The Hour and its lovely characters do not belong to me. I just move them about sometimes, with my mind.

It was odd, thought Bel, to be climbing the stairs to Freddie's flat and knowing that only he awaited her. No sweet, confused father to act as a buffer or beautiful French wife to maneuver around. There was only Freddie, and Bel, in this odd new world of Freddie and Bel.

She realized she'd paused on the landing, caught in her thoughts, and continued upwards. She raised her hand to knock, remembered Freddie's limited mobility, and tried the knob instead. It was open.

"Hello?"

"Back here." Bel followed Freddie's voice through the sitting room and found him sitting up in bed in a mostly empty room. When his father had been alive, they had lived in the lower units and rented this one out. Bel had never been in this room before.

"It's certainly...roomy." There was a table by the door with a telephone sitting on it, a beat-up dresser, and an old brass bed. A pair of crutches were leaned against the headboard. Nothing hung on the walls.

"The bed's new, actually. Sey found it somewhere after lecturing me about managing a mattress on the ground with two broken limbs. He and a friend brought it by this afternoon. I probably owe him money," Freddie added in an afterthought.

"Dr. Ola is certainly proving to be a helpful neighbor to have." Bel had moved into the room, discarding her coat and satchel and handing Freddie the fish chips she'd brought him for dinner.

"Yes, I am taking full advantage of having my own private doctor just downstairs." Freddie munched on a chip. "How was the week?"

"Fairly short on chaos. The Lewisham crash has given Isaac something to focus on." Bel considered fetching a chair from the other room, but decided that seemed silly. It was only Freddie, after all. Only Freddie. She sat gingerly on the edge of his bed instead. "How goes the recovery?"

"I don't understand why anyone allows themselves to be injured. It's terrible and I hate it."

"So, swimmingly, then."

He scowled at her.

"Can I bring you anything tomorrow?"

Freddie looked at her alertly. "Tomorrow? You're not leaving?"

Bel shifted her shoulders. "I..."

"You can't leave! The Sky at Night is coming on, stay and watch."

"Since when do you care about astronomy?"

"Since caring about it was the only bloody thing to do. Now help me to the sofa, Moneypenny." He reached for his crutches with his good arm.

"Uh-uh." Bel stood and stepped out of reach. "That name is only acceptable-barely--when it's not attached to a command."

"Or I'm dying. From wounds earned from being a hero. A news hero."

Bel bit back a smile. "Thin ice, James." But she helped him lever himself out of the bed and onto the crutches. With his broken arm, he could really only use one crutch, and his progress across the flat was excruciatingly slow, a fact when she knew would be driving Freddie mad. She went ahead to switch on the set.

The first strains of "At the Castle Gate" began, with the set showing stars viewed through a window. Bel sat at the far end of the sofa so that Freddie wouldn't have as far to go. "It'll just be more about the American satellite, you know."

Freddie hobbled into the doorway. "You don't know that." He tossed one crutch towards the couch, which Bel caught and laid at her feet. "He might talk about the moon."

"You're ridiculous. I wonder how long the network imagines there will even be an audience for this sort of thing."

"Hmm," Freddie made an assenting noise as he settled himself on the sofa and tossed his second crutch after the first in disgust. "Eventually someone will conquer the moon and we'll all move on with our lives."

"Good Evening," Patrick Moore spoke from the television set. "The American attempt at an artificial satellite, the Vanguard TV3, only rose about a meter into the air before crashing back to Earth this week."

"There, you see?" Bel spoke over the set.

"It is the biggest news in space," Freddie pointed out. "Oh, blast. My chips." He looked at Bel imploringly. "Could you...?"

"Yes, yes, alright."

Bel returned to the sitting room, chips in hand, just in time to hear Moore announce "The moon is full and bright this evening."

"Ha!" Freddie lifted his good arm in triumph. Bel laid the package of chips on it as she passed. "The moon."

They watched the program in companionable silence, Bel occasionally reaching over the steal a chip. When the food was gone, Freddie reached over to take her hand, instead. She allowed it, but she felt stiff and odd and knew that Freddie could tell.

"Bel."

She heaved a sigh and turned to face him fully on the sofa, dropping his hand. His leg made it impossible for him to do the same, but he turned his torso carefully towards her. She knew the broken ribs were still healing, as well as the incision from his surgery.

"This was always going to be easier for you than me, Freddie."

He seemed to consider that. "Would it help if we talked?"

Bel recalled his earlier declaration that they did too much talking, and while it was right in that moment, she thought this was right for this one. She nodded.

"Do you still have the book of poems?"

She shook her head ruefully. "It's back on the shelf at home."

"No matter. Let's see..." He closed his eyes and rested his head on the wall behind the sofa.

"somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond

any experience,your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near"

"I remember that one."

Freddie opened his eyes. "I thought you might."

"Is it the same poem-?"

"Yes. 'i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens;only something in me understands.'" This time he kept his eyes open and fully on hers. Bel didn't look away, but reached for his hand.

"The rest of it is filled with talk about her 'fragility,' which isn't right for you, of course. You're the strongest person I know."

"I haven't felt strong of late. Afraid and unsure, but not strong. What if we do this and it ruins everything?"

"Do you honestly think that it will?"

"It might!"

"Do you trust me, Bel?"

"Yes," she answered cautiously.

"I'm serious."

"I know. I do trust you."

"Then let me be strong for you in this, at least right now. You'll pick it up."

She cleared her throat delicately. "Have you heard from Camille? I tried to get in touch with her when you were in hospital, but didn't know where to look."

Freddie continued looking her in the eye, a fact which gratified her. "Yes. Today, actually."

"Oh?"

"She's seeking an annulment. I've signed the papers, and will put them in the post tomorrow."

"So that's it, then? It's over?"

Now he did look away. "Camille and I...we were both running away from things. We used one another a bit, I'm afraid. I more than she. I'm not proud of it, Bel."

"Yes, well..." she waited until he'd met her eyes again. "I can relate."

His hand tightened on hers. "Are you truly going back to your flat tonight?"

Bel looked around. "I suppose I could stay on the sofa."

"Don't be ridiculous. We can share the bed."

Bel simply looked at him.

"Come now, your virtue is safe. Does it look like I'm in any condition to-to-" he sputtered a moment, then waved a hand over his bruised and broken self "put the moves on you?"

"I suppose my virtue-such as it is-will be relatively safe with you."

"Thank you." Freddie sounded disgruntled despite his victory, and Bel laughed.

"Do you need help getting up?"

He scowled at his broken leg. "Most likely."

He was soon up and hobbling back across the flat. "Feel free to use the bath. It's just there," he paused to gesture with a crutch.

"Thank you."

Freddie looked up when Bel walked into the bedroom. She was flushed from her bath, wearing his robe, and carrying a towel. She sat on the edge of the bed and began to rub the towel over her hair.

Freddie swallowed a moan. This was a terrible idea. Whose idea had this been? Oh, yes, of course. His.

"Just-" his voice sounded high-almost a squeak-and he cleared his throat and tried again. "Just make yourself comfortable."

Bel tossed the towel away and pulled the cover over her legs, apparently content to sleep in the robe.

Hell.

"Am I making you uncomfortable, Freddie?" Bel's smile belied her concerned tone.

"You are, as you well know." She blinked, and he thought he'd surprised her with his candor. Too bad. She was going to have to get used to candor of that sort. He reached out with his good arm, awkwardly. It was his left, and even propped up on pillows, he couldn't really turn to face her.

She caught his hand and brought it to the side of her face. He rubbed his thumb along her bottom lip. Yes. This was torture.

"'i like my body when it is with your body. It is so quite new a thing,'" he quoted.

Bel smiled, her lips moving under his thumb. "Oh, are we moving on to the dirty poems now?"

"It's all fair game, Moneypenny."

Bel pressed a kiss to his palm, then sat up. She smiled at his perplexed expression. "I'm just switching off the light."

In the dark, he felt the mattress depress. Beneath the cover, her hand found his again. It was still there when he fell asleep.

A/N

Chapters will be longer now that Freddie can speak using full sentences again. The Hour doesn't really give us actual dates, so I tried to calculate using the Wolfenden Report (4 September '57) and Lix's comment about the "dead dog circling our heads" (Sputnik 2 launched 3 November '57, with Laika thought dead 6 days later). As a result, this chapter takes place mid-December 1957. The Lewisham rail crash occurred on December 4th, with 90 fatalities and over a hundred hospitalized. It was big news on the homefront. And I couldn't help including Sir Patrick Moore, as The Sky at Night premiered in April 1957, and has, in fact, stuck around (Moore passed away this past December after 55 years on the air).

Poems: the return of "somewhere i have never traveled," number 35 in Bel's and my book, and our first sexy poem, "i like my body when it is with your body," number 14. It's a good one. We'll probably see it again.