The morning had broken into afternoon- like an egg that had split with a crack and was spreading.

Before them sprawled the houses of the city, interspersed with the green of fields and trees.

Holby was cast under the low October sky, the clouds just wisps of white, streaked across the brittle blue, as though drawn with the careless stroke of an artists brush,. There were it's roads and it's hedges, it's churches, it's chimneys, it's rising threads of smoke from the first fires of the year.

The buildings grew taller as they drove, the roads and river wider, the threads of city pollution faint in the distance above the city centre,a smudge, a stain, a darkness - a darkness, like the darkness of the coal in a fire - a darkness that was broken, here and there, where the sun caught panes of glass and the golden tips of domes and steeples, with glittering points of light.

Connie drew in a long breath through her nose and smiled, her arms were folded and she relaxed back into the passenger seat for the first time on their short journey from home to the secluded outskirts of the city, where the trees were greener and the air was colder.

She loved days like today, when the treat of winter came on the breeze, sinking it's ice cold fingertips into your very bones, making you shiver.

In some ways, she thought, she preferred winter. She seemed to become porous in the darker months, to soak in detail after detail, like a battery becoming charged. Yes, that was it, she thought, as Rita turned a corner, her dark eyes on the road ahead. It wasn't a liquid creeping, it was a tingle, something electric, something produced as if by the friction of the wheels of the car against the tarmac.

She was at her truest, it seemed to her, in these tingling moments, with the hum of the car engine and the silence between the three of them, the sort of silence you only get when the people involved are so comfortable with one another that they can forget, momentarily that they exist, and are free to daydream until woken.

Rita indicated and pulled over into the entrance to Elmhurst Park, a park in the city named after the majestic elm tree that presided over it. She pulled up neatly into the nearest parking space and turned off the engine.

"Ta da!"

She released her hands from the steering wheel and glanced over at Connie who seemed to blink as though she'd fallen asleep, slipping back into reality very slowly, and without a though she reached out and squeezed Rita's fingers, realising suddenly as she did so that they were with Grace, and she pulled away more hurriedly than she had meant to.

Rita cleared her throat and glanced over her shoulder to where Grace was taking out her ear phones and wrapping them about her iPod.

"Come on then, Grace, it's your surprise..."

She ushered, and Grace looked up, a grin spreading across her lips. Without a word she popped open her seat belt and opened the car door, slipping out into the cold.

Rita looked back at Connie as the car door slammed and Grace raised the boot of the car.

"You ok?"

She asked, wanting to place a hand against her knee, but somehow she managed to resist. Connie gave a nod of her head and smiled.

"Somebody kept me up late."

She murmured, her voice low, and Rita bit her lip and braved nudging Connie with the back of her hand.

"Yeah? You'll have to get used to it...maybe you've reached the age when it's time to start taking an afternoon nap-"

She barely finished her sentence before Connie made a sound of mock alarm and gave her a sharp thwack to the upper arm. Rita flinched, emitting what could only be described as a giggle as she undid her seat belt and opened her door.

"Come on you, chop chop..."

She laughed, giving a sideways glance to Connie as she placed one leg out of the car, her boot crunching against the gravel, her body turning slightly as she caught sight of Grace struggling her way towards her, her knees bowing under the weight of the picnic basket.

Rita turned back to Connie, her dark eyes glittering.

"I hope you're hungry."

She grinned.

-.-

Grace will be find out everything in tomorrow's updates...so just a short one tonight in preparation...hope you're all ready! ;) xxx