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Audrey had seen him disheveled more times than she could count. At the beginning many times after a few too many whiskeys, she saw a peek behind his buttoned-up exterior. The grief of his wife’s passing had undone him and she was there to patch him back together and make something presentable of him for the next day's duties.

As the years went on those nights became less frequent but it seemed his muddy boot prints and their accompanying trousers dirtied her kitchen floors more often. Her boss, while less somber and more agreeable, still needed her help in patching the holes in his clothes now instead of the ones in his heart. Sometimes his willingness to storm into her kitchen in a state and drop whatever messy pieces of clothing from his body and into her basket shocked her. Her last employer was never this comfortable in her presence let alone in that state of undress. She marked it in her mind as another of his eccentricities that she had grown accustomed to.

Since the arrival of Jimmy and the return of their boys in recent days, it seemed these occasions had grown less frequent. Sometimes she found herself staring at the back door wondering if maybe this time disheveled Siegfried would bound through and apologize for making a mess of himself because of a pig or a gate. Yet it seemed like that never occurred quite like it used to. Of course, there were soiled clothes with a baby in the house. It couldn't be avoided and her work was never done but it seemed he had found a way to spare her the extra effort of cleaning up after him. Yet she missed it.

Sometimes though she hated to admit it she would think about the most recent time he had been sick fondly. Curly hair wild and messy his mind half there from fever or lack of sleep she would picture that man laid up in bed as she came to take care of him. She would wish for a time when she could see him like that again. Somehow freer than any other version she encountered in their day-to-day business.

She couldn’t quite work out why there had been a shift but she knew it was there. She could see it clearly in him but her thoughts were muddled in confusion. She supposed with a full house and her warden duties he was being more proper and more considerate of her time. Yet that still left questions in her mind about why her employer would ensure there was less of a job for her to do. Even on multiple occasions helping with meals, dishes, and tidying the house outside of the exam rooms and dispensary.

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Siegfried loved her. He knew it. In the same way that one knows the opening sentence of their favorite book. It was part of him. The early days were a blur of whiskey and late nights that no one else had dared spend more than a week in the presence of. Yet she was there filling a gap. Although filling an ad in the newspaper his pesky brother had placed was more akin to what he felt in those days. No other woman deserved Evelyn’s kitchen or desk or air. He was so angry and lost and bitter. Every night he took to his office for a whiskey or more he didn’t know anything else that might help so instead he just wanted everything to stop. Despite his best efforts everything he managed to hold in during the day came out and the weakest parts of him were on display for that saintly woman that had stayed. Mending quietly his relationship with himself, his brother, and the whiskey.

He had never understood fully why she stayed until that letter she delivered to him right before her departure. Years he had spent in her company messing up her floors, eating her biscuits, and sharing tea. Letting her clean up his messes and build him a family he never could have hoped for. Yet when she was leaving, she showed him parts of herself she kept locked away. As the mainstay in his life, he realized how much he had taken her for granted. She insisted it wasn’t true but in the way he knew he loved her he knew he had overlooked her just the same.

She didn’t share his affinity for loud outbursts, his easy way of letting all that would hear know he was frustrated, cross, or exuberant. She felt things deeply and on her own the way she knew and felt was safe. In his journey to understand her better, he had missed it. Blanketed by his need for clear lines and barriers to protect himself he had missed the way she too shielded herself from the pain in her past. At the moment she was to close the door on their life together she ever the magician pulled the cloth right out from under him.

Now she was laid bare though everything seemed to remain in its proper place he knew in detail the depth of her pain. Since she had stayed he had a front-row seat to her sorrow this Christmas. Her treasured son the light in the previous darkness of her life was nearly extinguished and no longer could she hold a front. Yet he didn’t know how to breach the final barrier, the one that would allow a closeness and a comfort neither one of them had dared to expect from the other.

Of course, there had been brief clasping of hands or gentle touches on the shoulder but he realized the stark reality that there had been a moratorium in that department since her divorce was final and she had agreed to stay. He also realized with a start that it was only true for him. She had comforted, welcomed, or parted from every other member of their family with a hug and they often returned the favor when necessary. Yet he could never remember a time she had held him in her arms and the feeling of her hand in his was seemingly a mirage fading from his memory.

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Audrey’s grief and worry for her son had effectively crippled her in the weeks before Christmas. She had never learned how to lean on somebody else and so she did what she knew. She kept working, she kept busy, the distraction helped but she was never wholeheartedly there. She loved this family that she watched over and the way they supported her and offered comfort made her appreciate them all the more.

Yet if she was completely honest it wasn’t entirely comfortable. For them, it’s all they knew to lend a hand to someone in need, to support, and uplift. It was baked into them from loving parents and a loving community. She had never had that. Most of her life was spent in cold and distant relationships or at war where there was comradery and duty but not community. Not when there was so much death and fear around every corner. Not when the man she thought she knew became a violent shell of himself. Then she left only to find the cold duty of service to an untouchable man who barely wanted evidence of her presence apart from her monthly payments.

She never had anyone and so she believed she never needed them either. Other people needed someone and a younger version of herself believed them weak and silly. Not her, she was strong and self-reliant. Willing to do what it took to protect her son even sending him to jail. Only look where that got her now. Luckily it was under the roof of caring and kind people yet miles away from a son she could no longer protect. A son she suspected followed very closely in his mother's footsteps pushing people away and depending on himself.

The weight of this sat on her heart seemingly pressing it flat and causing an ache she couldn’t name. She was so thankful to be in Mr. Farnon's employment and reflected on the years as their patched-together family grew and bloomed with new life. Yet she mourned that her younger example to her son could be the reason he would never experience the beauty of having people around to carry the weight. To shoulder the burden and pick up the slack. She mourned that the people she now called family might never know her son whom she gave so much for and that brought her to their doorsteps. That her son would never know the warmth that she felt during their morning breakfasts when someone was hungover and another was grouchy and they all bickered before they left for the day. He would never have Christmas dinner with them and be drug off to the Dovers while she cleaned up then joined them later. He would never even be pestered or goaded into a St. Nick outfit for a famous Farnon Christmas party.

The guilt tore her apart until the blissful release brought by one phone call after a night on the couch in the shed. That phone call freed her from the fear and the pain of loss but it left her to ponder just what she meant to the people she now called family. The little ways they had all pitched in and carried the burden they could all see on her shoulders. She thought about them all in their own ways and that night before bed she thanked God for each of them and the things they taught her in their steadfastness. About a strength that came from a love so deep words couldn’t touch. About how caring for other people and needing them when you were down made you a stronger person in the end. When she finally drifted into a peaceful sleep there was only one thing she saw. The disheveled eyes of a man staring into her as she shared her worst fears.

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He was a mess and it was the first time he had felt this way so completely since she had come into his life. Desperately he was trying his best to be the eccentric dedicated vet that she expected. He continued to lend a hand around the house and with the baby. He even tried some of his old tricks to prove to himself that he hadn’t changed so much.

Her care for him and his love for her he believed hadn’t changed him into something new rather restored him. So he flirted with another woman just because he could. Just because that’s what Siegfried Farnon had always done. One time it had worked out fabulously well and gave him a woman he thought he would dance through the rest of his life with. When Evelyn was gone it was only natural to lose that part of himself.

She however had restored him to that previous version and so he had flirted and danced with other women and it was fine. Just the way things had been before no one was ever his wife but it felt the same. Not wholly fulfilling but entertaining and exciting and fun for the time it lasted. Never more than one dance or one nightcap and then it was over.

This time however when he flirted just because he could and maybe to prove to himself there was still life within. The surprisingly interesting woman who loved goats and Persia fell unbelievably flat. Uninterested in him above the notes he gave her most of which he was sure she discarded. Above that however this woman who on paper might have appeared right for him left him feeling empty.

Maybe it was the war and nothing felt fun anymore when all those boys were giving their lives for King and country. Yet in the months between the brief flirtation and the news of Audrey’s son's unknown fate. He felt it was more than that. He knew what it was to love as a husband. The deep and abiding constant love that was truer than the sun rising every morning. He knew he was scared to find it again. In finding it accepting the chance or rather the inevitability he would also lose it again.

He couldn’t face that and so he vowed maybe temporarily to not confront it. He gave himself until the war ended and then maybe he would seriously pursue a new beginning for himself. Surely that was acceptable and the world would be suited to it after their boys had done their duty and he had done his. So for the following months, he focused on his job. His way to support the war effort and do his part.

All that turned upside down when he heard the news over the radio that the Repulse had sunk. It all washed over him in quick succession. Unlike his brother, he was not an optimist and the all too familiar feelings of grief inhabited his body like an old foe returning to embrace him. Familiar and unwanted it enveloped him. He wasn’t even sure she would want him to share in this grief but it wasn’t something he could stop.

He knew she would want the news as soon and as straightforward as possible and so he did his duty in delivering it. Then it seemed he must retreat and find a moment to armor himself for the coming days. He must be what she needed. He didn’t know what she needed but whatever it was he would be it. He would be there. He knew whether Edward lived or died the weeks in between waiting for an outcome were torture.

He remembered waiting for his wife to die or get better and watching the in-between take place in front of his eyes as a cruel torment from God. He couldn’t decide now whether seeing it up close or waiting with no news was more devastating. Yet he knew with assurance unlike him she would not go through it alone. Even if all he could do was be there, that's what he would do.

Then a silly boy brought a fox into his office and he was frustrated and irritated. This was the last thing he needed when their house was chaotic enough. A wild animal to nurse was one more thing on his list that would keep him from his focus on her.

She stood before him with that silly fox not long after and begged him not to play God. Begged him to not take an innocent life and bore her pain before him. He knew this was deeper than a fox and a vet. This was about a boy on the other side of the world facing his maker and a woman standing in grief before him asking for mercy. What he wouldn’t do to give her exactly what she wanted, what she deserved.

He couldn’t give her that and he felt she was begging at the wrong altar. He knew she had spent time at the church and it seemed to him a waste to ask him to be a savior. He wasn’t sure he had truly ever saved another person. Animals he knew and they knew him and he had saved countless but people no. That was her his patron saint saving him and their family. So he pushed past all the ethics of treating a wild animal and he made sure that he would give her the next best thing. He couldn’t save her boy but damn and blast he would do everything in his power to save the fox.

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His eyes from that night in the shed haunted her waking hours just as much as her dreams. She knew she had crossed so many lines that night. She knew she had begun to breach them that day in the surgery that she pleaded before him about fairness. The more those eyes haunted her the more she believed those lines the ones he employed when it suited. The ones she was aware of but only in a casual way. Those lines had been broken in the days and months since she had stayed. She chose their family and perhaps chose more than she had ever dreamed of.

Those lines between employer and employee didn’t exist when you shared so much. Not just a house and a business to take care of but people as well. Those dear boys that were risking their lives for a war they would never have chosen. He knew as well as she that war had a way of changing things and those lines she suspected had begun to blur for him the minute the house began to empty and reality began to settle.

She also thought of the baby and how now they shared him as godparents. Even the thought made her chuckle a little. Firstly because he had admittedly very little interest in God. She had even heard a rumor of a Christmas toast that seemed to disqualify him as a suitable godparent. Secondly, when had an employer and his employee ever been Godparents together and shared that duty? Yet she was faced with the truth that whatever arbitrary lines he had were simply dissolving with the changing times.

She kept returning however to those eyes swirling with so many emotions as she shared about Edward. Her inner thoughts poured out in front of him. So many times they had shared conversations about what was troubling them or perhaps she had sniffed him out and demanded he share so they could solve it together. Many times in those early days after he had poured all the whiskey down his throat all the grief fell from his mouth and she shared in that too. Her unknown grief hidden below the surface.

This however was a first. She had rarely if ever allowed someone such intimate knowledge of the depth of her fear and worry. She didn’t know why she had done it. First lashing out about the fox and then illustrating the visions she did and didn’t have of her son. Perhaps that’s why at the same time his eyes burned holes in her mind she thought about his malleable lines. Trying to pin down a moment where they had adapted so much to allow her to express these thoughts and feelings so openly.

She had confided in Helen about relationships or silly worries. Perhaps it would have made sense to go to her this time as well. She was a mother after all she understood that love but it didn’t feel right. Helen wasn’t the person she needed. She knew Helen understood grief and loss and so many things but she just couldn’t let her see so deeply in.

He was there and it seemed so silly because he was very nearly always there. More so in recent months choosing to stay in for a game or nightcap. Maybe that was enough to redistribute the boundaries he believed to be so carefully drawn.

In the shed, as his eyes poured into her he was there like he had never been before. She could feel him mourning with her in a way the others weren’t. She saw pity in their kind smiles as she passed by them in the house but in that moment in his eyes, she could see that her pain had completely undone him.

On the outside, he was still the straight-laced vet she had spent years with growing in familiarity and friendship but through the deep amber portals into his soul, she saw an upheaval and somehow knew he was the one that needed to hear her innermost thoughts. She had an instinct that keeping it from him would only wear him down further and in unburdening herself before him she was also lifting weight from his shoulders. A true partner and confidant shouldered the cares of life alongside you and she knew she and Seigfried were there tending to the fox for that very reason.

She thought of all the times in the past when she was desperate for him to share what was bothering him so that they could work it out together. She remembered times when he was so obstinate in his refusal to share that she felt pangs of sadness. It was her job to care for them but with him, it had always felt different. If he was carrying some burden she was never capable of feeling light again until he shared it with her or it was dealt with.

So she laid it before him, the one thing she just couldn’t picture. Her son's body. Though she felt as though she carried the weight of it on her shoulders every day she simply couldn’t picture it being true. He did not respond with words. She saw the tempest in his eyes calm. In that moment she knew she had made the right choice. Saying it out loud made it real but saying it to him freed her of the torment as well. The calming of his eyes told her he understood. It told her that she was not misplaced in her imaginings and she was not some mad woman with visions of her son looping in her mind. She knew now that while her pain was real and true she was not alone in it. He was there to listen and stand next to her. She didn’t need any words to know that Siegfried cared and he cared deeply. It was all written in the depths of his disheveled eyes that still plagued her mind now weeks after the encounter.

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It had been several months since Christmas and they had sporadic news of Edward’s recovery, the latest being that he had made it to Australia to rest. There had been a broken arm and some bruised ribs that would mend but left his return to the Navy questionable.

Lambing season in the Dales had been well underway and the business of bringing new life into the world had seemed to heal the house in new and necessary ways. There had been a brief period where twin lambs were rejected by their mother and searching for a new place had stayed at Skeldale to Jimmy's delight. Eventually, they too had found their place with an Ewe who had lost her lamb. It seemed that everyone was finding their place.

James and Helen had begun looking for a place of their own with the potential anticipation of their family expanding. Tristan of course was still up to his old tricks but found time now to express his maturity through his training responsibilities. Audrey, though still feeling the tremors of Edward’s unknown fate, was finding joy in her warden duties and of course, maintaining her enthusiasm for being Skeldales caring stalwart. Then there was him.

He felt left on unsteady ground. Of course, he knew his place and where he belonged. He was Darrowbys vet extraordinaire who nurtured and cared for his community mostly the animals but occasionally the people too. He enjoyed a good whisky in the evenings with a game or a book. In many ways, he felt settled. Yet there was this itch that the puzzle of his life was yet incomplete. If he was honest he was doing a disastrous job at finding the missing piece.

Every night as he sat by the fire, laid in bed, or drove to a call out he would search his mind for where this feeling had come from. Sometimes it felt like he was right on the edge of it and then he would arrive at his destination to help a farmer or drift into slumber. Then one day the missing piece slammed right into him and he could no longer imagine how he had missed it for so long.

It had been quite a normal day by all accounts. Beginning of March and busy with lambing season it felt like all the residents of Skeldale were ships passing in the night. To have company to eat a meal with was lucky and luckier still if you even got to finish the meal before the next call out. The residents who had not chosen veterinary medicine as their calling had errands to run, gardens to keep, WI meetings to attend, and a village to keep safe at night.

Just by chance this day he had found a break in his schedule and thought he could make it home for a bit of lunch and wait for the phone to inevitably ring. In his usual haste, he pulled the Rover around the back of the house humming a tune and enjoying the sunlight warming his face. Killing the engine he hopped out of the car and rushed to the back door anxious for her cooking. He swung the back door open and barged through as was his usual manner; he failed to anticipate that she might be standing so close to the door.

They tumbled into one another barely managing to remain upright. It wasn’t a romantic tangle of limbs but rather clumsy and awkward. Two people who had surely touched before but had never quite invaded each other’s personal space in this way. Certainly not on purpose and never this closely.

When they righted themselves and put the accepted amount of distance back in place between rushed apologies that’s when he noticed. He felt like time slowed and gave him this moment to notice her. What he saw in the crystal pools of her eyes was joy. Amusement maybe at their not-so-distant encounter but it ran deeper than that.

Somewhere amid the chaos and healing of Edward’s discovery and the months that followed she had found her joy again. It practically made him want to jump and gather her in his arms and bask in it with her. He knew he couldn’t but every fiber of him wanted her to know he saw it and it filled him with hope anew.

While these thoughts ran through his mind she called him a name probably endearing between them but scandalous of any other employer and employee relationship and she went about her day. He vaguely heard the typical sounds of her weekly biscuit-making. Though with the war it had turned into more of a monthly occurrence that could not distract him from the well of emotions now springing up within him. Overflowing past the reaches of his comprehension he stood dumbfounded for a moment.

He never did ask why she had been so close to the door that day. Perhaps he would never know because as time slipped back into its normal speed and the day resumed its cadence there was only one phrase stuck in his mind. A ghost from a past life followed him through lunch and the interruption of a call. It followed him through his drive and the difficult delivery of a lamb to a first-time mother. As the day wore on the phrase became less enigmatic and he began to fully grasp why at such a time it had come to the forefront of his mind.

In sorrow and in joy

Though not traditional to all wedding vows Evelyn had requested that they add this to theirs. It hadn’t meant much at the time but now it permeated his thoughts with a constant tattoo. Somehow it was the perfect picture of them. Siegfried and Audrey united together in sorrow and in joy and he wanted nothing more than to share with her a life in all the ways that mattered for as long as they both had left.

There had never been any question that she belonged in his home. In fact, since almost the moment of her arrival, she made herself indispensable to the general day-to-day goings on. Only when there was a chance she might leave did he realize that perhaps he had taken that for granted. This realization however was of a different nature altogether.

For the first time, he took the reins of the idea that she was not only indispensable to his house but to him. She was irreplaceable to the fabric of his being. Her pain was his pain and her joy was his joy. He realized with growing certainty that his soul was entwined with her very being and there was no experience that she went through that he wouldn’t want to be as much a part of as she would allow.

As such he faced a new predicament: how would he tell Audrey his new feelings? The words hardly formed in his head though he knew them as an old friend. This was love. He loved her. He had loved Evelyn and he always would but now he was in love with Audrey. Once he faced it head-on sitting in his office at the end of this long and tumultuous day there was no option to ignore his new reality.

He was in love with her. He suspected it had been this way for quite some time without him realizing it. That thing scratching at the back of his psyche must have been her begging him to confront what had been right in front of him all along. Now though physically frozen at his desk in wonder he felt he could exhale for the first time without feeling like he was forgetting something or that he was incomplete.

Of course, he still had to tell her but his mind danced with possibilities of a life with Audrey Hall. Not so different from the reality of past days but sparkling with new hope for the chance to belong to her alone. These thoughts alone drug him from his seat at his desk until he was safely in bed wrapped in thoughts and dreams of the future.

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Summer was in full swing and Siegfried was a complete wreck. There hadn’t been a day in June that he hadn’t forgotten something. His key and pipe were obvious mishaps but she knew something was awry when he had forgotten to pick Tristan up from the station two weeks in a row.

She knew from their conversations and his normal actions that he treasured the off days of the week that his little brother spent at Skeldale. Tristan of course took both of these opportunities after he walked from the bus station to the house to mercilessly tease his older brother. As he was wont to do he had the opportunity to use his bus ride getting as creative as possible with his jabs about old age and slowing down.

The second time Audrey gasped at what Tristan had said feeling sure it would send Siegfried into a blind rage and he would try to punish Tristan by sending him to his room to eat his dinner like he had when he was just a boy.

Yet the reaction Tristan got puzzled them both. It seemed Siegfried hadn’t even registered the harshly playful words and instead welcomed Tristan home and made motions to the dinner table. It truly was peculiar behavior that even Tristan couldn’t get a rise out of his brother.

When Seigfried retired to his study for the evening she and Tristan’s had a conversation at the kitchen table. She had to admit she had been a little concerned about him but hearing the worry in Tristan’s voice she assured him that she would get to the bottom of where Siegfried's mind was.

She retired to bed that evening leaving Siegfried in the study and Tristan on the couch with a sacred single finger of whiskey. She brushed through her chestnut hair and washed her face as she thought about the past few months.

The lambing season had been a blur of late nights and early mornings for the Skeldale family had everything turned upside down. The war and rations had complicated things further but as lambing tapered down the house had returned to their new normal. Everyone with the exception of Siegfried reestablished their routines of sleep, work, and play.

Siegfried however remained in a topsy-turvy state of late nights and early mornings. He often now locked himself away in his study with the door atypically closed. Sometimes playing the piano at strange hours although always considering the baby. There were moments at meals where he seemed to have sorted himself out but then the next morning he would amble down the stairs with an untucked and unevenly buttoned shirt like he was barely paying attention to the task of getting dressed.

She lamented looking into the mirror that she assumed Siegfried Farnon couldn’t get more eccentric but the stunts he had been pulling recently were proof she was incorrect. It bothered her this sense of not knowing what was going on and also that somewhere along the line she had missed something.

After the admittedly sad Christmas she felt that they had grown impossibly closer and assumed that he would trust her to confide in when he needed. Now she had completely overlooked something that so obviously had spun him silly and by all accounts it had been like this for months now.

It took her a long while to find sleep as she detailed all the peculiar occurrences of the last month that should have been signs to her that something was bothering Siegfried or at the very least something was happening to him. Two things stuck out in her mind: the daisies she had found on her desk in the middle of April and the way he had looked at her the first time he had forgotten to pick Tristan up from the station.

She was so downtrodden that she had missed two clear signs of him reaching out to her that she purposed to have a serious conversation with him the next morning. She was going to be there for him no matter the reason and no matter how tardy she was in discovering he needed her.

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He was well aware that everyone in his house thought that he was going mad. Tristan had ribbed him many times in the past month about their Great Aunt Agatha, who had to be put away for seeing fantom animals and thinking they would eat her. Siegfried couldn’t care less. He knew he was preoccupied, but nothing mattered now. Well, of course, he still cared about the animals, and his job was still of utmost importance, but now it sometimes seemed a distraction from his new goal.

Every day for a month, he woke up with the unanswered question of how to tell Audrey. He ran scenarios through his head like he was attempting to break a code with billions of permutations. Yet everything felt wrong and like it just wasn’t quite right. Nothing he drafted in his mind felt like it encapsulated everything she meant to him.

Foolishly, that first week after he realized he could barely contain himself he went for a long walk gathering a cluster of daisies and thinking of her. All the while assuming that gesture would be loud enough coming from him that she would realize that something was different. She barely reacted, it seemed she took more notice the second week when he had missed 2 buttons on his shirt and forgot to fold down his collar.

His heart nearly stopped beating when she had finished the call and turned to greet him as he descended the stairs. Before she could tell him what it had been about, her eyes scanned up and down his body as if to say, ‘Look at what the cat dragged in.’ As his feet hit the bottom step, he was sure his heart had stopped as her hands reached for his undone buttons and then to his collar to fold it down. It was the most natural thing in the world for her to help him this way; how had he never noticed? She had told him about the call as she moved toward the kitchen to finish breakfast.

That was the first time he had forgotten to pick up Tristan. He had finished his breakfast in a daze, watching her flit about the kitchen, and then left the house to attend to his list. He had practically driven right by the station on his way back home. He was single-minded that day. His mind simply refused to forget the way her nimble and slightly chilly fingers had grazed the space below his ears as she turned his collar down. In the moment, it had sent chills through his body, but the memory kept him warm all day as if the summer heat wasn’t enough.

Upon entering the house and looking into her eyes, he knew he had messed up. It was a common occurrence these days, so he still hadn't registered that he wasn't supposed to be coming home alone until she sardonically inquired after his little brother. Dinner had been a bit tense after Tristan had arrived. Siegfried was sure that Tristan did not have glowing reviews for his taxi service, but to be quite honest, he couldn’t remember a single thing his brother had said at dinner.

Dinner was his new favorite part of the day. It was the one time all day that he allowed himself to openly gaze at her. She usually sat next to him or across from him, so it wasn’t hard, and with so many people at the table, no one noticed if he looked a bit too long. There had been one comment from Helen the previous week as they had all sat by the fire. Something about whether he was enjoying his book. The same book that he still held open at the title page because he was too caught up watching Audrey knitting. Since that night, he realized he might need to limit himself to even looking at her. So far, it seemed she hadn’t noticed this difference because all of the other things he was doing overshadowed this slight change.

The second time Tristan got left at the station was much worse. Mostly because it was the only thing Siegfried had to do that day. He was in charge of the surgery, which had been extremely uneventful, so he had closed it at noon. During lunch, she had even specifically reminded him of his responsibilities that afternoon. She had left afterwards for a WI meeting and to check in with the garden, and he went to his office to mull over his plan once more.

When she returned a few hours later to the sound of him playing the piano, she had come into his study, passing by the crumpled papers with her name scrawled over them in his attempts to write a letter, and asked him if he was possibly forgetting something. Luckily, he was saved, or perhaps put in more danger, when his brother could be heard slamming the front door and cursing up a blue streak.

She left him there with a disapproving look, probably to calm the storm of Tristan. If he thought last week's dinner was tense, at the table that night, Tristan’s anger was impenetrable. Siegfried knew the reaction the others expected him to have, especially when one of Tristan's comments bordered on inappropriate for Jimmy's ears. He just couldn’t do it; the rage and the anger didn’t rise in him to combat Tristan’s. Perhaps this made dinner even more awkward, but he couldn’t be bothered to care. Especially when she was wearing his favorite pinny and her hair was still down from her meeting earlier.

As they all retired to their rooms for the night, he knew Tristan stayed behind to talk to her. Most probably about him and his recent peculiarities. He knew she was on to him, maybe not completely, certainly she wouldn’t guess what was driving him to madness. Yet he knew they needed to talk soon before he did something in his haphazardness that truly couldn't be fixed.

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She probably couldn't have planned it better. If she had tried to engineer some alone time with Siegfried, she could have. The others would have understood, given his recent erratic behaviors. They knew that she was the only one that he would listen to. It had become very clear to the entire house that Siegfried rarely took anything well the first time someone offered to help him, but he always took it the best when it came from her.

As chance would have it, Tristan and the Herriot's had come down early for breakfast the next morning, and Siegfried had come down late. They handled the business for the day over the last few slices of toast as she fixed Siegfried his plate, and the others cleared theirs from the table. She placed his plate in front of him as they discussed who would do what rounds and returned to the sink to rinse the dishes that had accumulated. She would never interrupt his breakfast with as important a conversation as she felt they were to have, so she prepared herself to address him after he was satiated.

With their goodbyes said and Helen retreating to the bedsit to get Jimmy ready for the day, they were left alone in the kitchen. She had her back to him as she rinsed the final dish of their previous company, and he finished off his breakfast that he had neglected in favor of handling the business of the day. He didn't need to open the surgery for another hour, which gave her plenty of time to whittle an answer out of him.

She turned, not quite ready to begin, and refilled the teapot, setting it on the AGA to prepare another brew. They would need it if they were going to get to the bottom of whatever was happening. To her surprise, he was already looking at her when she turned back around. He seemed expectant and resigned to the conversation that was about to take place. So uncharacteristically, he began it after she took a seat across from him.

He apologized for his recent behavior and expressed that he was well aware he hadn’t been acting himself. Rather, he recognized that his usual mildly chaotic yet endearing demeanor had taken on a new life. As he continued, she listened, but it grew increasingly clear to her that he was dancing around why. It was also evident from his skillful avoidance that he was well aware of the reason. Yet he was so keen on keeping it from her, and it caused all sorts of new ideas to take root in her mind.

If he kept on in this vein, they would quickly run out of time without ever touching on the heart of the matter, and she needed to know what this was about if she had any chance of focusing on her tasks for the day. So she stopped him probably mid-sentence, but she hadn’t been fully engaged in his ramblings, and she asked him straight out.

There it was out in the open. His reaction confirmed to her that he wasn’t quite ready or sure of how to tell her, but she reassured him, and so he proceeded. His answer made absolutely no sense to her. Whatever could he mean when he said that he just liked to see her happy? Her knitted brow must have told him that she wasn’t fully grasping his response.

When he began to explain himself, realization rose in her like the soft sunrise of a spring morning. The depth of his feelings for her was real and true, driving him to utter mad helplessness. Not only did he express that he cared for her as more than a friend and certainly more than a housekeeper, but he recounted a day from about a month ago when it had struck him like a bolt of lightning just exactly how he felt.

He expressed feelings that she never would have expected. His recent tumultuous actions were rooted in the fact that he longed to tell her all of this, but was petrified of taking away the joy that had so recently come back into her life. He felt he couldn't risk that in favor of sharing his new and frankly terrifying feelings toward her.

Yet there they were, she had asked plainly, and he had done his best to be honest without scaring her away. It was astonishing to her that one simple day had changed everything for him when she had been burying deep and overwhelming feelings for him so long that she didn’t remember a time when they weren’t part of her subconscious.

Her reaction of a slight smile did not communicate this well enough, because as she stood to take care of the teapot that was now screaming at them, he began to excuse himself from the kitchen. She quickly removed the boiling water to add the leaves, and she gently told him that he was not to go anywhere before she was allowed to respond.

She watched him sink back into his chair, perhaps a bit solemnly awaiting her words as she poured them both a cuppa. When she returned to her place across from him, she began to tell him of the depth of her affection.

Chapter Text

He could hardly believe that he had done it. Somehow, he had found the words when she asked him plainly after breakfast that morning. Even now, he couldn't recall exactly what he had said to her, but he remembered the feeling of a weight being lifted from his heart only to be replaced with a growing worry that he was an inconsiderate fool who had perhaps just ruined the best thing in his life.

He had fully intended to quietly leave the kitchen when she got up to take care of the kettle, but she was so aware of his nature that she didn’t even need to turn around to tell him to return to his seat because she needed to say her piece.

It was only right that he listened to her, even if he was sure he didn’t want to face her words. Out of all the possibilities that had enumerated in his mind, none of them were positive. He had grown so familiar with this list, his constant companion the past few weeks, sowing ever-present doubts in his psyche. The thought plagued him that his confession would create bigger problems in their home than forgetting to pick his brother up from the station. He hadn’t been willing to boldly risk his heart again the way that he had in his youth.

He was aware of the ways placing his heart out in the open could leave it torn into pieces, barely salvageable, and he knew he didn’t want to put her through that again either. His fear of running her out of Skeldale and his life completely had prevented him from sharing his deepest desire of keeping her with him always. Even still, he couldn’t stop the pictures of bliss from entering his mind either. The past weeks had felt like he was tumbling over endless cliffs, falling more deeply into his fantasies of their potential future life together. He had figured she wasn’t ready to fall into that endless abyss with him.

In just a few words, she erased every thought in his mind. She didn’t say anything about wanting to leave or needing time to consider her feelings. She didn’t want to forget that this ever happened. She wanted him. She wanted them.

More than that, it wasn’t something new to her. It hadn’t dawned on her suddenly in an afternoon. She wasn’t as slow on the uptake as he was. She had felt something more than friendship for him for far longer than he could have ever guessed. Her propriety had prevented her from ever acting on her feelings. However, she explained the strength and the depth of them to him in a way that he understood with exquisite clarity.

She, too, had moments from the past that irrevocably changed the way that her heart and her head felt about Siegfried Farnon. A list of her own that painted him in far nicer terms than the one he had been dwelling on. She shared a story from her first year at Skeldale House when she had been easily startled by his loud outbursts. She had transformed into the person that she thought she had left behind, but was still buried deep within her. That moment, and his response, made her feel seen by him in a way that established a confidence that he would never hurt her, and he would let no one else harm her either.

Though that was their beginning together, she painted pictures of more recent feelings she had held close and prepared once again not to let them escape. The sorrow of missing her son was only soothed by the fact that she knew with Siegfried standing by, she would never be alone again. There would always be someone to share her burdens. She expressed a moment of euphoria in the news of Edwards' safety, where she had wanted to cross every line between them. Yet she had settled for being grateful for his closeness and care.

Though he could feel her nervousness, he could hardly believe what he was hearing. As it settled in his breast, he felt like a weightless bird soaring through the sky to new heights. He could feel her soft, patient eyes gauging his reaction.

They were almost out of time. Soon, the reality of their world would come crashing in on them, but he wanted a way to preserve this feeling for a few moments longer. So he asked her a question he had never dared to ask before, but now it felt like he couldn’t go a second longer without an answer.

Though he watched a blush creep up from below her collar and reach her cheeks, she stepped around the end of the table as he stood. They met at the corner, and he looked into her sparkling, slightly nervous, and a bit mischievous blue eyes, and he waited for her answer.

She moved silently closer, and he inhaled sharply, but when her arms wrapped around his middle and affirmative answer to his question, he completely forgot to breathe. He returned the delicate embrace, but it was the feeling of her slight chuckle on his shoulder that reminded him that if he wanted to have any future at all, he might have to engage in this autonomic activity.

So he began again slowly and steadily for fear he might scare her away. They stood this way for a few precious moments, holding on to this new territory they had conquered together. Until inevitably there came a pounding on the front door, and it was time for him to become the Darrowby vet instead of the man who got to hug Audrey Hall in the kitchen after breakfast.

Chapter Text

She was positively vibrating and radiating happiness. She simply couldn't hide it. She had wanted to hug him from the moment she met him. His soft brown teddy bear eyes had called out to her, especially in the early days when they were so consumed with grief. Even as he found healing and family, and those eyes began to soften along with his middle, he got impossibly more huggable by her accounts.

There had even been a few occasions where she had dreamt about embracing her employer. She simply couldn’t, it wasn't proper, and above that, Siegfried wasn’t even a person who liked to be hugged. Only on rare occasions did he have physical contact even with his own brother, and though she had watched it evolve over the past few years she knew he was not as free with his physical affection as others in their household.

She could remark, however, that Jimmy must be excluded from this. She had simply melted on the spot, watching him dote on their godson. Cuddling and rocking him to sleep. Leaving feather-light kisses on the crown of his head. Even the simple act of placing his finger in the tiny palm at the dinner table just to have that little bit of connection with the boy had made him impossibly more desirable in her eyes.

Her thoughts wandered now to the moment standing in the kitchen with her arms wrapped around him and his reciprocating, she decided that no place felt more like home. She had thought the physical dwelling they shared was as close to home as she could ever feel. She was wrong because the moment she felt the quick beat of his heart and the shallowness of his breaths, she knew that was where she was meant to rest. Just the memory of him recounting the moment the full force of his feelings was enough to buoy her heart through the rest of the day. She floated along, anchored by the sureness of his declaration, and pictured a life where they shared everything, and she was eternally grateful for the years when he made her feel safe and respected. Now she had a deeper understanding that he was being abundantly delicate with her and that she would never feel safer than she did enveloped by him and his care.

The whole idea of his softness also made her chuckle a bit. How would a hug scare her off if she had spent the last decade managing his eccentricities and outbursts? She, of course, appreciated his multifaceted character, although it did drive her mad sometimes; she was sure that there was more he was holding back from her, and if she was completely honest, there was more that she still needed to say to him. So much had been said across the breakfast table that morning, but if she was completely honest, spending the day by herself had led her thoughts down many passages and through a never-ending labyrinth of possibilities.

Spending the entire day in the same house, she in the kitchen, he in the surgery, and not speaking a word to one another, only deepened her feelings of worry. At dinnertime, the silly fool had walked into her kitchen, admittedly with a slight bounce in his step, but acted practically as normal and asked her what she had planned for dinner. She looked back blankly for a moment and then gave a quick explanation of the labor or love, and worry that had taken all afternoon to prepare. The growing stress had caused her to throw herself into an extensive spread for a weekday, but he just smiled pleasantly and went back to his office.

She really couldn't be upset with him, but she wasn't exactly pleased either. She put the final pan in the oven and followed him into his office. In the short time between his arrival and hers, he had already buried his head in the paperwork on his desk. He didn’t notice her, and she took a moment to openly look at the peculiar creature in front of her, whose beloved rat was making the trek across his back from one shoulder to the other, finally settling in his front pocket.

She hadn’t said it earlier, though she felt she had expressed it, but she loved this man. She was in love with him, but she was scared. The thoughts and opinions of others scared her, not just the people in the village, but more importantly, their family. She wanted everything with him, but not at the cost of the practice and the Herriots or his relationship with his brother. She continued to look upon his form, furiously scribbling something on paper that no doubt was only legible to her, and a few tears slipped down her cheeks. All of the emotions from the day had built up and were now overflowing. She wasn’t an overly emotional person, and certainly she had practice keeping them hidden to protect herself, but there was no need to keep anything hidden from him.

He finally recognized her presence when the first sniffle escaped her and his head snapped up to meet her eyes. There was a look of terror that she could see fill his whole body as she continued to lean against the door frame and let the tears fall. The smell of smoke reached their noses as her name escaped his lips in a whisper. He rose to meet her in the doorframe, but she had already turned to hurry towards the kitchen and save their dinner.

Chapter Text

He did not like hugs. They were suffocating and sometimes weirdly itchy. They never left him feeling much more than an uncomfortable awareness of his own body and the body of the person he had just been pressed against.

Hugging his brother was different because he knew him. He had held him as a baby. Fresh and new, his brother was the first baby he had ever held, and with every hug they shared afterward, the memory of his tiny body wrapped in blankets flashed behind his eyes. It was involuntary, and it reminded him how far they had come together. The scared young man holding his new brother was worlds apart from the grumpy vet and the distinguished soldier they had become. Yet when they hugged, Siegfried was always transported back to their first moments together.

Hugging Audrey was a dream. One he had frequently in the past few weeks, and admittedly for quite a while before then. He had seen her hug every other member of their household, and he knew why she wouldn't have engaged in that behavior with him. An infrequent handholding was as much as they were allowed and he appreciated the comfort they brought him in those weaker moments.

Hugging her was a different experience entirely. It wasn’t like hugging Tristan or holding Jimmy close. He didn’t picture something fragile when he hugged her. She was strong and sure in the cradle of his arms. It made him want to be even more gentle with her. This woman always had to be the strength of everyone else. The woman who held their house together and had overcome so much by herself through grit and determination. A woman like that deserved a soft resting place. A place where she didn’t have to be the stalwart or the patron saint, but could shed the expectations and simply exist. He didn’t know how to be soft and gentle, but he wanted desperately to be what she needed. He simply had no regard for himself apart from the fact he knew he was damn lucky to find himself holding her in the kitchen.

When their time was up, the rest of his day seemed to move at warp speed. Perhaps the rush of dopamine and a rather chaotic surgery made rational thought impossible, but before he knew it, he was asking her what was being prepared for dinner and retreating to his office.

He removed his beloved Vonelel from his cage and contemplated how he had returned to his normal rhythms by simply being honest about his feelings. The thoughts and words came to him in another rush of clarity, and as Vonelel made himself comfortable, Siegfried began to write.

This letter he had tried to write in many iterations over the past week. She had nearly caught him at it many times, but he had never achieved a message that he was content to share. It poured out of him now.

To his Dear Audrey, he began.

You may not have heard the story of Theseus and Ariadne, but they come to mind now. Theseus was sent into the Labyrinth as a death sentence. Ariadne, bound by a duty of love, gives him the tools to survive. They escape together, and though the end of their story is not the ending I imagine for myself, I can't seem to escape the echoes of their narrative. If I could rewrite the tale, they would escape together, and he would thank her for her valiant efforts because his success is only because of her. Theseus would recognize the power and beauty of Ariadne, and upon returning to Athens with her, he would claim the throne in her honor, crowning her the Queen not just of the city but his heart as well. He would create a world away from her past and a place where she didn’t have to fight or rescue silly men who didn't know how to fight their demons.

I hope you see why …

A soft sob interrupted his furious writing. He turned to find her watching him, tears trailing slowly down her cheeks. Something within him crumpled then. His impression from this morning was that things were going to be better, for once, he hadn’t messed up. He was wrong. She was crying, his worst fear was coming true before his eyes. He had stolen her joy. On instinct, her name escaped his throat in what felt like a death rattle. Before anything more could be said, she turned and left the study before she saw him stand to reach out to her.

He sank back into his chair, dumbfounded and lost by what had just occurred. He continued writing, it seemed important now more than ever to record for her exactly his feelings.

… this has been on my mind. You have saved me, Audrey. You have given me all the tools I need to navigate the labyrinth of grief and miscommunication that I delusionally believed I could escape on my own. It's you I must thank for the world that I currently live in, and I want to try with everything that I am to offer you a place where you are just Audrey. A place where you don’t owe anyone anything and where no score is kept unless it's an afternoon game of cricket.

What I’m saying is I want you to have freedom. In many ways, when you started here, it was your only option. I’m forever grateful that you stayed then and even until now, but I could never live with myself if you felt trapped again. If this is too much or too frightening, if you are wishing now you had never asked the question or shared your feelings we will not speak of it again.

However, you must know that I can’t bear to lose you. Even more, I can’t bear to chain you to a life that steals your joy and complicates matters.

I love you, Audrey.

Yours,
Siegfried

He signed his name and exhaled. Folding the paper slowly he hoped it achieved its goal. Though he wasn’t sure what that goal was he knew he had managed to write exactly his feelings and the outcome of that would be exactly as it should. Being honest was never his strength but he always felt he could be honest with her.

It was quite late when he carried the letter up the stairs. He hadn’t gone to dinner in favor of getting his words correct and also avoiding any awkwardness. He saw the light shining under her door as he reached the top step. He approached her door, resting his forehead against the wood, taking a deep breath, and imagining her brushing her hair in front of the mirror, preparing for a night's rest. He contemplated knocking just to see her before he went to bed, but decided against it, opting to slide the letter under her door and make the short walk across the hall to disappear into his room for another sleepless night.

He began his process of shedding the day. He removed his clothes and replaced them with pajamas that smelled like her laundry soap. Breathing it deeply in, he reflected upon his day, and how many emotions had filled him and hollowed him out in just a few hours. Caught up in these thoughts, he nearly missed it. The soft knock on his door was barely perceptible; if he wasn't so close to the door, it could have been mistaken for the noises of the old house. He was sure it was her, and so he turned and opened it.

Chapter Text

This was torture. She didn't know why he hadn't followed her to the kitchen, but he never came. She had returned afterwards to his study to find the door closed, and so she didn't disturb him. She washed up and went to bed. Taking her time in the bathtub, she listened for his footfalls on the stairs, but after a half hour they still hadn’t come, and so she declared herself silly.

She rose from the lukewarm soapy water, dried herself off, and slipped into her nightgown and robe. Taking care of the rest of her business in the bathroom, she slowly walked to her room, listening for signs of life below, but there were none to be heard.

Tristan had left for the Drovers after dinner and perhaps wouldn't return home that night, and the Herriots had decided to go to Heston for dinner but called and let her know they would be spending the night. Jenny had a pair of sheep she was worried about, and James offered his services for the night, so there was no reason for the rest of their little family to traipse back into town until morning.

It was only them at home, and they weren’t even going to talk for some reason. She was beginning to feel like all their progress from this morning was slowly slipping past her fingertips. It was exactly the reason she had never said anything, but she figured perhaps he just needed a bit more time. It was all quite new for him, and she refused to go to bed angry with him when they hadn’t talked and he had said such wonderful things just that morning.

She sat down in front of her mirror and began to brush her hair. A few moments passed as she let herself get lost in thought she was disturbed by faint footfall on the steps. Grateful he was getting to bed at a reasonable hour, she held her breath when she heard him approach her door and pause there. She heard the paper being pushed underneath her door before she saw it. By the time she had released her breath and knelt to pick it up, seeing her name carefully penned on the front, she heard his door open and close.

This was quite confusing, and she was nervous to read what she had seen him working on earlier. Perhaps he realized this was all a mistake and he never should have said anything. It was only one page. Also, an odd occurrence because he was not known for his brevity, but she steeled herself and began to read.

Of course, he began with the Greeks, but it was poetic to see the way he viewed them. Even more touching to see the way he viewed her, the way he viewed them. Why couldn’t this daft man just keep things simple? Perhaps his overcomplication of things showed just how much he cared. That was true for most everyone in his life, lest she soon forget an 8-page christening speech. Why couldn’t it also be true for her? He had said as much this morning, and the letter before her clearly proceeded as they had begun.

The last line, however, made her realize neither of them would get any sleep if they didn’t speak. There was still at least one point on which they were not in agreement.

I can’t bear to chain you to a life that steals your joy and complicates matters.

How could he possibly believe he was doing this? She knew what it felt like to be stuck in a life you don’t want. One that takes anything good from you and spits it out in your face or at your feet for you to mourn. The thought alone had the bile in her throat rising and the paper crinkling in her grip.

Siegfried must know that he had done nothing of the sort. She was exactly where she wanted to be with more joy than she ever thought she deserved, and apparently, he loved her, at least he wrote as much. What was so complicated about that?

So she turned the handle of her door, still clutching the letter, and made her way to his. She could hear him behind the door, and she could’ve knocked as loud as she pleased, but she just gently tapped the frame, her nerves still contorting her stomach.

She thought he hadn’t heard, but then the door was opening, and of their own volition, the tears began streaming down her face. Her hands shaking by her sides, she saw the look of terror mask his face.

She stepped forward then and placed her unsteady hand on his chest, leaning against him for support. The paper clutched in it acted as the only barrier between them, and the only sound was her weak sobs. She took a deep breath as she calmed herself, gently pushing him further into the room. His hands remained at his side, his eyes trained on her, waiting to follow her lead.

Once they were standing in the center of his room, she took her hand from his chest and took a step backward. She could see in him that he wanted to follow her, but that he didn’t. He gave her space and she loved him more then. Enough to fill the space between them a hundred times over, but she must tell him as much, and so she did.

She began, like many conversations between them did. She told him that he was wrong. That nothing he had ever done would make her feel trapped, he had only ever set her free. She reminded him of a letter of her own that she had written to him. The letter that bid him farewell was the letter that nearly ripped both their hearts out. That letter held a truth. As much as he needed her, she needed him. Not just in the first days that the letter mentioned, but in what they both had believed to be their last days together.

That letter had felt like a weight in her pocket all morning, and when transferred to him, he had felt it too. In writing it, she had confronted the possibility of a life without him, and in reading it, he had to admit his life was nothing without her. Yet here they stood with another letter between them.

She had feared the moment it was pushed under the door, the weight that it would carry. Yet there was none; this was just a letter. A beautiful outpouring of his feelings and his worries, but no baggage. This letter held a truth, too. It was a pure, uncomplicated truth. He loved her. She wasted no time in returning the sentiment after properly explaining why he was wrong about just that one line.

The space remained between them. What had in the past been an acceptable and appropriate distance now felt like a cavern. Yet the stubborn fool would not breach it. They had poured their love for one another out with abandon, but they still stood separated. The memory of the hug from earlier that morning had taken on a new life and once again was singing through their veins.

She made the first step forward, and the second until she was looking into his deep, chestnut eyes. She permitted him. She asked him for a kiss. She could see something snap behind his eyes, a wall crumbling to rubble in his mind, and yet he maintained his restraint.

Reaching for her hands first, then trailing his fingers up her arms, he eventually cupped her face between his calloused, gentle hands, and he leaned in. It was the softest she had ever been kissed. She wasn't entirely sure that she had been, but when his fingers sank into her hair and he pulled her closer, there was no room for doubt that she was being kissed.

She returned the favor by grasping his neck; eventually, she was thoroughly messing his hair and setting his curls free. She had never been kissed like this. It was tender and caring, it let her set the pace, but there was no room for doubt that every step forward she took, he was right there matching her. He matched her joy, her care, her desire, and her love. Happily, they could have continued like this until the stars burnt out, but they were still just skin and bones that must breathe, and so they took a few moments to catch their breath, and she watched a silly, contented grin spread over his face that she could feel her face mirroring.

She told him he was welcome to pay these attentions to her any time it struck his fancy. She chuckled when he told her he would never get anything done if that were the case. It seemed at the same moment they realized they were in his room in a compromising position to say the least, and an unsure expression came across his face then.

This new territory was exciting and dangerous and had taken wings in just one short day that seemed to last months. While a large and growing part of her wanted to be completely his, there lingered still small parts of her that were composed of nerves and hesitations. There were still conversations that needed to be had, and so she continued to hold him close and wait for him to share the concerns she suspected they shared.

Chapter Text

When she stood there, tears in her eyes, it was terrifying for him. He hadn’t seen her cry this many times since the winter, and seemingly, this time it was all his fault. The thoughts that filled his mind were self-deprecating and doubtful. They renewed the feelings that he expressed in his letter, and they were accompanied by new ones that made him question the earlier conversation at the breakfast table.

Then she was pulling back from him, and all he wanted to do was rush to her and hold her close and apologize or make it better. He never knew how to fix things; she was always so much better than him. It brought physical pain to his limbs to not move them towards her, but he wasn't ever going to take more than she was willing to give and so he steeled himself in preparation to hear what she had come to say. He respected her too much to ignore her speech. Every word that came from her lips for him to hear was a gift that he never wanted to take for granted. Everyone was on borrowed time in his mind, and he felt it even more keenly with her.

Then she spoke, and she was angry with him. She was upset, and if he wasn't listening so intently, he could have let it cause him to bluster and become indignant when she said he was wrong and foolish. Yet under everything, she realised this was Audrey Hall's way of saying that, of course, he was a bloody fool, but one that she loved.

He could feel the smile tugging at the corners of his heart while his face remained resolute, waiting for her speech to come to the natural conclusion that he had already reached. He loved this woman more than life itself, and he was thankful that she was acknowledging parts of their past that tugged sharply at his heartstrings.

When she had nearly left him, he felt she was basically signing his death certificate. She had helped him build a home, and without her, it would fall apart. He would crumble. He was built on the foundation she had built for him, and without her, it felt like it would be pulled out from under him. They had never addressed that until now.

Her tears now dried with her fierce declarations, and his heart swelled in his chest at the knowledge that she recognized the very same things at the time and even now. Yet he was glad to learn, as she continued, that the letter clutched in her hands only served to make her a bit agitated at his foolishness. Now that she had read it, it didn’t scare her; in fact, he could hardly believe his luck when she returned the final sentiments of the letter to him.

He certainly would not be the first one to breach the appropriate space between them. No matter the fact that it felt like his skin was on fire with the need to touch her. His arms tingled with the memory of her body held closely in his embrace, and his nose remembered the smell of her hair as it pressed against his cheek.

Then she stepped forward. It was almost so shocking to him that he took a step back, but before he could, she had closed the gap between them. Their bodies still not touching as she stood before him, and her smell encircled and enticed him to make a move. He had asked before, and now it was her turn.
To hear the words fall from her lips. The ones his eyes had been flicking towards for several moments felt like a dream. Yet there they were, sucking the air out of his lungs, but determined to remain composed, her indulged himself for a moment to feel her skin.

His fingertips ghosted her palms as her eyes fell shut, allowing him to appreciate her flawless complexion as his calloused palms skated up her arms. His thumbs pressed gently into the crease of her elbow before continuing to her shoulders. Letting the weight of his hands rest there for a moment, he breathed in slowly to ready himself. Gently, he brought his palms to either side of her face, the corners of her smile telling him she had thoroughly enjoyed just his touch thus far. He pulled her face towards his and barely ghosted his lips against his and pulled back.

Her eyes flew open as if to say she was expecting much more, but they were met with a wry knowing smirk on his lips before he allowed his hands to sink fully into her tresses. One would never be enough when it came to the woman that he pulled flush to his body.

Her hands found the nape of his neck and then proceeded to get lost in the task of driving him mad, and he suspected thoroughly messing his hair. He had kissed plenty of women. Probably more than was appropriate and many more than he enjoyed, but kissing her was unlike any other. She was a bit more demanding than he expected of a woman of her religiosity, but he was quite happy to let her take control. Matching every emotion that she poured into the kiss, it felt like being set free. Finally able to express every part of himself to her and say the things words alone could not express.

When they must take a break, he felt the silly rougish grin spreading across his face before he opened his eyes. Happily, when he did, there was one that matched on the face of his beloved. After a few comfortable words were exchanged between them, he suddenly realized the reality of their situation. While he wanted everything with her, he was unsure of just what she wanted and expected from him.

Chapter Text

They had been married for 5 years, but they still spoke about that night often. She freely admitted that she would've given him everything that night without a second thought, and he freely admitted that he was scared out of his mind that he would ruin what precious little they had built that day. Ultimately, they had spent the night together. Not in every way. They had left some things a mystery to be discovered and by now thoroughly explored, but they had talked into the early hours wrapped in the comfort of his bedspread.

That night they were not Audrey and Siegfried, they were more. It was always the assumption that when you were married that's when you became one. One in body and one in mind and in the eyes of your creator. That was the vow that had both taken but this night it became very clear to them both that they had been operating as a unit for far longer than either of them realized. They would eventually unite themselves by marriage and the lustful entwining of their bodies but this night their souls knit themselves together.

A quiet surely settled over them. There were of course nerves on both sides. Their minds flooded with the questions that they had never allowed themselves to ask each other before. Some of them are innocent, many of them a bit naughty. All of them allowed one to fully envelop the other with the understanding and care they had already built their relationship and their love on.

It had been awkward for both of them right after the kiss. Finding themselves so close and in his room just steps away from everything that they had both wanted for far longer than they could admit to. It was her who made the suggestion or rather posed the question of what came next. In his own way he told her that this was forever. That there was no next step there was before this moment and there was an after and in that after there was forever or rather however long they were allowed to have together. She agreed but continuing to be the practical one she was more direct. She told him of her desires not in so much detail but of the deep knowing pull that wouldn't allow her to leave his side. She knew she had to be the one and that he would never ask any more than was proper but they had both been married before and so they could both share a bed.

When presented this way his resolve began to crumble. He wasn't known for having any sort of miraculous self control but he would do anything if it meant her happiness. As she slid under his covers he watched her remembering this first time and imagining that all the nights for the rest of his life could be spent just like this. He never believed himself to be a good man and his parents had always said good things only happen to good little boys. That was utter madness as far as he was concerned. She was the best of them all and she had faced things he could never imagine. It brought him physical pain to think of it all and it made him desperate to hold her close and tell her of her worth and how much she meant to him.

She watched him looking into her eyes as she made herself comfortable. He blew out the candle and by the moonlight she could see and feel him move the blanket and crawl into bed. Over the years it had become their bed, their haven and safe space for only them and their thoughts. Tonight was the first of many nights that it would be treated as such. She knew she had to be delicate, that there were memories here that she could not wash away. There had been one before her that deserved respect and care. One that he still belonged to and loved. She knew the size of his heart, and she knew there was room there for her, but she also knew there was still room for others. She loved how expansive it was, how it covered her and their family. How it covered the village and the animals. His heart was impressive, and she would be happy with any part of it he gave her to love and cherish.

Sinking into the space together, one considering the other, never with thoughts of themselves, they began as they were to continue with care and caution for the other. They held a deep respect and reverence for the others' past. They carried the others' joys with their sorrows and their successes with their failures. They didn't lose themselves in each other because they had lived so much of their lives apart; they were fully formed, but they realized with growing satisfaction that they were only their best when they were one.

She needed his mess, his chaos, and his errasibility, and he needed her wit, her grace, and her steadfastness. One without the other felt disordered and wrong, and in the years that followed, it was rare to see them apart.