This chapter is for MoonlitSerenity, because she also gave this minor ST character recognition in her writing.

- Elena

XXVI. My Quiet Abode

Yesterday, the sky had been dark when he returned home, and he had thought, just as he always did, that yesterday would be the day when his friend would no longer be able to stand up and light the candle by the lone blackened window.

He had found him, indeed, sprawled on the floor, unable to move, and he had rushed to his aid, lifted him up into his wheelchair. Then, they had talked. They always talked, when there was nothing else to do, and indeed, it was the best pastime, even if words were so scorned among men for being superficial.

They had talked about the old days, when they had played tennis together. The days, when they had written love letters together, to girls they had seen run about in the streets, love letters they never sent, or, perhaps, some that they sent, some that were replied to, some that lay down in the history of their lives.

They had talked about the old days, the days when he had played Mozart on his violin while tap dancing on their old parquet. They talked about the old days, the old days when they had been like stallions racing across fields, hair rippling in the wind, stumbling over molehills.

Alas. Time had flown faster than the hands of a clock strike a second; they had dissolved into the night air that seemed to dog London from morning to eventide. Now, they no longer ran, and they had forgotten what green was, and that it had once been more than just a colour, but a home. Now, the one came home to the other, and they talked like good neighbours about the days when they had been brothers. Sometimes, he noticed the childish thoughts that flitted through his mind at the sight of the wheelchair. He thought he'd tie bird wings to his feet, he'd wrench the wheelchair out from under him and he would stand, fly, fly like Hermes had flown, in his winged sandals. Only his would be winged feet.

Yesterday, when he had come back, and he had talked to his friend, they had laughed, and heartily. They had not talked about the old days. They had talked about rainy London, and they had laughed at its inhabitants. Particularly one.

"Some chap who says he's Italian, though I won't believe a word of it," he had told his friend, who had laughed in response.

"You know what, man, if all this we hear of nowadays is true, we have a good million different nationalities walking around this place. Heh, who'd swap sunny South of France for this hell-hole? One'd have to be mad…"

"Perhaps they are sick of the sun, as much as we are sick of the rain,"

"Perhaps," his friend had said, scratching his unshaven chin. He had disappeared into thought for a while, and then turned an inquisitive eye onto him. "By the by, have you seen my face lately? Its covered in grayish black stubble, and that won't do next to your classy cleanness, will it?"

"That's what I was talking about…"

His friend had roared with laughter. "That Italian? Don't joke with me, old boy, I don't want to get scalped," he had said, still chuckling. Indeed, he had thought his friend had a point. That man spent more time lying that he did looking at his customers while he shaved them.

"True, my friend, but I foresaw that," he had said, wagging a finger, "I must say I meant the mysterious man who beat him in their contest…a certain new barber in Fleet Street."

At this, his friend had looked sobered, and had abruptly stopped laughing. His face had set in a second, and yet there had been no trace of any negative emotion; only an odd look of completion, satisfaction. 'Fleet Street,' he had said. Quietly.

"Yes, indeed, he shaved the man without a single nick in less than a few seconds!"

"Few have such skill," his friend had sighed, and he had wondered at his sudden turn of mood. Perhaps, now he thought about it, he should have asked. If he had asked, perhaps things would have been different. And yet, moods and feelings were not pushed subjects of discussion; if they came up naturally, so be it; if not, let them rest. "You should take me to him. Right away. This stubble is beginning to irritate me."

He looked at the sky, which was tinged red with the last vestiges of light from the setting sun. "Sometimes, you know, my friend, I believe in fate. No, no," he had said, as he had stood up from his wheelchair. "I will not fall again. My strength is very much restored. And Fleet Street is a short way away. I will only have to go there, you see."

"Ah…of course, I shall collect you…I could come in a carriage…"

"No, my friend. That's not what I meant. The journey from there, I doubt I'll need a carriage."

Taking that literally, he had smiled. "Very well, but if you are too long, I will come…"

At this, his friend had approached him, and gripped him by the shoulders. "As I said, sometimes I believe in fate, and sometimes I don't. This makes me think that all fate is kismet. Coincidence. So, perhaps, in this instance, coincidence has granted me something I have wanted for a long time."

As much as he thought, as much as he tried to figure out what his friend had meant on the last time he had seen him, he couldn't. He had walked away surprisingly quickly, and in his surprise he had forgotten to ask.

And yet, all that night, as he sat by the darkening window, long after night had settled and the candle had burned to the quick, he had thought about that barber, that barber that he had approached that afternoon and asked if he had his own establishment. He remembered his rancorous expression, and how the woman with him had answered instead of him. That woman, the pie-maker. Was she his wife? He brushed that thought aside – they had looked nothing like a couple. One could sense these things.

All that night, as he waited for his friend, who never came back, he had stared at the empty wheelchair, at the grey woolen shawl that had lain on his friend's frail shoulders. He had thought about fate and coincidence, and about how the morning brings hope.

And now, as he remembered, as he watched the sun rise, he hoped that his friend would return. Even after he had gone into town, to Fleet Street, made all necessary inquiries, and received no useful information, he still hoped, that his friend would return.

Had he known the barber? Had his friend known him? It had seemed so. But if his friend knew, then he only guessed, for he still did not know; why had he been drawn to approach him, to speak to him, to see him up closer, at the crowded market? Perhaps, when his friend returned, he would ask him. For he still hoped he would return.

Return to the quiet house with the candle by the window.

Return, to their quiet abode.