Primeval Fic - Feel Like You Still Have A Choice (Secret Santa for lukadreaming) - 2/3
Tokyo Joe likes to sleep. He’s a very unemotional sort of dog. Ryan thinks he’s probably still grieving for his old owner - he seems the loyal sort. It’s either believe that, or accept that he really is just thoroughly unimpressed by Ryan’s life and everything in it.
In the four days that they’ve been sharing a house, there have been precisely three brief moments of positive emotion, each expressed by a single thump of Joe’s tail on the floor. If these moments are to be taken as gospel then it can be concluded that Joe likes beef-flavoured gravy, Bob Dylan’s ‘Shelter from the Storm’, and having a spot behind his right ear scratched.
Ryan takes him for daily walks on Hampstead Heath and looks around at the other dogs. He looks at their delighted lolling grins, and then at Joe plodding along next to him. The lurcher never seems displeased exactly, just apathetic.
Whatever this dog thing is, Ryan thinks he might be doing it wrong.
He briefly considers calling Abby for advice, but the idea of talking to anyone on the project makes something inside him twinge.
“Just give him time,” Lyle says, when Ryan shares his worries. “He’s an old codger, he’s probably stuck in his ways. Let him adapt.”
Time is about the only thing that Ryan has in abundance nowadays, so this is advice he can follow. It’s also possible, on the other hand, that Lyle is talking out of his arse.
*-*-*-*-*
By the time the morning of the 24th rolls around and he’s attempting to pack the car for the journey up north, Ryan is thoroughly regretting agreeing to go to Annie’s for Christmas.
He’s had a fair bit of free time over the last few days and this is the latest in a whole host of regrets he’s cycled through; including, to name a few, not finding the time to get to know his sister’s family, quitting his job, ever thinking he could be responsible for a dog and painting the spare room that unfortunate shade of green.
The spare room, in particular, is still bothering him.
Give him a few more hours, on his own in the car on the M6 and he’ll probably be able to work his way around to regretting the entire existence of Christmas. It feels like that kind of day.
Before he can get to that though, he needs to get the damn dog into the car.
Most of Ryan’s stuff for the next few days fits into the boot and he’s laid several old towels out all along the backseat, so that Joe can stretch out and sleep the hours away. There’s a bowl of water in the footrest in case he gets thirsty and a battered tennis ball to entertain his teeth. It’s as close to canine luxury travel as Ryan could come up with.
Joe, however, judging from the way he’s planted himself firmly in the gateway, gangly legs akimbo and eyes rolling in horror, disagrees. Every attempt to coax him closer to the car is met by a horrible groaning whine that reminds Ryan of a toddler swinging on a rusty door hinge.
For the second time since leaving the project, he genuinely considers phoning Abby for help. There’s just the slight matter of his pride to attend to.
*-*-*-*-*
In the end, Ryan is forty-five minutes late leaving and Joe travels in the front seat, shedding everywhere, trembling fitfully and occasionally moaning his disapproval in Ryan’s left ear.
They have the Bob Dylan CD on repeat for the entire five hour drive, and Joe is sick at roughly three-junction intervals all up the way up the M6.
Ryan negates regretting the existence of Christmas. He regrets the existence of dogs instead.
*-*-*-*-*
Annie’s house, it turns out, is something from a postcard. It’s also, in Ryan’s inexpert opinion, several sights too small for five people and two dogs, especially given the factor by which all families seem to expand at Christmas time. It also doesn’t take him long to discover that the spare room Annie had offered him was not actually all that spare.
His sister has clearly done her best to neutralise the space, but clearing out a chest of drawers for him and removing any and all soft toys and glittery ornaments can only go so far, especially when the wallpaper is pink and flowery and there’s an enormous One Direction poster on the back of the door.
Ryan stashes his clothes in the top two drawers, tries not to look at the boy band and wonders guiltily which of the girls has been forced to give up her bedroom.
*-*-*-*-*
The remainder of Christmas Eve passes in a blur of preparation. Annie dashes round madly, only pausing in her whirlwind of cooking/cleaning/wrapping/parenting to force Ryan back into his armchair whenever he tries to offer help. Annie’s husband, Rick, whom Ryan can only remember meeting once before and is either an accountant or a landscape gardener - Ryan did know once upon a time - harriedly assures Ryan that everything is completely under control, whilst clutching a six-pack of mince pies and trying to wrestle a Christmas stocking away from Trixie.
The two girls - Katie and Ellie - are buzzing with excitement. Katie, at thirteen, is clearly trying to contain herself, but even Ryan can see through her, so she’s clearly failing dismally. Ellie, at seven, wastes no energy on such attempts and is bouncing off the walls. Trixie, who seems to have ever fewer manners that she did previously, has absolutely no qualms about joining her and Ryan foresees a grim future for the nice china lamp in the corner.
It’s pandemonium.
He and Joe sit in the corner and observe. Ryan suspects they both look vaguely horrified.
*-*-*-*-*
By the time dinner has been consumed, the kitchen cleaned and Ellie dispatched to bed, the itch to escape is building under Ryan’s skin. They’re sat in the lounge; Katie in the corner with her laptop and Annie and Rick curled up together on the sofa, chatting about Barbara next door and Greg from work. A fire is blazing in the grate, the snapping and cracking heat insistent and intrusive and Ryan feels wildly out of place.
It feels a little like the dreams he used to have as a kid, where the only hiding places are woefully inadequate and you know it’s only a matter of time before whatever is hunting you turns and looks straight into your eyes. At the moment, the thing Ryan is running from is the scrutiny of his sister and when Annie leans forward, places her empty mug on the coffee table and turns deliberately in his direction, he knows his time is up.
“So, Tom,” Annie begins, resting her elbows on her knees, “tell us all of your news. We haven’t had a proper catch up in ages.”
The corner of Rick’s mouth twitches and Joe, sprawled on the rug at Ryan’s feet, minutely adjusts the position of his head so that hot, damp breath is gusting over Ryan’s toes. He likes to think both of these are gestures of sympathy.
“Not much to tell,” he prevaricates, attempting to walk the knife edge between sounding boring and sounding bored. “Just work stuff, mostly. I…” it’s here he hesitates, because the line he usually uses on Annie has suddenly become a lie. “I work a lot.”
At some point, he will have to tell Annie that he has retired. He knows that. Lyle and his doubting eyebrows can fuck the fuck off.
It’s odd, really. When he handed in his resignation, he felt sure that he was doing the right thing. Ryan has always been a great believer in the natural order of things. Everything has an ending and persevering past that is invariably a terrible idea. Take the anomalies, for example. Or Lost. When he’d resigned, he’d done so under the instinctive knowledge that it was his time to leave. He was still young enough to be at the top of his game and that was always how he had wanted to end things.
So it’s hard to explain why now, he can’t seem to bring himself to tell anybody that.
“And what sort of work are you doing nowadays?” Annie asks, brightly.
“It’s classified.” No matter how many times that sentence rolls off his tongue, it never fails to make Ryan feel like a complete knob.
“Oh,” Annie falters slightly. “And what about outside work?”
That question is potentially the crux of his current issues, but Ryan feels like now is not the time to go there. He drains his mulled wine instead and shrugs. “Nothing much to report. Still running, training. Go to the shooting range with Lyle sometimes. Pub.”
Annie’s face falls minutely. Ryan has to give her credit for managing to tone down all her disappointed tells. “And is there anyone special at the moment?”
People have been asking Ryan this question his whole adult life and he still fails to react to it any other way than raising his hackles like an angry cat. To be honest, he wonders if anybody, over the entire course of history, has ever had another reaction.
“No,” he says, shortly. “Not really.”
There’s a pause and then Rick chuckles awkwardly. “Come on, Annie,” he says, “let the poor man breathe. He came up for a bit of turkey and an ill-advised amount of mulled wine, not an interrogation.” He sits forward. “In fact, Tom, can I get you a top up?”
Ryan shakes his head, offering a brief smile that he hopes conveys sufficient gratitude at the topic change. “Actually,” he says, levering himself to his feet, “if you’d excuse me, I think I’d better take Joe out for a last walk. He’ll need to stretch his legs out after the drive.”
As one, they turn and look at the lurcher, sprawled on his back with his legs in a frog-like splay and snoring softly.
“Are you sure?” Annie asks, doubtfully.
“Absolutely.” It’s said with a conviction Ryan doesn’t really feel, but he’s faked confidence in far stupider plans over the course of his career. He goes off to fetch Joe’s lead from where Annie has hung it in the utility room next to Trixie’s. When he returns to the living room, Katie is busily awakening his dog.
After a few moments of determined shaking, Joe manages to haul himself into a sitting position. He looks blearily around the room, clocks the lead in Ryan’s hand immediately and then looks at the darkened windows of the cottage against which the wind is gently howling.
He looks appalled.
(However, Ryan is not an expert in canine facial expressions. It’s possible that if you squint, he merely looks incredulous).
*-*-*-*-*
Annie’s cottage lies nestled part way up the slopes of a hill at one edge of a tiny village called Elterwater. The village is surrounded by hills on three sides, and consists of a post office, a set of holiday cottages and a pub.
The pub is called The Drunken Duck, which is an excellent name by anyone’s account. It faces away from the hills, looking out over a broad flat valley through which a river meanders. Or at least, this is what Ryan has been told by the cheerfully rotund barman.
They’d lasted approximately five minutes walking before Ryan had given in and headed for the pub, a combination of the teeth-gritting cold and the cloud of sullen resentment masquerading as his dog driving him towards the beer-infused warmth.
The pub is as packed as he suspects any establishment of this type ever gets - which is to say, there are only one or two spare tables. He and Joe have retired to a booth in the far corner, with a good view of all exits and a packet of pork scratchings apiece. It’s not very upstanding, trying to buy his dog’s forgiveness but in fairness, from the way he’s drooling, Joe seems more than happy to be bought.
Ryan is halfway through his pint, scratching Joe’s ears and absentmindedly contemplating whether his conscience would let him fake a work emergency to get out of tomorrow, when the door of the pub opens.
The man that walks in is less of a stranger than expected.
*-*-*-*-*
It’s been a considerable number of years since Ryan last saw Stephen Hart. Long enough that there are strands of silver threading the other man’s dark hair and lines around the eyes and mouth that only used to be there in laughter. He’s just as tall as Ryan remembers, although his movements are decidedly stiffer and his shoulders a little less broad.
He looks good and if Ryan wasn’t so shocked, he’d probably be more appreciative. He’s never been a man that enjoys coincidence.
At any other time, in any other place, he wouldn’t have hesitated to approach Stephen at the bar and offer him a seat and a drink. Now though, perhaps due to the fact that he currently feels so out of time and place himself, he hesitates. The fifteen feet between his chair and the bar suddenly seems to yawn into a gaping maw filled with the years since their last encounter.
It’s quite likely that Stephen won’t recognise him. And given how things ended on the anomaly project, it’s equally likely that he won’t want to talk to Ryan even if he does.
Ryan ducks his head down and settles back.
*-*-*-*-*
He survives unrecognised for five peaceful minutes. Then there’s a brief conversational lull in the pub, the patrons collectively taking a moment to gather their thoughts. Joe, happily full of pork scratchings, chooses this comfortable silence into which to fart. Loudly.
All eyes turn to them immediately. Ryan should perhaps be taking this as a life lesson in not feeding his dog junk food. Sadly, he hasn’t been mortified by a fart since he joined the military, and so instead has to firmly squash a snigger. A little old lady, sat with her equally little old husband sniffs loudly and turns away. Far from looking abashed, Joe straightens himself out and looks up at Ryan as if expecting praise.
“Idiot,” Ryan mutters, and then to the bar at large, “sorry”. The barman grins at him.
A moment later, a pair of denim-clad legs step into his eye-line and a familiar voice says, “Captain Ryan?”
Ryan looks up. “Hello, Stephen.”
*-*-*-*-*
Stephen, as it turns out, definitely remembers him. He’s changed in the years since Ryan last saw him. It’s subtle but there’s something about the way he holds himself now - a confidence in his own skin - that was very much missing when he was a younger man. Not that Ryan can blame him, given the clusterfuck with the Cutters.
They talk, and after confirming the bizarre coincidence of why they’re both in Elterwater - Stephen has an old aunt in the area - it’s surprisingly easy. Stephen asks about the anomalies and about the team; from what Ryan can gather, he’s kept in touch with Connor and Cutter, but scarcely.
“We talk from time to time,” he says, rather blankly, when Ryan asks about the Professor. It seems a small fraction given the relationship the two once had, but Ryan is frankly impressed they’ve managed to salvage any kind of civility at all.
He also asks after Lyle and Ryan tells him he lives with Lester now and relishes the expression on Stephen’s face.
“Lester?” he says, “James Lester? How on earth does that work?”
“I mostly try not to picture it,” Ryan says. Stephen snorts beer out of his nose.
They finish their drinks and when Stephen offers another, Ryan finds himself saying yes. The evening has taken a turn for the surreal but he always got on well with Stephen. It’s good to see him again.
When Stephen returns from the bar, Ryan turns the conversation around to him, trying to do so without letting on that he’s followed Stephen’s career in the news ever since he left the ARC. It wasn’t a deliberate thing - more that he always scanned the sports pages and more often than not, if Stephen’s name came up, he noticed it. They had been colleagues for several years, it really wasn’t that unusual.
“It took me a while to get back on my feet,” Stephen says, and this is such a gross understatement that Ryan’s eyes can’t help but drop to where he’s rubbing his wrist. Silvery-white lines of scars emerge from his jumper and criss-cross over the backs of his hands; only a few of the hundreds that patchwork the rest of his skin, Ryan is sure. The thought never fails to make him feel nauseous with guilt, even though he’s well aware that there’s nothing anyone could have done that would have caused that day to end any differently.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” he says, hoping it comes across as sincerely as he means it.
Stephen smiles a little. “Me too,” he replies. “But in a way, it was for the best. It gave me the out I needed. I think we all knew by that point that it was better for me to go. Cutter and I weren’t going to be able to work together again, and the team needed him.” Stephen takes a sip of his drink. “And if I’m honest, I was about done. I don’t know what would have happened if I’d stayed on, but I’m glad I walked away when I did.”
It’s uncomfortably honest.
Ryan smiles, trying to break the tension a little. “You haven’t exactly done badly for yourself since.”
“I’ve done okay,” Stephen says, with a little grin. “It’s been good for me.”
Ryan suspects that two Olympic gold medals should be classified as more than ‘okay’. Stephen always was a better shot that half of his men.
“How did you manage to get Christmas off, anyway?” Stephen asks. “I don’t remember managing a single public holiday that was anomaly-free.”
Ryan opens his mouth to reply and then closes it again. Perhaps it’s the warm atmosphere of the pub, or the surreal nature of seeing Stephen again after all these years, but he’s feeling honest all of a sudden.
“No,” he says. “I’ve…uh…I’ve actually retired.”
Stephen doesn’t react much beyond a blink, which is exactly what Ryan didn’t know he needed. “Congratulations,” he says. “Well earned I’d say. What are you going to do now?”
The anchorless feeling that Ryan’s been struggling with ever since he left nags at the back of his mind, but here and now, it doesn’t seem as worrying as before. “God knows,” he says. “I genuinely have no idea.” It feels good to say it out loud.
Stephen laughs, both new and familiar at the same time. “I suppose the world is your oyster now. You could do anything; take up a crazy hobby, join a cult, travel the world.”
Ryan grins back. “I don’t know about that. I did always want to see South America though.” Joe whines under the table, a gentle reminder. “And I got a dog.”
Stephen bends over to peer at Joe. “So I see.” He doesn’t make any comment about Joe’s appearance, at which Ryan feels a slight twist of warmth. “What’s his name?”
“Tokyo Joe,” Ryan says, without thinking, and then immediately feels himself go a bit red.
Stephen smiles and if he gets the reference he doesn’t say anything about it, for which Ryan is grateful. “Tokyo Joe. Trouble with a capital T, huh?”
Ryan smiles and Joe gives an odd wheeze, which could be interpreted as agreement. “Something like that.”
“What’s he like?” Stephen asks.
“I haven’t had him long,” Ryan says. “Mostly, he sheds.”
Stephen snorts beer out of his nose for a second time.
*-*-*-*-*
They end up staying in the pub until closing. Ryan’s not really sure where the time went but when they’re standing outside, Joe shivering slightly at their feet, he finds he doesn’t want to wave Stephen out of his life again.
The evening has felt like more than a catch-up between old acquaintances.
Next to him, Stephen shuffles his feet, a brief flash of the old awkwardness Ryan remembers and then says, “Let me give you my number? I’m around for the next couple of days before I go back to London, if you ever fancied another drink.”
Ryan nods. “Yeah,” he says, “definitely.” Joe snorts quietly.
They exchanges numbers, fingers clumsy and numb with cold and then Stephen points the other way up the high street. “I’m this way,” he says. “It was good seeing you again, Ryan.”
Ryan nods. “You too.”
Stephen’s parting grin is bright and as Ryan turns to walk back to the cottage, he finds it hard to force his own smile off his face.
Somewhere in the distance, church bells ring for midnight. It’s Christmas morning.
In the four days that they’ve been sharing a house, there have been precisely three brief moments of positive emotion, each expressed by a single thump of Joe’s tail on the floor. If these moments are to be taken as gospel then it can be concluded that Joe likes beef-flavoured gravy, Bob Dylan’s ‘Shelter from the Storm’, and having a spot behind his right ear scratched.
Ryan takes him for daily walks on Hampstead Heath and looks around at the other dogs. He looks at their delighted lolling grins, and then at Joe plodding along next to him. The lurcher never seems displeased exactly, just apathetic.
Whatever this dog thing is, Ryan thinks he might be doing it wrong.
He briefly considers calling Abby for advice, but the idea of talking to anyone on the project makes something inside him twinge.
“Just give him time,” Lyle says, when Ryan shares his worries. “He’s an old codger, he’s probably stuck in his ways. Let him adapt.”
Time is about the only thing that Ryan has in abundance nowadays, so this is advice he can follow. It’s also possible, on the other hand, that Lyle is talking out of his arse.
*-*-*-*-*
By the time the morning of the 24th rolls around and he’s attempting to pack the car for the journey up north, Ryan is thoroughly regretting agreeing to go to Annie’s for Christmas.
He’s had a fair bit of free time over the last few days and this is the latest in a whole host of regrets he’s cycled through; including, to name a few, not finding the time to get to know his sister’s family, quitting his job, ever thinking he could be responsible for a dog and painting the spare room that unfortunate shade of green.
The spare room, in particular, is still bothering him.
Give him a few more hours, on his own in the car on the M6 and he’ll probably be able to work his way around to regretting the entire existence of Christmas. It feels like that kind of day.
Before he can get to that though, he needs to get the damn dog into the car.
Most of Ryan’s stuff for the next few days fits into the boot and he’s laid several old towels out all along the backseat, so that Joe can stretch out and sleep the hours away. There’s a bowl of water in the footrest in case he gets thirsty and a battered tennis ball to entertain his teeth. It’s as close to canine luxury travel as Ryan could come up with.
Joe, however, judging from the way he’s planted himself firmly in the gateway, gangly legs akimbo and eyes rolling in horror, disagrees. Every attempt to coax him closer to the car is met by a horrible groaning whine that reminds Ryan of a toddler swinging on a rusty door hinge.
For the second time since leaving the project, he genuinely considers phoning Abby for help. There’s just the slight matter of his pride to attend to.
*-*-*-*-*
In the end, Ryan is forty-five minutes late leaving and Joe travels in the front seat, shedding everywhere, trembling fitfully and occasionally moaning his disapproval in Ryan’s left ear.
They have the Bob Dylan CD on repeat for the entire five hour drive, and Joe is sick at roughly three-junction intervals all up the way up the M6.
Ryan negates regretting the existence of Christmas. He regrets the existence of dogs instead.
*-*-*-*-*
Annie’s house, it turns out, is something from a postcard. It’s also, in Ryan’s inexpert opinion, several sights too small for five people and two dogs, especially given the factor by which all families seem to expand at Christmas time. It also doesn’t take him long to discover that the spare room Annie had offered him was not actually all that spare.
His sister has clearly done her best to neutralise the space, but clearing out a chest of drawers for him and removing any and all soft toys and glittery ornaments can only go so far, especially when the wallpaper is pink and flowery and there’s an enormous One Direction poster on the back of the door.
Ryan stashes his clothes in the top two drawers, tries not to look at the boy band and wonders guiltily which of the girls has been forced to give up her bedroom.
*-*-*-*-*
The remainder of Christmas Eve passes in a blur of preparation. Annie dashes round madly, only pausing in her whirlwind of cooking/cleaning/wrapping/parenting to force Ryan back into his armchair whenever he tries to offer help. Annie’s husband, Rick, whom Ryan can only remember meeting once before and is either an accountant or a landscape gardener - Ryan did know once upon a time - harriedly assures Ryan that everything is completely under control, whilst clutching a six-pack of mince pies and trying to wrestle a Christmas stocking away from Trixie.
The two girls - Katie and Ellie - are buzzing with excitement. Katie, at thirteen, is clearly trying to contain herself, but even Ryan can see through her, so she’s clearly failing dismally. Ellie, at seven, wastes no energy on such attempts and is bouncing off the walls. Trixie, who seems to have ever fewer manners that she did previously, has absolutely no qualms about joining her and Ryan foresees a grim future for the nice china lamp in the corner.
It’s pandemonium.
He and Joe sit in the corner and observe. Ryan suspects they both look vaguely horrified.
*-*-*-*-*
By the time dinner has been consumed, the kitchen cleaned and Ellie dispatched to bed, the itch to escape is building under Ryan’s skin. They’re sat in the lounge; Katie in the corner with her laptop and Annie and Rick curled up together on the sofa, chatting about Barbara next door and Greg from work. A fire is blazing in the grate, the snapping and cracking heat insistent and intrusive and Ryan feels wildly out of place.
It feels a little like the dreams he used to have as a kid, where the only hiding places are woefully inadequate and you know it’s only a matter of time before whatever is hunting you turns and looks straight into your eyes. At the moment, the thing Ryan is running from is the scrutiny of his sister and when Annie leans forward, places her empty mug on the coffee table and turns deliberately in his direction, he knows his time is up.
“So, Tom,” Annie begins, resting her elbows on her knees, “tell us all of your news. We haven’t had a proper catch up in ages.”
The corner of Rick’s mouth twitches and Joe, sprawled on the rug at Ryan’s feet, minutely adjusts the position of his head so that hot, damp breath is gusting over Ryan’s toes. He likes to think both of these are gestures of sympathy.
“Not much to tell,” he prevaricates, attempting to walk the knife edge between sounding boring and sounding bored. “Just work stuff, mostly. I…” it’s here he hesitates, because the line he usually uses on Annie has suddenly become a lie. “I work a lot.”
At some point, he will have to tell Annie that he has retired. He knows that. Lyle and his doubting eyebrows can fuck the fuck off.
It’s odd, really. When he handed in his resignation, he felt sure that he was doing the right thing. Ryan has always been a great believer in the natural order of things. Everything has an ending and persevering past that is invariably a terrible idea. Take the anomalies, for example. Or Lost. When he’d resigned, he’d done so under the instinctive knowledge that it was his time to leave. He was still young enough to be at the top of his game and that was always how he had wanted to end things.
So it’s hard to explain why now, he can’t seem to bring himself to tell anybody that.
“And what sort of work are you doing nowadays?” Annie asks, brightly.
“It’s classified.” No matter how many times that sentence rolls off his tongue, it never fails to make Ryan feel like a complete knob.
“Oh,” Annie falters slightly. “And what about outside work?”
That question is potentially the crux of his current issues, but Ryan feels like now is not the time to go there. He drains his mulled wine instead and shrugs. “Nothing much to report. Still running, training. Go to the shooting range with Lyle sometimes. Pub.”
Annie’s face falls minutely. Ryan has to give her credit for managing to tone down all her disappointed tells. “And is there anyone special at the moment?”
People have been asking Ryan this question his whole adult life and he still fails to react to it any other way than raising his hackles like an angry cat. To be honest, he wonders if anybody, over the entire course of history, has ever had another reaction.
“No,” he says, shortly. “Not really.”
There’s a pause and then Rick chuckles awkwardly. “Come on, Annie,” he says, “let the poor man breathe. He came up for a bit of turkey and an ill-advised amount of mulled wine, not an interrogation.” He sits forward. “In fact, Tom, can I get you a top up?”
Ryan shakes his head, offering a brief smile that he hopes conveys sufficient gratitude at the topic change. “Actually,” he says, levering himself to his feet, “if you’d excuse me, I think I’d better take Joe out for a last walk. He’ll need to stretch his legs out after the drive.”
As one, they turn and look at the lurcher, sprawled on his back with his legs in a frog-like splay and snoring softly.
“Are you sure?” Annie asks, doubtfully.
“Absolutely.” It’s said with a conviction Ryan doesn’t really feel, but he’s faked confidence in far stupider plans over the course of his career. He goes off to fetch Joe’s lead from where Annie has hung it in the utility room next to Trixie’s. When he returns to the living room, Katie is busily awakening his dog.
After a few moments of determined shaking, Joe manages to haul himself into a sitting position. He looks blearily around the room, clocks the lead in Ryan’s hand immediately and then looks at the darkened windows of the cottage against which the wind is gently howling.
He looks appalled.
(However, Ryan is not an expert in canine facial expressions. It’s possible that if you squint, he merely looks incredulous).
*-*-*-*-*
Annie’s cottage lies nestled part way up the slopes of a hill at one edge of a tiny village called Elterwater. The village is surrounded by hills on three sides, and consists of a post office, a set of holiday cottages and a pub.
The pub is called The Drunken Duck, which is an excellent name by anyone’s account. It faces away from the hills, looking out over a broad flat valley through which a river meanders. Or at least, this is what Ryan has been told by the cheerfully rotund barman.
They’d lasted approximately five minutes walking before Ryan had given in and headed for the pub, a combination of the teeth-gritting cold and the cloud of sullen resentment masquerading as his dog driving him towards the beer-infused warmth.
The pub is as packed as he suspects any establishment of this type ever gets - which is to say, there are only one or two spare tables. He and Joe have retired to a booth in the far corner, with a good view of all exits and a packet of pork scratchings apiece. It’s not very upstanding, trying to buy his dog’s forgiveness but in fairness, from the way he’s drooling, Joe seems more than happy to be bought.
Ryan is halfway through his pint, scratching Joe’s ears and absentmindedly contemplating whether his conscience would let him fake a work emergency to get out of tomorrow, when the door of the pub opens.
The man that walks in is less of a stranger than expected.
*-*-*-*-*
It’s been a considerable number of years since Ryan last saw Stephen Hart. Long enough that there are strands of silver threading the other man’s dark hair and lines around the eyes and mouth that only used to be there in laughter. He’s just as tall as Ryan remembers, although his movements are decidedly stiffer and his shoulders a little less broad.
He looks good and if Ryan wasn’t so shocked, he’d probably be more appreciative. He’s never been a man that enjoys coincidence.
At any other time, in any other place, he wouldn’t have hesitated to approach Stephen at the bar and offer him a seat and a drink. Now though, perhaps due to the fact that he currently feels so out of time and place himself, he hesitates. The fifteen feet between his chair and the bar suddenly seems to yawn into a gaping maw filled with the years since their last encounter.
It’s quite likely that Stephen won’t recognise him. And given how things ended on the anomaly project, it’s equally likely that he won’t want to talk to Ryan even if he does.
Ryan ducks his head down and settles back.
*-*-*-*-*
He survives unrecognised for five peaceful minutes. Then there’s a brief conversational lull in the pub, the patrons collectively taking a moment to gather their thoughts. Joe, happily full of pork scratchings, chooses this comfortable silence into which to fart. Loudly.
All eyes turn to them immediately. Ryan should perhaps be taking this as a life lesson in not feeding his dog junk food. Sadly, he hasn’t been mortified by a fart since he joined the military, and so instead has to firmly squash a snigger. A little old lady, sat with her equally little old husband sniffs loudly and turns away. Far from looking abashed, Joe straightens himself out and looks up at Ryan as if expecting praise.
“Idiot,” Ryan mutters, and then to the bar at large, “sorry”. The barman grins at him.
A moment later, a pair of denim-clad legs step into his eye-line and a familiar voice says, “Captain Ryan?”
Ryan looks up. “Hello, Stephen.”
*-*-*-*-*
Stephen, as it turns out, definitely remembers him. He’s changed in the years since Ryan last saw him. It’s subtle but there’s something about the way he holds himself now - a confidence in his own skin - that was very much missing when he was a younger man. Not that Ryan can blame him, given the clusterfuck with the Cutters.
They talk, and after confirming the bizarre coincidence of why they’re both in Elterwater - Stephen has an old aunt in the area - it’s surprisingly easy. Stephen asks about the anomalies and about the team; from what Ryan can gather, he’s kept in touch with Connor and Cutter, but scarcely.
“We talk from time to time,” he says, rather blankly, when Ryan asks about the Professor. It seems a small fraction given the relationship the two once had, but Ryan is frankly impressed they’ve managed to salvage any kind of civility at all.
He also asks after Lyle and Ryan tells him he lives with Lester now and relishes the expression on Stephen’s face.
“Lester?” he says, “James Lester? How on earth does that work?”
“I mostly try not to picture it,” Ryan says. Stephen snorts beer out of his nose.
They finish their drinks and when Stephen offers another, Ryan finds himself saying yes. The evening has taken a turn for the surreal but he always got on well with Stephen. It’s good to see him again.
When Stephen returns from the bar, Ryan turns the conversation around to him, trying to do so without letting on that he’s followed Stephen’s career in the news ever since he left the ARC. It wasn’t a deliberate thing - more that he always scanned the sports pages and more often than not, if Stephen’s name came up, he noticed it. They had been colleagues for several years, it really wasn’t that unusual.
“It took me a while to get back on my feet,” Stephen says, and this is such a gross understatement that Ryan’s eyes can’t help but drop to where he’s rubbing his wrist. Silvery-white lines of scars emerge from his jumper and criss-cross over the backs of his hands; only a few of the hundreds that patchwork the rest of his skin, Ryan is sure. The thought never fails to make him feel nauseous with guilt, even though he’s well aware that there’s nothing anyone could have done that would have caused that day to end any differently.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” he says, hoping it comes across as sincerely as he means it.
Stephen smiles a little. “Me too,” he replies. “But in a way, it was for the best. It gave me the out I needed. I think we all knew by that point that it was better for me to go. Cutter and I weren’t going to be able to work together again, and the team needed him.” Stephen takes a sip of his drink. “And if I’m honest, I was about done. I don’t know what would have happened if I’d stayed on, but I’m glad I walked away when I did.”
It’s uncomfortably honest.
Ryan smiles, trying to break the tension a little. “You haven’t exactly done badly for yourself since.”
“I’ve done okay,” Stephen says, with a little grin. “It’s been good for me.”
Ryan suspects that two Olympic gold medals should be classified as more than ‘okay’. Stephen always was a better shot that half of his men.
“How did you manage to get Christmas off, anyway?” Stephen asks. “I don’t remember managing a single public holiday that was anomaly-free.”
Ryan opens his mouth to reply and then closes it again. Perhaps it’s the warm atmosphere of the pub, or the surreal nature of seeing Stephen again after all these years, but he’s feeling honest all of a sudden.
“No,” he says. “I’ve…uh…I’ve actually retired.”
Stephen doesn’t react much beyond a blink, which is exactly what Ryan didn’t know he needed. “Congratulations,” he says. “Well earned I’d say. What are you going to do now?”
The anchorless feeling that Ryan’s been struggling with ever since he left nags at the back of his mind, but here and now, it doesn’t seem as worrying as before. “God knows,” he says. “I genuinely have no idea.” It feels good to say it out loud.
Stephen laughs, both new and familiar at the same time. “I suppose the world is your oyster now. You could do anything; take up a crazy hobby, join a cult, travel the world.”
Ryan grins back. “I don’t know about that. I did always want to see South America though.” Joe whines under the table, a gentle reminder. “And I got a dog.”
Stephen bends over to peer at Joe. “So I see.” He doesn’t make any comment about Joe’s appearance, at which Ryan feels a slight twist of warmth. “What’s his name?”
“Tokyo Joe,” Ryan says, without thinking, and then immediately feels himself go a bit red.
Stephen smiles and if he gets the reference he doesn’t say anything about it, for which Ryan is grateful. “Tokyo Joe. Trouble with a capital T, huh?”
Ryan smiles and Joe gives an odd wheeze, which could be interpreted as agreement. “Something like that.”
“What’s he like?” Stephen asks.
“I haven’t had him long,” Ryan says. “Mostly, he sheds.”
Stephen snorts beer out of his nose for a second time.
*-*-*-*-*
They end up staying in the pub until closing. Ryan’s not really sure where the time went but when they’re standing outside, Joe shivering slightly at their feet, he finds he doesn’t want to wave Stephen out of his life again.
The evening has felt like more than a catch-up between old acquaintances.
Next to him, Stephen shuffles his feet, a brief flash of the old awkwardness Ryan remembers and then says, “Let me give you my number? I’m around for the next couple of days before I go back to London, if you ever fancied another drink.”
Ryan nods. “Yeah,” he says, “definitely.” Joe snorts quietly.
They exchanges numbers, fingers clumsy and numb with cold and then Stephen points the other way up the high street. “I’m this way,” he says. “It was good seeing you again, Ryan.”
Ryan nods. “You too.”
Stephen’s parting grin is bright and as Ryan turns to walk back to the cottage, he finds it hard to force his own smile off his face.
Somewhere in the distance, church bells ring for midnight. It’s Christmas morning.