A/N: Thank you so much for your encouraging reviews. I'm so glad you're enjoying the premise. Another short one today and a very happy birthday to wolfdrum. Hope you continue to enjoy and, yes, I did change the title of this fic. Cheers, S.C.
Tuesday, 1st December 2009
She knows that the warm, easy-going, laughing, flirtatious man she met at choir tonight isn't real, that the persona of Al is just a legend created and adopted by Harry, and yet, she can't seem to get him out of her mind, can't stop counting down the hours until she sees him again, can't help wanting to spend more time in his company, chatting, laughing, listening to him sing. He's got a beautiful, tenor voice, she's discovered and can sing superbly. How could I not know that? How can there be so many things about Harry that I still don't know?
She'd thought she knew him rather well – his character, his strengths, his limitations and weaknesses – but tonight has convinced her that perhaps she doesn't. Not really. Not as well as she'd thought. And is it any wonder really? They work together closely to be sure, have worked together closely for years, but other than their one, promising date, a lifetime ago now, when else has she seen him away from the office? When else has she given him the opportunity to open up more, to reach a level of intimacy where she can truly say she knows Harry Pearce?
How much of his persona had been an act tonight and how much of it is real? This can't be an op. He must be doing it because, like me, he likes to sing... at Christmas. Why, she wonders. What is it about this time of year that makes him do it? Derek had told her that he sings with them every year, that he'd joined four years ago and only comes out of the woodwork to sing when their Christmas program starts. Why?
She'd wanted to talk to Harry tonight, but Grace – her alter ego at choir – is a shy, reserved woman, who very much keeps herself to herself. It had been easier to create such a legend. She'd not felt like acting all happy and chipper when she'd decided to rejoin a choir, so this had seemed the safest way to keep the others from asking too many questions. Now she wishes that she'd made Grace more fun loving and open, like Al, though she has to concede that that might have been a rather dangerous thing for her under the present circumstances. She still has some feelings for Harry – she knows that much – but she's not ready to probe those feelings too deeply just yet. It's still too soon after George.