London After Midnight

DISCLAIMER: Sorry for the long delay, but I've been pretty uninspired due to all the LAME Jordan/Woody/Devan crap going on on the show. But hey, next episode Jordan and Nigel go on a road trip together. I'm not getting my hopes up, but at least they'll get a chance to have scenes together without Woody interrupting.

MANY THANKS: Thank you Nikki, Brandi, and gryffingirl for your continued praise. Thank you Havoc for your first review and for the great "freaks in love" comment - that's exactly how I see Jordan and Nigel, lol. Thank you Hester also for your first review. Thank you Unicorn Goddess for your first review - I'm always glad to hear of any conversion I may inspire, lol. And of course thank you Aesear for approving of the way I handled the last chapter.

Chapter Sixteen

"We Can Color Outside the Lines"

Jordan

And he shows me.

Nigel shows me how much he loves me; I let him. He takes me upstairs and lays me down on our bed and does something to me that few men have ever bothered to take the time to do; my knees bent gracefully over his sharp, winglike shoulderblades, my eyes sometimes closed and sometimes gazing up at the crumbling plaster on the ceiling, my entire body alternating between being in the grips of arctic chills and incredible heat. When I whisper his name he goes faster, and the cries grow louder on my lips. Nigel... Nigel... lots of Nigel as I build up to a climax full of chaotic desperation; my fingers burying themselves in the roots of his hair and clawing at it wildly.

He shows me. And when it's all over and he's lying beside me with his long, strong arms all around me, I pull him from his stark white y-fronts with both hands and I show him, too. My movements are slow and tortured and seem to last a small, perfect eternity before he finally buries his head against my neck and whimpers, Oh Jordan, love...

Everything is quiet after that. For the rest of the afternoon we're quiet, all of our words whispered and all of our touches gentle. We don't speak much about what's happening, but Nigel's slender, ghostlike fingers seem to keep finding their way back to my navel, stroking and massaging my still-flat stomach, maybe in the hopes of making his presence known to the developing little being that nests inside. Nigel will make a great father someday.

I still don't know if I want it to be with me. I know now more than before that he wants it to be with me, that he would gladly stay with me and raise it with me and probably even marry me. I think he would have married me anyway; he said in the bathtub that he would ask me eventually. I didn't know how I felt about it then, if I would accept or not. I guess I figured if enough time passed, if I got older and everything still stayed the same...

But that was before I knew it all. That was before I knew everything, the whole story. Just how much Nigel loves me and for just how long he has. I can't treat him like a back-up plan anymore. I can't just keep him around for my fall-back crutch. Especially now that I'm pregnant. I have to show Nigel that he means something in my life. I have to make up for all the times I looked the other way.

In other words, I have to grow up. Now, not eventually. I'm way past due.

Auntie Bea knocks softly on the door at tea time, asking through the wood if everything is all right. Nigel and I have been making spoons for an hour or more, buried under the big downy comforter that always seems to smell like clean laundry no matter how many times we use it. Both of his large, delicate hands are pressed against my middle, cradling my back to his front. At the sound of his aunt's voice, he breathes in deeply through his nose and shifts, his lips going to my shoulder and feathering an automatic wet kiss there. I wonder briefly if he's been napping.

"Everything's splendid," he calls out in a sleep-addled voice that gives me my answer. "We'll be down in just a moment. Won't we, love?" he asks this last part in a much softer tone, and I feel the light rustle of his breath against my ear.

"I wouldn't miss it," I whisper, my hands drifting down to fold over both of his.

We linger in bed for a few minutes more, savoring it as long as we can. This final coming-together. This emotional contract we've drawn up and signed that binds us for good. Any more legal and it would be marriage, and I don't even know if I'd mind it so much. We dress quickly and quietly, stealing secret gazes at one another whenever we think the other isn't looking.

Nigel offers his apologies to Auntie Bea for bounding into a roomful of her Sunday customers wearing nothing but his skivvies, and Auntie Bea tells him not to bother worrying, that she sold more half-pound parcels of English Breakfast that day than she had in twenty years, and that everyone had an inquiry or two about her "tall, romantic nephew." That just about swells Nigel's ego ad infinitum.

"If you ever really leave me, Jordan," he muses over the rim of his teacup, "It seems I'll have plenty of rebounds over at the St. Andrew's Knitting Society."

Auntie Bea gives him a whack on the shoulder so hard that he burns his tongue on his tea, and I spend a good portion of the night trying to soothe that injury.

Time passes so quickly here; days turn into weeks and I'm beginning to think I may never go home. I'm not even so sure where home is anymore; maybe it's starting to grow in England. Eventually we tell Auntie Bea about the baby and she recommends a good obstetrician in the area, which Nigel wants to take my hand and drag me to the very next day. But I bitch and moan about it, complaining that it's too early and a total waste of time. Something tells me that my enthusiasm is optional - if there were some way Nigel could get all the proper pre-natal care arrangements done without my actual presence in the room, he would do it post-haste just to ensure the safety of this little conglomeration of cells inside of me to which half his genes are the contributor. That fact alone causes my obstinacy to melt away, so what I do commit to is a phone call to a doctor back at the hospital in Boston. I schedule an appointment for next month. That makes Nigel wildly happy; my final signature, I guess, on the agreement to keep this baby.

It's not long before I've been here a month; well overstaying my original planned vacation time, although Garret never did give me a specific day to report back to work. I don't really consider myself homesick, at least not until I finally call up Dad and he asks me why the hell no one has heard from me for almost four weeks.

"I'm pregnant," I reply very casually, as if it's the simplest answer in the world and he's stupid for not thinking of it sooner.

"Oh," comes Dad's rapidly sobering voice, and I can just see him nodding his head in that gradual Red Sox fan comprehension of his. "Well, I can see how that might slow you down a little, I guess."

It takes us both a few minutes, but soon the expected outpour of emotion ensues, Dad asking how it happened and me telling him he should know how it happened, and Dad suggesting we just leave that part out of it. The first thing he does is get his two cents in about a name - "Maxwell's a pretty good one, I think, but maybe that's just me," he coyly pipes in, and I can't resist the urge to roll my eyes. His second suggestion is that we use my old crib - "I've still got it, you know, down in the cellar," he reminds me. His enthusiasm is boundless and almost childlike, in a weird way, but mostly the actions of the quintessential grandfather-to-be. These first two suggestions I have no intentions of heeding, but I know there will be dozens - no, hundreds - more to come for which I will thank God that Dad is still around to help me through this, because I have no idea what I'm doing.

He makes me promise to come home. I stay another week before I book a flight to make good on that promise.

Nigel re-applied for his new Visa almost immediately after re-entering his homeland and has since received acceptance, with a huge support boost from my testimony that stated I am carrying his child. Basically all he's waiting for is the actual paperwork to come through in the mail. It hasn't yet, but it can take up to six weeks to arrive, being as we didn't express any urgency or dire need to have it expedited. I guess the logic is that no one is sick or dying, so we can afford to wait a couple of measly weeks to be together in Boston again. And I guess we can. But it's going to be hard, especially knowing what exists between us now.

My flight is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, and Nigel decided he is going to take me out tonight, for my last night in London.

"We'll spend a ridiculous amount of money," he explains, wrapping his hand protectively around mine as we cross the street from the tea shop to the black buggy taxi cab waiting for us at the other side. "Might as well. I can't use English money once I get back to America, after all, and I doubt I'll be spending much of it once you've left." There's a twinge of sadness in his voice as he says that, and glancing up at him, I realize I can see it in his eyes, too. Nothing but melancholy and regret. Just for a brief instant, and then it's gone again, replaced with a bravado of optimism that is so purely Nigel. I can see right through it. "And I'll get massively bloody smashed. Smashed for the both of us, because you aren't allowed to anymore. D'you hear me, young lady? If I find out you've been downing pints at the Pogue while I'm away, I'll be very disappointed. I may even have to administer a spanking myself."

At that, I feel him pull his hand away from mine and clap me hard on the ass through the skirt of my dress - the dress, the purple one. I brought it with me on the basis of some weird premonition that I'd crave to wear it some night, and tonight, I guess, is that night. I put it on because it just felt right to do so. The weather has been chilly the past few days, so I teamed it up with a pair of stockings and my leather jacket, and a pair of purple suede ankle boots I picked up during a shopping trip down Carnaby Street with Auntie Bea and her fourteen-year-old daughter Muriel - the cousin Nigel never got to meet before coming to America - one Saturday afternoon last week. I think I look good. At least, I really wanted to look good tonight. I don't really know why. Because I won't be seeing him for a long time after this, I think. I want him to remember the way I look tonight. I left my hair loose and curly down my back.

"Try that again and you'll be more than disappointed," I scold him as he climbs into the back of the cab, a sly smile beginning to spread across both of our faces. I climb in after him and settle into the circle of his arms.

"Where to, mate?" the driver asks. He's Indian and has an accent that uncannily resembles Bug's. A long drawl. I think I heard Nigel refer to it as Liverpudlian, or as Auntie Bea would simply call it, the ever-esoteric Northerner.

"The London Eye, mate," Nigel cryptically replies, without missing a beat. The driver seems to know exactly where to go; he just nods his head and pulls away from the curb.

"Nigel?" I softly interject after a minute or two, my cheek pressed against his crisp black workshirt, my hand reflexively rubbing at his thigh through his black vinyl slacks. They make a little squeaking sound each time my thumb brushes over the material. I'm fascinated with that.

"Hmmm?" he answers, slow and drawn-out and even a little mischievous. His lips, I realize, are buried in my hair.

"Where are we going?" I ask, turning my face into his chest. I seize one of the little black buttons on his shirt with my teeth, pulling at it suggestively and playfully, like a kitten, before letting it go. My thumb continues to make the vinyl squeak.

"You'll see." His voice is breathy and deep; his hand goes to my hand on his thigh and gently stills it. "But if you don't stop that soon, love, we won't be going anywhere except straight home."

I smile against his buttons, letting my hand slip away from his thigh as I finally pluck one open, then two, then three, my fingers slipping in to play with a faint, babyfine patch of chest hair just below his collarbone. "That might not be so bad," I whisper, craning my neck upward so that my lips can seize his adam's apple, blossoming around it and awarding it with a full, deep kiss. And then a bite, just hard enough so that it draws a soft whimper from somewhere inside his throat.

"Stop, love," he pleads again, whispering too, but he makes no attempt to disengage himself from me. "We'll have plenty of time for canoodling in just a few short moments."

It's those words that succeed in ending my advances; I push away from Nigel and roll towards the window with a loud, tickled laugh that I try to mute inside my palm. "Canoodling," I echo in a playfully mocking tone, rearing back my free hand to slap him reproachfully on the thigh. He catches my wrist and brings my knuckles to his lips for a kiss, laughing softly himself.

We reach our destination shortly and Nigel pays the driver, tipping him well for putting up with our so-called canoodling. The London Eye, as it turns out, is basically just an oversized Ferris wheel decorating the London skyline. We board it almost like we would board an airplane, only Nigel flashes some sort of special tickets that I didn't even know he had purchased, so we get in a lot faster than everyone else. At first he's a little nervous and asks me if I feel nauseas at all, that he didn't think of it beforehand and he should have. But the truth is my morning sickness has pretty much come and gone; I sometimes get a little dizzy when I first wake up but that usually goes away after I have breakfast.

"I'll be fine," I promise him, and so we board.

It's a private capsule, at least that's what Nigel called it when referring the tickets to the concierge. It's all but completely enclosed in glass, with a small cafe table in the center and two chairs. There's a bottle of champagne chilling on the table, and a pair of flutes set upright on either side of it. I can't say I'm not impressed.

"So how much did this do you in for?" I ask with no regards to etiquette as I pull out a chair and settle into it. Nigel follows suit and I smile across the table at him, very wide.

"In American money?" he asks, his brows furrowing in mock concentration. "Ahm... let me see, now... ah yes. A bloody fuckload." He grins too, very wide, very sexy, inadvertently sexy... also with no regards to etiquette whatsoever. "Not that that's meant to impress you, of course. Remember, I'm not Hugh Grant."

God, sometimes I want him so much that I really don't know how I just ignored it all these years. I want to go back in time and smack myself for being such a stupid bitch.

We just sit grinning mischievously at each other for what seems like an eternity before I finally cross one leg over the other and let my lips relax down into a simple smirk.

"Pop that cork, Townsend," I direct him, arching one eyebrow which Nigel counters by raising one of his own. It must take him a minute to realize I meant the champagne, because he's idle for a few seconds before finally giving a start and reaching for the bottle on the table. He pulls it out of its ice bucket and stands to ceremoniously unwrap the top.

"All right, love," he concedes, pulling the end of the cork and twisting the bottle in a professional kind of way that makes me wonder if he's ever had bartender training. "But you're only getting one glass. Doctor's orders."

"Of course," I assure him, accepting said glass when he's finished pouring. Then he's sitting across the table again and we're both just looking at each other in that same playful, cryptic silence.

"What are we drinking to?" Nigel finally asks. "Life? Love? A new baby?"

I raise my glass. "How about we just drink to England."

Nigel gazes at me for a moment, a small smile painted lopsided on his lips. "God save the Queen," he agrees, and raises his. They clink together sideways and Nigel reels his back in immediately to drink from it, but I just lower mine to the table and watch him, my eyebrows furrowed.

After a few seconds, I ask, "Nigel, what is this?"

"It's champagne, love," he replies, then glances from my untouched glass to me and understands. "Oh. You mean this. What's the problem? I can't take my best girl out anymore?"

"Sure you can," I clarify, even though I know damn well he gets my drift. "This is just a little... extravagant, don't you think?"

"Well," he begins, wrinkling his forehead in contemplation. "I don't know that extravagant is exactly the word for it, but... oh, hold on, love, we're moving."

And he's right. We are. Our little capsule has suddenly been given a tremendous boost upward and my stomach drops down, pressing against my bladder. "Jesus," I murmur, all at once realizing that don't remember the last time I was on a Ferris wheel, or anything barely resembling this behemoth of a carnival ride. My fingers grip the edges of the table so hard that my knuckles bleach against my skin.

"Stand up, love," Nigel prompts me, rising from his chair.

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" I practically shriek at him, lacking the nerve to even look up, let alone stand. We're completely surrounded by glass and I'm not so sure I'm ready to watch the streets of London sink below me like the lost city of Atlantis.

"Oh, come on, Jordan," Nigel soothingly replies as he rounds the little table to me. "You leaped from rooftop to rooftop in California once. Don't tell me you're going to let an oversized Ferris wheel scare you." One of his big, graceful hands folds over one of mine, his fingers perfectly slender and pale and unblemished, tapered at the ends with clean, transparent nails. Beautiful. I really love his hands. "Everything I've read about this thing claims it's perfectly safe. They wouldn't decorate the skyline with it if it weren't. Now stand up, love, so I can show you my world."

That's what gets me. The idea of Nigel showing me his world, this world that I've been living in for the past month but Nigel's held encapsulated in his heart his whole life. This world I've been trying so hard to adapt to, this world I've learned to love so much, this world that I'll be leaving tomorrow. That makes me so sad, so incredibly sad that I'm leaving tomorrow. No more fish and chips. No more Auntie Bea. No more three-room flat on Sidney Street. And, for what could be weeks or even months, no more Nigel. That makes me saddest of all.

I stand up. Nigel takes my hand and leads me to one of the rounded glass sides of the capsule, and we look out at the ocean and the city, and as we go higher and higher, the traffic lights turn into starlight and the face of Big Ben turns into the face on the moon. And then eventually we stop, suspended in air like something almost holy.

"That's Parliament down there," Nigel narrates, his voice barely above a whisper. The vague realization that both of his arms are wrapped tightly around my waist doesn't pass me by, but I have to admit I'm mostly paralyzed by the view. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. "Parliament, and of course Big Ben. It all looks so much bigger from the ground." His voice takes on a childlike awe that I've never really heard from him before. His front is all lined up with my back, bent over me protectively, his cheek against my temple. "Do you see that shadow out there, Jordan?" He removes one arm from my waist to press his index finger against the glass. "That big looming black thing on the horizon? It's probably a lot easier to see in the daylight. But that's Windsor Castle, all the same. Forty miles away, by your scale. Forty miles." He almost gasps it. "Do you see it?"

I do see it. I do. It's almost ghost-like; a shiver rolls down the length of my spine and Nigel fixes both arms around me again. "It's beautiful," I whisper, folding both of my hands over both of his on my stomach.

"Indeed, it is." I can feel his cool, light breath against my jaw and I know he isn't talking about Windsor Castle anymore. His voice goes low and serious. "Jordan, I know you're leaving tomorrow. I mean, I know you've got to. Garret isn't going to hold your job forever, and your Dad misses you and... What I'm trying to say is... Well, there are so many things I want to say, really, because I love you. I do so love you, Jordan. You'll just never really know how much." He nuzzles his nose against my cheek suddenly, and I get the feeling like he's overcome with affection. I know because I am, too. I nuzzle back.

"What's wrong?" I whisper, turning halfway in his grasp so I can press our foreheads together, my eyes sliding almost shut and gazing into his just beneath the lashes. "Tell me, Nigel."

"It's nothing," he assures me, but it's unconvincing and it contrasts with the serious way he turns me fully around. Now we face each other, his shoulders hunched forward to equal our height. "Nothing," he whispers again, but then all of a sudden he's on his knees.

On his knees on the floor of the capsule, his hands madly, frantically pushing up the skirt of my dress. All at once I'm full of nerves and excitement and horror and the anticipation of an obscene act to be carried out right here with glass all around us and the entire city able to see if they squinted hard enough. My hands fly to his ears, two big ones that I love so much. "Hey," I cry through a surprised bout of laughter. "Hey, what's going on with you?"

He bunches the skirt up just underneath my breasts, leaving me practically exposed in only panties and stockings. "I'm going to miss you, love," he declares, leaning forward to bury his face against my stomach. His lips lay warm, devoted kisses all over my navel and the slight, soft padding there. "Both of you. Both of you. I wish you wouldn't go." Without any warning, he lets go of my dress and wraps both arms around my thighs, squeezing tightly. The skirt falls down to cover his head and I have to pick it up again myself.

I'm touched by his sweet, childlike display of affection, so touched that again I'm almost paralyzed. Almost speechless. "Oh, Nige..." My voice whispers and breaks and I can't think of anything else to say anyway.

"You shouldn't be on an airplane alone," he insists, nuzzling my stomach with his cheek. "You should wait for me. But if you have to go... if you want to go... I just need you to know that I love you, Jordan. I love both of you and I'll ring you every day and send you boxes of tea and cans of spotted dick and anything else you want or have a craving for. Anything, love, I promise. Even me, in the end. I'll come home to you and I'll take that citizenship test, I swear to bleeding Christ I will, and none of this will ever happen again. I'm so very sorry, Jordan."

"Hey, no," I cry, following him slowly down to the floor. He lets go of my thighs and I let go of my dress and we kneel beside each other like a mirror image. I lift one hand and bring it to his long, pale cheek. "Don't be sorry, Nige, okay? These past four weeks have been the most fun I've ever had in my life. I wouldn't trade them for anything and you better not wish you could take them back. I think right now I'd rather be here than anywhere else in the world. And you know something? I'd rather be here than on that plane tomorrow, too."

"So don't go," he whispers, his voice verging on urgency and hysteria. He responds to my hand on his cheek by plunging all ten of his long, spidery fingers into the roots of my hair, drawing our faces so close our noses almost touch. "Don't go," he pleads again, and kisses me, his lips warm and wet and tasting like no other champagne I've never had, rich and full and so, so sweet, probably better this way than from the glass. "Don't go." Another kiss. My own hands go to his hair, fingers sifting through that gentle little v-shaped recession just above his brow. His scalp is warm and dry. I let him kiss me and I return it all forcefully, and I can feel myself getting dizzy but if it's from vertigo or Nigel I'm not sure. Before I can decide, he takes his lips away and I can breathe again. His eyes translate desperation into mine.

"Stay with me in England, Jordan Cavanaugh," he begins anew, his voice more grounded than before. "I know I have no right to ask you to. You're like this beautiful sparrow and I could never try to clip your wings. I wouldn't even know how to begin. There are so many things I know about you, love, but I don't think I'll ever learn the magic words to make you stay put when you're so inclined to fly free. And I love that about you. Your spontaneity and your independence, it makes you you and I think it's so wonderful. I would gladly follow you anywhere you decided to go; I'd follow you into the maleficent flames of hell so long as you held my hand and led me." His hands brush stray curls from my face and tuck them behind my ears. "But I do owe you honesty, Jordan, and the truth is I'm not so sure I want to go back to America. If you really wanted me to, then I would. I'm prepared to. But being back here in London, surrounded by family... I just feel... like I fit in, like I finally fit in again. I feel loved here, somehow. I don't feel like such an underdog anymore. It's lonely for me in America, Jordan, and I'm misunderstood. But here I'm just... I'm just me, the real me. I'm not a freak, or a loser, or a stalker. I'm just... Nigel. Do you understand, love?"

"I do," I answer him, my hands slipping down to his long, elegant neck, my thumbs stroking the porcelain skin there. "I understand, Nigel."

And I do. I understand, because the truth is that Nigel and I are cut from the same cloth. I don't fit in at home, either. I never did, not when I was a kid, definitely not when I was a teenager, not when I went to med school, and not now. I don't ever remember a time when I felt like I really connected to Boston. I mean, sometimes it feels like home because Dad is there, and my job is there, but other times it feels like a prison cell, the walls slowly closing in... Maybe the most I've ever felt like I fit into a place was during those few years I spent in California with Tyler. But that wasn't even really me. That was just me conforming, pretending to be someone I wasn't in order to fit in with people I didn't even really like just so I wouldn't have to go back to Boston. I put blonde highlights in my hair and tanning oil on my skin and marijuana smoke in my lungs and listened to crap music and wrote crap poetry and laid around on the beach naked for hours at a time. I was always fucked up on something and sometimes in the mornings when I woke up, Tyler wasn't the only one sharing our bed. I did really crazy things with really crazy people, things I could never tell Nigel, things I've never told anyone, and when I think back on all of it now I want to kill myself. Yes, Nigel, I understand what it feels like to want to fit in. I understand it all too well.

But the thing is that Nigel actually does fit in here. He doesn't have to pretend, and he's obviously so much happier here than he was in Boston. In fact, I've never seen Nigel as happy as he's been these past four weeks, and to take that away from him... to make him go back to Boston just because that's what people expect us to do... It doesn't seem right.

But what about me? What do I want?

"You fit in here, too, Jordan." Nigel's voice is like a soothing narrative of my innermost thoughts. A smile, small and modest, turns up the corners of his lips, and his fingers trace over my features, brows and eyes and the bridge of my nose. "I've never seen anyone take to a new experience the way you've taken to England. It suits you, love. I told you that the first day we arrived, that you match. You fit in. You seem so very happy here, Jordan. Please tell me you haven't only been pretending."

"No," I firmly assure him, giving a gentle shake of my head. "Of course not. I love it here, I mean I really do. I love the culture and the people and the food..." He laughs at that, soft and amused, and I smile in return. "I feel like... I could stay here. For a long time. And not get bored."

Nigel's hands are on my shoulders now, rubbing them through my leather jacket. There's earnest excitement in his eyes. His voice is intense with barely contained enthusiasm. "We could have a good life here, Jordan. I've thought about it a lot. But before now they were only daydreams. We could get decent jobs with the coroner's office here, just as good as our jobs in Boston, I'll bet. Maybe better, because we'd come highly recommended. We could afford to pay Auntie Bea rent money, and when the baby is born we could find a bigger place, or maybe a little house. A brownstone." He lifts his thumb and index finger to pluck playfully at my chin. "We... we could get married. But only if you wanted, and if you never want to, then that's okay, too. There are no rules with us, Jordan, remember that. We can color outside the lines."

"Outside the lines..." I echo, my imagination already full of the picture show Nigel's oracle has conjured up. A job here, conversing with Scotland Yard detectives on a daily basis, seeing how forensics science is handled differently here than in Boston, seeing how many new cases I can let myself get carried away with, seeing how much trouble I can get into on the other side of the pond. More of Auntie Bea's apartment and more fish and chips and spotted dick and anything else I have a craving for. And then later, a brownstone. A brownstone and a baby with an accent like Nigel's and an attitude like mine, a funny-looking, beautiful child too intelligent for its own good and always, always headstrong and stubborn. The most immaculate mixture of Nigel and me, and we don't ever have to get married, but if I wanted to, we could, and there's comfort in knowing that.

What would Dad say? What would Garret say? What would Woody say?

Go for it, Jordan. If you have a chance to hold real, tangible happiness in your hands, then don't let it slip through your fingers. Just go for it. That's what Lily would say, and somehow her soft, reassuring voice neutralizes all others.

"Maybe," I finally say, my voice a little firmer than a whisper. I find his eyes with my own and his are wide and hopeful. "Maybe we could try. Just try it out for a little while... You could get a job and I'll... I don't know, I'll help your aunt downstairs in the shop. We'll just try it, you know? For a while? Just so I can see how it... fits."

His arms go around me and he pulls me close. "I think that is a splendid idea, love." And as he curls over me to press his mouth to mine, our capsule begins to move again. Up, up, and up to the top of the world.