Marching Orders

Nine AM the next morning. It was bloody raining!

I still got Rosie, Dolly, No-legged Jim and myself a hot doughnut each. We ate them in the arcade where Jim's winning streak finally ended. He put thirty-five pounds into the Goldrush machine and got seven pounds ninety back.

The Summer Wine crew were going home the next day so when the rain thinned-out into a fine drizzle we went for a walk down to Goodrington Sands. I parked no-legged Jim under a shelter that looked out to the sea and went to get chips for everyone. Then I went back to get Jim a saveloy. After that Jim and me had an argument when I refused to peel the skin off his saveloy for him.

"You're supposed to eat the skin anyway."

"I don't like it. Besides, you've got longer fingernails than I have, you can peel it easier than I can."

"I don't want meat under my fingernails thank you very much. What about hygiene anyway? I just licked my finger clean of doughnut sugar didn't I?"

No-legged Jim was laughing at me.

"Saliva's surprisingly hygienic actually red. Why d'you think the first thing a person does when they cut their finger is put it in their mouth?"

I thought about this for a second before responding.

"Well I do it because I don't want to see the blood," I shrugged.

Jim chuckled and waggled the saveloy at me.

"Jim!" Rosie snapped, "You can get arrested for that kind of thing these days."

Dolly took the saveloy and set about peeling it, while muttering her disapproval at Jim. After the furore had died down the rain started to come down a little harder. A middle-aged couple rushed under our shelter, a woman pushing a man in a wheelchair, we all moved along the bench so the woman could sit down and the man's chair was parked beside no-legged Jim's. They were called Roy and Linda and soon we were sharing our life stories, mine being abridged of course.

"He woke up in the morning and he couldn't speak..." Linda explained, regarding Roy's condition, "...all he could get out was grunts and moans. He couldn't get any words out at all. He tried to get out of bed but only made it half way before falling onto the floor. I knew something was wrong immediately."

No-legged Jim laughed and said to Roy.

"She's very quick ain't she? You're bloody lucky she was around."

The man finally spoke for himself.

"I am sixty...twenty...forty...that one...fifty...and two years old."

No-legged Jim chuckled again.

"You'd be a good bingo caller."

Dolly slapped Jim's shoulder with the back of her hand and told him to stop being so insensitive but Roy was clearly amused, a grin trying to fight its way onto his partially paralysed face.

"Nobody normally talks...not usually talk to me..." Roy said, "...like I'm not here...with her...they talk to her...about me...and I'm here!"

"Nothin' to do with the stroke mate," no-legged Jim smirked, "that's just women."

I laughed out loud at that. Dolly was becoming increasingly exasperated with no-legged Jim but I thought he was brilliant. He was looking this poor man in the eye and making jokes with him about his missus. You could see the fifty-two year old man inside, starving for stimulation and frustrated as hell, and it sunk in to me just how young fifty-two really was.

Roy had a new lease of life in his mind but his body had reduced him to being treated like one of the frail and elderly. I think the two things that prove the hardest to tolerate in yourself or a loved-one are a stroke or Alzheimer's disease; yet another reason for me to feel like a whiny crybaby about my life crisis right now.

I remember when I was little and mum had sat me on my grandfather's knee and he had been staring at me as if he'd never seen me before in his life. His face used to light up when Ginny and I would floo to their house on Saturday afternoons and haul me up onto his lap to hear all about my adventures in the yard and fights with the twins. The last memory I had of him was of his blank eyes and his frowning face as he asked me what my name was. Ginny and I cried for days after that and mum didn't take us to visit him again.

I looked at no-legged Jim. It takes special people to see the person trapped inside the facade of the body presented to them, someone who talks to them on the level of the person's mental state rather than the physical.

I suddenly panicked. Could no-legged Jim see through the reverse of that too? Did he suss me out the moment he met me? Did he know? Here I was, on the outside looking perfectly healthy but not doing too well inside my head, and there was Jim who was making me laugh all the time and never wanting to leave me on my own.

I had finally met the most elusive person on the planet. I had met the person who gets me; who understands my problem, who can deal with it so discreetly that not even I notice he's doing it. I could very possibly have met my soul mate and he was in his eighties, legless, married and more importantly than anything else...a he!

I was wide-awake.

The Summer Wine crew had all turned-in for an early night as they had to leave promptly at nine the following morning. I couldn't think about what I was going to do without my cronies tomorrow. I pulled on my stolen trainers and grabbed my keys.

I was going to walk on the beach dammit and I was going to do it now. Who cares if it was gone ten o'clock in the evening? What did I care that I'd look like a nut job, paddling into the ocean in the dark? It wasn't that chilly outside, the wheat pillow had gradually worked it's muggle magic on my back, and I was going to check-out after breakfast so I would never see any of the people who might judge me ever again.

I headed out.

I passed the brothel B&B, the Munster Inn, a big fancy hotel on the promenade, a pub that rents out rooms that I couldn't believe I'd missed when I was looking for somewhere to stay, and crossed the street. There were a lot of people around, loud music was playing somewhere, and the sea looked black.

I sat on the wall by the side of the beach, took off my shoes, and dropped myself down onto the sand. The sand of Paignton beach feels so much nicer when you gently sink your feet into it as opposed to when you dive head-first into it at forty miles-per-hour! Cold sand is a surprisingly nice feeling when you experience it for the first time. I walked toward the sea.

On my way I stepped over what was either a beached jellyfish or a pile of disturbingly clear vomit and scanned the sand for crabs. The first wave reached my toes and the second covered my feet entirely. I began to paddle along the beach.

"Yay," I whispered to myself in half-hearted celebration at finally getting my feet wet.

I wandered a little way before sitting down on the sand and looking out at the tiny twinkling lights along the coastline to my left and right. I wondered where Fred and George were letting off their fireworks tonight. I wondered if they had given up on me. I wondered what on earth had just landed on top of my head.

"Bloody hell!" I said as I grabbed the ball of feathers and yelped as it tore out a few of my hairs with its claws and stared at the tiny owl as it wriggled excitedly in my hands, "Pig?"

My owl made a happy but strangled hooting sound and I yanked the parchment from his leg before letting him go. He fluttered right into my face and I had to grab him again.

"Yeah okay, I missed you too you nutter!" I laughed as I stroked Pig's feathers and set him down beside me, "Clam down though yeah?"

The owl hooted and nipped at my sleeve before whizzing off to make friends with the massive seagulls.

"Oh Pig mate, they're gonna kill you," I said aloud as I watched him zoom away and attempt to scavenge some fish from his unwilling hosts.

I looked down at the scroll and unrolled it, wondering if this was another telling off from Harry or a begging letter from my mum. It was neither. I knew that perfect handwriting anywhere.

Dear Ron,

I don't know what to say to you that Harry and your mother haven't already said.

I know you won't believe me but I understand what you're going through, I really do, and I want to help you. Please let me come and see you. Please tell me where you are.

I'm also very scared about you leaving the hospital before you were ready Ron. You told Harry you couldn't sleep or apparate because of your back. In the letter to your mother you said you had been hit by a car and mentioned something about an MRI and having to have an injection that put you to sleep. Ron I know something about muggle healthcare and I beg of you to please, if you do nothing else I ask of you in this letter, please go back to the hospital to get your head checked out.

Please...for me?

Oh great, she thinks I'm brain damaged.

Don't you go thinking that I'm putting your need to find yourself down to brain damage or anything like that Ron...

Shit, how did she know I was thinking that?

...I know you well enough by now to read you like a book even when you're not right in front of me. I know you cover-to-cover Ron, better than I know Hogwarts: A History.

I laughed at that part.

Don't laugh!

I found myself looking over my shoulder. This was getting scary now.

If you're in physical pain I want it to stop Ron. I want you to go back to the muggle doctors. I know that, from a wizard's point of view, their methods can be quite frightening but they do know what they're doing and they only want to help.

As for them thinking your mum and dad are hippies, well that's not such a bad thing really, it's a good explanation for why you're unfamiliar with needles and scans and x-rays. If you want I could come with you to the hospital. If you can't trust me to keep it from Harry and your family or if you can't trust...me...well maybe I could ask Neville or Lupin to go with you. I'm sure they wouldn't put you under any pressure to come home before you're ready.

Pig was making a panicy squeaking sound and flapping frantically back to me with a fish head in his beak and a flock of angry seagulls in hot pursuit. My eyes widened in alarm.

"Don't bring them over here you stupid bird!" I yelled while covering my head defensively.

Pig veered off into another direction and the 'gulls followed. I heaved a deep sigh and turned my attention back to the parchment.

When you didn't apparate back outside the Riddle house after portkeying out of there I was so scared. We had to search the rubble for you did you know that? That was the worst couple of hours of my life Ron. Then we got word from Ginny that your hand on the family clock had moved from mortal peril to travelling and then to lost before settling on hospital and we knew you had escaped and that something had gone wrong but you were being looked after.

Then your mother got your letter. Oh Ron you should have seen her, well no, I'm glad you didn't actually. I've been trying to explain it to your brothers and your father. Bill isn't cross with you anymore, he just wants me to tell you that he misses you and that you shouldn't worry about what people expect from you. Ginny says the same, she wants nothing more than her big brother back safe and well. Well you know how Harry feels and how he needs you but he'll wait. He'll wait as long as you need, he asked me to tell you that. Charlie...well he still gets angry when we talk about you. He thinks you're ashamed of yourself or something, for killing that Death Eater maybe, I don't know but he only asked me to put one thing in this letter.

I held my breath and read on.

Get back here now!

Don't feel bad Ron, he just loves you and he's scared that you've not been taken proper care of and...well I think he thinks that bump on your head didn't get healed properly. He keeps telling me that you don't have psychological problems and issues. He keeps telling me I'm wrong and that you just need a good medi wizard. He just needs to talk to you face to face Ron. You are the only one I think could ever make him understand.

Fred and George are still looking for you. They've recruited Lee Jordan and a few people from the DA to help search. They're doing it for the sake of having something to do I think. They miss you even if they'll never tell you that.

Your mum watches the clock and your dad just tries to hold everybody together.

I just sit around waiting for you. I told my mum and dad I would stay at the Burrow until you look me in the eye and tell me to go home. Until you look me in the eye and tell me everything's going to be fine. I'm just waiting for you Ron.

Please answer my letter and please go and see a doctor, I'm begging you, I can't stand to think of you in any pain.

Sorry if Pig's causing you trouble but he's being going loopy seeing owls come and go to his master while he was stuck at home. If he had arms I think he would hug you when he arrived, don't be took mean to him okay?

I scowled at that sentence and was about to protest that I wasn't ever mean to Pig when I saw his fishy face staring up at me from the sand at my feet. He had clearly managed to eat quite a bit of that fish head before being scared off by the much bigger birds. I chuckled at his messy but slightly proud expression. I don't know if Owls' really did have expressions but I could always swear that I could read Hedwig's and Pig's faces just as well as I could any human being's.

"It's good to see you titch," I smiled and he hopped up onto my shin and began to clean his feathers merrily.

I turned my attention back to the letter in my hands again.

Speaking of hugging you, I wish I could right now. I feel like I've lost my wand arm or something. It's like I'm not whole.

Okay well I'm getting soppy now, don't roll your eyes and tut at me, I know I'm a total girl!

This was the first time she had been wrong. I wasn't rolling my eyes and scoffing at all.

I'd better go. Please come home soon, it isn't the same without you. Nothing's the same without you.

Love Hermione.

PS You ended your last letter with the sentiment that you didn't think you were any good to anybody right now...I just wanted to leave you with one last thing.

STOP TALKING BOLLOCKS RONALD WEASLEY!

I laughed so loudly that it made Pig fall off my shin onto his back with fright. That made me laugh even more. I laughed like a lunatic until my sides ached and my eyes watered.

I got to my feet and patted my shoulder. Pig fluttered up and landed his stinky self upon it and I shoved the parchment into my pocket before setting off back to Beach Road.

As me and no-legged Jim watched the coach driver struggle to put away Jim's wheelchair, with conflicting advice being given from both Rosie and Dolly, we said our goodbyes.

"Thanks for paying my way all week," I said.

"Thank you for pushing me around Devon all week."

We paused to watch the coach driver biting his tongue while Dolly and Rosie had a disagreement around him over the correct way to collapse the wheelchair so it could fit inside with the luggage. No-legged Jim stifled a chuckle.

"What?" I asked.

"That chair, since the crash it won't fold-down even if either one of them knew the right way to do it anyway!"

We chuckled.

"So," no-legged Jim said in an unprecedented display of seriousness, "Are you going to go home now?"

I did that thing thatI do which annoys Harry and Hermione the most, I didn't say anything in response to the question I was asked, leaving my silence to answer the question, while I pondered whether I should explain myself with a lie that would make me sound sane or the loony truth.

"So where to now then?" he pushed.

I shrugged in my best 'I don't mean to be difficult' way. No-legged Jim sighed and the corners of his mouth curled upwards a fraction.

"Well do you have any idea where you're not going?"

I laughed and nodded.

"Oh there's plenty of places you won't be seeing me that's for sure."

The wheelchair was tipped onto its side and slid into the luggage hold of the coach. Dolly and Rosie were scowling at each other and the driver's head looked like it should have been steaming.

"You're not in trouble are you?" no-legged Jim asked me, still looking at the pensioners gathering around the coach.

"No," I said rather too quickly to be convincing before frowning at the old man and leaning in to whisper into his ear, "you don't mean 'trouble' in the way old people mean 'did you get somebody pregnant' do you?"

"Nah..." no-legged Jim said with a wave of his hand before his head snapped around to look at me, "...you didn't did you?"

"Definitely not," I snapped, pretending to be offended, "I'm pure I am."

No-legged Jim laughed so hard at that he nearly fell off his legs. After the chuckles died down no-legged Jim kept his focus on me. He wanted an answer.

"I don't have to be anywhere," I said, taken aback with my own honesty, "I don't have anything to do and I don't have anybody to look after or depend on me. The only reason I have for going home is that's where people expect to find me."

Jim stared for a while. He said nothing.

"It doesn't sound like it makes much sense, I know, but it makes sense to me," I shrugged.

"I agree," no-legged Jim nodded, "it makes no sense at all, but if it makes you unhappy to sit at home and wait for life to happen to you then you're right, you shouldn't. If you wait for something interesting to happen to you it never will, that's what I always say. You finish your little adventure and find something that stimulates you."

I held out my arm to my wise and mischievous old friend and he took it. I led him towards the coach with a sad sigh.

"Well you stimulated me but you're going home now. Any idea when the next coach load of senile old codgers is due?"

Jim cackled and grinned up at me.

"You go wherever you want red," we stopped walking and he put an arm over my shoulder, "you do whatever you like and be as selfish as you can. I can see that you're the type that's put a lot of other people first for a very long time, maybe by choice and maybe not, but now it's time for you to be a little selfish don't you think?"

I looked him in the eyes, they were a little cloudy but they still twinkled with mischief all the same.

"I dunno Jim, I kinda like looking after people."

He gave me a pat on the back with his wrinkled old hand and smiled at me almost proudly.

"You just be sure to send me a postcard from wherever you end up," he pulled a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and rested it on the wall beside me, "'cause I'm intrigued, I wanna know what becomes of you my boy. My address is on that envelope."

With that no-legged Jim gave me an unsteady hug while balancing on his legs to reach up to me before shoving me away with a muttered, 'good luck red', and hammered his way over to the doors of the coach on his stiff fake legs. I waved him off, him and Rosie and Dolly, and the coach pulled out of Beach Road.

I picked up the envelope. It was heavy...and it jingled as its contents slid into the bottom corner. I knew what was inside before I even opened it. Twenty-five pound coins and a note, which read:

Red

For the next place you lay your head that isn't home. Don't be running away from anything. Be going toward something better.

Grandpa Jim

I almost choked on the lump in my throat and leaned against the wall, forcing my burning eyes closed for several seconds.

Now I had another male ideal to live up to, my dad, my brothers, my grandfathers, my uncles, Dumbledore and Harry and now no-legged Jim; my grandpa Jim.

My standards were already high. When it came to the men in my life I had a lot to live up to. But the people who have to love me, my relations, a bloke could be excused for not coming up to scratch in comparison to all of them because you always hold family members in higher esteem than anyone else you may meet in life. No-legged Jim was one of those people I had met outside the family, in real life; he was a stranger who had made the transition to family member. He had done what only Harry had ever done before him. He had joined the limited rank of men who are not related to me whom I could really talk to and be myself, flaws and all, around.

I wandered back inside the B&B to answer Hermione's letter and decide what I was going to do with my future and myself once and for all.

A/N There is one last chapter and then a little epilogue and that's this little tale done with.

I'm going to take another eye break for a while as the blurryness is coming back again, not as bad as last time but still, I kind of want to give the old peepers a rest before i have another crack at another fic.

The next one planned is still not of epic length but will be longer than this. It's the one set in the Lost For Words Universe so if any of you newbies who have been reading this and plan to read the next one haven't done already i suggest you read it, it's only a one-shot, so you know what kind of Ron and Harry I'm dealing with.

Well I'm off to take a bath now, see ya.

Shari