Oxford, England
August 2013

Here's to the future

"It is so good to be here again," sighs Mum and looks around in rapture. "No matter how long you have been gone, Oxford always welcomes you back."

"And here I was, thinking that there are places more welcoming and inclusive than this one," remarks Dad drily and winks at me. I bite back a smile.

"That wasn't what I meant at all and you know it, Gilbert!" chides Mum. "I meant that regardless of how many years have passed, you always recognise Oxford for what it is and it recognises you back. It's an unchanging oasis in an ever changing world."

"Some people might argue that's exactly the problem," Dad points out. There's a twinkle in his eyes, telling me he's enjoying this far too much.

"Oh, you're incorrigible!" declares Mum with a huff and turns on her heel. But I know that she, too, is enjoying their banter.

Dad is not to be deterred anyway. He simply reaches out to grab her around the waist and twirl her towards him. Laughing, Mum drapes her arms around his neck.

(Parents, I'm telling you.)

To my right, I hear a familiar click and am not at all surprised to see a photographer standing there. It's one of the regulars and when he sees me looking, he grins at me over his camera and nods at my parents. By the time he has the camera raised again, I have already turned away.

In the meantime, my parents have thankfully realised that they're not teenagers anymore and detached themselves from each other. It's a relief and I even decide to do them a solid and overlook the handholding. (I might move them to the basement bedroom tonight though. The back room is pretty close to ours and I'm not sure those walls are all that soundproof.)

"Are you done there?" I ask them laconically and raise both eyebrows, trying my utmost to keep a straight face.

"We are," confirms Dad easily, raising their interlocked hands to place a kiss on the back of Mum's. She smiles up at him.

(Seriously! One short trip overseas and it's like they're back on honeymoon!)

We start walking again and to my relief, Mum seems to decide she isn't yet done with rhapsodising about Oxford, so she goes back to reverently looking at our surroundings. She keeps her hand interlocked with Dad's, but, let's face it, not even Dad can compete with the city of spires and scholars. It never was a fair competition.

"Just think of the history that was made here," Mum muses aloud as we walk along Broad Street. "Oh, and the great literary texts that were written in this town over the course of centuries!" It's apparent that mentally, she's quoting at least half of them.

"And the great scientific achievements, too" adds Dad, clearly warming to the subject. "We owe much medical advancement to researchers of Oxford University."

"All of them old white males, no doubt," I remark pointedly.

Dad smiles. "Not all of them," he amends. "There was Dorothy Hodgkin, for example."

I wrinkle my nose, trying to remember if I've ever heard of her before. Dorothy is undoubtedly a female name, I've got to hand him that. Other than that though…

"Does she have anything to do with Hodgkin's disease?" enquires Mum, briefly surfacing from her internal recitation of the Great Literary Works of Oxford.

(For what it's worth, Hodgkin's disease does ring a faint bell, I think. If I remember correctly, it's not exactly something you want to have named for you though.)

"That was Thomas Hodgkin," corrects Dad. "He was the first one to describe the disease in the 19th century."

"Any relation?" I want to know, as we briefly stop to let a large group of students and parents pass. (I've found that on any graduation day, Oxford is invariably full of people.)

"I'm not entirely sure," admits Dad.

Huh. Boring.

"You will like Dorothy Hodgkin though," he continues while we resume walking. "She won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1964."

"Chemistry?" I repeat. "Weren't we talking about medical achievements?"

"We were," confirms Dad. "Dorothy Hodgkin was a chemist, but her advancement of the technique of X-ray crystallography was of great importance to medicine. Her work made it possible to determine the three-dimensional structures of molecules and thus confirm the structure of medication like penicillin and insulin."

Uh-huh.

I nod, but truth to be told, this is all pretty much going over my head. I'm not the right kid to be talking at about molecules and X-rays. Doesn't he have Jem and Di for that exact purpose?

"If her work was so important for medical research, why didn't they give her the Nobel Prize in Medicine?" enquires Mum, briefly taking her eyes off the outer buildings of Balliol College to look at Dad.

"I would imagine that it was because at the end of the day, she was a chemist," ponders Dad. "In 1964 the Nobel Prize in Medicine was given to two Germans for their work revolving around cholesterol."

Oh! I've heard of that one!

"So, they were the ones telling us to stop eating eggs or we'll all die?" I want to know, raising both eyebrows as high as they will go.

"They certainly would have frowned at the excellent breakfast we had this morning," replies Dad with a grin and a fond pat of his stomach.

I roll my eyes at him, but can't help a smile. "Just be sure not to tell that to Ken."

Because it was Ken who cooked my parents a whole fry up, just as he did for Nia and Seraphina in March. Only difference, as it turned out, was that Dad does, in fact, enjoy Blood Pudding. Who knew, right?

"My lips are sealed," promises Dad. Nudging Mum gently, he adds, "Yours, too, Anne-girl?"

Mum startles to attention. "What?" Clearly, she hasn't heard enough to be in any danger of talking to Ken about the amount of cholesterol in his fry up.

"Nothing at all," Dad assures Mum, though he can't help a conspiratorial wink in my direction.

For a moment, Mum looks bemused, but then her gaze falls on the façade of the Bodleian Library and that clearly negates any other thought or question she might have had.

"Look, Gilbert!" she exclaims.

Now it's Dad's turn to be confused. "Where?"

I point him in the right direction and remark drily, "The Bod."

Mum tuts at me. (Fittingly, 'tut' is a word originating with Shakespeare, as Owen told me when he got out a few seriously old Shakespeare prints some weeks ago.)

"Not 'The Bod'! This is the grand and venerable Bodleian Library!" Mum corrects, clearly considering my lack of reverence when confronted with this majorly old book collection to be a serious character deficit, which can, obviously, not be blamed on her upbringing of me.

"The Bodleian Library," I repeat. "Of course."

Behind Mum's back, I mouth 'Bod' at Dad, making him grin, but Mum doesn't notice it anyway. She's clearly lost to the outside world. "I have so many beautiful memories of working in the Bodleian as a visiting scholar," she tells us, eyes slightly glazed over. "There is no other place like it."

I believe that. The Bod must be pretty close to Mum's idea of Heaven.

"You're so lucky to have had the opportunity of studying here," Mum states, now looking at me more alertly. "If I could go back and decide again where to get my education, I would make sure to spend at least an exchange year here, if not come here to study outright."

"It might still be possible," Dad points out (though the glint in his eyes tells me he's up to no good). "There's always a chance that you will be reborn as the child of a very rich British family, at which point getting a place at Oxford shouldn't pose a problem."

"Oh, Gilbert!" chides Mum. "You're incorrigible!"

Dad flashes her a smile. "And you do love me for it."

Ugh. Could we not with the PDA again, please?

(If only because instead of one photographer, I now spy at least six. Not to mention the ever increasing gaggle of graduating students and their families, many of whom have clearly recognised me, judging from the way they stare and wave their phones in the air.)

"I'm sure she does love you," I assure Dad briskly before they can turn into teenagers again. "And since we've settled that, shall we go and collect the degree I came here to do in the first place?"

After all, it's not like studying at Oxford is all history, poems and medical discoveries. Occasionally, we do a little work here.

"Certainly," agrees Mum earnestly.

"That's what we're here for," adds Dad.

(I sometimes wonder how surreal it must be for them that out of the seven children they have, I ended up being the one with an Oxford degree. It's not something any sane person would have bet money on a few years ago.)

We cross Broad Street on our way to the Sheldonian Theatre and now, finally, my parents also seem to become aware of the people – with or without cameras – watching us. There's even a press pen set up some distance away, which Mum now eyes with trepidation.

"Are you meeting Ken here?" she asks, still looking at the barriers that already contain a sizeable group of photographers and even some film teams. With Ken nowhere to be seen, they immediately focus their lenses on us.

I turn my back to the reporters while answering, "He's coming here, yes. Given that apparently, the Prince of Wales can't just graduate university without some sort of hoopla, he had to shake some hands and meet some people beforehand, but he should be here soon. Though for the actual ceremony, I've made plans to sit with my friends."

That seems to pique Dad's interest. "Dare I hope for a rift?" he asks and it's only the corners of his mouth twitching upwards that tell me he's teasing.

"Gilbert!" rebukes Mum immediately.

Dad raises both hands in defence, clearly enjoying his little act. "Don't 'Gilbert' me, Anne-girl! You know I like the man fine, but I still have a bone to pick with him for putting an ocean between me and my daughter."

I roll my eyes at him. "That wasn't him, that was my decision and mine alone," I set him straight. "It was my decision to come here and my decision to stay."

It's true, too. Ken was the one who brought it up a while ago, asking whether my trial year in England could possibly have convinced me to stay for longer, but I was the one to make the actual decision. It didn't require an awful lot of thinking either.

"Your father is aware of that," Mum assures me while glowering at Dad. He smiles back at her cheerily. (I'm almost curious what the papers will make of the pictures of this exchange, what with the reporters being too far away to actually hear it.)

"I should hope so. As far as past and current boyfriends of his daughters go, there are worse ones than Ken," I point out.

Of course, it's Jerry I'm alluding to, who has really made hash out of relationship with Nan. She stayed in mine and Ken's guest room for a little over a week back in June, being generally quiet and pensive, but clearly making an effort to keep her head held high. Jerry called a few times, trying my phone when Nan wouldn't answer hers, until Ken told him politely but firmly to stop. By the time Nan left for Halifax, she hadn't shown any inclination to speak to him and according to Mum, has only contacted him briefly since then to call off the wedding. She's recuperating at Di's in Winnipeg now, with the relationship still firmly up in the air. I'm not too hopeful though, nor am I sure whether I want to actually be hopeful. Sometimes, a bastard is really just a bastard and any woman better off without him.

Clearly, both Mum and Dad realise what I meant to imply, because they both sober up quickly.

"Yes, as far as boyfriends go, he's shown himself to be quite preferable," agrees Dad, now serious.

"Who has?" asks a voice I immediately recognise as Ken's, moments before his arm slips around my waist.

"Oh, you wouldn't know him," I tell him casually, even as I tilt my head to accept a brief kiss. (Behind us, I can hear the cameras clicking wildly and some photographers shouting for us to give them a better angle.)

"Of course not," Ken replies, laughing (and clearly not believing a word I say), before extending his free hand towards my parents. "Anne, Gilbert."

The formal greeting confuses me for a moment, because he just saw them this morning for breakfast. But then the cameras go click, click, click again and I realise he's making a point. The pictures of him shaking my parents' hands are sure to make the papers tomorrow.

Looking at him from the side, I realise that whatever it was that he did before coming here, he must also have changed at some point during the morning. While he left home wearing a normal suit, he's now wearing proper academic dress, same as me.

As usual, Ken, with his previous Oxford degree, gets to wear what I've been told is the MA gown with a black and red hood, while I'm stuck in my vest-like, sleeveless graduate gown. (I could wear my NYU one, but that's really just a purple muumuu, so I don't.) During the actual graduation ceremony, we will both change into a (sleeved!) master's gown, with appropriate silk hoods for our respective degrees – light blue and grey for my MSc, dark blue and silver for his MPP. (No, I don't really get it either. Poor Lucy spent almost an hour trying to explain it. There were sketches and graphs involved. I understood maybe half of it.)

Underneath the gown, Ken's wearing one of his fancier army uniforms, the very dark navy of it almost blending in with mandatory black of most Oxford gowns. Noticing Mum's eyes rest on the uniform, I quickly remark, "Did you know that service dress for active soldiers is one of the very few exceptions allowed by Oxford's dress code? The rest of us are stuck with subfusc."

"Sub fuscus," Ken completes the Latin phrase. "Oxford's version of formal dress."

"Of a dark colour," translates Dad almost automatically and both he and Mum nod in understanding.

The subfusc is aptly named, too. The female version includes black shoes, a black skirt with black tights, a white blouse and a perfectly useless black velvet ribbon tied around the neck. Additionally, we carry, rather than wear, the black mortarboard, which might be an honour to have, but clearly looks ridiculous on anyone. (Ken escapes this, too, by wearing the black and red peaked cap that goes with his uniform. Not that I'd ever want to wear uniform, but it certainly looks much better.)

"Last time to be wearing subfusc today," Mum points out with a smile, now thankfully looking at my clothes rather than Ken's. "Are you excited?"

"Proud to have made it this far," I reply with a self-deprecating laugh. "I mean, who would have thought?"

"I did," Dad claims, which Ken backs up with a quick "Absolutely!" It's rather sweet of them, I won't deny that.

Mum reaches out to squeeze my hand. "We're very proud of you." Looking at Ken, she adds, "Both of you." (That, too, is a rather sweet thing to say.)

I expect Ken to thank her, but when I turn towards him, I find that his attention has been captured by something near the entrance of the Bod. Following his gaze, I spy a small commotion and just want to ask what's the matter, when a group of people shifts to the side and I see Owen, surrounded by his set of protection officers. (Ken's own PPOs form a loose circle around us, just far away enough not to be noticed by my parents.)

"I believe there's someone here to meet you," Ken tells my parents and inclines his head towards his father. (I briefly study his face, but while it's composed, I also see surprise there. I don't think he knew Owen would make an appearance out here.)

My parents both turn, looking distinctly confused at first – but not for long. Mum visibly blanches when she realises quite who wants to meet her. Dad takes a deep breath.

As Owen heads closer and my parents exchange a rather nervous gaze, I lean towards Ken. "Your mother?" I ask quietly.

"She's resting inside," he murmurs. "Too many people for her."

But at least she's here. He didn't say, but I know Ken wasn't sure whether she'd make it. If she hadn't, he surely would have been disappointed, though knowing him, he would rather have bit off his tongue than admit to it.

Owen has almost reached us, so to give my parents another moment to collect themselves, I step forward. Even as I do, I suddenly remember that I've never greeted Owen in public, nor am I totally sure how to properly greet him. He's never insisted on formality before, but it might be different with all these people watching?

Thankfully, Ken seems to sense my hesitation. Briefly touching my back, he mutters, "Curtsey."

Curtsey.

Alright. I can do this. (At least I hope I can.)

Summoning all my composure, I try to remember what Tatty and Katie showed me about curtseying. Granted, it was half in jest and we were all three quite tipsy, but I have done this before. I can do it again. I can!

Angling my right foot behind my left, I carefully bend my knees, making sure to keep my upper body straight – and all the while hoping desperately that I won't topple over. (Wouldn't the papers just love it if I collapsed at the feet of the king?)

It seems to be going quite well, if I may say so myself, but when I start to rise again, I feel my legs starting to wobble. There's that split second realisation that I will either have to take an ungainly step to the side or else will simply fall over, but just when I've resigned myself to the fact, I feel Owen take both of my hands securely in his. Standing is suddenly a whole lot easier and I breathe a sigh of relief.

My predicament obviously isn't lost on Owen, since he waits for me to have both feet firmly planted on the ground before releasing my hands. When our eyes meet, he gives me the very briefest of winks and I smile back.

"Are you all set for the ceremony?" he asks kindly.

"I hope so," I answer, suddenly acutely aware of the hundreds of people – and dozens of cameras – firmly focused on me. "They actually didn't give us all that much information about it."

"Very likely to ensure that any students attend at all," remarks Owen thoughtfully. Leaning towards me slightly, he adds conspiratorially, "Don't tell anyone I said it, but it's secretly a rather boring affair."

Yes. Ken hinted at much the same thing.

"Lots of Latin, I hear," I reply – and just stop myself from grimacing. Don't want those kind of pictures, after all.

Owen nods mournfully. "Quite." (Not a great Latin scholar, is he?)

Behind me, Ken quietly clears his throat. Turning my head slightly, I can see him indicate his watch.

"Ah, yes. We will have to take our seats soon," agrees Owen. "We should still have a moment left, however."

He doesn't elaborate any further and for a second, silence stretches between us. It needs Ken's fingertips briefly grazing my back to make me realise that I am meant to take over.

Right then.

"Um, okay. I'd like you to meet my parents, Dr Anne Blythe and Dr Gilbert Blythe," I introduce, taking a step to the side so I'm no longer blocking them. "Mum, Dad, this is… well, this is the King." (Is there any way to not sound ridiculous while doing this?)

It occurs to me that if I was unsure how to greet Owen, my poor blindsided parents must be even more out of their depth, but they rise to the occasion deftly. Mum obviously takes her cue from me – though her curtsey is decidedly less wobbly than mine – while Dad briefly looks to Ken for advice. When the latter discreetly bows his head at the neck, Dad turns back to Owen and mirrors the movement quite expertly. Truly, to all the world (and what with the reporters present this is the world), my parents look like greeting a king is all in a day's work and I can't deny feeling a little proud.

"It is a true pleasure to finally meet Rilla's parents," declares Owen while shaking Mum's hand. (And as the cameras click away behind us, I wonder whether he, too, is making a point by coming out here for the meeting instead of doing this somewhere more private.)

"It's an honour, Sir," responds Mum. (Grandma Bertha, I'm sure, would be severely disappointed in her daughter.)

"It certainly is an honour for me," Owen replies. "Your books were a firm staple in the nursery when my younger two were children, Dr Blythe. Persis was especially fond of them, even though I believe their nanny found them a bit fanciful in parts."

The remark could be taken as a slight, but is saved by the way Owen delivers it – kindly, a bit jokingly. Mum, accordingly, laughs it off. "I've always been of the opinion that most people could only benefit from a little more fancy in their lives."

"A compelling argument," acknowledges Owen with a smile and inclines his head.

Turning his attention to Dad, he extends a hand and remarks, "I read your latest article in the Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery, Dr Blythe. I couldn't claim to have understood even half of it, but it sounded very impressive."

Ah, he's good. He's doing the thing Ken does when meeting people, only better. Not only is he setting Mum and Dad at ease, same as he did with me all those weeks ago during our first meeting in Windsor, he's showing genuine interest in what they're doing. It can be a surprisingly fine line to walk without succumbing to the dangers of appearing insincere, but Owen has it down pat.

Dad, for his part, appears equally surprised and pleased at hearing that his article gained another reader. (I honestly can't imagine there are that many.) "I've always wondered whether it's possible to publish a scientific paper that is comprehensible to a layperson," he tells Owen. "Unfortunately, there appears to me more than a little truth to the theory that the trust of the patient in the doctor rises diagonally with the amount of incomprehensible medical terms used by the doctor."

"Lineally," I whisper to Ken. "The rise is not diagonally but lineally." This, after all, is statistics and I've learned my fair share about those in the past year.

"Dr Gecko would be proud of you," Ken murmurs back, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"He would," I insist, still keeping my voice low. (After all, he was quite pleased with my thesis in the end, wasn't he? It certainly elevated my overall grade from just 'passed' to 'passed decently'.)

Instead of replying, Ken reaches out to take my hand and squeezes it briefly. It's just as well, because our parents chose that moment to turn and look at us. Owen is talking, but I only catch the end of his sentence. "– must be very proud."

(Of me?)

"We are," confirms Dad and smiles at me. I smile back almost by instinct.

"You must proud be as well," remarks Mum, looking from Owen to Ken and back again.

For a moment, Owen hesitates, before replying in that laden tone I've heard him use before, "I always am."

At this admission, I look at Ken out of the corner of my eye, but as expected, he doesn't outwardly react to it. His expression is pleasantly neutral and he goes so far as to incline his head towards his father, but what he really thinks is kept perfectly hidden. (I'm confident I could have a pretty good stab at guessing, but this is neither the time nor the place.)

"Since we haven't received our degrees yet, any pride is a little premature anyway," Ken points out smoothly, brushing right past the previous moment.

Owen immediately jumps at the proffered opportunity. "You're right. We should probably go and take our seats now. We wouldn't want the ceremony to be held up."

My first thought is that they wouldn't wait for individual people anyway, but then I realise that even Oxford would wait for him, right? I bet that when you're king, no-one ever starts without you.

Either way, his suggestion is met with universal approval, causing Owen to take his leave from us. Shaking their hands, he tells my parents that he hopes to be seeing them again soon and parts from me with the words "I'll see you the next time you're in Windsor". Ken just gets a nod and a pat on the arm, but then, I suppose they haven't seen the last of each other for the day.

Owen leaving seems to set a domino effect into motion, with all the people who until now put a lot of effort into not watching us (or rather, not looking like they were watching us) shaken into action as well. Mum and Dad get swept up in the general movement towards the Sheldonian Theatre and Mum barely has time to throw a bemused look over her shoulder. I make sure to smile back at her, hoping to reassure her that it went well, which it did. (It's odd, to suddenly be the one reassuring my parents. I've never been that person before.)

We students (soon to be former students) move in the other direction to convene in the Divinity School before making our entrance into the Sheldonian. The Divinity School is easily one of the most ornate and most beautiful rooms in this most ornate and beautiful university, but today, I don't get a chance to marvel at it, what with the rush and the amount of people crammed inside.

Ken deposits me with my friends, taking his leave with a brief kiss and a squeeze of my hand. The moment he's moved to stand with his own classmates, Lucy asks, "You do realise this will be all over the papers tomorrow?"

"And all over the internet in less than an hour," adds Josh.

Yeah. I figured.

"Way to show support!" exclaims Dev, presumably meaning Owen and looking quite impressed.

They're not wrong. In fact, they all three seem quite chuffed on my behalf, which is sweet, but… it's all a bit much, I guess.

"Could we…" I begin, hesitating as I bring some order into my thoughts. "Could we just focus on getting our degrees today. Please?"

Lucy and Josh exchange a glance, then nod simultaneously. Dev throws an arm around my shoulders and declares, "Absolutely. We bloody well worked hard enough for it!"

"We've earned it," agrees Lucy and smiles at me. I smile back in relief.

"We will just be ordinary graduates today," promises Josh and I love how his statement makes me part of the group, even though only I'm the one with the odd life.

It almost works, too. The 'being ordinary graduates'-plan, I mean.

It works through lining up and marching over to the Sheldonian. It works through finding and taking our seats. It works through spying my parents on the balcony and waving at them, for Dad to capture it on his camera. (As if the world needs any more pictures of me!) It even, somehow, works through seeing Owen sit behind the vice chancellor's chair and returning the smile he gives me.

It works – until it doesn't. Because next to Owen, untouchable in a haze of purple and gold, sits the Queen, somehow managing to be even more beautiful in real life than in pictures. And she's looking straight at me.

The world seems to retreat as our eyes meet, the hustle of the Theatre fading into the background, becoming inconsequential and trite. The Queen's face is completely impassive as she looks at me (and I suddenly realise it's from her that Ken got this skill) and I couldn't possibly say how long we hold eye contact. Until finally, she inclines her head into the tiniest of nods, barely perceptible, and abruptly looks away.

Hm.

I wonder what that means.


The title of this chapter is taken from the song 'I Want It All' (written by Brian May, released by Queen in 1989).


A/N:
As next Wednesday is Christmas Day and I'll also be away for a few days, the story and I will be taking one week off. I imagine everyone will be busy with festivities and family anyway, so I suspect we won't be much missed ;). Posting will resume with the New Year, that is, on January 1st. Until then, Merry Christmas to everyone and a Happy New Year!


To Mammu:
Unusually for me, I haven't decided yet where I want this Nan and Jerry-thing to lead. I'm not categorically ruling out a reconciliation somewhere along the line (under the right circumstances!), but I might end up going into an entirely different direction. It's still up in the air. What I do know is that Nan won't fall over and beg him to come back to her or something, because that's not like her and I don't want her to. At this point though, I'm with you in saying "we will see" ;).
There are few things as comforting as a purring cat cuddling up to you, aren't there? Mine's the ignorant type, so she usually only comes cuddling when
she feels like it, but whenever that falls together with me needing some comfort, it always makes me feel better. And it's scientifically proven that purring has health benefits (for the human being purred at), so that's in addition to it's emotional benefits!
You and Ken both. He also hopes Rilla doesn't want out of that relationship...

To JoAnna:
Jerry cheating is part of a (long) plot arc, so unfortunately for Nan, it needed to be real. As stated, I don't know how those two will end up, but I needed Jerry's betrayal to happen to set up something else that'll happen some years into Rilla's future - and yes, her promise to Ken will come up then as well. It'll be all the drama! ;)
Once again, you capture very well what I was trying to convey with the last chapter, especially with regards to Ken. He lives with the knowledge that Rilla cheated on a former boyfriend specifically in the moment when said boyfriend wanted to move the relationship forward and make it more serious. She ran away from the pressure and the expectations, essentially, and in the worst way possible. Ken is perfectly aware that life by his side will encompass more pressure than Rilla could possibly imagine, so he must wonder about that, right? I don't think he expects her to cheat on him (though a small part probably does fear it), it's more that he worries she will bolt again when things become more serious. He's not ring-shopping yet either, but he looks more closely at their possible future, so those are definitely some of the things that are on his mind here.