I give Misty a sock, because she remembered that I was supposed to update today. *presents sock*

Chapter 10: Moving

August, 1992

Nero barked loudly as Mark piled the last of his belongings into the boot. He smiled sadly, walking through the house that had been 'theirs' for so long.

"Do you need a wee before we go?" Mark asked Nero. Nero barked and wagged his tail.

"I'll take that as a yes," he said, letting Nero into the back garden. He looked at the tree in the back. The laurel wreath was gone, blown away one night in a particularly bad storm. It had been a blow to them, but Iggy was never completely gone, and Nero would have probably torn it down at some point anyway. He smiled softly as he looked on the back garden one more time.

"This is it, boy," Mark said as Nero stood beside him. Nero whimpered softly and Mark smiled. "Let's go."

He ushered Nero into the back seat of the car, knowing that the trip from Bath to London was going to be very long indeed with him there. He was better trained than Iggy, but he was still a brother from a different litter, and they were extremely similar in personalities.

Mark honked the horn of the car and Sarah emerged from the house, holding a suitcase full of the last items they needed in their house.

"This is it," she said as she stuffed the suitcase into the back with Nero.

They had moved most of their things earlier in the week, but had decided to spend one last weekend in their old house, just for the hell of it. It had seemed lonely in the house, but it was also the perfect retreat before the hustle and bustle of London life.

Mark started the car and they drove the long journey from Bath to London, stopping at least every hour because Nero got stir-crazy and started to attack Mark when he was trying to drive. They finally made it, however, and Sarah brought the last suitcase inside the house.

"We finally made it," she murmured, leaning her head on his shoulder. Mark smiled, putting his arm around her.

"We did," he murmured back, as Nero started running up and down the stairs before running to the kitchen, losing his balance and sliding across the floor to the back door. Sarah started to laugh and Mark felt a smile working its way across his face.

"Why don't we let him out and then we can go to the shop?" Sarah agreed and half an hour later, they were walking into the shop that he had bought to sell his artwork. He wasn't duly concerned if he sold much art or not, but it gave him something to do. He was also thinking of doing caricatures for tourists, like he had done in Bath, but that required more sketch work than he really liked to do.

Mark felt odd as he approached the store and without thinking, tried the door. It should have been locked, but it opened easily.

"Get behind me, Sarah," he murmured. She looked concerned, but did so. His mind was racing, trying to determine who could be in his shop. The only person who had keys was Ben, but he had said he was going to be out of London for a few days.

Mark heard a noise in the back, and motioned for Sarah to stay where she was. He moved stealthily to the back, listening for any sound. To his surprise, he heard a girl giggle, followed by the low rumble of a male voice that he recognised.

"I'm serious. I'll take you to Italy just so you can try the native cuisine instead of the shit that they pass for Italian here."

"But surely some of it's decent?" a girl asked.

"You've not tried a pizza from Naples. I went there once. Nothing is as good as a piping hot Neapolitan Pizza."

"How can you take a girl to Naples, Ben, when you can't take her on a proper date anywhere else?" Mark asked, pushing the door open. Ben was lying on the ground across from a woman Mark recognised as his steady girlfriend, Danielle. They had been together for nearly two years, and Danielle had joined them for their last Christmas. Instead of buying three different products, Sarah had bought double the flour and icing sugar as she had been, and they had had a fight between couples. It had culminated in a show-off between Mark and Ben and ended with them wrestling each other in a huge pile of flour and icing sugar. When the timer had finally buzzed, Ben threw a handful of flour directly in Mark's face, which ended up in them throwing the baking products for another ten minutes before Sarah yelled at them that they had better come to the dinner table, or else. How she managed to get the dinner out without getting flour or icing sugar all over it, no one was quite sure.

Between Ben and Danielle was a basket of breads and cheeses, and a half full bottle of wine. "Don't you have a better place to have a picnic than in my back room?" Mark asked.

Ben grinned, standing up and shaking his long blond hair out of his face. "Actually, Arthur, I wanted to talk to you about this."

"What?"

"Danielle, will you go out and entertain Mum?" Danielle nodded, her face flushed with excitement.

"What's going on?" Mark asked suspiciously. Ben was wearing a huge, appeasing grin and Mark knew immediately he was going to ask him for something.

"Well, I was wondering what you were going to do with the upstairs of this place?"

"I hadn't really thought about it. Why?"

"Well," Ben started to say as the two women started to shriek in the room next to him. "I may have just proposed to Danielle. And, well, I was thinking that we'll need a place to live and my scrubby little flat in Hackney isn't going to cut it. So I was wondering if we could possibly rent from you and live there?"

Mark smiled widely. "Of course you can. Consider it our wedding present."

"Thank you Arthur!" Ben said exuberantly, embracing him tightly. "You don't mind if we move in before the wedding, do you?"

Mark stared at Ben, almost glaring. "You want to live with a woman before your married?" he asked judgementally. Ben cowered at his look.

"Well..."

"You have known a woman biblically, Benjamin?"

"I'm...I'm twenty six," he stumbled.

"If I said no, I'd be a sodding hypocrite, wouldn't I?" Mark asked, suddenly laughing. "I lived with your Mum years before we got married. And I'm not an idiot. You're a bloke. Keeping it in your trousers past seventeen is something of an accomplishment."

Ben still looked shaken, unused to Mark getting authoritative, but smiled. "Thanks mate," he murmured finally.

Mark laughed to himself, before walking out to see Sarah nearly strangling Danielle in a hug.

"Arthur!" she cried, letting go of Danielle, who immediately grabbed her neck, seeming to gasp for air. "We're going to have a daughter in law! My baby is getting married!"

Tears were streaming down Sarah's face. "Ben!" she yelled. "Ben, get your ruddy arse in here!"

Ben walked out of the back sheepishly, and almost fell over as his mother attacked him with a huge hug.

"You...you're...YOU DIDN'T TELL ME YOU WERE EVEN THINKING ABOUT IT!"

"I'm...sorry?" Ben said, trying desperately to remove his mother, who was clinging onto him like a giant octopus.

"My baby," she sobbed. "My baby is all grown up now!"

Ben looked at Mark desperately, who was tempted to grin and shrug, but seeing that Ben was slowly turning blue, he walked over to Sarah.

"You should let him go, honey," he murmured, gently tugging on her shoulder. She finally let go of Ben, who looked relieved and walked over to Danielle. She shook her long dark hair behind her shoulder and smiled as Ben whispered something in her ear.

"Well, we're going to be off, I think," Ben said. "Have fun trying to get mum under control, Arthur."

They waved as they walked out the door, leaving Mark with a still-sobbing Sarah. "I just...I can't believe it," she gasped finally. "All these years. My little boy. Now he's going TO BE MARRIED! I'm too young to be a grandmother! Oh, God, Arthur! I'm old!" She burst into a fresh round of tears and Mark patted her back gently, thinking that she was overreacting ever so slightly.

"You know, Ben left a bottle of wine and a basket of cheese and bread in the back. We could be cheeky and steal it from them."

"You're not telling me you want to 'christen' the shop?" she asked, disgusted.

Mark frowned and shook his head. "We were going to have a date, just you and me in the back. No dog jumping up on us, no television, nothing to distract us."

"You know where that usually leads us," she murmured, turning into his embrace.

"We'll be extra careful," he whispered back, stroking her hair.

Sarah looked up at him, her eyes huge and still red from crying. Mark smiled as he looked at her. She looked so beautiful. She always did. No matter what she wore or how tired or ill she was, she was always gorgeous to him. Their faces drew closer and their lips met, tongues twining slowly, passionately. He had gone so far to be with this woman. He had died to meet her. She was the woman he dreamed about at night; she had been from the day they first met. Mark was hit suddenly with how truly lucky he was.

They broke apart reluctantly, staring into each other's eyes, their foreheads touching, and both panting just slightly. "I don't think you're old," he murmured. "I think you are absolutely beautiful and perfect and wonderful."

"You're being cheesy again," she murmured.

Mark just smiled. He knew that she loved those moments, even though she protested that they were cheesy.

"It'd be very cheesy of me to sweep you off your feet and carry you into the back, then, wouldn't it?"

Their lips met once again and they kissed before Sarah responded.

"Yes," she whispered. "Extremely." They kissed again, and Sarah gave a little gasp of surprise as Mark picked her up off the floor. She pulled away from him. "What are you doing?"

"Carrying you to the back."

"I don't think we should go to the back," she murmured. "I think we should go home, Mark, and christen the bedroom."

"Nero's waiting at the house." They looked at each other a moment before Sarah broke into a huge grin and a giggle. "We're really going to do this, aren't we? Here?"

Mark smiled, and pulled away from her, locking the door. "Here," he responded, picking her up and taking her into the back.

Four hours later, they were still half-clothed in the back, finishing off the bottle of wine. Sarah was relaxing in his arm and they were leaning up against the wall.

"I love London," Sarah murmured.

"It's growing on me," Mark replied, smirking.

Sarah smacked him gently. "You were the one who wanted to come here. You were the one who set it up."

"Because you wouldn't shut up about it," he said back.

"Oi." She smiled at him, snuggling in closer to his arms. Mark smiled, holding her tighter, glancing at his watch.

"We should get back home. Nero will have torn the house apart. We've missed his evening walk."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Crap. You get to pick up after him."

"Me?" Mark asked, feigning being offended. "What have I done to have to clean up after Nero?"

"You bought him."

"After you begged me."

Sarah looked lost for words for a moment before she smiled. "You trained him. You should have trained him not to tear up the house."

"Low," he replied.

She merely smiled at him, kissing him on the lips before removing herself from his arms to find her shirt.

"We've still got cheese left over," he said. "Do you want some?"

She shook her head, buttoning up her shirt. "We'll just take it back with us."

Mark sighed, standing up and looking around the back. Soon, he would cover it in paintings. Soon, his shop would take root. He slipped on his trousers and kissed Sarah. "Let's go see the damage, shall we?"