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Genre: Family, Mild Romance, Friendship, combination present day and future fic

Pairings: Greg and Molly, background, pre-Greer and Sam

Main characters: Greg, Greer (present day child and future adult both), introucing Sam McTavish, childhood friend to Greer and eventual love interest

Greer thought her heart might break on the spot.

Samuel Jameson McTavish – her closest and most treasured friend second only to Ciana Anderson - was set to move with his family to Canada.

Samuel, for his part, was no more happy about the move than Greer was. But, it was what it was, and in this day and age they had emails, and Skype, and all such manner of ways, to keep in touch.

Greer wasn't convinced, however. Nothing could replace having Sam there in person.

"Daddy, I'll miss him so," she sobbed, as Greg held his girl closely. "Canada is SO far way, and it's so BIG. Even if we WERE to try to visit, how EVER would we even FIND him?"

Greg's heart cracked a bit at his Little Love's heartbreak, but he wasn't quite sure how to reassure her when she was so determined to be sad.

"Greer, I PROMISE you, one day soon, we'll visit them in Canada. Saskatchewan seems a far off place but it's quite beautiful from what I'm told, especially where Sam is moving to. Where he's going, the towns and villages aren't that close together. Why, they're MILES apart Little Love. They're quite easy to find on a map, and while we travel, there are gorgeous rolling fields and pastures, all sorts of things to see, and lakes and forests, we'll even see deer on the sides of the roads while we drive, and ponds with ducks and geese just paddling about. If we're there at the right time we may even see small baby goslings."

Greer sniffled against her dad's chest, not convinced yet.

"Did you know that when the trees are silvering, that means it's going to rain?"

Greer paused a few moments. "Silvering?"

"Yes," he laughed softly. "There are white poplar trees everywhere, where Sam is moving. And when it's going to rain, the poplar tree leaves turn themselves over. Even if you don't know what it means, you'll see it, Little Love, and you'll know. They'll go from their usual dark green from the topside you'd normally see, to a beautiful silvery sage green. You can't miss it, I promise you can't."

"If he's around so much beauty Daddy, won't he forget all about London and me?"

Greg took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "Who could ever forget you, my beautiful girl? Why, I'll just bet Sam is going to miss you just as much as you'll miss him."

Indeed, Samuel McTavish would miss Greer just as much, and those handful of Lestrade family vacations over the years would do little to satiate their yearning to see each other in person.

Time would take its toll. As the years passed, and they grew from small children into young teenagers, and finally into adults, Greer and Sam would lose touch with each other, as time and age carried them forward. They never forgot about each other, and the affection would never die, but the passage of years would heal the hurt of absence, and life would go on.

One day, however, Sam would move back to England.

Back to London.

Back, in fact, to his old home neighbourhood.

Back to his Greer.

Two evenings of reminiscing would be enough to reignite the flame in these two now adult friends.

Sam had tales to tell of raging forest fires too close to home, and a sun blocked out and the air turned eerie colours by drifting smoke thousands of miles away, carried forth by the wind.

Flocks of geese heralding in with their returning song, the warmer weather of spring, pried loose from the grips of winter, and then short months later, mourning the loss of summer, with the approaching colours and scents and frosty mornings of the west-central Saskatchewan autumns as they prepared to depart to warmer haunts for the winter.

Of something known as "Rider Pride," – a fandom phenomenon known across the country - and a version of "football" that was wholly foreign to Greer's definition of it.

What the living HELL was "soccer" supposed to be, anyway? And why wasn't it just properly called football, and what the hell was North American football supposed to be, anyway? And why couldn't the Canadians and the Americans even agree upon rules?

Not even Greg could explain that one, and he considered himself a lover of sports in general.

Even Sam, Brit-born by heritage but Western Canadian by rearing, had to admit that for as much as he loved the Saskatchewan Roughriders, football in Canada had little to do with feet, and more to do with a lot of stops, starts, and a very strangely shaped ball that was mostly passed about by THROWING it.

Greer was just happy she had Sam back, and this whole world of experiences for him to share, and to grow to love with him.

Sam was in agreement. He missed his home in west-central Saskatchewan, but being back with Greer was home as well. He savoured the times with her, reacquainting himself with the city he'd been born in and learning again to see it the way she did, falling in love with it the way they seemed to be falling in love with eachother.

Sam knew that someday he'd take her back to where he felt he fit best. He'd take her on a leisurely scenic Sunday drive through his beloved lake country and she'd watch the fields of canola and wheat and lentils roll by. With a woman's eyes, she'd see the deer in the ditches, though her perspective from the opposite side of the car she was used to might be a bit distracting at first. They would listen to the frogs in the sloughs serenading them at night, and the memories of family vacations would be dusted off and viewed from the perspective of an adult.

They would wake up to the glorious sunrises and hold hands and share sweet nothings to a good old fashioned thunderstorm, should they be so blessed to have one during their short time there. They would dip their feet into a freshwater lake, maybe even walk the beach, their hands locked into themselves, as the sun set over the waters.

He would take her north closer to where he'd grown up, and she would hear the lonely call of the loon upon the waters that was the namesake of his childhood home.

She would love his "land of living skies" as much as he did, and he would once again, love the London cityscape as much as she did, because after all, home was where the heart was, and even though they would make their permanent residence in London, they knew they'd be happy wherever they were, as long as they were there together.