Carrot cheerfully.

"Nice to see you sir," said Angua, uncharacteristically light-hearted.

"Good to have you back, sir," Cheery added.

"Yer." That was Detritus. Fred Colon and Nobby obviously didn't feel the need to vocalise, but they saluted with a surprising efficiency, and all wore broad smiles. Vimes felt slightly embarrassed suddenly; holding a baby and with the most ridiculous haircut he had ever worn in his life.

"Hello..."

It was suddenly too noisy to listen as every Watchman in the room tried to apprise their Commander of what major events he had missed out on.

"Hey! HEY! STOP!"

They stopped.

"Look. I'm very happy to see all of you. All of you. But... I would like to spend tonight with my family...I'm sure any news about work can wait until tomorrow. Is there anything that you still have to say?"

There was a brief shocked silence for about ten seconds. Angua grinned and began ushering Carrot to the exit. With a final chorus of 'good to see you!' they left the house. Vimes couldn't quite help himself from heaving a sigh of relief. Sam smiled at him again.

"Oh, yes... um... has Sam... smiled before?" he said, reminded suddenly of his question.

"Smiled?" Sybil asked, looking confused.

"Yes.. Um.. Like that," said Vimes, nodding towards his son's grin.

"No!" breathed Sybil, "I was hoping he would soon. He's six weeks old, after all. It must be having you back."

Vimes smiled back at his son. "I think I can say this with true feeling," he said, "It's good to be home."



++++++++++++++++++++++++



Hhhmmm... apologies if this chapter has vague 'Harry Potter' overtures; I stayed up all night after buying the book at midnight to read it (I know I'm sad... I did the same for Night Watch...) And then re-read it more slowly over the past few days and I think JK Rowling's style has kind of affected my writings..... mwahaha! Anyone for a HP/DW crossover!?! (I'm not!!) Now /that/ would be funny! Ahem.

- Lunar