Chapter 2: Adjusting to Him

Speaking of adjustments, another one was awaiting them shortly after. After putting William down for a nap—a difficult task with a little boy who fought sleep every step of the way—they were in the kitchen prepping for dinner when the doorbell went off.

They looked to each other; Mark asked, "Are you expecting anyone?"

She shook her head. "I assume you're not, either," she said. "Shall we see who's here before the doorbell wakes Mr Fussy Pants?"

Mark chuckled. "I'll go."

He approached the door; he could see an outline of a figure through the frosted glass. Mark's step slowed; something seemed familiar about the silhouette.

"Who's there," Mark said.

"A ghost from the past."

Son of a bitch.

Mark opened the door to see Daniel Cleaver standing there. His light brown hair had mostly gone white-blond, and his complexion had gone quite tanned in the outback sun. He looked as lean and wiry as ever, though his expression was serious, one of hesitancy.

Mark decided to break the ice by reaching a hand out for a shake… then shocking Daniel by pulling him into a hug.

"It is surprisingly good to see you," Mark said quietly.

Daniel pulled back, though he was now grinning. "Goddammit, Darcy, I thought you were going to throttle me. Perhaps I should rise from the dead more often."

Mark found himself smiling, too.

"Though honestly," Daniel continued, closing the front door behind himself, "I didn't think it would be this easy. I thought there was going to be a bit more of a fight. Literally."

"I've been thinking about this ever since I heard the news," Mark said. "It was actually on our wedding day."

"Ah, yes," Daniel said. "I heard from my mum. Congratulations on all counts."

"Thank you," Mark said. "It just became so starkly clear to me when I realised I was happy to hear you'd turned up. I couldn't deny I was happy. And I knew what that meant."

"A second chance," Daniel said, echoing Bridget's thoughts on the day.

"Yes," Mark said. Sheepishly, he continued, "I was going to call you when we got back from our honeymoon, but… I wasn't sure what to say."

"I'm not sure what I would have said, but for my mum." Daniel paused; his eyes looked a bit misty. "She told me… that you had actually come to my memorial service. Well, that you both had, but you in particular turning up, that spoke volumes to me. That deep down inside, you did still care, at least a little bit. And I'd be a fool not to reach out to try to make amends."

"Daniel!"

With surprising speed, Bridget scaled the stairs up from the lower level, then ran over to Daniel, launching into a big, tight hug that nearly knocked the man over.

"Hello, Jones," Daniel said, meeting Mark's gaze, smiling. "Or is it 'Darcy' now, too?"

"Let's go with 'Jones' to avoid confusion," she said, drawing away. She screwed up her features, as if deep in thought. "You look like a beachcomber."

Daniel burst out with a laugh. "Appalling lack of sun cream out there in the bush," he said, "though I might well stay with this hair colour. Does an admirable job at hiding the grey."

She laughed lightly. "Oh, why don't you stay for dinner?" she asked suddenly. "Then you can tell us what the hell happened."

Daniel looked to Mark. "You sure you don't mind?" he asked.

"Of course not," Mark said. "How better to get reacquainted?"

Daniel's face betrayed another small smile. It was not one of joy, precisely, since he would not have tried to suppress a happy smile; Mark suspected that Daniel was touched on an emotional level to which Daniel was uncomfortable admitting.

"Please tell me you're not making soup, Jones," Daniel said wryly.

In response, she lightly punched his upper arm, a smile playing upon her lips.

Dinner was not a complicated matter—pasta with tomato sauce and heaps of parmesan cheese. Mark opened a bottle of red that he had been saving for a special occasion; if this didn't qualify, what did?

"So," Bridget said, her laden fork aloft in mid-air. "Let's hear it."

Daniel paused to sip at his wine. "All was going swimmingly until the wing came off."

"I'm sorry," Bridget interrupted, "the wing came off?"

Daniel nodded. "One moment, I'm in the cockpit flying along, and the next, the wing's gone, my seat's coasting through the sky on its own, with me still in it. Headfirst into the trees."

"You were in the cockpit?" Bridget asked. "When in bloody hell did you learn to fly?"

Daniel said with a smirk, "I am a mystery wrapped in an enigma."

"Why were you in Australia?" Mark asked.

"I told my mum and a few friends that I was going there to find myself, or some such nonsense," he said, then scoffed. "Well, mission accomplished. Had plenty of time for that."

"So what happened next?" Bridget asked.

"I don't remember anything after the trees rushing at me at top speed, until I came to after the sun had gone down. Unstrapped myself from the seat and bloody walked away with nothing more a bit of a backache and a cut on my arm. Well. A bit disorientated, too, truth be told. Since it was already dark, I decided to say put for the night. Desperately wanted a drink and a smoke."

He paused to take a bite, which gave Bridget a chance to ask, "So you weren't very injured? Why did it take you so long to get back to England?"

"They found the black box pretty quickly," Mark added. "How is it they didn't find you?"

"Both excellent questions," he said. "In good time." He sipped on the wine again. "I woke when the sun started to come up, and I started to walk. Let me tell you, I was bloody grateful for it being autumn down there—if it'd been the dead of summer, I would've been done for. I walked until I found some water, which fortunately wasn't too long. Looking at a map now, I got pretty lucky to have landed near a lake. On the lake I found a man tending his fish trap. I must have looked like total arse, because he dropped what he was doing and pulled me along, looking very concerned and speaking too rapidly for me to understand. He took me back to his community."

"Which community was this?"

Daniel shook his head. "Not saying, other than to say it was hundreds of kilometres from Kalgoorlie. They were very kind to me, and I'm not going to repay their kindness with unwanted publicity," he said. "They just want to live their lives in the ways of their ancestors."

Fair enough, thought Mark.

"Though honestly, I was grateful they spoke English," Daniel added. "I took a few days to rest and recover—not so much physically, but mentally. The sense of peace and the quiet that enveloped me in that environment was like nothing I'd found before. I'd've thought it'd be too quiet, not busy enough after years in London, but I was wrong." He paused. "I liked it. As soon as I could convince them I was all right, they set me to working in the community. One day blended into the next… this is going to sound hard to believe, but I lost track of the days. Actually lost track of them. I stopped looking at a calendar. Stopped checking a mobile. Didn't care about fashion or pop culture or software updates or publishing deadlines. And then suddenly, reality comes crashing in when someone comes rolling into town all the way from Perth and I realize two years have gone by. Two bloody years! Then I think about my mum and everyone back home, and I realise I've got to get home. So I get my things together and get the stranger to take me out to where I was reported to turned up, the pub outside of Kalgoorlie, far from where I'd been." Daniel held up both hands. "And voilà. Here I am."

After that, Mark didn't quite know what to say. He couldn't fathom how that much time could pass without realising it, but he'd never experienced the kind of trauma that comes with crashing in a plane and walking away.

"Wow," Bridget said, resting her chin on her closed hand, as her elbow rested on the table. "How did you get back here? Did you still have your passport with you?"

"I had my whole bag with me from the plane," he said, "except for my passport. We were reunited after I turned up, sort of. It was found in the plane and the authorities had sent it back to my mum. Coordinating with the British Embassy was enough to get me back."

Realising he'd been thought dead for so long, Mark asked, "Where are you living?"

"Same flat," he said. "My mum refused to sell my flat and my things until she had more definitive proof of my demise. Good thing, that."

It was then that the baby monitor, which sat at Bridget's side, erupted with the sound of baby William calling out loudly for his mama.

Bridget pushed back from the table. "Let me go see what's the matter."

As he watched her walk away, Mark thought about taking Daniel up to meet William, but thought perhaps bedtime wasn't the best time to introduce him to a new person. He reached and sipped his wine.

"Hey," said Daniel quietly. Mark looked to him. "While she's up there, there's something I wanted to get cleared up and out of the way, so you don't have to wonder."

Mark furrowed his brow. "Oh?"

"The Tate. I picked her up, but it was only as a friend. I swear."

Mark knew exactly about what Daniel was talking: the British Daytime Television Awards, 2010. Mark had failed her by not showing up to support her in her win for best producer, but his jealousy had been aggravated when he had arrived late… just in time to see her climbing into Daniel's BMW. The combination of these things had served as a catalyst to their split; he had accused her of going back to Daniel, just as she had accused him of not trusting her or being a supportive partner. In retrospect, he knew she'd been right.

Daniel continued: "You believe me, I hope."

Mark's attention snapped back to the present. "Yes," he said, without hesitation. "My own insecurities fuelled my suspicion n, but I've come to see how foolish I'd been."

Daniel's look of worry vanished in a moment, and he smiled. "Good," he said, then said it again as he nodded. "Good."

The sound of footfalls on the stairs coincided perfectly with the end of the conversation, and the smile that lit Daniel's face told Mark before he'd even turned that she'd brought the baby back downstairs with her. Daniel stood to meet William, who looked understandably wary.

"William," said Bridget, "meet your Uncle Daniel."

At the moniker, Mark swore that Daniel's features softened even further. "Well, hello, young man," Daniel said.

"Would you like to hold him?" Bridget offered.

"I would, but I'm not sure he wants to be held by me," he quipped.

"You're just new to him, but we're here," Bridget said. "He'll be fine."

At this Daniel opened his arms to accept him; William seemed hesitant only for a moment, but as Daniel smiled at him, William smiled too, then laughed and reached for Daniel's ear.

"Just as I'd always suspected," Daniel said. "The two of you make ridiculously adorable babies."

Mark smiled and could only cast his gaze towards his wife. "I give full credit there to Bridget."

"Nonsense," she said, smiling at him in return.

"Get a room," quipped Daniel, shifting William in his arms, who giggled at the jostling. "See? He agrees with me. I think little Billy here and I are going to be best buddies."

Inwardly, Mark cringed. "We haven't really been calling him that."

Daniel scoffed. "William is a man's name, not a baby's," he retorted. "Be thankful I didn't call him 'Willy'."

This elicited a chuckle from Bridget, who looked immediately contrite when she realised Mark was still watching her. Mark smiled to let her know that it was all right if she found that amusing—he did too.

"I just remembered," said Daniel, as he handed William back to his mother, "I have something for you." At Mark's undoubtedly confused look, he explained, "I have a wedding gift for the both of you, and a belated birthday gift for the sprog, but I figured I'd leave it in the car until I was sure you weren't going to sock me in the nose."

"You really didn't have to," Bridget said, "but thank you."

Daniel was back in just a few minutes with a tote bag; out of the top of this bag hung the top half of a rather plush stuffed rabbit. "Despite what you may think, the bunny's for the kid." He pulled out the rabbit, which seemed to be about as large as William was. William, for his part, looked enthralled as Daniel held it close, then held out his arms so that he could grasp on to it.

"Thank you," Bridget said with a grin.

"I know what you're thinking," said Daniel, "and you'll be grateful to know that your gift is not, in fact, rabbit-related."

"That's a relief," Mark said drolly.

"Mark, go ahead, open it," said Bridget, who still held her son and his new stuffed rabbit.

Instead, Mark reached to take the armful of child and toy, and said, "I know how much you like opening gifts." Her beaming smile was a reward all on its own.

Bridget reached into the bag, pulled out some tissue paper, then pulled out a small box trimmed with decorative paper and ribbons. She shot her gaze towards Daniel, her expression questioning, then undid the ribbon and tore at the edge of the paper.

The box beneath was plain white, taller than it was wide, no taller than Bridget's forearm. She slipped a fingernail in to break the round gold sticker sealing the opening edge, then lifted the lid of the box. She pulled out some paper packing material, then took in a sharp breath.

She lifted the gift out of the box, and as Mark saw it, he was left breathless, too. It was a small terracotta statue—or rather, a fragment of a statue—hearkening back to those of ancient times. A card accompanied the statue, declaring a certification of authenticity as a reproduction of an original. The partial figures were embraced and kissing. One of the figures had wings; the other one had probably had wings, too, but they'd been broken.

"I picked that up from a museum in Crete," Daniel said. "Spent a few days there on my trek home from Australia. It's Eros and Psyche. I seem to recall a rather glorious statue of Eros somewhat close to your flat, Jones. I thought it'd be perfect for your long-overdue union."

To Mark's surprise, tears flooded his wife's eyes and gathered in his own. "Daniel, it's beautiful," she said, gingerly setting the statue down, then reaching to embrace him. "Thank you so much."

"Just… put it somewhere that Billy can't get to it," he said, his usual deflection with humour firmly in place, as Bridget relinquished the embrace.

"We'll be sure to," said Mark. "It really is perfect."

"Ooh, we should have a toast," Bridget said suddenly.

"We should put this child back to bed," Mark said.

"Go do that," Bridget said, "and I'll pull out one of the bottles of champagne from the wedding."

Fortunately, little William had been tuckered out by all of the excitement, and went back to sleep in a matter of moments. The new bunny was left to rest on the rocking chair. As Mark returned downstairs, Daniel opened the bottle with a loud pop. Bridget stood to the side with her fingers in her ears.

"I couldn't find the flutes," said Bridget. "Figured you would know."

Mark did in fact know, and went to pull out three. Daniel did the pouring. Mark felt like he should do the toasting. He had no idea what he would say until he started to say it.

"Here's to the start of a new chapter," he said, "to renewed friendships and strengthened bonds. We have spent too long estranged, my friend, and today, that ends. If for no other reason, my son needs a fun uncle."

Mark swore that Daniel was on the verge of tears. He raised his flute, too, and touched it to Mark's. "Hear, hear," he said, then cleared his throat; his usual humour surfaced. "Looking forward to taking him for a pint."

"Many years from now," said Bridget.

"Of course," said Daniel.

Mark added, "Though it's only fair to point out that you started swilling from a wine bottle at age four, darling."

At this, Daniel began laughing. "That must have been a sight."

"You can see for yourself." Mark reached into his pocket and produced his mobile phone.

Bridget explained in a resigned tone, "He's put it on his mobile."

Mark could not help noticing how amused Daniel looked—and how genuine his chuckle was—as he watched the video from years ago, with Bridget, aged four, running around like a holy terror, shoving cake into her mouth, and apparently glugging wine. At the point in the video where young Bridget smacked a kiss on the back of Mark's neck, and Mark took her hand, Daniel actually said, "Aww. I wish I'd seen this years ago. I would have conceded immediately." Daniel smiled, and it was an easy, genuine smile. "And on that note, it's best I bid you goodnight. I know how badly new parents need sleep."

Mark rose to his feet. "Not so new, but I won't argue the point," he said. With a smile, he added, "Let's do this again soon, Vivian."

Daniel stepped forward and embraced his friend. "I'll hold you to that, Fitzwilliam," he said. "We can drive Jones here mad with the football."

"What a good night."

"A very good night."

This, with a soft sigh as they curled up to each other in their darkened bedroom. Mark felt reassured by the weight of her resting upon his chest, her fingers drawing lazy arcs upon his shoulder. He drew deep breaths, felt himself closer and closer to drifting to sleep—

"We've had a lot of upheaval and change in the last year," she continued, bringing him back to wakefulness. "It's been difficult in many ways, but so worth it."

He thought of the small irritations and the absolute non-stop busy state that had only just recently returned to something approaching normal. "Many adjustments to have made," he murmured. "But this only proves that the need to adjust isn't always bad."

The end.