Author's note: Happy Christmas Eve everyone! I think I may have broken my rule and strayed a bit out of cannon here, though not by much. I feel like P & A come into The Reckoning as friends again and so I have wanted to explore a bit how that might have happened. I have always found the timing of The Reckoning too quick and so I am planning on a small amount of artistic licence to add a couple more scenes in future episodes.


Peter, late September 1998

Peter was looking through some things in his old bedroom. His mum had turned the room into a second guest room when he went off to seminary so there were no more football posters on the walls, but there were two boxes labelled 'Peter's Memorabilia' under the bed which he was sorting through. Inside were old school reports and paintings he'd done in nursery, football trophies and school class photos; there was a clipping from the local paper when he'd won a poetry competition aged 10, he remembered being teased about that at school, and lots of photographs, many of which he remembered being on the wall of his room at university. He flicked through the photos: him and his parents at various ages, him and friends, the various football teams. They made him smile but he wasn't sure what to do with them. Right at the bottom of the box, caught in the folds at the bottom, was one last photo; an eighteen year old Peter, hair teenage-long, dressed in jeans and a Middlesbrough FC shirt, his arm around a girl the same age with wavy shoulder length dark hair: Susie Thomson. Susie had been his girlfriend during their last year of school, their faces in the photo tanned from that long summer before university. He lay back on his boyhood bedroom floor, surrounded by the remnants of his childhood, and thought about Susie for the first time in a very long time. He'd loved her, as much as an eighteen year old could anyway. They'd gone to different universities and kept things going via the phone for a bit, but they'd drifted apart and ended it mutually before the end of their first year, but still, it was nice to remember that first love, how it felt to have someone who you might spend the rest of your life with. He closed his eyes as he remembered Susie, and then the phone rang forcing him out of the past and back onto the present.

He picked himself up off the floor and out into the hall to answer his mum's phone, assuming it was Auntie Julie, or possibly the bank who had said they would call him back today.

"Hello?"

There was a pause on the line, Peter was still thinking about Susie and being eighteen when an unexpected and yet deeply familiar Irish brogue banished all thoughts of Susie.

"Peter?"

His heart leapt at the sound of Assumpta's voice. He wondered for a moment if he'd fallen asleep on his bedroom floor and this was a dream.

"Assumpta?"

"Hi"

There was another pause. He smiled and walked with the phone into his old bedroom, still scattered with photos.

"Michael gave me your number; I hope you don't mind."

"No, no, it's… good to hear from home."

"Do you think of Ballykissangel as home then? We were talking about that in the pub last night."

He hadn't really thought about this before. He supposed that he did. This house was once his home, but now that his mum was gone from it, it was really just a house now, and soon would be sold to another family. If he thought of anywhere as home now, it was Bally K.

"Um, yeah, I think so. Especially now…"

He trailed off not really wanting to finish the sentence.

"I'm so sorry about your mum, Peter"

"Thanks"

"I know it won't help right now, but it does get better. You remember the good and this part sort of fades a bit."

"Thanks, she was great, I wish you could've known her…"

He stopped, probably too late. He hadn't even asked about Leo.

"My mum was great too. We were lucky; not everyone gets that, even if it was taken from us too early."

There was another pause. Peter tried to imagine Assumpta's mother, and the path her life would've taken if she hadn't passed away. She wouldn't have come back to Ballykissangel after university, maybe she'd have married Leo in a more traditional way and they'd have visited the village at Christmas, or for Niamh's wedding. Maybe he'd only ever have known her as Mrs. McGarvey. Would he have felt that Bally K was home with no Assumpta Fitzgerald in it?

"How's Leo?"

It was her turn to pause, and he hoped he hadn't upset her.

"Well… he's in Dublin, and I'm in Ballykissangel… so y'know…"

"I'm sorry."

"It's ok… but I don't want to talk about it really."

"What do you want to talk about?"

"When are you coming back?"

"Soon, I hope. Maybe a fortnight. I have to sort the house and apply for probate and things like that. Plus the funeral."

"Will you do that?"

"No, Father James was her priest; he'll do it and I'll do the eulogy. So I suppose I also have to write that."

"Ok, that makes sense. How's the sorting going?"

"Well, I've done mum's paperwork and before you rang I was just going through some of my old things."

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

Peter sensed a slightly mischievous tone creep into Assumpta's voice, which he appreciated given the seriousness so far. He idly picked up the photo of him and Susie again.

"Oh y'know, paintings, football trophies, photos, that sort of thing"

"Baby photos?!"

"Some, mostly me playing football actually, graduation. Stuff that mums keep I guess. I don't know what to do with most of it."

"Bring the photos home, toss the rest. That's what I did anyway."

"Ah yeah, I forgot you'd done this already."

"Well, sort of. I live in my parents house so I did it over a very long time. But photos I kept. I'll show you mine if you show me yours?!"

He laughed, lying back on his childhood bed, and she laughed too.

"Deal."

"Peter, I need to go and open up the pub."

"That's ok, thanks for calling, I really appreciate it."

"Call me if you want, best before 11 so the pub's closed."

"Yeah, thanks."

"See you then, Peter"

"Bye Assumpta"

She put the phone down and the line went dead. Peter stayed for a while with the phone still to his ear enjoying being friends with her again. Whatever happened he wanted them to stay friends. He missed her too much otherwise.


Assumpta, early October 1998

Assumpta had been up bright and early making sure she was on top of the mornings work, in the hope that, if Peter called again, she would have time to speak with him. He'd called a few days ago on a day she'd overslept and not tidied up the bar the night before, and so she'd only had a few minutes to spare and had felt bad about it ever since. She'd resolved, therefore, that she would get up early every day until Peter came home so that, if he called again, she'd have the time to speak to him.

Today she'd got the coffee machine on, the tables cleaned, and food prepped ready for Peggy who was coming in later, and now she sat behind the bar drinking coffee and willing the phone to ring. The clock ticked past 10 and towards 11 and she'd just begun to give up when the shrill tones of her phone made her jump and spill her coffee.

"Bugger!" she cursed to herself, trying to mop the coffee up quickly and move towards the phone.

"Fitzgerald's" she answered.

"Hi" came Peter's voice down the line and she realised she'd been holding her breath.

"Sorry it's later than I hoped, it's ok if this isn't a good time."

"No, Peter, it's fine; I'm all set up here. Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just wanted to let you know that I'm hoping to be home tomorrow, all being well."

Assumpta smiled. It'd been nearly three weeks that he'd been away and she had begun to look forward to seeing him again with an increasing impatience. Tomorrow!

"Ah that's great! Have you got everything done then?"

"Yes, well I think so. The house is on the market and I've applied for probate and I can deal with those things from Ireland from now I think."

"How was the funeral?"

"Well, uh, it was a funeral, I'm not sure they're meant to be fun. But it went as we hoped; I think she'd have been pleased."

He sounded sad, but not angry like she'd been when her mother had died. Maybe that was the impact of their shared faith; he was sure of where his mum was whereas she'd been lost on that one. She didn't want to talk about faith though, or anything that could cause an argument between them. They were friends, friends! That was enough; they could argue all they wanted when he was home.

"Have you kept the photos for me?"

She had wondered about his childhood photos many times since their first call, and, as promised had dug out the photos she'd kept from her sort of her mum's belongings, ready to show him when he was back. It'd been a bittersweet experience looking at them again, as it always was, but she'd enjoyed the thought of sharing some of her childhood with Peter.

"Yes, I have them safely packed!" he said, his voice lighter and with a note of amusement.

"Good; what's the plan for tomorrow then?"

"Well, my Auntie Julie is taking me and the photos to the airport for a flight to Dublin around midday."

She laughed out loud at the reference to the photos; it felt good. Peter was coming home.

"Do you want me to pick you up?"

"From the airport? No way Assumpta, you have a pub to run! I'll catch the train to Cilldargen and then get the bus."

"Just the way you arrived…"

She said it almost wistfully, remembering when she'd first picked him up in her van not knowing that he was a priest. She'd been attracted to him instantly, and, annoyingly, that attraction had persisted even once he'd told her he was a priest. She'd told him once, way back, that if two people were meant to be together there was no force on earth that would keep them apart; ha! She hadn't fully appreciated the force of someone's vocation to the priesthood then, maybe she still didn't.

"Hopefully the weather will be better tomorrow!"

"Yeah" she said, still distracted by thoughts of the past.

"Forty shades of grey, if I recall?!"

She laughed gently, enjoying remembering their past together, such as it was.

"Assumpta, I'd better go, but I wanted to say how grateful I am that we're friends, you know, given… everything."

She smiled.

"Me too Peter"

There was still a lot that was messy and unclear, but the fact that they were friends again made her feel better than she had done for ages.

"See you tomorrow then."