When Duty Isn't Enough: Interlude
Author: Firebird
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Neither Hot Fuzz nor its characters, settings etc. are mine. Original characters are, as the name would imply, original and belong to me.
Author's Note: Um, okay, I didn't mean for Nick's mother to come across as this much of a bitch. I thought she would like Lily, but apparently I was mistaken. As for Nick's angsting, he's a driven, over-achieving perfectionist, and you've got to wonder why.
**
Meeting the Parents: His
"Right. Okay. Yes, that'll be fine. Okay. Okay. See you then. Bye."
Lily looked up from her seat on the sofa, where she had been listening to Nick's end of the phone conversation. "Everything alright?" she asked, frowning slightly in concern. Nick wasn't surprised. He was aware that the tension in his voice had been steadily rising throughout the conversation, and by the end had been all but gritting his teeth to keep from yelling.
"Yeah. That was my mother."
"Oh?" She gestured for him to sit beside her and he did so, although it meant resisting the urge to pace around the room in agitation. He dropped his arms around her and held her tightly for a moment, breathing her scent in deeply and consciously relaxing muscles which had tensed as his mother talked on.
"They're coming up from London to visit. Next month."
"And... this is good? Not good?"
"It's..." he sighed and shook his head. "Fraught. They never wanted me to be a police officer. But, now that the cottage is done they want to see Sandford again, and they're keen to meet you."
"Should I be worried?" her tone was light. His was not.
"Probably."
"Oookay. Just so's I know where I stand."
**
Nick was panicking. He had drawn up a list of things he needed to do before his parents arrived, but for every item he crossed off he seemed to add another. He had made his double bed up with clean sheets so that they could sleep in it. Then he had remembered that, as he would be using the single room across the hall, he would need to move his essentials over there. He had been shopping and picked up things he normally never touched, including Jaffa cakes, mayonnaise and instant coffee, but had since added white bread, Horlicks, and full-fat milk to the list. Now he was preparing the roast for the oven so that it could cook while he picked them up, and dreading the thought of what else he might have forgotten.
There was a knock at his door, and he heard Lily calling out to him.
"Just a minute!" He opened the oven, shoved in the beef, closed it with his foot, and rinsed his hands hastily under the tap. Lily was waiting patiently when he opened the door. She raised an eyebrow at the expression on his face.
"You look stressed."
For some reason both her expression and her tone jarred him. "Thanks," he replied sarcastically. "That's really helpful, Lily."
"Glad to be of service," she responded in kind. "You really wanna have a fight right now?" she added in a more reasonable tone.
He closed his eyes briefly, and his shoulders slumped. "No."
She kissed him. "So take the apron off, and go get your parents. I'll get the veggies done, go home and change, then whip over to the supermarket before I rejoin you."
He smiled gratefully. He must have sounded even more desperate than he thought when, having reached the end of his tether, he had rung her for help. "You're a life-saver," he told her sincerely.
She grinned and wrapped her arms around him, contriving to hug him whilst simultaneously untying the apron. "I know. Consider it payback for all the help with the renovations."
He nuzzled her hair lightly. "You know I wasn't keeping score."
Her hand dipped into his pocket. "Keys," she told him, holding them up. "Parents. Train. Late. Go."
He gave her a hasty kiss and headed for the car.
**
He had known in advance that collecting his parents in a marked police car was unlikely to be a popular move, but it was that or Lily's battered two-door Fiat, which would likely be looked upon even less favourably, so he accepted the sharp intake of breath from his mother and the sorrowful head-shaking of his father stoically.
"You'll find it's quite comfortable, but you can't open the doors from the inside," he told them. "It's about a half-hour to Sandford, although you won't be able to see much in the dark, I'm afraid."
"It's all fields anyway, isn't it?" his mother asked.
"This is a very rural area, yes," he replied.
"So, Nicholas, how's, um, Rose, wasn't it?" his father tried.
"Lily," he corrected in what he hoped was a neutral tone.
"Ah. Knew it was some kind of flower."
"She's well. You'll get to meet her tonight, actually; she's joining us for dinner."
"I don't understand why people do that," his mother commented. "Give their children silly names. 'Lily Birch': what sort of a name is that? Now, when we were choosing names for you and your brother, Nicholas, we looked for good, solid, respectable names."
"I know, mum," he replied. 'And I've endured the better part of thirty years of being called 'NicholARSE' and asked where my underpants are as a result,' he added mentally. He wondered how his mother would react to finding out that 'Lily' was actually short for 'Tigerlily', and was glad for her sake that he'd never mentioned it to them; or to hearing him called 'Nick', as he now almost always was. She had always been dead set against it, he remembered, to the point of lecturing his entire class on the subject when, at the age of nine, he had briefly sought an escape from the endless and inevitable taunts. He had gotten beaten up quite a bit as a result, he recalled with some bitterness.
The entire thirty minute drive from Buford Abbey continued in much the same vein, and Nick was relieved to pull up outside his cottage.
"Here we are," he informed them, before walking around to open their doors.
"It's rather pokey," his mother commented as he led them inside. "I would have thought an inspector would merit something more spacious."
"It's more than big enough to meet my needs," he replied, before offering to take her coat.
Lily was bringing wine, but he dug into his cupboards and opened a bottle anyway. He wasn't sure exactly when she would be arriving, and he needed the alcohol now rather than later.
"So, when can we expect to meet this Daisy?" his father asked as he returned with the glasses.
"Lily. And I don't know exactly. She's stopping by the supermarket first." As soon as he said it, he knew it was a mistake.
"'Stopping by the supermarket first'?" his mother repeated. "Well, it's good to know that we're an important priority in her life, I'm sure."
"She's picking up a few things I forgot earlier," he explained. That was unlikely to improve the situation, but he'd rather they focussed their disapproval on him. After all, he was used to it.
"So you couldn't be bothered draw up a shopping list, and now we have to wait for dinner, having hardly eaten since lunchtime on that interminable train-ride?"
He was saved from the necessity of a reply by a knock at the door. "That'll be Lily now," he told them, and almost ran to answer it. "Your timing is impeccable," he said gratefully, as he opened the door and kissed his girlfriend's cheek.
"That bad, huh?"
"Yeah. And my father thinks you're called Rose, or possibly Daisy."
"Great." He noticed that she was dressed more conservatively than he had ever seen her, in a pink knitted top with a slightly scooped neck, and a long, dark denim skirt. Even her shoes were conservative; black, with a slight heel. Seeing the effort she had made for him was as comforting as the weight of the shopping bag she handed him. "Showtime," she whispered for his ears only, before sweeping into the living room, a smile suddenly blossoming full-force on her face. "Mrs. Angel, Mr. Angel, how lovely to meet you at last."
His mother looked her up and down, pursing her lips thoughtfully.
"So you're Daisy," his father said. "Good to meet you too."
"Thank you," she smiled. "Nick's told me a lot about you."
"We always call him Nicholas," his mother informed her frostily.
Nick winced, and Lily's smile faltered for a moment. "Really? I never knew that. Well, Nicholas has been a great help to me since I moved in here."
"Yes, I understand he's spent a great deal of time assisting you with your renovations. Having unpaid labour on-call must be a real advantage."
Lily's eyes narrowed slightly. 'Well,' Nick thought, with a sense of inevitability, 'that didn't take long.' "Oh, absolutely," she replied. "Of course, I like to think I've made it worth his while in other ways. We've had a lot of fun together, these last few months. Haven't we, Nicholas?" The words were innocent, the tone was anything but. To Nick's secret delight, his mother appeared momentarily at a loss for words.
"Um, Lily, can you give me a hand in the kitchen?" he asked her.
"Of course." She grabbed her wine glass and followed him down the corridor.
"I'm sorry, Nick – Nicholas," she apologised, real contrition in her voice. "I shouldn't be trying to wind her up."
He winced again. It hurt to hear her call him that. Nicholas was another person, someone he had gladly left behind somewhere between London and now. "Please don't call me that," he asked, eyes on the ground.
"Okay. Nick." She stepped in close to him and put her arms around him. He sighed, and hugged her back. "Are they always like this?" she asked plaintively.
He nodded. "More or less. In their eyes I'm 'too good' to be a police officer, especially out here in the middle of nowhere. Mum's apparently decided that you're beneath me, too."
"Lovely."
She leaned against him for a moment more, then pushed away. "Let's get on with dinner, before they decide to come looking for us."
It was one of the most awkward meals of Nick's life, and that proved to be indicative of the weekend as a whole. His mother insisted that she wanted to meet his friends, but Nick was determined to keep her away from Danny and Doris. Neither of them deserved to be exposed to the condescending manner in which his mother would no doubt have treated the 'lowly country bumpkins' who had become some of the most important people in his life.
"Get rid of that girl, Nicholas," was her parting shot at the railway station. "She's just using you."
"You have no idea what you're talking about," he replied, curtly. At which point, his mother finally went Too Far.
"A common little tart like that? You deserve better, Nicholas, a girl with class, refinement. What are you going to do? Marry her, and spend the rest of your life wasting away out here in the middle of nowhere, paying to raise her brats? Brats that probably won't even be yours. Why-"
"Okay, that's enough." He was angry now, really angry, and it cut through years of nagging guilt and an aching desire to somehow, someday win his parents' approval. "Lily means the world to me, and she's shown me more love and affection in the last three months than you have in thirty years. I love her, she loves me, and yes, I may very well marry her someday, and if I do you'll be welcome to attend the wedding. Until then, I wish you a safe trip back to London and please, don't hurry back."
With that, he turned on his heel and walked away.
**
Lily knew something was wrong as soon as she opened her door.
"Nick?" She wrapped her arms around him. "Come inside, sit down." And, a moment later, very gently, "Tell me?"
To his shame, tears born of anger, betrayal and years of humiliation and frustration welled up in his eyes. "I've never been good enough," he told her. "Never, not once in my life, no matter what I did, have I been good enough for them. And you know what? I can deal with that. Everyone has issues with their parents, and there's people far worse off than I am." He paused and drew a deep breath. "But you? You are the most amazing person I know, and what she said about you was totally out of line."
"Okay." Lily nodded. "Nick? Nick, look at me." Her voice was gentle, and she laid her hand lightly on his cheek as he raised his head. "It doesn't matter to me what your parents think of me. All that matters to me is what you think of me. So, do you still love me?"
He nodded. "Of course I do. You mean the world to me, Lily."
She nodded again. "And I still love you. And you're more than good enough for me." She stroked her thumb along his cheek, tracing one of his more prominent scars. "You are the bravest and most self-sacrificing person I know. You're willing to put yourself on the line every day to protect people, no matter who they are. You're honest and honourable, and if your parents can't see that then that's their fault, not yours." She kissed him lightly. "I love you, Nick Angel. And as long as you love me, your parents can take care of themselves."