Coming Home

Dear Liam,                                                                                                          Early June 1974
I know it is in a way silly because we are just apart for a weekend but I felt like writing to you but I missed you a lot last night. I’m sure you are having an amazing time with James and Alfie. The bed was rather big all alone in it. Ricky made a wonderful program. We have massages, and so many other spar treatments.
I love you, so much. Every day when I wake up I think of you, and I know you think it is a little silly that I tell you so often but I feel I cannot tell you enough. Every time I look at you, I see this young man so clumsy in a way of talking with a shy girl. Sometimes I wish I would be better in writing poems but I never have been, no poem that I ever can write will be the suitable words to express my love for you.
Oh Liam you are my life and I do not mean this in an unhealthy way. You know I can be a weekend away from you, I love how different we are but at the same time I love how much we think alike. I think we are doing a fine job in being fulltime headmasters, teacher, parents and lovers. I am sorry if you feel like I’m too demanding in bed. If you feel like it is too much I will cut back and I don’t know give me the pleasure while I am in the bath or something. I know I said I am sexually attracted to Alfie but you do satisfy me. I think you are perfectly well equipped. Your package is perfect, I do feel like you are the key to my lock. I understand that I am a little bit demanding and I am sorry for that. It is crazy a few years ago I was so scared of the thought to lie with a man and now with you I feel so comfortable.
Liam when I am old, like really old and my boobs are flat and hanging and so are my bottom cheeks will you still love me? I understand that we will not have the same sexual drive than but will you still want to see me, like to see me, love me? I know you say you love me forever but I am so scared that one day you look at me and you see that I got old, too old for you to be attracted to me. Will you love me when I am old? Oh dear Lord please say yes or convincingly lie.
Last night when I was the second night alone in the big bed and my skin was so soft and smelled of vanilla I thought of you. My fingers ran tenderly circles around my nipples and I massaged the special spot far below my bellybutton I like so much when your tongue runs circles round it. And then I slipped my finger into my wet slit…


“Good morning Jo, you are up early.” Ricky chirped, Jo was sitting in the breakfast room proofreading the letter she had written last night after she missed Liam so much and took matters in her own hand. “What are you writing?”

“Nothing!” Jo’s face was changing from sheet pale to tomato red. “I mean… um… I wrote a letter to Liam. I know I see him this afternoon again but… um I like writing him letters it started a while ago when he had to go away for a few months because of his work and it sort of never stopped. I don’t give him all the letters sometimes it is just for me to put my thoughts into words but sometimes I like to slip a letter into his school back. They are just very personal.”

“Oh Jo, I am so sorry I did not mean to invade your space. Please you continue and I will find a different seat to have breakfa-“

“Don’t be silly. Sit down. I’m sorry I was deep in thoughts and didn’t mean to be rude. I just put the letter away.” Jo folded the letter neatly and placed it in her notebook.

“Did you sleep well last night?” Ricky asked while he was reading the breakfast menu.

“No not really.” Jo looked a little sad. “I never do when Liam is not there. I got so used to sleep with him in the bed that when he is not there I sleep rather restless.”

“I know what you mean I don’t even want to think about how I manage to sleep alone.” Since they were in public and homosexuality was still something rather looked down on Ricky preferred to avoid mentioning that he was gay and living with another man together.

“What do you think they have been doing?” Jo wondered as she ordered her breakfast.

“I’m not sure. I think I don’t want to know.” Ricky mumbled and ordered his breakfast. Both Ricky and Jo ordered a mix of healthy and unhealthy breakfast. Jo giggled. “You are right. I think it is better when we don’t know…”


I have sometimes moments when I think that I truly am a dirty whore. But then I see how aroused you are, how hard you get when I beg you to sleep with me at some semi-public place and I know you love me the dirty whore. I mean you must love me, you changed your entire live for me. You got a university degree to be able to teach at the school well you gave me the idea for. I wish there would be words to voice my love for you but there are not. But I love you with all my heart and soul and I love the life we have together. It is a good life I think, a life I never dared to dream of. I will always love you until the day I die and then I will just wait for you in heaven or hell, just make sure you don’t let me wait too long. I don’t like being without you. I sleep better with you next to me, I feel safer, I feel whole. I love you my love, my husband, my best friend.

Yours always Yvaine


Jo loves writing letters and she would always write letters to her husband, her children and her father. She felt like she could express herself more clearly and she felt like when she wrote her feelings down they would stay longer with the person.

A cheeky grin crossed Liam’s face when he read the letter Jo had written him while she was in the spa.
“That must have been some spa…” He looked up at his blushing wife. “How poetic you’ve become.”

“I just…I felt like writing you, don’t mock me.”

“I’m just mocking you a little because we can’t even be two days apart without you writing me love letters, or rather, inappropriate letters.” He pulled her close and kissed her, which made her giggle like a little school girl.

“You really need to shave, you’re getting scratchy.”

“I know. Haven’t had time for that yet.” Liam had just gotten back about an hour ago, and while Jo looked beautiful and rested, he looked like he hadn’t slept for days. They just tugged in Jill and Jane after Graham brought them back to their parents, and now they enjoyed some quiet time alone in the living room, snuggled on the couch.

“So, did you have a good time?”, Jo asked almost a little shyly because she worried that he would tell her things she didn’t want to know. She knew Liam was faithful to her but on the other hand he had been in Alfie’s company, and every time Liam spent too much time with Alfie, Jo couldn’t help but worry. Alfie was very persuasive and she was concerned that on a night out, he would convince Liam to see a hooker or things like that.

“I did…”, Liam said slowly.

“But?” Jo didn’t want to sound concerned but she couldn’t hide it.

“I can’t remember much of it. James told me what happened, he seemed to have the best memory of that night, and I can assure you that I didn’t do anything I wasn’t supposed to.” Except wearing a dress by drag Julie Andrews and sitting on Alfie’s lap without any boxers on…, he added in his thoughts. “Well, yes, I got horribly wasted but I didn’t hit on other girls. Well, on a few drag queens, perhaps…”

Jo looked surprised at first but then she laughed. “You what?”

“Like I said, I pretty much don’t remember anything but we somehow became friends with drag queens that evening.”

“Do I need to be concerned?”, she asked with an amused smile.

“Nah, I don’t think so.” He kissed her once more. “And I think after I showered and shaved, I’m really in the mood to make love to my wife. That letter made me horny.”

Jo giggled. “I’m glad you liked it.”

“And about your concern that you take too much charge; seriously, don’t be concerned about that at all, I love it when you’re bossy.”

“But…but-“

“Jo, I think I have told you that a million times by now. I like you confident.”

She blushed. “Okay.”

He kissed her forehead. “You’re lovely.”

A happy smile appeared on her face, knowing exactly what he meant when he said that.


On the other side of Oxford

The flat was clean again since Alfie had hired a maid to clean up before Ricky would arrive and it looked barely any different than two days ago, with the exception of a few glasses and a vase that were broken, but he didn’t like the vase anyway. Ricky only used it to put flowers in it but Alfie didn’t want that stupid flower shit in his flat, so he didn’t mind that the vase actually broke. James had taken Mr Balls with him- the two actually rode the lift together- and returned the goat to its rightful owner, not saying that he and his drunken buddies actually stole it but claiming that they had found the goat near the street- so it was just a little white lie, and the owner was glad his goat returned safely.

“Did you miss me?”, Ricky asked after he put his stuff away and came back down into the living room, where Alfie already had another glass of whiskey, which was probably his tenth or eleventh today, Ricky assumed.

“Didn’t have time for that”, Alfie replied while closing the whiskey bottle. “I was pretty occupied.”

Ricky just nodded quietly, imagining how Jo and Liam were probably all snuggled up together and telling each other about their weekends.
“Sure you were”, Ricky mumbled while walking into the kitchen. Alfie followed him.

“Finally saw Liam’s cock.”

Ricky went pale. “What?”

Alfie shrugged his shoulders. “Not what you think. He was just very drunk and asked me for my professional opinion because he doesn’t think it’s good enough for his wifey. Well, I can say one thing; it is definitely good enough.”

Ricky didn’t reply anything, he just put water in the cattle to prepare some tea. He still waited for Alfie to hug him and tell him he missed him, but he realised that this wouldn’t happen anytime soon.
He had just turned his back on him when he felt Alfie’s strong arms around him and a smile crossed Ricky’s face, thinking that he would finally say it.

“Can we just fuck? I don’t want any dinner.”

Alfie didn’t see how the smile on Ricky’s face vanished immediately and how disappointed, almost sad, his penguin looked.
Ricky didn’t respond but Alfie didn’t get the hint. He let go off him, took another sip of his whiskey and walked towards the door.
“Oh, and before we do it, you should take a shower. I don’t know in what kind of weird lavender flower crap you bathed in, but it smells worse than a perfume shop for old ladies. I don’t want to feel like I’m fucking someone’s Grandma.” He went upstairs, already undressing himself on the way up, while Ricky remained in the kitchen, staring at the floor.

“I missed you too”, the younger boy whispered, knowing that nobody heard him.

“John I will not go!” Lorelai crossed her arms in front of her chest and looked gloomy at her husband.

“He is your son and it is your son’s graduation, he is voted to give the graduation speech. Do you really want to miss this moment in his life?” John said in his usual slightly cocky but calm way.

“Yes that is exactly what I will do. I will not see him… see him…”

“Grow up?”

“Yes, that! He is living with us since just two years. He is not ready to… to go outside into the world.” Lorelai sounded unusual shaky.

“Lory-“

“No don’t Lory me I am not going. Take the boys and go but I will stay here!” Lorelai marched out of the bedroom and slammed the door. She didn’t see the teenager standing in the corner.

“Dad?” Dan looked at John and in that moment he looked a lot more like the young broken teenager that had moved in the summer two years ago.

“Dan. It will be fine. Don’t worry. I will take you, and the little lads to Waterfall Downs. Josey said that Betty is happy to look after them, and I know Graham will be there too so Edward will be happy and well you know what mischief Jill and Henry come up with. You will have time to prepare and enjoy your graduation day. Here I got you this.” John handed Dan a very simple photo camera. “Don’t worry about the costs, takes as many pictures as you need so that you never forget this day and let me worry about Lory.” John has always been a little bit more reserved with Dan, but he had grown to love their oldest son. He pulled the teenager in a manly hug.

“Mutti would not really miss my graduation would she?” Dan whispered.

“No she will not. She is just scared that once you leave for university that you might get hurt. We have not forgotten what happened to you when you came to us. We all worry that something like that could happen again.” John said gentle.

“But I am not that weak little boy anymore.”

“No you are a cocky bastard.” John laughed and so did Dan.

“Dad are we there yet?”

“Henry we just got in the car and it is a mile drive it will not even be ten minutes. Do you have no patients at all?” John chuckled as he started the car. As he expected without Lorelai on the passenger seat, Dan was sitting there instead.

“I’m not a doctor I don’t have patients to heal.” Henry said sounding hurt.
For a moment, the entire car was dead silent and then John, Dan and Edward started laughing. “What?! Doctors have patients.” Henry looked around nearly a little bit hurt.

It took all of John’s strength to stop laughing. “Yes you are right doctors do. Patient also means that you can wait for something.”

“That is stupid.” Henry exclaimed.

“It is confusing, I’ll give you that Henry.” Dan said still laughing. He looked at his little brothers in the backseat and it suddenly hit him. He would miss moments like this. Maybe he should have worked harder to get into Oxford University so that he would have been closer to home.

“Dad, are we there yet?” Henry whined. “I’m hungry.”

John laughed. “I guess my youngest son has no patients whatsoever.”

“No, I don’t I’m not a doctor and I don’t want to be a doctor?”

“Henry what do you want to be when you are grownup?” Dan ask, suddenly trying to cram as much moments with his little brothers into this last summer.

“Do I have to grow up?” Henry asked very serious.

“Yeah unfortunately.” Dan chuckled.

“I see. I want to be a pirate and have a dog instead of a parrot, I don’t like the feathers.” Henry was so serious, both John and Dan had a hard time not it start laughing.

“Understandable.” Dan nodded. “So you need an eye-patch?”

“No my eyes are okay, but I need a ship.” Henry looked at his dad.

“Don’t ask me.” John laughed. “There we go we are here. Look at all these people, who would have thought that little Josey could build something so incredible like this school?” John looked around on the overfull parking area, as every year the graduation was the last event of the week of the Summer Festival -to which this year not just parents, family and sponsors came, half of Oxford was there-.

“It was about time.” Henry sighed deeply, unbuckled his seatbelt and jump out of the still rolling car.

“Henry James Von Gruensee!” John bellowed but Henry was already running between the cars to find his Jill.

“Daddy, may I get up?”

“Yes thank you Edward for waiting until I parked the car completely. Will you go and try to find Graham?”

“Yes, I thought I would I wrote this new opera and wanted to see what he thinks.” Edward explained as he picked up his papers to go and find his mentor.
Dan looked at John and John looked at Dan. “An opera?”

“Well a little song would have been too… ordinary for the six year old Edward.” Dan mumbled.

“I guess. So you will be with your class? I’ll see you later for the ceremony?”

“Dad what about Mutti.” Dan sounded worried.

“Your mother, will tame a few wild horses and be there on time for your graduation. For nothing in the world would she miss your graduation.”

“Are you sure, she sounded so…”

“She will be here.” John grinned. “She will not miss your speech.”


Meanwhile somewhere else in Waterfall Downs Academy

“Jo, Princess. This is incredible. I start to believe you even manage the weather.” Colin hugged his daughter tightly.

“I’m sure Liam can do that someone.” Jo grinned back. “Scotty it is so wonderful to see you again, I’m sure Jill be delighted.”

Scotty laughed and hugged Jo as well. “Where is my little girlfriend? Did she tell you that she wants to marry be before she marries Alfie. She decided we can both play for the British lacrosse team.”

“That sounds like my daughter, but I have t tell you she also wanted to marry Matt because he is our animal caretaker, and I believe Teddy our dog, oh and of course daddy because he is the most awesomest daddy at all.”

Scotty laughed. “Yeah I worried I might not be the only one but I’m sure we can all share Jill. Jo do you know Marge Adams?”

“I do know her. How are you Miss Adams?” Jo shook Marge’s hand. “We met before while I was still young and just recently one of Marge’s girls will be enrolling in Waterfall Downs this autumn.”

Scotty and Colin turned to their friend. “You didn’t say a word Margey.” Colin looked nearly hurt at the old lady.

“Well what can I say, I’m just the matron of the house and I think it would have been Susie’s story to tell. That’s why I invited you to tea, to meet m girls.” Marge looked a little shy and for a moment both Colin and Scotty saw the barely seven years old girl the first summer she had spend at Waterfall Downs.

“Who is paying her tuitions?” Scotty asked.

“Susie has a full scholarship for her entire education here at Waterfall Downs Academy for Gifted Youngsters.” Jo smiled at Marge. “And I am aware of the circumstances of little Susie. In our teachers meeting at the end of August, I will discuss it with everyone. Don’t worry she will be perfectly safe. I know what she went through, and I understand her.” For a brief second a dark shadow fell on Missis Jo’s face.
Colin put his hand on her back, she looked up to her father and nodded. She smiled and Scotty and looked at Marge, Jo had told her briefly about a life event she would like never to have happened but at the same time it made her the strong young woman she is today.

“That is wonderful. Jo I would like to arrange another donation to support the transportation of Susie and Marge please tell me when there are any other needs Susie has, I will make personally sure that the foundation can offer resources for her.” Scotty took out a little notebook to make sure he would not forget and he also wrote a check over four hundred pounds. “Please Marge take this and make sure Susie has everything she needs to start school at Waterfall Downs.”

“Scotty, that is too much.” Marge exclaimed surprised and tried to give Scotty the cheque back.

“No Marge Susie deserves to looks just like any other pupil at Waterfall Downs.” Scotty smiled encouraging at Marge. The old lady nodded and took the cheque to put it quickly in her purse.

“Oh!” Marge looked surprised when suddenly Ricky showed up behind them but he was not alone.

“Your Grace.” Marge addressed Alfie with his proper and rightful title or at least the title he will carry once his father has passed away. “Earl Jackson, it is an honour to meet you.”

Ricky felt a little out of place as he always did when someone reminded him that Alfie was an Earl or at least the heir of an Earl. “Miss Adams, this is Ricky a very good friend of mine, and as you recognised right. Lord Alfred Jackson, his father does not agree to let him have the honour of being called an Earl yet. Ricky, Alfie this is Miss Marge Adams the matron of the Little Princess Girls Home. And you know of course Scotty and my father.” Jo smiled and Alfie and hugged Ricky tightly.

“Your Grace, I always wanted to contact you but I did not know how and if it would be right to do so. I would be honoured to invite you to the Little Princess Girls Home again. I am sure you would like to see what your grandfather has built now that you are a grown man and understand why the girls and woman are there. When you were a little boy you could not understand.” Marge smiled shyly at Alfie. Jo looked curious at him too. She didn’t know that Alfie had been with his grandfather to the girls home when he was a little boy.

Alfie hated this. First of all, this conversation headed towards the topic of his grandfather again, which was without a doubt the most sensitive subject for him, and secondly, everyone was staring at him, expecting to share his so ‘wonderful, fond’ memories with others. Like hell he would.
And it also annoyed him that Ricky got all curious now, Alfie didn’t want Ricky to know about this part of his life. It was the past, and it should stay that way. Alfie didn’t want to share any kind of sentimental feelings about his past, that was just stupid. And he didn’t constantly wanted to be reminded by strangers how wonderful is grandfather was. Couldn’t they just shut the hell up?
Everyone was waiting for his response and he knew he couldn’t get around it, he had to say something.
“Can’t remember”, he said coldly, looking very disinterested.

“I’m sorry?”, Marge asked shyly. This young man was very different to his grandfather. Arthur had always been so gentle, and kind and considerate but young Alfred Jackson seemed more on the harsher side, something Arthur never was. Nevertheless, Marge still smiled warmly at him, not letting herself be thrown off by Alfie’s harsh exterior.

“I can’t remember that I have ever been to your…institution or whatever it is you’re running”, Alfie said with a clearly annoyed undertone in his voice.
Ricky knew he was lying because there was nobody in this world who had a sharper memory that Alfie, so there was no freaking way that Alfie had forgotten about this little outing with his grandfather, and Ricky knew that.

“Oh, that is a pity.” Marge kept her sweet composure. “I remember it very well. You were in your first year of primary school and you wore your school uniform because Arthur had picked you up right after school. You looked absolutely adorable and you were just such a curious, little boy, you asked me so many questions, I could barely answer them all.”

Alfie looked like he wanted to hit her right in the face. Who did this woman think she was, talking about him and his grandfather in front of everyone? This wasn’t anyone’s business, so they should stop staring at him!
Alfie didn’t reply, so Marge continued, still polite as ever.

“It is quite surreal, seeing you after all those years again. You were a little school boy the last time I saw you, and now you are…well, fully grown.”

“Yeah. Imagine that.” The sarcasm in his voice was undeniable and Ricky shot Alfie a warning glance but Alfie ignored him, just as he ignored Scotty who looked like he had plenty of things to say to him but contained himself out of respect for the others. But boy, feisty-pants Scotty sure has hell had something to say to that rich, pampered brat! If they wouldn’t be surrounded by Marge, Ricky and Jo, he would have definitely expressed his opinion by now.

“Well…” It was astounding that Marge still smiled at him even though he was being incredibly rude and the total opposite of what she knew of Arthur, the most polite and generous individual she had ever come across. “Would you do us the honour and visit us sometime? I am sure you would like to see what your grandfather built and how it turned out, it is really remarkable.”

Oh, how much Alfie hated this… How they were all looking at him, expecting him to be all smiley and happy that someone rubbed his grandfather’s memory in his face. Why didn’t they understand that he didn’t want to talk about it? Ever. He hated this so much because he already felt something in his gut again, something squeezing his heart and he always tried to suppress this feeling but if people continued talking about his grandfather, it was increasingly difficult to suppress or ignore this feeling.

“Why?”, was all that came out of him.

Marge looked a bit irritated. “I beg your pardon?”

“Why should I have a look at this…thing? It’s not like I built it. So why should I care that-“

“Alfie”, Ricky interrupted him before he could continue insulting the nice lady, but his boyfriend was not finished yet. He simply ignored Ricky, like he often did, and brushed over him, just having his eyes on Marge.

“No, honestly, I want to know why people keep pressuring me into visiting places that someone else in my family had established at some point many years ago and-“

“Someone else in your family?” Now Scotty couldn’t hold back any longer. “Don’t be so disrespectful. Dishonouring your grandfather’s memory like that…”

Alfie didn’t even look in his direction. “Who are you? My father?”

“Thank God I’m not!”

“I’m sorry…”, Marge interrupted shyly. “I didn’t mean to upset anyone, I just thought you would like to meet the girls, Lord Jackson, and see how they progressed. I really didn’t mean anything by it, I –“

“And what makes you think I want to meet a bunch of overdramatic women? They probably had it coming anyway.”

This time Marge’s smile vanished and she looked shocked at the young man. She wasn’t the only one. Everyone around him stared at him in absolute shock and outrage.
Ricky had a hard time holding back tears because he was so incredibly disappointed in Alfie’s behaviour. At home, Alfie could be so nice sometimes, but as soon as he left their safety nest he turned into the biggest jerk on the planet. Especially when the conversation turned to that very touchy subject of his grandfather, then Alfie became the rudest person he could possibly be.

“You owe Miss Adams an apology, you arrogant prick.”

Now everyone turned their heads to Scotty. Jo and Ricky were very surprised that an older ‘gentleman’ was talking like that, but they have never met young Scotty so they had no idea how feisty he was. His good friend Colin, on the other hand, knew Scotty just too well, that’s why he put his hand on Scotty’s shoulder, trying to calm him down but Scotty didn’t pay attention to him.
Alfie’s face was completely blank, nobody could tell what he was thinking- something that agitated Scotty even more.
Alfie turned slightly to Jo now, who had been speechless the entire time. She, better than anyone else, knew how incredibly insensitive he could be but not eve she had seen Alfie this rude.

“Are you serving alcohol here or is this more of a children’s’ birthday party?”, he asked her coldly.

She opened her mouth but she didn’t even know what to say, she was still in shock.

“We’re still waiting for an apology”, Scotty said, not even blinking. He was not joking, and Jo and Ricky realised how much they had underestimated the older man.

Alfie finally looked at him, and in this moment it was killing Scotty to see Arthur’s eyes in the face of this boy who was so incredibly cold-hearted.
“Then keep waiting”, was all Alfie said, completely dry.

Scotty bit his lip. If he would have been a young man, he would have started a fight with this jerk right here and now, but he knew he couldn’t do that. Besides, this was a school after all, they were still surrounded by students and parents.
Alfie turned his back towards the others, about to walk away from them but Scotty had one last thing to say to him and it would hit Alfie right where it hurt; his heart.
“I never thought I would say this but I’m actually glad Arthur isn’t here anymore, so he doesn’t have to see how you have turned out to be a second Broderick Jackson. It would break his heart if he would see what you’ve become.”

Alfie didn’t turn around. He closed his eyes for a moment, then he walked away, disappearing so quickly in the crowd that nobody saw where he was going. Scotty had hit his most sensitive spot, and if the others would have seen Alfie’s face that very moment when Scotty said those words, they would have seen a glimpse of the hurt little boy he used to be so long ago, the one who disappeared on the day of Arthur’s death, when Alfie was crawled up on the cold floor under his bed, deciding that this would be the end of his childhood. The day he would grow up and never look back. Gone was the little boy, gone was Arthur’s ‘special one’.
But when Scotty just said these things, a youthful, childlike expression had crossed Alfie’s face, only nobody could see it because he had his back turned towards them. If only they had seen it…if they had seen it, they would have known that there was still hope. That hiding behind the layers of sarcasm, and coldness, bitterness, rudeness and despair, deep down in the furthest corner of his mind, was the little boy that Alfie had locked away when he was nine years old. They could have seen him, just for a brief second… But they didn’t.

“I’m so sorry, Miss Adams.” Ricky was the first who managed to find his voice again, Scotty was still too angry to talk while Jo and Colin had troubles digesting what was happening. Especially poor Jo, who knew so little about Alfie’s and Arthur’s bond. At least Colin knew why both Scotty and Alfie acted the way they did.
“I apologise on Alfie’s behalf. I’m afraid he’s not himself when it comes to…when someone mentions his grandfather. He never talks about him and when this subject comes up, he just…he turns into the person you just witnessed, but he isn’t like that all the time. He has his moments but I assure you he isn’t the person you just witnessed.” Ricky didn’t know why he was actually defending Alfie, he really didn’t deserve it, not after the way he behaved. Probably because Ricky knew Alfie better than anyone, and because he knew what was really going on. “He can be a good man, just when it comes to his grandfather he is…is behaves indescribably rude sometimes.”

Scotty had still many sarcastic remarks in store but Marge just nodded and a gentle smile crossed her face. “I see”, she said quietly. “His behaviour is obvious. That poor boy has never even moved on…He’s still stuck in a very dark, lonely place.”

“Lorelai was tust du hier? Ich sagte das ich das Gestuet im Auge behalte so das du und John zu Daniel’s Abschlussfeier gehen kannst.“ Wilhelm Von Gruensee said sounding slightly angry.

“How did you do it? Let us all grow up? How could you not wish us still be children and…”

“… need me?” Wilhelm asked very gentle. “Do you remember Edward?”

Lorelai starred at her father disbelieving. “Papa wie koennte ich meinen Bruder jemals vergessen? Er hat alles aufgegeben fuer Gerechtigkeit.“

Wilhelm nodded. “I could give you a long speech that you cannot stop this process or I could just say: That’s why I can let you grow up, because he never could. Because he died before he became a man, and then he was a man before he was grown up. How can you not want Daniel to grow up? He will always need you but to be a parent is not about being needed it is about loving no matter what. You love Daniel when others… his biological parents could not love a child, a boy that gave his live for what he believed was right.” Wilhelm looked at his daughter.

“Oh shit! I am missing my son’s graduation!”

 
“Liam I can’t believe Lorelai is really missing Dan’s graduation.” Jo whispered. There were speeches from Jo and Liam and a picture slide show of the class during the time at Waterfall Downs Academy for gifted Youngsters and now just before the diploma were handed to the pupils Dan was walking up the stage to give the graduate speech. His steps were heavy and slow, he couldn’t believe that his Mutti really wouldn’t hear it she wasn’t here.

Lorelai wasn’t dressed for the graduation, she will still in her dirty and slightly smelling riding clothes, she had heard Jo and Liam’s speeches, she had seen the pictures and now she saw her son looking so different from the boy she met so long ago when Ricky just dropped him off at her house. He was beaten up, bloody and broken in body and spirit and now he was this strong young man he was so handsome…

“Everyone thinks school for us is so easy but no one realises that we are going to a school for gifted youngsters so all other pupils are just as smart as we are and our teachers are even smarter. But that is why we came here to be challenged every day at school. Man I went home most of the time and thought I am the most stupid boy on the world. But I finished my homework and realised well I am not saying I am the smartest boy on the world but we all have moments when we are stupid or at least think we are until we know how to do something. No one of us wants to leave but let’s face it there is this huge world out there and we all want to conquer it, see it, live it…”
It just happened at first there were those silent ones rolling down Lorelai’s cheeks but then she started heavily sobbing.

“I love Misses Jo and the Professor and I can’t wait for the day I am back for my job interview. We all want so much from our lives and with the foundation we got here at Waterfall Downs Academy and at home from our parents…” Dan took a breath, looked up and found John. “My mum, she is German so we all speak a lot of German at home -actually she does not react if we speak English to her- is the most amazing woman I have ever met…”
In the background someone was trying to muffle her sobbing but everyone heard it.

“… I came to Waterfall Downs I had no idea who I was. Of course Missis Jo and Professor Liam helped me so much to find out who I am but there is so much more to us than school. Just because we finished school and go out into the real world now does not mean we don’t learn anything anymore. Every other person can teach us something. And as much as I would love to say I learned the most important lesson here I think I have to say this lesson was not in any of my classes. It was a live lesson. Love yourself and love others just the way they are. A little while back for one of my essays in Missis Jo’s English class I tried to find what a dad really is I found this quote, I don’t know who said it no one could help me with that but that doesn’t matter, the meaning is still the same. ‘Anyone can be a father, but it takes a real man to be a daddy.’ A good dad makes all the difference in a child's life. He's a pillar of strength, support and discipline. His work is endless and, often times, thankless. However, in the end, it shows in the sound, well-adjusted children he raises. At first, my Dad John didn’t know how to be around me. He said he doesn’t know how to be gay but he knows what a good man should be like, so he would teach me to be a good man and together we would find out how I can be a good gay man. Moreover, I think you did a fine job, Dad. I know what it means to be a good man, to honour the people that love me, not to hurt the people that hate me, and to give without asking anything in return. In a few years, a voted speaker will stand here and say we did it we spend 12 years at school worked hard and now we did it!”

The small class of fifteen cheered with glee and that is in the very back behind the rows of chairs, half-hidden Dan’s mum was leaning against a pillar glowing because she was so proud that this young man was her son. Dan grinned widely at her, she smiled back through the veil of tears, and there in the middle of all the other people were his two little brothers and his dad. Das was scared to call John dad for so long but now he can’t stop. It took several minutes for the pupils to calm down, but when Missis Jo walked up the stairs wearing a very simple pale yellow cotton dress everyone sat down and looked expecting at her.

“You worked so hard in class, but you know what you did as well? You became the environment that means safety and that is what school is about to learn to accept others. Don’t forget us, we certainly will not. Consequently upper sixth form here we go this is the last act you do being a pupil here in a few minutes you are alumni…” Liam joined Jo on the stage and together they called every pupil by name and handed out the diploma. “Daniel Von Gruensee.”

The cheers for Dan were deafening. Who would have thought that the gay boy in school would become the boy everyone wanted to be friends with? Ricky joined into Lorelai’s sobbing, while John was just the proud dad.

The graduation was a huge success. Not only did Dan move many people to tears, but also the other students who graduated with him had done an amazing job, and the parents were all very impressed that two young people like Jo and Liam could have established such a great school. Of course Liam and Jo didn’t take all the credit, they had a generally great staff and knew that they couldn’t have done it without the help of those amazing teachers and everyone else who worked at Waterfall Downs Academy for Gifted Youngsters. And after a long, beautiful day, the first graduation of Waterfall Downs came to an end, leaving Jo and Liam exhausted but completely happy by the end of the day.

A few days later

Alfie was in London for the day and Ricky had already marked all of the essays, so he thought he would pay Scotty a visit. He still worried that Scotty was kind of lonely and needed some company, and apart from that Ricky really enjoyed being with Scotty. Ricky had always been attracted to outspoken, confident personalities, he just immediately felt drawn to them. Of course Ricky didn’t have ‘those’ kind of attractions towards Scotty, who could be his grandfather…but he was still very handsome for his age, with an astonishingly boyish, cheeky face that often made him appear a lot younger. Ricky often wondered how Scotty was when he was a young man; Ricky was sure he would have had a huge crush on him. He sometimes caught himself blushing in Scotty’s presence, even though he knew that he didn’t really have a real crush on him but it was just Scotty’s personality that made Ricky blush sometimes, because Scotty would have totally been his type, if he was many years younger.
“Why would you actually bother wasting all your precious free time on visiting an old fart?”, Scotty asked with a chuckle while he handed Ricky a cup of tea. “Is it still that pity thing? That you think the poor old guy is all alone?”

“Oh, no.” Ricky shook his head determined. “Not at all. I just really like spending time with you.”

“You’re weird.” Scotty laughed and sat down on the couch across from him. “But to be fair, it’s nice having you around.”

Ricky smiled shyly. He tried really hard not to blush again.

“So….” Scotty cleared his throat. “Does that certain young Lord Jackson know where you are right now?”

“I…ehm…no. He’s just…you know how he is…he’s a bit…eh…”

“A bit of an arsehole sometimes?” Scotty just remembered how rude Alfie had behaved in front of Marge the other day, which still bugged him. Alfie was incredibly disrespectful to other people, and Scotty knew just too well that this wasn’t how Arthur raised him.

“He has his moments, yes”, Ricky mumbled, still trying to defend Alfie’s bad behaviour. “It’s unfortunate that you pretty much only witnessed his bad moments so far. I swear he can be nice and kind and caring. He got a lot better the past years, he was quite mean in the beginning when I met him but he changed. You’ve only seen the negative about him so far.”

“Well, I’ve seen the positive once, but that was ages ago”, Scotty said. “And you’re right, the impression I have of him now is that he has turned completely into a Jackson and is just as bad as his father.”

“He really does have his good moments”, Ricky said softly. “He just doesn’t show them as often.”

“That might be but I don’t like seeing how he treats you sometimes. I feel like he’s lacking hugely in respect, also towards you. You are a really good person, Ricky. I have only met a person with a similarly good heart like yours once in my life, and people like you and that other person I once knew do not deserve to be treated this badly.”

Ricky was quiet for a moment. “He’s not all bad.”

“But he’s not all good, either. You deserve to be treated good every single day, every hour of the day, and not just now and then, when he feels like it. I just wish he would generally have more respect for the people he cares about and not waltz over their feelings like they don’t matter.” Scotty leaned back in the couch, crossing his arms. “But that’s just my opinion and I know I don’t really have a right to butt in like that. It’s just a habit of mine, minding other peoples’ business. Sorry about that.”

The young man smiled. “That’s okay, it just proves that you care.” He took a sip of his tea and looked around when he suddenly noticed a framed picture among the other pictures on the table close to his. He immediately put down his tea cup and took the picture, his eyes growing wider. He looked from the picture up to Scotty, and then back to the picture again. It showed a boy about fourteen or fifteen, in a sports uniform, holding a trophy. The dark, messy hair that fell into his forehead, the dark eyes with that youthful expression, the cheeky grin, the freckles…
“Oh God…” Ricky mumbled.

“What?”

The young man looked up from the picture. “I knew you.”

“Huh?”

He pointed at the framed picture. “Is that you?”

“Oh, that old thing! Yeah, that was me in school. We just won the championship there. Back then, when lacrosse was pretty much my life.”

“I knew you”, Ricky repeated.

“Ehm…” Scotty raised an eyebrow. “Don’t know if you realised it, but I’m a tad bit older than you, and I’m pretty sure you weren’t even born when this picture was taken. Unless you want to tell me that you are, in fact, immortal, which I would actually believe since you look creepily young for your age. Are you a vampire of some sort or what?”

“No, I didn’t know you personally but…but…” Ricky couldn’t believe what he had just discovered. “You went to the same school as I did. We have this room, kind of our ‘hall of fame’, with trophies and pictures of the students who stood out by their achievements, whether academically or in the sports department, and there was this corner with…with you, actually.” He scrutinised Scotty’s face closely, feeling stupid for not having seen the similarities before. Scotty hadn’t changed a lot since his younger days; sure, he had gotten older but it was easy to see that this young boy on the picture used to be him. He even still had that set of thick hair on his head.

Scotty took a deep breath. “Do they? That’s embarrassing.”

“No, not at all. You were really famous- still are, kind of- with what you did not only for the lacrosse team but for the entire school, so that’s why they have a few pictures of you up, next to some trophies. They have two pictures of the whole lacrosse team- you in the centre, of course- and then they have this one picture of you, with your name and everything under it, and that you were the captain. I know I haven’t been to that school in years but I do remember it really well.”

“It’s actually creepy how well you remember this random lacrosse guy, who went to that school many, many years before you”, Scotty said teasingly.

Ricky’s cheeks turned red and he lowered his eyes, looking at the picture again. “I didn’t have any friends in school”, he admitted. “I was always alone and the lunch break was the worst, because many of the other boys were pretty mean to me, so I always took my lunch and hid in that one room with all the pictures of the popular students in it. My favourite corner was the one right next to your picture, and I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve sat there alone during break, looking at that picture and wondering who that boy was, and what he was doing now and what had become of him…”

The older man was unusually quiet all of a sudden. “Well…nothing great, that’s for sure.”

Ricky looked up. “That’s hardly true.”

“I failed the person that meant most to me”, he said quietly.
And I also failed his ‘special one’, he added in his thoughts.

“That doesn’t make you a bad person”, Ricky said gently. “It is quite normal to fail people, I think everyone does that regularly. You think my dad was happy about it when I told him that I’ll never marry and have children? I’ve never seen him so disappointed, so in a way I failed him, too, but I’ve come to realise that it did not make me a bad person.”

Scotty watched the young man quietly for a bit. That kindness in Ricky’s eyes, that gentle smile, this goodness of his heart…how much it reminded Scotty of someone else.
“You’re a really good man, Ricky. One of the best kind. No, the best of the best ones.”

Ricky laughed shyly. “Thank you.”

“No need to thank me. I really mean it.”

Ricky was definitely blushing now. “And you know, I sort of had a tiny crush on you…well, it’s silly, since I only saw the pictures of this boy I didn’t even know but I always thought you were cute.”

Scotty laughed. “Really?”

Ricky nodded. “I know it’s a bit silly.”

“No, it’s quite cute, actually.”

Ricky’s cheeks grew dark red. “I bet you were very popular with your classmates.”

Scotty crossed his arms behind his head. “Yeah, pretty much. My mailbox was stuffed with love letters.” Both men laughed, but Scotty quickly shook his head. “No, just kidding. I mean, yeah, I guess I was what you call ‘popular’ but my mailbox was usually stuffed with letters from teachers complaining about my disruptive behaviour. I talked too much in class, you know?”

Ricky chuckled. “Really? I would have never guessed.”

Marge was sitting in her office it had been a few days that she had been at the graduation at Waterfall Downs Academy, it was a beautiful event but it brought back many memories she did not want to remember.

"You know this is your fault you were not meant to leave yet, we weren't ready to be without you." Marge looked at the large portrait, her and Arthur Jackson and Scotty on the day the foundation became her guardian.

"Miss Adams? Scotty Chadwick is here." One of the girls said.

"Tell him I'm not in, or something like that." Marge said unusual strict and nearly cold.

"If I wouldn't know it better I thought you don't want to see me." Scotty said friendly.

Marge turned around at that freckled face and it suddenly hit her. She thought she was over it, over the death of the only man she will ever love and if he wouldn't have been married she would have begged him to marry her. She thought when Scotty left and she was all alone because Colin had to look after his daughter and his schizophrenic and suicidal wife that she had dealt with the loss of Arthur Jackson, but now Scotty was back and suddenly her chest felt so tight and she felt as if it was yesterday that Arthur Jackson for buried.

"You fucking idiot you must left me alone! You promised him to look after me and you didn't even bother to stop for a second. Oh no you must left and no one ever heard anything from you again and then you come back and think everything is back as it was before? How dare you to come into my office? You nearly meant as much to me as he did and you just abandoned me. I needed you. I was lying for two weeks in your bed and all I did was begging God to take me too. I had the kitchen knife there and I just wanted to end it. I wanted it to stop hurting, I wanted someone there to share the pain with and you fucking arsehole disappeared!" Marge took the cup from her desk and at threw it at him, lucky Scotty she threw like a girl but the effect could not have been different when she had hit him. Marge was the most gentle soul Scotty knew and there she was swearing and yelling. He had never seen her like this, but he understood her.

"I would have been no use for you. I went to France to die and then I chickened out so I went to Asia hoping I would catch some disease there but nothing. Marge you didn't need me. You did fine without me." Scotty felt helpless. How could he explain to her that he was a broken man?

"You are an idiot!" Then Marge did something Scotty never saw coming. She pulled the portrait off the wall and smashed it on the ground.

"What do I have from being the first Adams? Nothing you still left me alone. I had to do it all by myself. He came back and you weren't there. He came back telling me that I still look like I got a tight pussy and he would love to do me one more time. He came back sitting in a wheelchair damaged from alcohol and cancer and you weren't there. You promised you would always be here. Nevertheless, you left me! You must left!"

Scotty knew she was for the first time angry with Arthur and well him too. "Squirrel... I'm sorry. I can't change that I left but I'm here now and I'm not leaving! Come here." He pulled her in his arms but Marge fought him, hit him but in the end she fell defeated in his arms. "I should not have left, I know that now. You needed me, Colin did and you are right I ran because I was scared to be the one looking after everyone. I'm sorry I didn't stay, I'm here now... Why didn't you just use the knife?"

"I couldn't. I kept hearing Daddy's voice telling me 'There is still so much to see and do, you can't leave the world yet.'" Marge breathed in Scotty's smell for some reason he still smelled like her was working in a blacksmith shop. He wasn't the one she wanted to be held by but her Daddy couldn't hold her not in this life.

"There is and you did a wonderful job with Garden Eden." Scotty whispered, oddly enough since they had been in Scotland all those years ago he noticed that Marge was smelling like heather, like a day in the highlands filled with laughter and love.

"I miss him so much, Scoddy." Marge was holding on to his shirt tightly. A small smile played around Scotty's lips.

"Me too Squirrel. But I'm back and I will look after you now, since I lost Alfie."

"Oh Scoddy, Alfie is not lost but hurt. When Daddy passed away it ripped a hole in his heart and he is too scared to fill it with the right thing, love. So he fills it with... addictives."

"Look at you, all wise." Scotty chuckled. He bent down and picked up the portrait."The frame was never right, I'll make you a nice one."

"I'm not a little girl anymore I'm an old woman." Marge complained and put the broken glass in the bin.

"You will always be the little girl that Arthur carried downstairs in the dining room, that first time." Scotty said. "What makes you think Alfie is not lost?"

"It's not so much thinking but feeling. I feel the same and just after you left the first two weeks I filled the hole with sorrow and pain and it did not help but when I let my girls fill the hole with their lives, needs and love, well it is still there but it doesn't hurt so much anymore. Just like when you go to Waterfall Downs and spend a day with the pupils. It fills you out. Especially when you are with little Josey's twins."

Scotty looked at her for a long time. "In another lifetime we would have married and adopted you and we would have been a family."

"Just like we were in France." Marge started crying and after ask this time Scotty still have her a moment before he rushed to her to comfort her.

"It has been a long time I was in France. Maybe we could go this summer? In sure if we are together we... you can make sure I don't lose it and I'll make sure the French boys don't harass you."

"That would be nice." Marge smiled. "We can remember him together. I'm not sure I'm brave enough to fly and it would not be the same."

"Oh no we take the train like old times."

"Scoddy I was thinking, some of my girls would like to learn how to build and fix things maybe you could come around, I mean you would not be alone with them but yeah."

"I would love to. Squirrel, are we good?"

"Yes just don't run away again." Made took his hand and looked with those beautiful blue eyes at him.

"I won't. You know it always freaked me out that you have the Jackson eyes."

"Marmee Jo had a theory about them, my biological father was unknown and she thought that it was possible to be a Jackson possibly Duke Cedric Jackson. She thinks and your dear sister agrees with her on that that in every generation a curse breaker was born and Hannah never says that but Marmee Jo did. That I was the curse breaker for Arthur, but I have a different thought about the curse. It will be Alfie who breaks it."

"Don't even get me started thinking about that. How do you think he will do that?" Scotty sounded disbelieving and angry.
Marge smiled -which warmed Scotty's heart- knowingly. "It is just a question of time when he produced a bastard and then with some more time he will see that this child will be the gift he can never buy young professor Ricky. Don't forget Daddy always had a special plan for his beloved grandson."

A knock interrupted than."Um Miss Adams?"

"Natalie, please come in. This is a very dear friend of mine he is like a father and big brother to me.” Marge smiled but despite her trying Natalie shook her head and turned around. Marge did not touch her but she reach out her and held her hand, barely touching the girl’s fingers and even though it was a very gentle and none invasive touch it stopped Natalie.

“Miss Adams…”

“I know. But listen to me.  Scoddy would never every hurt a girl and you have to know something about him he and Arthur were best friends.” Marge smiled gentle at Natalie and for a while Scotty just watched Arthur’s little girl at work and it was nearly scary. Marge was a soul reader and without an ounce of work, she calmed down Natalie. She nodded but didn’t dare to look at Scotty. “You said you like to build something right? Scoddy is good in building things, his dad was a blacksmith and he is really strong and he knows how to build things.” Marge whispered, it wasn’t an seductive whisper but it wasn’t her normal voice either. It was the voice of a true soul reader, knowing how to help a lost soul to find its way back into the light. Marge signaled Scotty to come closer but he still remembered how much Marge needed her space when they first met. He did no attempt to touch Natalie he just stood there, smiled and said. “Hello. I’m Scotty nice to meet you.”

“I have wood.” Natalie whispered.

“Wood, huh. That is good what do you want to build?”

“A shelf, for my… things.” Natalie didn’t dare to look at Scotty she was so scared of him that the fear was not just visible but touchable.

“A shelf. That a good first thing to build I can help you with that if you would like me to. I mean I have to go home and get some tools-“

“We have tools. We actually have a small workshop in which the girls are allowed to build things. Sometimes it helps to heal if you do something with your hands. There is just one rule, isn’t there Natalie. Well two. The girls are not allowed to be alone in the workshop because of… because they could harm themselves on purpose and the other rule is a big one. Scoddy you are not allowed to close the door while you are with Natalie or any girl alone in a room. They decide how close you can get to them and if you are alone in a room with them the door has to stay open, always!” Marge looked at Scotty and he knew what she was telling him with this stunning eyes.

“Understood. Natalie would you like to go and get the wood and we meet in the workshop?”

“I can show you my room.” Natalie said that in such a different voice then she spoke before. Every alarm bell in Marge’s had was ringing and she was about to jump in when it was Scotty who fixed the problem. “That is kind of you but you should know a secret about me. I am gay. I love man.”

Natalie’s eyes widened in shock. “You don’t fuck pussy?”

“NATALIE ADAMS! That are fifty pence for the swear jar. We do not talk like this and you now that!” Marge sounded very angry.

“No I don’t. I don’t see women and get aroused. And actually my boyfriend passed away a while ago and since then I don’t feel aroused at all anymore. It broke my heart when he died.”

“I had a little sister… he killed her when he fucked her. She bled to death and he made me watch.” Natalie looked at her feed.

“I think she went to heaven and is now in another Garden Eden, she is with Duke Arthur Jackson the angel of the broken children and he looks after her making sure no one can ever harm her again. She is an Adams, forever!”
Natalie looked up at Scotty. “I like that. Can you help me carry the wood?”

“Yes I certainly can, that way I see your room and can make a better plan how large the shelf could be.” Scotty kissed Marge on top of her head and followed Natalie, she was still very weary but she told him about the things she wanted to put in the shelf and where she wanted to place the shelf in her room. Marge was nervous seeing them go off together not because she worried Scotty would Natalie but because she worried that Natalie would hurt herself, damage this chance of a normal life or at least the beginning of a normal life. Natalie was the girl that in September would be attending Waterfall Downs and she had to get used to be around boys and men and Marge now not angry with Scotty anymore was glad and prayed that he would come more often to be around her girls.

“You left us all too early Daddy, we weren’t ready. But I think we are getting there and even though your special one seems to be far off being the special one I think you are right. He ill break the curse and lead the Jackson’s back into happiness, back into the light to be the most loved and not hated family in this country and then every of your Adams’ will rejoice to be yours.” Marge smiled, sat Artie straight on her little chair and went back to her work. There were three new girls to arrive in the next week and she had still things to do before they would be ready to help them.

My dear MissAusten is so busy this past weeks so I thought I have a surprise for her.

---

It was a beautiful summer day, all pupils were at home or in one of the worldwide summer school programs, that Jo had organized. Most teachers had made the teacher’s house -the pupils recently started to call it England and the main house of WDA Neverland- their permanent home but the house was in a nice distance that Jo and Liam still had enough privacy during summer. Jo had prepared a picnic while Liam had changed the girls in their bathing suits. Jill was not able to stand still while Jane was shy and holding Liam’s hand tightly as they walked down the stairs.


“Jill, hold on to the banister please.” Liam warned his younger daughter gentle. Jane was holding on tightly to the hand railing. He had installed at all stairs a lower hand railing so that his daughters, Gracie and the smaller pupils were save while walking up and down the stairs.


“Amháin, dhá, trí, ceithre, cúig, sé, seacht, ocht, naoi, deich. Dhaidí cad a thagann tar éis deich?[url=#_ftn1][1][/url]” Jane asked. She like talking with Daddy Irish. Liam always smiled warmly at her when she did.


“Aon cheann déag - eleven, dhá cheann déag - twelve, trí cinn déag - thirteen, ceathair déag - fourteen, cúig - fifteen, sé bliana déag - sixteen, seacht déag - seventeen, ocht gcinn déag - eighteen, naoi gcinn déag - nineteen, fiche - twenty.”


Jane nodded serious and repeated every word. “Daddy. Hurry up! The pool is going away.” Jill pulled at Liam’s hand and jumped the last three steps down.


“Whoa! Cupcake! We talked about this, didn’t we?” Liam looked a little strict at her.


“Sowwy Daddy. But I like jumping!” Jill grinned widely, she had the same cheeky grin as her dad. Liam shook his head. “I know, but not three steps. Maybe two.”


“Okie dokie!” Jill grinned and ran off. Liam shook his head and followed her with Jane holding his hand. She was still counting to twenty.


“Princess you do know that you don’t have to go in the pool.”


“I know.” Jane whispered holding her Ducky tightly in her left hand. Liam had given it back to her once they were down the stairs.


“Liam?” Jo called from the kitchen.


“Yes?” He called back. Jane giggled.


“Oh there you are. I found this little one checking the temperature of the water.” Jo was holding Jill on her arm.


“Yeah she was rather excited to go in the garden and the pool.” Liam chuckled and kissed Jo. The four O’Dohertys went outside. Liam, Jane and Jill had a thick layer of sunblock on to make sure they were protected from the summer sun.


“I have lunch for us for later but first I thought you and Jill can swim like little frogs. While Jane and I will watch you.” The pool was in a sort of green house, but all sides had several large doors and they all were open so it felt as if the pool was open when they were protected of the sun. Jo was wearing a bright red bikini, she knew that Liam only felt comfortable wearing that at home so he could make sure no other man got the wrong ideas. Though there was still Matt the zoo keeper, and James but he had become so much part of the family that he nearly didn’t mind when he was around. But right now James and Frieda were actually in Sweden, hiking in the middle of nowhere.



“You look pretty.” Liam smiled and kissed his wife before he grabbed Jill, ran to the pool and jumped in. Jo looked a little bit worried but Jill was giggling when he and her emerged from the water.


“That looked scary, Mommy.” Jane mumbled. Jo picked up Jane and kissed her.


“I know but you Daddy can swim very good, he will not let Jill get hurt. Jane would you like to go and sit with me in the shallow water?”


Jane was looking at the far end. Jo had prepared some dolls, horses and other toys the two girls could play with in the shallow water. “Alright.” Jane whispered. It worried Jo a little bit to see how similar nervous Jane could be and was right now. It was the same nervousness that she experienced sometimes.


“We don’t go too deep but I think it is important that you understand that as long as you know what to do in water you are safe.” Jo whispered back. Jane nodded and sat down at the edge of the pool, her feet were in the water and her Ducky was safely sitting a few feet away to stay dry. “There we go, that is very good Jane.”


For a while both parents were playing with one of their daughters. “Mommy!” Jill shouted at some point from the other side of the pool. She was sitting on a floatable tiger.


“Yes Munchkin?” Jo called back giggling, her mother would have a fit if she saw the way Jo was with her daughters, like shouting from one side of the pool to the other not to mention that Jo encouraged both girls to learn to swim.


“Can I ask him?” Jill grinned down at Liam, he was pushing her through the pool. Jill was confident enough not to wear her swimming wings. It made Jo nervous but Jill good and after Liam had a little row at her when she once ran ahead and jumped in the pool  while her parents were not close enough to help if she was in danger. Now she always waited for Liam to be next to the pool before she jumped in.


“Yes, on you go.” Jo knew what she planned to ask Liam. She and the girls had been in town yesterday and when Jo bought new sheet music Jill found something that she loved.


“Daddy, push me to the beach... Please.” Jill grinned at Liam. Liam chuckled. “I can push you to the edge of the pool. The beach is a little bit far. And thanks for remembering to say please.” Jo and Liam agreed that it was important to teach the girls manners but they wanted to do it in a nice and gentle way and not the way Jo got taught -with strict punishment and pain-. Jill climbed off the floatable tiger and ran to to the sitting area. She came back with a miniature guitar, well more a toy than a miniature. “Daddy? That is ceree-ous. Mommy says, me can pick somefing and I wants that.” She held up the small red guitar. “Can you teach me play the gitarr, like you?”


Liam pulled himself out of the pool and took the little guitar. He felt a sightly overwhelmed when Jill asked him to teach her to play the guitar. He starred at her for a moment before he played a few cords on the guitar. “Well it does not sound like a proper guitar, but it is not a bad one. Are you sure you want me? We could get you a proper music teacher.”


“No. Want Daddy. Teach me the sunny song, please.” Jill looked with her big blue eyes at him.


“Okay come here.” He lifted up Jill and sat down on the sun-stretcher and started teaching his youngest, normally so inpatient daughter was sitting there listening intensely to her dad. Jo loved to see those two bond and it made her think a few years back. Liam came over to help Jo set up lunch while Jill played for her sister You are my sunshine.



“Liam do you remeber the summer when the girls were just born?” Jo asked quietly, she knew that Laim didn’t like some parts that happened.


“Yes of course.” Liam looked at his wife.


“I remember just before the girls were born that you were scared that the girls would not like you, that they didn’t want to spend time with you? Those two girls adore you!” Jo smiled while she watched Jill explain to her the cords she was playing. Jill would not be a professional musician but she would enjoy playing the guitar like her dad is.


“I do.” Liam looked at the twins as well. “I was also scared that I cannot love the baby, since back then we didn’t know it were two. I was so wrong. I love those two so much, it is crazy.”
Jo wrapped her arms around him. “I know what you mean. Every moment I spend with them I love them more and then I see little things they have from you.”


Liam grinned and kissed his wife. “We are damn lucky.”


Jo kissed him back. “Let’s have some lunch. Jane looks tired and I want her to eat before she falls asleep. Munchkins? Come on lets have some lunch. Jane I got you some nice rice, with vegetable mash and cheese.”


Both girls came running to the table and sat down. Jane was quiet waiting anxiously the food. Food was her biggest problem. Jill just grabbed everything her little hands could reach, made a sandwich and started eating. Jane was alright with her rice, vegetable mash and cheese. Both girls had a glass of milk.


“Daddy after dinner, I want to fly on the pool and play the gi-tarr, gaming.” Jill said with a full mouth. “Can you do it too?”


“Yes after lunch, you can be floating on the pool and play the guitar and we can be jamming. I’ll get my guitar after I’ve eaten.” Liam grinned, Jane was already falling asleep and Liam lay her down on the sun stretcher next to the table. And while he and Jill were jamming floating on the pool Jo was reading next to Jane. This summer had so much ahead for them. Jo and Liam planned holidays with the twins for two or three weeks in Brighton and then after that Jane and Jill would be staying at Colin’s for a week while Jo and Liam would be going to Spain. Just the two of them, Jo was a little bit nervous but at the same time she was looking forward to the time alone with her husband and Colin had promised her that he would never let the girls be alone with Elizabeth.

---

[url=#_ftnref1][1][/url] One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Daddy what comes after ten?

“Daddy? Where are you?” Jane called out in the supermarket. They just arrived in Brighton and Liam offered to take Jane and Jill to the supermarket while Jo would unpack everything in the small house. Jo had prepared a list and Liam took the girls to the supermarket.


“I’m here Jane.” Liam called out as well. He had given both girls tasks, things to find in the supermarket. Jill had started to shown an interested in learning to read, while Jane enjoyed being read to.


“Daddy I found the milk. But it is so heavy, like a cow.” Jane came around a shelf and smiled happy when she saw her dad with the shopping trolley.


“That is a big bottle. Let me put it in the trolley. Have you seen Jill?”


“Yes she is looking for cereals. She can’t decide what she wants to have for breakfast. Daddy can I have porridge? Grandfather made it the other day. It was nice and... tidy.” Jane looked shy on the floor. She knew already that she had a problem with untidiness.


“I think it would be really nice if you had porridge. Come on lets find Jill. I got the fruit, and also the meat. We are just missing the breakfast cereal and bread. We will go to the bakery for the bread.” Liam smiled, picked up Jane  and sat her on the seat of the supermarket trolley.


“Daddy do you have banana?” Jane looked so lovely, she liked spending time with daddy.


“Yes I got banana’s. Jill there you are, did you find cereals?”


“No daddy. This is so hard!” Jill sighed dramatically, holding five boxes of cereals in her arms.


“Okay, lets see. Your mummy won’t like you have those, its too much sugar. And you don’t like these two. Let’s take those two alright? And Jane would like to have porridge so we need oats.” Liam looked and Jill for a moment and then decided this would be a good word for her to find. “You spell oats o-a-t-s. Do you want to try to find it?”


“Yes.” Jill looked very eager and Liam and ran along the shelf to find oats. It took her a while but in the end she found a bag of oats.


“Daddy I got it. Here.” Jill always chose the biggest packages.


“You did, very good. But lets take the smaller bag, we won’t eat all those oats.” Liam grinned and took the smaller bag of oats.


“Aaalright.” Jill said and held on to the shopping trolley. “Daddy I need to pee.” Jill said. Normally she was quite good not having to pee when they were out but it was a hot day and Jo had made sure they all been drinking a lot.


“Oh boy. Okay. Can you hold it so we pay this and then find a toilet?”


“Yes, that will be fine.”


Liam nodded. “Jane, Princess try to stay awake a little bit longer. Let me pay and then you can have a nap alright.”


“I try Daddy, but I’m so sleepy.” Jane whispered. Liam kissed the little girl on the shopping trolley, while the second girl was holding on tightly to the trolley. Liam hurried and paid and then went to the car. “Okay, Jane hold on a little bit longer, Jill needs to go to the bathroom.”


“I want to go too.” Jane whispered. Liam sighed. “Alright. Come on girls.” He was carrying Jane and held Jill’s hand as they walked into a small ladies hair salon. Liam didn’t like the idea of his girls having to go to a men’s toilet.


“Excuse me, if I pay you five pounds may my girls use your bathroom.”


It was an older lady in the salon. “Of course. No need to pay. Do you need any help, Sir?”


“No!” As much Liam hated having to go with his girls to the toilet, he worried more what strangers might do to them. “I mean, no thank you we will manage.”


“Daddy, hurry it is coming.” Jill said dancing from one leg onto the other. Liam took his girls and went to the pointed bathroom sat down Jane and quickly pulled Jill’s little knickers down. “Quick!”


Liam was glad that her knickers where still dry but he quickly lifted her on the toilet. At home she had a little toilet seat that fitted on a normal toilet to make it smaller.


“We need to wash your hands once you are done.” Liam said as he saw her little fingers slip into the toilet. Jill nodded and then... “Jill you are making your poo face.”


“Yes. And it will be a big one.” Jill announced, Liam giggled and Jane sighed. Liam wasn’t surprised that Jane’s need to use the toilet was not as strong as her need for a nap. She was sitting on the floor leaning against a shelf with towels, asleep.
“Daddy, can we build a sandcastle yesterday.” Jill was already ten steps ahead.


“Yes we can build one later this afternoon. Do you need a little nap when we get home?”


“No, I’m fine. I rested my eyes in the car.” Jill said, she had this funny seriousness of a three year old. And Liam would have never admitted that but he loved having conversations with his daughters. Yes they were really different but luckily both of his girls really liked to learn things so when he explained them the world they always listened interested. He had already looked up when he could teach Jane and Jill this year at the beach of Brighton.


“Alright. Are you finished?”


“Yes.” Jill grinned and Liam made sure that his little girl was nice clean and dry before he took both girls back to the car. He drove slowly and carefully back to the cottage.


“Hello!” He called form the door. He couldn’t carry all shopping bags, Jane and made sure that Jill as carrying her shopping bag safely into the house.


“Hello Handsome. One sleeping munchkin and one helping one. That’s what I love to see. Jill why don’t you go into the garden and play with Teddy?” Jo crouched down and kissed her youngest daughter. She ran off happily to see what their dog was doing in the garden.


“Mummy? Can I eat this? There is watermelon on the table.” Jill shouted into the house, it made Jo giggle. She loved to see how confident her youngest daughter was.


“Yes I prepared that for you and Jane.” Jo took the sleeping Jane from Liam and put her on the couch.  “Did you get everything?”


“Yes. Getting the bread was a little bit difficult. Jane was already asleep and Jill had just before that told me that she needs the toilet.”


“Did she go to toilet?”


“Oh yes don’t worry. I took her. Jane said she needs to go as well but then she fell asleep. Jill wants to build a sand castle with me later.” Liam and Jo were putting away the groceries while they kept talking. Whenever they were close enough Liam kissed Jo.


“DADDY! Look what I found.” Jill was holding a caterpillar in her hands and showed it proudly to her father. Liam kneeled down and looked at the caterpillar.


“Do you remember what this is?” He asked, he was proud that Jill picked up the caterpillar but not squished it.


“Yes. Yes. Yes. It is like a baby budderfly.” Jill grinned, she might not had the scientific brain, but she still understood science.


“That is right a caterpillar will turn into a butterfly. And how will it change?”


“It snuggles into a tight bag, and there it sleeps and then God changes it into a budderlfy.” Jill smiled. Liam took a deep breath, Jo knew that he had troubles agreeing with the fact that God changes the caterpillar to a butterfly and not science, but then he saw the proud look on his daughter’s face and he didn’t have the heart to tell her that there is no God and in the end did it really matter if she said God or science transforms the caterpillar?


“That is right. Let’s put it back outside and see if it transforms into a butterfly before our holiday is over.” Liam smiled and took Jill’s hand to put the caterpillar outside on one of the bushes. Jo smiled fondly at her husband. Jane stirred and sat up. Jo sat down next to her on the couch and offered her some watermelon. “Did you enjoy shopping with Daddy?”


“I liked it very much. Did you tidy all?” Jane snuggled against her mum.


“All tidy. Your room is all tidy and clean. Once we are all ready I want us to go down to the beach. I got a big blanket it will be nice.”


Jane nodded but also took a deep breath to prepare herself to face an afternoon at the beach. Jo knew what her oldest daughter was facing and she knew how difficult it was. “It will be a nice afternoon, Munchkin.”

Normally Alfie and Ricky often went away over the summer but this time Alfie didn’t seem to have made any particular plans. He was often in London, working at the publishing house, but sometimes Ricky got the feeling that Alfie just went to London to get away. They weren’t fighting or anything like that, but Ricky often felt that Alfie pushed him away these days. Just like in the beginning when they just met, Alfie had once again this massive wall up, and he just wouldn’t let Ricky in. Ricky shared so much of himself and literally exposed his feelings to Alfie so many times but his boyfriend didn’t give anything back. Quite the opposite, Alfie seemed to withdraw himself further and further.
It was a lovely summer day, and since Jo, Liam and the girls were in Brighton, and Alfie had to attend a family occasion (he didn’t have any other choice, his grandmother threatened to appear in front of his flat if he wouldn’t come), Ricky was once again alone, so he decided to spend the day with Scotty. Scotty’s cottage had a charming little garden where the two men spent the rest of the day and just relaxed and had nice conversations. Ricky, with his sensitive porcelain skin, needed to sit in the shade of the oak tree while Scotty, who always had a sunkissed skin and wouldn’t even get sunburnt in the hottest places, was fine being exposed to the sun on the comfortable garden chair.

“So, do you have a lot to do for university this summer?” Scotty asked while handing Ricky a glass of ice tea.

“Not much. I’m teaching a summer course but it only runs four weeks, other than that I’m planning to re-organise my study and these kind of things…”

The older man chuckled.

“What?” Ricky raised an eyebrow.

“You’re young. You should be doing something exciting, not spend all your summer cleaning and organising books.”

“Well…it’s okay. Usually Alfie and I would go somewhere but…” Ricky paused, realising that he was talking too much about his personal issues, although he trusted Scotty completely. “It just didn’t work out this year.” He cleared his throat and took a sip of his ice tea.
Scotty watched the young man quietly. It didn’t take a genius to see that something was up.

“Where is he today anyway? Doesn’t it bother him how much time you spend with me?”

“He…he doesn’t know. I can’t tell him these things without him going insane and reading way too much into it”, Ricky replied.  “And he’s with his family right now.”

“He is?” Scotty looked surprised. “He doesn’t strike me as the family kind of guy. Well, to be fair, nobody wants to hang out with that family.”

“Yeah, true…Ehm, his grandmother made him come, and she can be quite…persistent.”

Scotty let out a dry chuckle. “How’s the old hag anyway?”

“I’m sorry?”

Scotty quickly cleared his throat. “I meant Eleanor. Since I came back to Oxford, I successfully managed to avoid her. Well, I saw her that one time at the Christmas party in Waterfall Downs but managed to hide before she could see me.”

“I’m always glad when I can avoid her too”, Ricky said. “She knows about me and Alfie, so naturally she’s bound to hate me, and she sure does. She thinks I’m the reason why Alfie is…well…she said to me it’s men like me who destroy the men of her family.”
A brief silence followed and Ricky noticed how Scotty looked a little lost in thought.

“She said that, hm?”

“Yes, not too long ago. Obviously it was quite clear what she meant by ‘men like me’. So she blames me for everything with Alfie, which is completely absurd because Alfie was already…ehm…had intimate relationships with other men when I still believed in the tooth fairy. I had nothing to do with the way he turned out.”

“The Jacksons have always liked to blame other people for their family’s misery, but it was always that family itself that caused all the damage. Don’t take it personally, Ricky. Eleanor’s frustration towards you is coming from a different place…”

Ricky looked at the older man, surprised and curious at the same time. “How do you know? It is logical that she hates me. It should be a woman on Alfie’s side, not me, so she-“

“She’s more complex than that, Ricky”, Scotty interrupted him calmly. “She is definitely not one of my favourite people here but I know her since we were teenagers, or at least got to learn a few things about her, even though I never really had much to do with her personally. There is a lot more to this woman than just the typical Jackson arrogance and cruelty.”

“I don’t doubt that but I still know that she hates me.”

“It is not you she hates. It is men like you. ” He paused for a moment, choosing his next words carefully. “Like I said, she is a complex character. She is smart enough to know that the misery of her family has nothing to do with men like you. However, she feels like losing people who matter to her, and that is where her frustration is coming from.”

Ricky just stared at Scotty. “You…you really know her, don’t you?”

The older man avoided eye contact with him. “It’s a long time ago.”

Ricky took a deep breath. “Scotty, can I ask you something personal?”

“Ehm…okay.”

“Did you…did you and Eleanor…ehm…was there something between you two? I mean…eh…”

“Wait…you want to know if I had a thing for Eleanor Jackson?” Scotty laughed.

“Well…you seem to know so much about her, and you two seem to have a history, and you try so desperately to avoid her these days, so…I’m sorry, that was a very personal question.”

Scotty couldn’t stop laughing. “I know so much about her because Arthur was my friend. I can tell you with utter and complete honesty that I never had feelings for that woman.”

Ricky laughed too, feeling a little silly now. “I’m really sorry. I kind of read too much into it, I guess.”

“Yeah, way too much.” He shook his head. “Me and Eleanor…”

“Well…maybe she was pretty when she was younger. I don’t know!”

“She wasn’t ugly”, Scotty said. “But she was still not my type.”

“Okay, I believe you.” Ricky smiled at him and felt that strange, tingly feeling again that spread through his body. He knew it was silly, he wasn’t thinking of Scotty in that way but still…it was a tiny, little, harmless crush, and unlike Alfie, Scotty actually considered Ricky’s feelings and really listened to him. Something Alfie hadn’t done in a long time…
They enjoyed the rest of the afternoon, talking about all kinds of things, also the love Arthur and Alfie shared for opera, something Scotty and Ricky could never relate to, no matter how much they tried. Opera was just not for them. Scotty mentioned The Flower Duet, which had apparently been Arthur’s favourite, so Ricky got curious and when he was back home that evening, he went straight to all the opera records that Alfie had stored neatly and alphabetically in the living room next to the insanely expensive record player. Ricky had never really listened to the opera records because he was just not a big opera fan. He always stuck to the Tchaikovsky and Hayden records that Alfie had on the shelf next to the opera records. Of course Ricky owned his own collection of records (mainly the Beatles and the Beach Boys) but he enjoyed classical music as well, that’s why he liked Alfie’s selection of classical music records. However, this time Ricky deliberately looked through the opera records until he found what he was looking for. Leo Delibes’ The Flower Duet, Arthur's favourite.
The moment the song started, a smile crossed Ricky’s lips. This song did sound beautiful, and most importantly, not as dark as many other opera songs. There was something light about it, something pleasant, something that seemed to fit to Arthur’s character, even though Ricky never met him. Although Ricky had never met Alfie’s grandfather, this song reminded him of the beautiful, kind Arthur he had heard so many stories about. He was almost in trance while listening to the same song for the past fifteen minutes and didn’t notice Alfie coming home and standing behind him in the living room.

“What the fuck are you doing?!”

Ricky startled. He had his back turned towards Alfie so he couldn’t have seen him coming in. He quickly turned around, immediately seeing the cold expression on Alfie’s face. Alfie was always in a bad mood when he came back from Whitehaven Manor, but there was something else… He almost looked hateful at Ricky.

“I was just…I was going through a few records”, Ricky explained.

“Who allowed you to touch my things?”

Ricky stared at his boyfriend, for a moment not sure if Alfie was just messing with him. “Ehm…you have really inappropriate sex toys and certain movies lying around, and you don’t care if I find your ‘private collections’…but you have a problem with me touching your records?”

“Turn that off!”

“I…I constantly put on your records, Alfie, you never had a problem with that. Why are you being so mean?” Ricky hated himself for feeling this way but he actually started to get scared of his own boyfriend. He couldn’t remember Alfie ever having looked at him so hateful and furious. The last time he saw Alfie looking at someone like that was when Sebastian hurt Ricky, and Ricky only knew too well what Alfie did to the other boy after that.
“Alfie…” Ricky could hear his voice tremble. “Are you alright?”

Alfie looked like he had to stop himself from losing it and hurting Ricky, which frightened the young man immensely. No, Alfie had never looked at him like that. Ricky actually flinched when Alfie moved, but Alfie ignored him and moved towards the record player.
“I told you to turn that off!” He shouted, and without hesitating he lifted up the record player and smashed it on the floor so that it broke into countless little pieces. Ricky held his breath in shock, but that same moment Alfie turned around with such a coldness in his eyes that Ricky started to feel sick. Alfie looked like he was transforming from Dr Jekyll, a respectable upper class man, into the uncontrollable monster Hyde,  Jekyll’s alter ego. Ricky was completely paralysed when Alfie grabbed him forcefully by his collar and pulled him so close that Ricky could smell the alcohol.
“Don’t ever fucking touch my stuff again”, he said threateningly, still holding Ricky’s collar so tightly that the younger boy could barely breathe, then he pushed him forcefully onto the couch. Ricky still felt sick and paralysed. He always knew Alfie would never lay a hand on him, but right now he actually realised that something has changed. Alfie was indeed capable of hurting him.
For the split of a second Alfie liked seeing the fear in Ricky’s eyes. He wanted to fuck his brains out to teach him a lesson but then the monster, his Hyde, disappeared, and he came to his senses. Not only that, but when he suddenly realised that he had almost physically hurt his boy, his beautiful, kind boy, he grew pale. It started to frighten him, that he no longer seemed in control of himself. He knew he couldn’t control himself at all times, but when it came to Ricky he always tried to stay in control. He never wanted to hurt his boy… But he just did, and it made him sick. He knew where this anger came from, and that was exactly why he tried so hard to suppress it. This whole subject made him lose control, even hurt the person he cared most about.
Why couldn’t they just leave him alone with it? Couldn’t they see that they, with their constant reminders of that subject, actually provoked him to turn into Hyde? He couldn’t control it anymore. He couldn’t control himself anymore. And it frightened him, it frightened him looking into Ricky’s terrified face.
Without another word, Alfie turned away and left the flat. He had to get out of there before he could actually hurt Ricky. He would shag a few prostitutes tonight, probably even find some guys in the club. He needed to let out his anger on real men right now, not just little pussys. And he wanted Sofiya, as much as he hated to admit that.
Anything that would prevent him from hurting his boy.

Even though he had specific plans, he got distracted. Alfie went to the bench where he sat so many years ago, where he saw Ricky for the very first time... Just outside of Oxford University.
Alfie took out his wallet, there was not a single pound in it; it was rather a small photo album in his pocket. He looked through the pictures and a small smile appeared on his face.

“Why do you not understand that I don't want to share him? It is bad enough that Scott Chadwick is back and that Marge Adams found me. At least James leaves me alone most of the times.” Alfie sighed deeply and gently stroked the picture of his boyfriend. “If you knew what I was you would hate me and leave me without another look back.”

Meanwhile still in the town flat Ricky called the O'Dohertys in Brighton. “Oh Liam, just the man I wanted to talk to.”

Since it was evening and the twins were too excited to sleep the O'Dohertys were still up looking at clouds in the garden. Liam peeked in the garden and saw that Jo was perfectly fine with the twins and Teddy for a while. It was not often that Ricky called to talk to him normally Ricky asked for Jo.

“Hi Ricky. Sure what's up?” Liam sat down, they were on holidays and he felt more tired than he did before they left Oxford. The girls were just excited to be away, including Jo.

“Please don't be angry but I know it took you some time to talk about your mum and share memories about her, right?” Ricky asked gentle.

Liam stiffened on the chair. “Yeah?”

“Why is that?”

Liam looked at his three J’s outside in the garden. Normally he wouldn't speak about it but something in Ricky's voice made him answer. “I was scared a loose her by sharing the memory.”
“But you do are talking about her don't you?”

“Ricky what is this about?”

“I try to figure out why Alfie gets so angry when anything remotely reminds him of his grandfather. It has been so long ago.”

“That is sort of the point, there were so many moments in his live he wanted his grandfather there. However, he was not and he will never be there in the future. I am sure he wishes he could arrange a dinner for his grandfather to meet you but it will never happen. And that makes him sad and as we know Alfie is even worse dealing with his feelings than I am, and I am bad. There is nothing you can do, but be patient and wait for him to open up. To the day, Jo holds her breath when I mention mum in front of her. She is scared I stop.”

Ricky nodded even though Liam could not see it. “That makes sense. I just wish I could help him.”

“Give him time...”

“Daddy, daddy, daddy quick there is a fire bug.” Jill shouted from the door and ran back outside. Liam chuckled. “Well you heard it I have to go. Do you want me to tell Jo to call you back later?”

“No I don't want to worry her. Please kiss your girls from me and enjoy your evening. I am alright, I just thought I talk to you because I upset Alfie.”

“He will come back soon, don’t worry.” Liam said quickly and then Jill just pushed the button and the line went dead on both sides. “Jillian Saoirse Catherine O'Doherty that was very naughty you will never just push the button to hang up a telephone call.” Liam looked strictly at his little daughter, a little ginger girl looking very guilty and sorry at her dad.

“Sowwy, but the lightning bugs go away.” Jill whispered.

“I understand that, next times you tell me that again but not hang up the phone, do you understand how wrong that was?” Liam had crouched down and looked at his daughter intensely. Jill nodded remorseful. Liam nodded as well and then pulled her in hug. “I still love you but I do not love what you have done. Do you understand the difference?”

“Yes daddy, what about the bugs?”

“Let’s go and have a look at some fire flies.” Liam kissed Jill on the cheek and together they went back outside.

“Is everything alright?” Jo asked and smiled when both Liam and Jill bent down and kissed her.

“It was just Ricky he had a little fight with Alfie about his grandfather. He wanted to talk to me.”

Some might expect Jo to ask why but she knew. Jo nodded and took Jill while Liam sat down comfortable next to her. Both little ginger girls snuggled between their parents and together the four O'Dohertys watched the fires flies and Liam explained to them why those bugs were glowing and all three girls listened attentively.



A few days later in Oxford

Lorelai decided that her family would go to Norway -as if she needed help or assistant to make this decision- for their last family holidays. She knew that they would still travel when Dan is at university but it would be different and they all knew that. So here they were all of them packing, they would travel by car and ferry to Norway. Lorelai as so often expected her sons to learn from real live events such as packing a suitcase for a holiday. Dan had finished yesterday so that he could help the day before they left, right now he was with Henry.

“Henry you can't just take one pair of underpants. You need more underpants.”

“But I can only wear one pair.”

“Yes but we are gone for more than one day, and why do you have all those sweets with you? Where did you get those from anyway?”

“I saved them from Halloween, Christmas and Easter.” Henry grinned and put further underpants in his suitcase.
“Dan? Could you spare a minute to help me with something? I want to pack something in the trailer, but it is too heavy.” Edward asked shy from Henry's room door.

“Henry you need to pack all those clothes on your bed. I'll be back in a minute and see how you are getting on.” Dan tousled his little brother's hair and pushed the boys new glasses back up his nose. Dan followed Edward but not as he expected in the boy's room Edward led him downstairs in his music room. By now after playing for two years music and being trained by Graham Hart, one music school class in Oxford, sometimes special friends from Graham and last but not least his many hours spent practicing and reading about music instruments, Edward was playing about fifteen different instruments but his favourite was still the grand piano.

“Edward what are we doing here? Do you need me to carry your sheet music into the car?”

“No I have my sheet music.” Edward said, walked around the grand piano and started pushing against it. “Dan help me I got to take my grand piano.”

“Um... Why?” Dan scratched his head and tried to find a way to explain to his six year old little brother that he didn't and couldn't take a piano on holidays.

“What do you mean why?” Edward stared at Dan with big eyes not understanding why his big brother that always helped him did not understand the obvious. “To practice of course. Now help me push please!” Edward sounded surprisingly bossy.

“Okay I see your point of view but remember the brochure of the holiday house? There is a piano in the living room.” Dan tried to calm down his brother.

“But what if that one is out of tune? I need a good piano. I want to write an opera during the summer.” Edward sounded slightly hysterical.

“Edward your piano will not fit in the car or the trailer. Mutti herself spoke with the landlord and he ensured her that he will call a piano tuner to make sure the piano is working well. We cannot take your piano, in sorry.”

“Alright.” Edward's head dropped defeated. “I think I need a moment to be alone. I'm not sure I can handle this tragedy.” Edward whispered and walked out of his music room. Dan knew that all the boy needed right now was someone telling him that it was all a lie of course they took his piano, but Dan could not do that.

“Mutti? Edward is really upset because he cannot take his grand piano, he planned to write an opera during the summer.” Dan went outside to his mother that was packing some of her bags in the trailer. Lorelai looked at her upset oldest son and sighed.
“Did you tell him that the piano in the house will be newly tuned.” Lorelai answered her son, as always she spoke German with her son and Dan realised right away that he had spoken English with her.

“I did.” He answered her in German.

Lorelai nodded. “I think we need to give him time and make sure we have packed his favourite music sheets and pencils. I already have some but make sure we have some more.”

Dan nodded. “I wish he could hear the piano in the holiday house and calm down. He is so ambitions.”

Lorelai pulled Dan in a tight hug. “You and Cedric really broke up?”

Dan wasn’t even surprised that she knew. “Yes, but we parted as friends. And we both knew that it is better this way. Long distance is just not fair on either of us. And as much as I want to come home every weekend, but I am realistic I will not be able to come home that often. I want to study hard and have good grades.”

“You know we are proud of you anyway. Even if you don't have first class grades.”

“I know, but I want to have good grades as good as they can be.”

Lorelai laughed. “You went to Waterfall Downs Academy for Gifted Youngsters; I have no doubt that you will outshine your classmates.”

Dan blushed and kept holding his mother. He lived the feeling of safety and warmth he had found in this house his home.

At the same time in a different corner of Oxford, the not nice corner, but worse than the poor area actual dangerous. There were some sheds and ruins leftovers from the war, a war people started to forget. The roof was more made out of holes than an actual roof, the windows were leaking, and the walls were wetter than a sponge in the sea.

“Where the hell have you been?” Maggy looked annoyed at Victor who just came home stinking of beer.

“None of your business slut!” Victor pushed her roughly into the wall. “You discuss me! What is going on with your hair?”

“I curled it. Do you like it?” Maggy tried to soothe her husband’s bad temper by making herself the most attractable she can look.

“You look like a fucking poodle.” Victor spat at Maggy when he spoke just before he pushed her once more into the wall. “Did you make me dinner?”

“It is in the oven. Corned beef hash with peas.”

“Disgusting! I remember the times when I had pheasant and not beef from a tin.”

“I am sorry. That is all we can afford at the moment. I lost my job last week.” Maggy whispered, Victor spun around and hit Maggy in the face. “How the fuck can you lose a job as warehouse cleaner?”

Maggy was holding her cheek where Victor had hit her. “They didn’t like the way I was cleaning.”

“Yeah because you clean like shit. Gosh since I hooked up with you my live went to hell. Back in the day I had fun, I bent people’s minds, I got what I wanted but with you I live in this hole and you were wrong she doesn’t grow out of her face. She still looks like a four day dead salamander.”

“She is young, she will outgrow it.”

“Shut up! Get over here, I’m horny!” Victor threw Maggy on the table and ripped off her knickers from under her skirt. He didn’t even care that their daughter Ludmilla was standing in the doorframe. “Mummy juice?”

No one answered her and she saw her father have sex with her mother and not in a gentle way, this was borderline rape. Maggy was defeated, she didn’t want to be married to Victor but her family abandoned her she had nowhere to go.

“It was a lot more fun to fuck you when you were tight before you gave birth to this thing.” Victor got off his wife and picked up his bag. He started recently a new job at the hospital as porter. And it got him thinking.

“It is time to break little Miss Williams. I've done it before.” Victor snarled as he sat down and took a large pile of files out of his bag.

“You've done what before?”

“Broke her.” Victor grinned evil. “It was so easy, she always talked too much and there are people that do shit for very little money. A few years ago I got her kidnapped. It was so good to watch her down there... no one knew that instead of looking for her I watched her break.”

“Wait when you gave me this shitty flyer you did this for fake? You knew where she was?”

“Yes of course. What do you think? Mh, you know watching him to rape her... it was such a sweet sight! But who would have thought that it brings her closer to this Irish fucker?”

Victor put all the file in the large brown envelope and addressed it to: Mr Liam O'Doherty, Waterfall Downs Academy for Gifted Youngsters, Oxford.

”What is this?” Maggy snarled.

”The sealed medical report when she was found. It has detailed information of her injuries and the doctors all agreed she has been roughly and repeatedly been raped. I'm sure Mr O'Doherty would love to know that his wifey had a lovely time down there.” Victor grinned evil; it was in the end handy when he started working in the NHS hospital, the first chance he got he requested the medical files of Josephine O’Doherty. Victor closed his eyes and remembered watching the young Josephine down there, and the memory of it got him hard again.

„Are you sure you won’t need all these things, Ma’am?“ Miss Susan, who ran the local orphanage, had been caught in surprise when Lady Josephine O’Doherty, formerly Williams, and her two little daughters arrived in front of the door steps, with a big truck of clothes, toys and books for the orphanage.

“Oh, really, we have so many things in Waterfall Downs, we never run empty on books, trust me,” Jo replied with a smile. Jane was holding on to her hand but Jill looked around curiously while they were standing in the hallway.

“But it is so much. We can’t just take all of it.”

“Please do. It would make us all happy if you accept it.”

“Thank you so much, Lady Williams…ehm…Mrs O’Doherty…eh…”

“Jo,” the young woman said quickly. “Jo is fine.”

Miss Susan smiled at the three guests. “Would you like to stay for lunch? It will be served in a few minutes.”

“Oh, we don’t want to intrude.”

“Nonsense! After you gave us such a generous donation, this is the least we can do.”

“Alright. Thank you very much.” Jo looked down to her daughters. “Would you like to have lunch here?”

“Yes!” Jill shouted. She couldn’t wait to meet the other children. Of course Jane was more shy and didn’t let go off her mum’s hand as they entered the big, spacious, bright living room.

“I have to say,” Jo remarked, “this is an incredibly nice building. It really has a homey feeling to it. You feel right at home here.”

“We all do.” Miss Susan nodded. “The original one looked very different. I heard stories about it from my grandmother, who used to work there. There was no money, and it was on the verge of being torn down until Lord Jackson ordered instructions to build a completely new orphanage, which is this building now. So my grandmother, the rest of the staff and all the children were moved into this lovely home, and they, and all the other generations after that, were always taken care of.”

Jo let her eyes wander around until she noticed the framed picture of a very handsome young man above the fireplace. Of course she recognised him immediately, from her dad’s private photo collection, and besides, that face was impossible to forget.

“I wish I would have met him in person,” Miss Susan said. “My grandmother always told me those wonderful stories of him. He was very shy, she said. But the kindest person she’d ever met.”

“Yes…” A smile crossed Jo’s face. “So I’ve heard.”

“Who is this, Mummy?” Jill asked.

“Oh, that is Uncle Alfie’s grandfather, Arthur.”

“Fi’s grandfather?” Jill’s eyes widened. “He doesn’t look like a grandfather.”

Jo and Miss Susan laughed. “Well, on that picture he’s still a young man.”

“He looks like a prince,” Jane said shyly.

“He certainly was one,” Miss Susan replied. “In his own, special way.”

That same moment all the children came downstairs, ready for lunch. They greeted their guests excitedly, and of course it didn’t take long until Jill was running around between them, as if she had always known them.

While Liam’s girls had gone to the orphanage, he stayed in Waterfall Downs, taking care of some paperwork. He didn’t mind staying behind because he wanted Jo to have some girl time with the twins. Once the school year would start again, Jo would barely have time to be alone with their daughters. He would be busy too, but for today he thought it would just be a nice idea for the three to have a girls day out.
Liam sat in his office, going through the new pile of mail that arrived today when he noticed a strange enveloped addressed to him. No sender.
“What’s that?” He noticed the seal of the NHS.

A bit later

Alfie had just opened a bottle of whiskey, leaned back on THE couch and continued reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace- which he had already read when he was twelve- when a hammering against the door startled him so much that he actually spilled some of his drink on his beloved couch.
“Fucking hell!” He jumped up and looked outraged at the little stain on his couch. “Whoever this fucker is, I’m going to kill you! You son of a bitch, you hell-raising cunt, you-”
The knocking didn’t stop.
“Who the fuck is this?!” Alfie opened the door, ready for more insults, but he wouldn’t get to that part.

“I’m going to kill him.” Liam looked at his friend without even blinking.

“You made me spill my drink on the couch, you know how expensive this couch was? Do I even have to-“

“I.Will.Kill.Him.”

There was something so cold and threatening in Liam’s voice that Alfie stopped discussing his couch. “What are you talking about?”

“I tried to call Dick, but he’s in a mission in Siberia or somewhere, so I couldn’t reach him. So you either help me kill him or you will at least be my alibi.”

“Kill Dick?”

“You’re the only one who hates him as much as I do, so if you won’t help me killing this fucking arsehole, you better give me an alibi.”

“I don’t want to disappoint you here,” Alfie said calmly. “But there are other people who are further up my list of humans I hate, I don’t even really know that Dick person-“

“Victor!” Liam shouted. “Victor fucking Gray!”

“Oh.” Alfie took a sip of his whiskey. “Now we’re talking.”

“This isn’t a joke!”

“What has he done now? Pissed in your rose bed? Actually, I did that once. My grandmother loved those stupid flowers in the garden and one morning, when she looked out of the window from where she could see the flowers, I just dropped my trousers and pissed right at them. I was ten, but I would still do it again. I mean, that face was just-“

“Alfie, I mean it. This man will be dead. You will be my alibi. You can use anything when they ask you. You can even say that you fucked me, for all I care-“

“For real?” Alfie smirked but there was something so unusually harsh about his best friend that he knew better not to make jokes.

“Be my fucking alibi.”

“Eh, hold on, Little Man, what’s this about exactly, if I may-“

But Liam didn’t explain more, he just turned around and stormed off.

“Jill, munchkin you are a little bit wild. Please eat nicely.” Jo smiled gently at her younger daughter. Jill looked up she was sitting between a few children about three and four years older than her.

“Oopsey, I’m sowwy.” Jill grinned showing off her half chewed food. Jo rolled her eyes and looked at Jane. The little girl was not happy about eating at a new place. They had a nice vegetable soup and sandwiches, not very Jane-friendly food. Miss Susan did not say much and just watched Jo with her daughters, Jill was fine, she fitted right in with the other children, let the older ones help her and ate as nicely as a little toddler could. However, Jane was a different story. Jo had asked for Jane’s bowl of soup to be pureed and had a plain sandwich with butter. Jo made sure that Jane did not feel judged, she kept smiling, kissing her and encouraging her. Miss Susan smiled she loved the way Jo was with her daughters, so caring and gentle. She wished all her children would find a home like this. Jo was so carefree, so loving, so different to three summers ago.

 
Meanwhile in town

Liam had left the medical file on Alfie’s table. Alfie flipped it open and saw photographs of Jo, evidence photographs of her normally Alfie would like what he sees but, well the bruises were a up turner. Alfie liked it rough but never that rough. “Fuck!”
Alfie got up and caught Liam halfway down the stairs. “I can’t believe that I am saying this but you can’t killed Grey. Come with me.” He dragged Liam back into his flat and made him sit down. “Here. This will calm your nerves a little.” Alfie handed Liam a glass of whiskey, just a very small amount since for once he didn’t want him to get drunk.

“Did she tell you about this?” Alfie pointed at the photographs still on the table.

Liam looked sad at the pictures. “She told me that this bastard touched her, but never that he did this. But she also said that she felt as if left her body when he touched her.”

“Makes sense, to protect the mind, the mind shuts off.” Alfie as always was full of knowledge, he closed the file. “She might not remember. However would she keep this from you?”

“No she would have told me. I mean she told me that when she was little Grey felt her up roughly and she never had to. She was honest when she told me that the kidnapper touched her. Why the fuck would, he do this. Get her kidnapped and then help to find her but not really?” Liam threw himself back on the couch and starred at the ceiling.

“Now you need to figure out if you should tell her about this or not. I mean what will she gain if she knows that she got raped?” Alfie looked at Liam not his usual bored, Alfie remembered Ricky after Sofiya tried to force herself on him.

“I cannot keep that from her, but how can I tell her? How do I tell her that her memory is wrong? This is going to break her. Fuck and she got so much better in the past years, since the twins were born. Fuck! I hate Victor Grey.”

“We will punish him for what he did to your little girls scout wifey.” Alfie said.

“Really how?” Liam looked at Alfie.

“I’m not sure yet. So what do you want to do now?”

“I can’t let Jo be out there, I need to tell her to make sure she is safe. It will hurt her so much.” Liam ran his hands through his hair. “But I can’t keep something like this from her.”

“Come on I’ll drive you to your wifey, I know you drive worse than I do and I bought my licence.” Alfie made sure everything of the file was together and then he took Liam to his car downstairs. “But just so you know, I don’t think you should go to your dirty whore of wife.”

“Stop the fuck calling her that.” Liam looked angry at Alfie and just this once he nodded.

“You know I just tease her, right?”

“Yeah, I know just today please don’t.”

Liam looks angry out of the window, his hands in tight fist and he was huffing all the way to the orphanage. Alfie hated going to all those places but right now he was too... worried that Liam does something stupid and next time he has to see his friend in through bars in prison. -Fuck I can’t believe I just thought that.-

“Can we cut off Victor’s cock?”

“I’m working on a plan, don’t worry about him. You look after your girls scout wifey.”

A small smile appeared on Liam’s face, he was glad that for this once best friend respected his wishes and called Jo the innocent nickname for her.

Outside of the orphanage, Liam sat for a few minute in the car wondering what to say to his wife. How do you tell someone ‘hey you got raped but you can’t remember it and now I make you remember it so you can get traumatised’.

“You don’t have to tell her. If you never tell her she will never know.”

“She nearly died.”

“Come on it was not that bad.”

“I don’t mean when she got kidnapped. I meant when she gave birth to the twins. She nearly died, and she never told me. I know why she didn’t tell me and she was right not to tell me. If I had known I would have looked differently at the girls. However, this is different. It is her body that was violated, she has to right to know. And I need to make sure she is safe.”

Alfie nodded. “Fine then come on lets go.”

The two men go into the building and follow the noise level to the dining room. Alfie stays a little behind Liam, the large portrait in the entrance hall of Arthur Jack made him nearly turn around. Liam stood in the door and watched his beautiful wife across the room. She was so carefree, laughing with the children, and not far from her Jane and Jill. Jill acted as if she never lived anywhere but in this orphanage, while Jane ate slowly and a little shy sitting next to her mother. Liam was once again awestruck by the beauty of his wife. She was not wearing anything special but a simply sandy cotton dress, not an ounce of makeup and still she looked stunning. He remembered the summer three years ago, when Jo looked... broken.

“Daddy!” Jill screamed dropped her sandwich and ran to her father.

“Hello Cupcake.” Liam kissed Jill on the cheek, the little girl already started telling him everything she has done since the moment she walked with her mommy and Janey out of the house. Jo looked a little surprised at Liam and Alfie.

“Please excuse me Miss Susan.”

“Oh certainly.”

“Hey Liam, what are you doing here?” Jo kissed Liam gentle and lifted up Jane so her daughter could say hello to daddy as well.

“I’m not checking up on you, but is there a place the girls can be looked after?” Liam whispered.

“Come with me.” Alfie suddenly said, took Jill’s hand and picked up Jane from Liam’s arm. “Does this shit hole have books?”

“I’ve seen some in the living room, it is this way.” Jane whispered shy. She was scared of Alfie but she liked him he knew a lot of things and he read books to her and explained the big words to her and Jill. “Fi...” Jill started babbling excitedly while Alfie dragged them into the living room, it did not surprise him that the orphanage had a very good collection of books.

“Jo I’ve got a package today,” He was holding the file, Jo saw her name on it and got confused. “It was Victor that arranged the kidnapping. There is no way of proofing it but I know it was him. And there is more. Come here sit down.”

“Liam what is going on, what is this file?” They sat down on a bench at the window.

“I need you to know that you are safe. This,” Liam touched the bracelet he had given her a long time ago, “is still working.”

“Liam you are scaring me.”

“I know and I am sorry. Hear me out alright and whatever you than want to do, we do.”

Jo nodded, she looked worried but took Liam’s hand.

“Do you remember when you told me what happened to you while you were kidnapped, this is the medical file, your medical file.” Liam opened it and revealed pictures of Jo and the report. It is called the clock test. If you consent to intercourse injuries at eleven, twelve and one are normal while injuries at five, six and seven indicate rape. You fought hard Jo, do you see all those bruises and injuries at your... private part?”

Jo starred at the photos and the report. “So he did more than...”

“Yes. I don’t tell you that to hurt but I think you have the right to know what this pig did to your body.”

Jo sighed, closed her eyes and leaned her head against Liam. “I understand. Liam I can’t remember that he did this.”

“I know and I don’t mean that you do. I don’t blame you. I blame Victor for sending this to me. You and I both know he did this because he thought that this would split us up but no matter what happened to you I will never leave you.”

“I know. Let me get the girls and we go home, I want to be home.”

“Okay, I’m glad Alfie will be glad to be freed of girls.”

“Why is he here anyway?”

“I went to see him because I want to kill Victor and Dick didn’t answer my calls. So I needed his help in either killing Victor or by giving me an alibi.”

“You didn’t do anything, right?” Jo looked worried at her husband.

“No not yet. But I will hurt him, real bad.” Liam spit between his teeth. “Come on let’s get you home. And while you rest and are safe I plan how to kill Victor. Maybe we should consider closing the school for good and just lock the doors forever.”

As they walk outside with Alfie and the twins behind them, Liam turns around and looks at Arthur Jackson. Listen to yourself and think what is really needed here. If you hurt Victor, if you go and try to revenge your wife is it really, what your wife needs. Look at her. Liam shook his head this was weird where did this come from?

Liam briefly looks at Jo. “At least then you will be safe. Are you alright?”

Jo looks at Liam for a while and then just sinks into his arms. “Would you mind if for a while you stay with me, just make sure I’m safe.” Jo jingled her armband.

“It still works, it is still active. I check it ever night when you are deep asleep. And it has the emergency release when you can’t twist the pearl. Just pull it off and I will find you. And I will always protect you and the girls.”

Jo turned around to Miss Susan. “Miss Susan would you mind if we go home now, I’d rather be... in my own four walls.”

“Of course. Master Jackson will drive you home and I will ask one of the older children to drive your car and afterwards he will make sure that it gets home safely won’t you?” Miss Susan never was scared of Alfie, she was fifteen when she first met little Alfie and she had not forgotten Arthur and the little boy.
Jo, Liam, the twins and Alfie all sat down in Alfie’s limousine. Alfie looked out of the window and it seemed he was ignoring the O’Dohertys. “If he ever does it again not just your father will make sure that Liam can find you. I will not spare a penny until you are found and back in his arms.” Jo and Liam looked at Alfie, pure shock but Liam nodded supportive.

The afternoon was quiet, Jo didn’t mention anything about the elephant in the room. Liam kept looking at her but she seemed very composed and together. The girls were in bed, Liam had just kissed Jill for the tenth time and told her that anything she has to tell him before she goes to sleep she can do tomorrow. He had finished the chapter of Treasure Island and she was nearly asleep when he closed the door. He got himself a cup of tea and one for Jo and he thought they would have a nice evening. However fate had other plans. Jo was curled up in bed heavily sobbing.

“Shit, Jo!” Liam nearly dropped the two cups of tea but he remembered that it was not a safe thing to drop and break the cups so he quickly put them down on the chest of drawers and went slowly to Jo. He didn’t want to scare her, but to his surprise she didn’t back away from him, rather the opposite she buried her face in his chest.

“What if I only like it wild because subconsciously I liked what he did to me?”

“Jo that is not true. You liked it wild before that. Think how we had sex while we travelled and that was before you got kidnapped. I read the reports, saw the photos, even though you can’t remember what happened to you, while it did happened you fought and honey you fought hard. You like it wild because you simply do. Maybe because your mother so strictly forbid any kind of sexual awakening in you but not because you liked what this pig did to her.”

Jo nodded but she didn’t stop crying, but she seemed not to have a panic attack she just seemed upset. “I can’t believe Mother wanted me to marry Victor.”

The days after Liam and Jo found out about what really happened during the kidnapping, Liam tried everything in his power to distract his wife and cheer her up. They went on day trips with the girls almost every day, even the Planetarium, since Liam knew that they had good memories there. They also went to Kensington Gardens, despite the fact that many years ago Jo had declined Liam’s proposal here, but nowadays they enjoyed walking through the park with the twins, and Jo had always loved Peter Pan and Kensington Gardens. Liam had calmed down a little but was still planning something to pay Victor back. He knew it would be foolish to kill him, especially since he would spend the rest of his life in prison and never see his three favourite girls on a regular basis again, so that definitely held him back from killing Victor. He needed to be there for his Jo, so there was no way he would leave her because he would sit in prison until the end of his life. Besides, he needed to be there when the twins were teenagers, to keep an eye on them. Especially Jill…
Even though Jo loved having Liam so close by, she also wanted to feel a bit more normal again and be surrounded by others apart from her husband and daughters, so she asked if they could do a barbeque in the garden and invite a few people. In the beginning Liam wasn’t so sure about this but Jo insisted that she needed a bit normality in her life again and the weather was gorgeous, so at the end of the week they had invited their friends and family to Waterfall Downs for a barbeque, and it was exactly what Jo needed. Lorelai and her family were back from their holidays, so they joined them, including Dan, who would leave in three weeks to go to university. Jo also invited Alfie and Ricky, Scotty, Marge, her parents (although Elizabeth would be once again absent), and James, who had just gotten back from Scotland.
She immediately lit up when everyone arrived and she could just take her mind off things. Of course both Jo and Liam knew that they couldn’t just pretend that nothing happened but they also knew that they couldn’t change the past- even though Liam was damn tempted to invent a time machine. He always had been tempted, but now he was almost obsessed with the idea.
While Jo greeted her guests happily, holding on to her best friend Ricky, whom she had not seen in a while, Liam watched everything from the distance. He was always protective of her but now he was almost a bit paranoid, and although they had only invited their closest friends and family, he still eyed each and everyone warily.

“I’m surprised you came,” Liam said when Alfie showed up next to him, distancing himself from the others as well.

“I didn’t know there would be this many people,” Alfie replied with a grumpy undertone in his voice. He wouldn’t have come if he had known. He wasn’t particularly happy to see Scotty and Marge, the two people who reminded him too much of the one person he didn’t want to be reminded of.
“How is she holding up?”

Liam looked slightly surprised at Alfie’s interest in Jo’s well-being. That was actually really irritating.
“She, ehm…she’s strong. She is-“

“You’ve got any whiskey nearby?”

Liam let out a dry laugh. That was about as much as Alfie wanted to hear about Jo, but at least he had asked in the first place, and that was definitely something.

While Jo and Ricky were talking to Dan about his university plans, Scotty and Marge had discovered James, whom they had known since a little child but hadn’t seen for almost twenty years. James was equally delighted to see those two again, and they sure had a lot to catch up.

“I immediately recognised you, with those big blue eyes of yours” Marge said laughing. “Although your hair is longer than it used to be.”

“Yeah, I thought I’d give it a try.” Of course James hadn’t lost his Scottish accent, which amused the two. James had always been a boy after Scotty’s own heart, with that funny accent and his witty character, and less intimidating than little Alfie was with his enormous knowledge and the private questions he always used to ask.

“Oh, I’m sorry…” Ricky had accidently bumped a bit into Marge while he was getting something to drink. The older lady turned around and froze. She looked at the young man in front of her, she had seen him before and she knew that he was Alfie’s ‘special friend’, but she hadn’t seen him this close and when he came in direct contact with her she felt a shudder running down her back. The aura that came from that boy…it was so familiar, it gave her goosebumps.

“Daddy…?” She whispered, looking at Ricky as if she just saw a ghost.

Ricky looked confused at the older lady. “Ehm…I’m sorry?”

Marge quickly shook her head and cleared her throat. “No, I’m sorry. I was just…I’m not the youngest anymore.” She laughed nervously, feeling Scotty’s eyes on her.

“That is alright.” Ricky smiled politely. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Oh no, thank you. That’s very nice of you…Ricky, was it?”

He nodded, and then looked over to Scotty, who was standing next to Marge. “Hi, Scotty.” He blushed a little when the older man shot him that typical, charming smile of his.

“Hey.”

“Actually, I’m a little thirsty,” James said, turning to Ricky. “Might if I join you?”

“Um…no, of course not.” Ricky looked one last time at Scotty and Marge, then he and James walked over to the table with the drinks.

“So…” Marge cleared her throat again. “Colin has been telling me that you spend an awful lot of time with that boy. I can see why.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Scotty replied dryly.

She raised an eyebrow at him.

“What?”

“There’s something very special about this young man, wouldn’t you say?” Her eyes wandered over to Ricky. “I feel like I’ve known him for a very long time.”

Scotty didn’t reply but Marge knew that he could feel it, too. No wonder Scotty had been so drawn to Ricky all this time.

“Just be careful,” Marge said. “I heard he as a very intimating boyfriend.”
They both glanced over to Alfie now, who had Jill clasped to his leg, but ignored her, of course.
“I still remember the little boy,” she whispered. “He is rather handsome, isn’t he?”

“And rude, and tactless, and arrogant, and inconsiderate and-“ Scotty broke off when Marge shot him an intense look.

“Yes,” she said. “This is the result of us abandoning him. He wouldn’t be like this now if we all had stayed together, and looked after him, like Arthur wanted.”

Scotty didn’t say anything but Marge knew just too well that the guilt was eating him up. She smiled gently at him, her glance wandering back to Ricky.
“It is not all lost,” she mumbled.

Jo hugged Liam from behind. “This is so nice. I’m sorry Dick couldn’t come.”

Liam turned around and kissed her. “I’m glad you are enjoying this. Did you see that Jill is acting as if she is the host?”

Jo giggled. “Yes, she is loving this.”

“Scoddy!” Jill screamed when she saw the older gentleman, she was holding her grandfather’s hand and dragged poor Colin along to say hello to her friend Scoddy. “It has been too long. Come onto my bosom.”

Scotty laughed nervous, as usual Jill was... well she used every word and phrase she picked up and sometimes that was not very appropriated.

“How about a firm handshake?” Scotty offered Jill his hand and grinned at Colin.

“A handshake, huh? I see.” Colin laughed as he shook Scotty’s hand.

“What can I say, the ladies love me.” Scotty laughed Jill pulled at his hand.

“Scoddy come to the food before James eats it all. He always eats.” Jill giggled. She let Scotty and Colin to the buffet. “My mummy was a little sad the past days but daddy said to see all you will cheer her up.”

“Why was your mummy sad Jill?” Colin asked concerned. He knew it was wrong to spy on his daughter through his granddaughter but how could he not, even Scotty listened suddenly a lot more.

“Because Victor that wart hog sent an evil letter to daddy to make him stop loving mummy but daddy loves mummy so much he could never not love her they are ghost mates. You know like Chad and Jack. I don’t know what the evil letter said daddy didn’t want us to see it. Ohh look sausages, yummi.” Jill pilled several sausages on her plate that Scotty was holding for her so that the food would not end up in the grass -because Jill would still eat it after the crash landing-.

“Victor as in Victor Grey?” Scotty looked shocked at Colin.

“Yes unfortunately, Elizabeth wanted him for some time to be Jo’s husband but luckily Liam came along. But yes he is still around apparently married, and even has a daughter.”

“He is a fucker and his daughter looks like a troll.” Jill said already eating some bread.

“Jillian!” Colin looked strict at his granddaughter. “We do not say words like that.”

“Sorry Grandfather, but it is true.” Jill grinned.

“I can’t believe Grey is still around.” Scotty said and shook his head. “We should sit down Princess.” He said to Jill.

“Oho. I’m not Princess.”

“But every girl is a princess.” Scotty places Jill’s plate next to Marge who was already sitting at the large table. “Isn’t that right Squirrel?”

“That is right.” Marge smiled and helped the little girl on the chair.

“But I’m not Princess. Janey is Princess, daddy says so.”

“Oh I see. Janey is called Princess by your daddy? So what does your daddy call you?” Scotty asked smiling.

“No! You can’t say that. She is my Janey.” Jill looked nearly angry at Scotty.

“Oops sorry, am I not allowed to call Jane Janey?” Scotty helped Jill cut her food.

“No! That is my Janey.” Jill said stuffing half a sausage into her mouth.

“Okay. I understand. What does your daddy call you then if Jane is Princess?”

“Cupcake.” Jill answered with a sudden strong Irish accent. “Marge do you have a husband?” Jill asked with the honesty and curiosity of a child.

“No I do not. Do you?” Marge asked with a cheeky smile.

“Yes I do. I have Fi, Scoddy and Grumpy Uncle.” Jill said matter-of-factly.

“I see Scoddy why did you not tell me that you are married to our dear Jill?”

“I forgot I was so happy that I just forgot.” Scotty laughed.

“Do you have children?” Jill asked Marge.

“Yes in a way I do. I am in a way the mommy of a house for girls. Your mommy wanted to visit in the next days, to have a chat about one of my girls attending your mommy’s school. I was going to suggest that you and Jane could come along.”

“I would like that.” Jill looked over at her mother, Jo. Jo smiled and nodded, they were at the moment teaching Jill not to shout to people so she said on purpose nothing when her daughter asked her with a look if they could go. “Mommy says we can.”

“I’m glad. But Jill my girls are very special.”

“I’m special too my mommy and daddy say so.” Jill said loudly.

Marge laughed. “Yes you are special every girl is special, but I don’t mean that way. My girls they all got hurt, very hurt. They don’t like to be touched, not even such a thing as a hug.” Marge said and it made Jill think.

“Do the girls have a daddy?”

“No there is no daddy, most girls are scared of boys.”

Jill looked deeply in thought at her plate before she spoke again. “I’m sorry they got hurt. I will not hurt them. I’m a good girl. I’m a wild thing but I don’t hurt others. Do your girls still get hurt?”

“No darling they are very safe now.” Marge was worried she said something wrong. She looked at Jo but the young woman looked calm and not at all concerned. “Jill did you know that I knew your mommy when she was as little as you are right now?”

“Really? That is a long time ago. My mommy liked reading when she was little, like me. I like books there are adventures in them. But Grandmother did not like mommy read, it made her ask questions.”

“That is right Jo was a very shy girl but she asked so many questions. We often sat right here in this garden with your grandfather, and Scoddy and their friend Arthur and sometimes there were also James and Alfie here.”

“Wow! My grandmother has blockage, she has to drink more orange juice. And sometimes she is ill then she does things she can’t control. She once shook me really hard, that scared me and mommy was scared too but daddy said she is ill and didn’t mean it. I still love her but every time I’m at her house I have to wear those dresses they make my armpit itch.”

Marge looked serious at Jill, she knew about Elizabeth’s illness but she wasn’t sure what to say to Jill.

“Your grandmother got hurt too, Jill and that made her very sad so sometimes she can’t control what she is doing.” Scotty surprised everyone.

“I know, that’s why I love her. She gave me my mommy and Grandfather loves her. He told me stories when he was young and he met her the first time. She came from Inda that is a far away curry land.”

Colin laughed. “That is right she was a beautiful girl, just like your mommy is.”

Jo was holding Liam’s hand under the table. She suddenly felt as if the whole enormity of finding out that she got raped but can’t remember it hit her. Liam saw that she felt very nervous, he leaned over and kissed her gentle on the cheek. “You are perfectly safe here and no matter what you remember it changes not a single thing what I think about you.”

Jo smiled shy and nodded. “I would like to go and meet Natalie again. I think it would help her if she knew me a little bit before. Is that alright for me to go and maybe take the girls?”

Liam smiled he knew why she asked, not because she lost her voice but because she was unsure in trusting herself. “I don’t want you to think I do not trust your judgment but do you think you can handle going to Garden Eden? Every girl there has experienced something similar to you. All I say is that I worry that it will be there when you might reach your breaking point. And I worry that I am not there to catch you.”

No one listened to the young couple’s conversation but Alfie who was sitting next to Liam. “I’ve got you a driver. As long as you need it Adam will drive you, he is also ex-military and I’ve did a background check, he is 100% a good man. He will protect you, drive you around and always get you home to your husband.”

Jo and Liam turned to Alfie as if he just took off all his clothes and started dancing on the table with his cock shaking around.

“Alfie that is not really necessary. I’ll appreciate, but really...”

“None sense. He will drive you and that way my Little Man is happy.” Alfie said and poured some of his whiskey in his punch glass.

“Thanks Alfie.” Liam looked at Jo. “It is not a bad idea. That way you are safe.” Liam kissed Jo.

“Alright, thank you Alfie.”

Colin watched Jo and Liam and wondered what Victor had sent in this letter, it clearly affected Jo. Colin knew his girl and as much as she loved having all her friends and family together, it was clear to him that something was up. However, Colin would wait until the young couple would come for help, and even though there were moments when he missed being his Little Princess’s hero, he was glad to see she found her hero in an Irish country boy.


    

A few days later

Jo, Jill and Jane drove in Alfie’s expensive car with the hired driver and Jo had to say she did feel safer in the car and with a driver. They drove to Garden Eden for an afternoon.

“Jo my darling girl, please come in.” Marge smiled widely as she ushered Jo, Jill and Jane into the house. It was a beautiful house, warm and light.

“Marge. I was thinking. Where is the daddy in this house? I have a daddy and he protects me and my mommy and my Janey.” Jill said without a hello. Marge looked at Jill for a moment and then she knelt down.

“Jill darling, remember how I told you that my girls got hurt? They got hurt by men so there is no daddy in this house. Men are not allowed in this house.”

Jill looked at Marge for a long time. “Okay. I will make sure we come more often to make sure you are safe and when your girls need a daddy to talk they can call my daddy. He is a good daddy.” Jill said serious as she hugged Marge. “I’m glad you are here.”

“Jill, darling you came to my house.” Marge laughed and hugged her back.

“Oh yeah I forgot.” Jill laughed. Jo giggled laughed behind the two, she had Jane on her arm.

“Hello Marge. Thanks for inviting us.” Jo smiled at Marge, but now seeing the young girl so close she was wondering what was going on.

“Come lets go in the garden. Natalie is in town at the moment with some of the older girls getting some things for school. Some of the younger ones said they would play with Jill and Jane.”

“Thank you. Jane will need a nap though, I was wondering if I should bring her along but at the moment I prefer them to be close to either me or Liam.”

“Of course there is a new bench she can lie down on, it is in the shade.” Marge smiled as she led the three O’Dohertys in the beautiful garden. Jane was as Marge suggested sleeping on the bench, while Jill was playing with some girls on the grass and she was very careful, she never touched a girl and was very considerate.

“Jo may I ask you something?” Marge asked gentle.

“You will ask about the letter Victor sent to Liam?”

“Yes, darling. Are you alright? You look sad and a little scared and I never thought I see a Williams been driven by a private driver.”

“Well no, but Alfie was so kind and got me this driver.” Jo looked at Jill playing to carefree. “I never wanted Jill and Jane to know about the letter but Liam got so angry about it that the girls sort of heard about it.” Jo was quiet and Marge just watched her, she remembered this little girl from a long time ago. A part of her she felt really bad that she wasn’t around while she grew up. Marge didn’t say a word she just waited for Jo to open up.

“A couple of years ago I got kidnapped and I do remember that there was one of the kidnapper that touched me and well Victor got hold of my sealed medical history and it says that I was raped, but I can’t remember it. Liam says he doesn’t see me differently and he is right he is not different around me but I feel like a part of me is missing and I don’t know how to fix something that I can’t remember while at the same time I don’t think I want to remember.”

Marge moved her hand closer to Jo’s and touched her, just her little pinkie. “I think you need to look at yourself and think about if you feel different when you remember the rape. Does it matter if another man touched you or raped you?”

Jo thought about it for a while, watching Marge’s girls she knew why they were here, and she saw them all so free playing with her daughter.

“Miss Adams? We are back.” An older teenager said friendly followed by an eleven year old girl, Natalie.

“Did you get everything, you needed Natalie?”

“No Miss Adams, there was barely anything in town and the little that I found was so expensive.” Natalie said, in an odd voice.

Marge looked at her for a while and then she said rather serious. “Natalie we talked about this, I don’t want you to lie.”

Natalie looked caught. “May I play with the little ones?”

“Yes you may, but please remember that Jill is just three years old.”

“I will.” For a while Jo and Marge just watch Natalie play with Jill and Jane that woke up moments ago.

“Natalie lies?”

“Unfortunately yes. Bu t if you watch her closely you quickly pick up when she is lying. She does it to protect herself.” Marge said.

The three O’Doherty girls stayed a little bit longer before she went home. Liam was in the living room reading while cartoons were running, the twins first said hello to daddy very happy and then they were occupied. Jo hugged Liam and snuggled to him on the couch.

“Liam I was thinking about what Victor tried to do. I know I don’t remember what happened to me but I think it doesn’t matter. I love you and no matter if I remember it or not, that won’t change and I hope that you don’t feel different about me. And I appreciate that you gave me some time, but I would really like to be with my husband and best friend tonight.” Jo looked gentle and loving at her husband.

A few nights after the barbeque in Waterfall Downs, where Alfie had to face some people he really wanted to avoid at all costs, he had troubles sleeping. He had always issues with sleep. Five hours was usually the most he slept during the night, and he barely slept well so it wasn’t something he wasn’t used to. However, this time, about three o’clock in the morning, long after Ricky went to bed, Alfie finally fell asleep too – and he later wished he hadn’t, because his dream that night would haunt him for a very long time.

Alfie woke up from the sound of music echoing up the stairs to his bedroom. He looked to his right, where Ricky was still sound asleep, obviously not hearing the music. Alfie got up and for some strange reason he felt like he needed to put on a bathrobe before he went downstairs, so he grabbed the robe and put it on while carefully making his way downstairs.
He immediately froze when he realised that the record of The Flower Duet was playing. His grandfather’s favourite. He had broken that record not too long ago when Ricky was snooping around. He had not only broken the record but also the record player. Why was it still there, playing that goddamn song that Alfie couldn’t bear to listen to? The entire living room was filled with the haunting music. Alfie was about to walk to the record player and turn it off when he suddenly heard a noise coming from the kitchen. Someone was there. Someone who wasn’t Ricky… The only two other people who possessed keys to his flat were Liam and James. It was very unlikely that either one of them was in his kitchen in the middle of the night.
Alfie carefully approached the kitchen and then stopped in the doorframe. There was another man, getting out pans from the cupboard. He clearly seemed to know his way around the kitchen. He had his back turned towards him but Alfie could already feel his heart race as he felt the undeniably familiar presence of the other man, saw the set of full, golden locks…and then he turned around, his blue eyes, the exact blue of Alfie’s eyes, the face of an angel, lips as delicate as Ricky’s, cheeks a gentle flush of pink.

“There you are.” The young man in front of Alfie was younger than Alfie, in his early twenties. Only that young man was none other than Arthur Jackson, Alfie’s grandfather. He looked quite a deal younger than his own grandson. There was a softness in Arthur’s face, very similar to Ricky’s. He had never possessed Alfie’s masculine facial futures. Alfie had seen pictures of his grandfather as a young man. This was exactly how he had looked. Beautiful beyond words.

“Grandfather…” It was such a strange term, considering that the other boy looked younger than him. How could this be? What was happening?

“Are you hungry, Little Man?”

Alfie looked confused at Arthur. His grandfather was wearing a simple white shirt, similar to those he used to wear when they were on holidays in France. And since when did he cook? He couldn’t recall that his grandfather ever cooked. What was going on?

“I’m making eggs,” Arthur continued as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “Or do you prefer pancakes?”

“I…I…what is this?” Alfie felt a sting in his heart was he saw this young man so close to him. Of course he had never met Arthur this young, he had only known him in his forties and fifties, until he died at the age of 53, but for some reason seeing Arthur as young man felt awfully familiar. Probably because when Alfie was a little boy, he used to look at so many pictures of his grandfather, and he especially went through the pictures when Arthur was young. Seeing his grandfather young had always fascinated him.

“Do you want milk?” Arthur cracked open two eggs, and then got out some milk and poured it into a cup, which he then placed on the counter before Alfie.

“I don’t understand…”

“Milk is good for your bones. You need to grow, Little Man,” Arthur remarked while getting out a plate.

“What?” Alfie was still confused. “I’m a grown man, Grandfather. Look at me.”

Arthur suddenly stopped for a moment, then slowly turned back to Alfie. “Of course you are…” A strange smile played around his lips. “How could I forget?”

Alfie didn’t know what to say. He was too confused for words.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Arthur smiled gently. “The Flower Duet, I mean. I could listen to it all day. It always brings me peace.” He put the scrambled eggs on the plate and placed the plate in front of Alfie. “Eat up. You have a long day ahead of you.”

“Why?”

Arthur chuckled. “School, of course!”

Alfie finally took a seat in one on the high chairs next to the counter. “I’m not in school anymore, Grandfather. I’m not even at university. I graduated years ago.”

Arthur scrutinised him quietly. He seemed a bit absent, almost lost in thoughts, but then he shook his head and smiled again.
“You have to excuse the old man. I’m a bit confused.”

“You’re not…you don’t look old to me.”

“Oh, that is kind of you to say, Alfie.”

“No, really. What are you? 20? 22?”

“I’m a lot older than that, Alfie,” Arthur laughed.

“What are you doing here, Grandfather?”

“Making sure my little boy gets some proper food.”

“I’m not a little boy. Don’t you see?” Alfie almost sounded a bit impatient.

Arthur stepped closer and Alfie felt how his pulse increased as the other boy put his ice-cold hand on his cheek.
“But Alfie,” Arthur said softly, “you will always be my little boy. You know that, don’t you?”

This was so weird, because if this young man in front of him wouldn’t be his grandfather, Alfie would feel seriously attracted to him. Damn, he was gorgeous. But something felt so wrong. Something about Arthur’s eyes was wrong, the coldness of his hands…
“You’re not real,” Alfie said. “You can’t be in this kitchen. You can’t be…you can’t…”

Arthur just looked at him silently.

“You’re dead.”

The other boy still didn’t say a word. No expression on his face. His blue eyes were fixed on his grandson, and Alfie started to feel nervous.

“I’m not dead, Alfie,” Arthur replied calmly. “I might have passed away, but I still live… If you would only look around you, you would see that I never really left. My little Princess Marge keeps me alive. My wonderful brother Colin keeps me alive. And Scotty.” His smile had a touch of secrecy. “Scotty…”

Alfie bit his lip.

“The orphanage, the hospital, the charities…it all keeps me alive. My name is still everywhere, isn’t it? I have never really left, you see? I’m still very much present, even after all those years. People still remember me. They still talk about me.” Arthur stood right in front of Alfie, The Flower Duet still playing in the background. He put both his hands on Alfie’s cheeks now, holding his face as if he had to take a closer look at him.
“But you killed me, Alfie. I’m only dead because you let me. You killed me off by denying me. Denying the memories of me.” Arthur’s grip got tighter. “You have killed me, Alfred Jackson.”

Alfie sat up and gasped loudly. Sweat was running down his face. He breathed heavily and looked to his right. Ricky was asleep. There was no music. The flat was dark.
A goddman dream. It was nothing but a bloody dream. Fuck this!
His heart was still beating like crazy. He didn’t want to go back to sleep. He was too scared to sleep, too scared to dream. He got up and walked downstairs. Still no music. Nobody in the kitchen. It was almost frightfully silent down here.
He got out a glass and a whole bottle of whiskey, then he sat down in a corner of the living room and switched on a little light. He pushed his hair out of his forehead and took a deep breath.
Even though he didn’t fall asleep that night again, even though he stayed up the rest of the night and watched the sun rise, even though he no longer dreamed, he could still feel the touch of Arthur’s hands on his face, and it sent a shiver down his spine.

((I am so sorry for the short post but I am dying to read the wedding ))




“This was long overdue.” Jo was wearing one of her pretty, red summer dresses as she lay back on the blanket and looked smiling at her husband. Liam grinned he was enjoying another sandwich that she had made. The twins were with Dan, Henry and Edward out for a picnic themselves just that they were on the safety of Lorelai’s stud farm while Liam and Jo where in the middle of the fields of Oxford. Liam kissed his wife and grinned widely.

“So I know you said you are alright but are you really?” Liam pulled Jo closer. Jo smiled, kissed him and then whispered.

“It happened in the past, I can’t really remember it, and I know that I was never safer with you.” Jo snuggled into Liam’s arm as she took the newspaper.

“What the fuck?!” Jo shrieked loud enough to make Liam jump.

“What is wrong?” Liam tried to figure out if it was a bug, pain or bad memory; that made Jo scream like that.

“What the fuck!? Lord Alfred Broderick Grayson Gameliel Arthur Vortigern Oxford Cyril Whitfield Ernest Algernon Jackson of Oxfordshire, Son of Duke Brodewick ... Jackson of Oxfordshire is getting married on the 19^th of August the daughter of Duke... Liam Alfie is getting married? How? Why? What about Ricky?” Jo starred at Liam and showed him the first page of the newspaper where a picture of Alfie and the young girl were on the front page.

Liam stared at the article in the newspaper, completely bewildered – and then broke out into laughter. Jo raised her eyebrow sceptically at him, not understanding his reaction.

“I had no idea Alfie had this many names. I mean…Gameliel? Like, seriously? Whitfield? Come on, they must be joking, they-“ He broke off immediately when he noticed his wife’s strict glare. “Sorry.”

“This is a serious matter, Liam. Something isn’t right here… Did Alfie ever say something to you?”

“No, not at all. He’s the last person on this planet who would get married voluntarily. He doesn’t believe in marriage. And who is this girl anyway?”

“I know her parents. Her name is Anabelle, she’s no older than 17.”

“Ew. So she’s a minor.”

“Well, every proper upper class girl Alfie’s age, plus or minus a few years, is already married, so they have to look at their younger sisters and cousins, most of them still teenagers.”

“Yuck.”

Jo looked back at the newspaper. “Something weird is up…” She rose to her feet.

“Where are you going?”

“I need to see Ricky, he must be heartbroken. If this is really happening…”

“But I thought we would-“

“This is a very urgent matter, Liam. It’s not a joke.”

“Okay, okay.” Liam got up as well but couldn’t hold back a chuckle. “Vortigern…I’m going to tease him with that for the rest of his life.”

Jo just sighed deeply and shook her head.

The moment they got back to Waterfall Downs, Jo found Ricky in their living room. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days and his usually so perfect hair was as tousled as Liam’s, who never cared how his hair looked.

“Ricky!” Jo ran to him and hugged him tightly.

“I’m sorry, I let myself in. Well, Betty let me in but I…I just…”

“It’s okay,” she said gently.

“What’s up with Alfie, dude?” Liam asked, sensitive as always.

Jo shot him a cold glance, which made him shut up immediately. “Liam, would you mind leaving us alone for a bit? You could pick up the twins if you want.”

“Ehm, sure.” Liam glanced over to Ricky who just stared at his hands. “Should I…um…check on Alfie?”

Ricky bit his lip and shook his head. “There’s no point.”
Jo could hear how he was fighting his tears.

“Okay, I’ll get the girls then,” Liam said and left the two alone.
As soon as her husband was gone, Jo prepared a nice cup of tea for them and sat next to him on the couch, holding on to his hand.

“Liam and I were outside for a picnic and I had the newspaper with me and then we came across the…announcement. That can’t be true, can it?”

“It is.” Ricky didn’t even dare to look at his best friend, whom he trusted unconditionally. He tried so hard not to break apart in front of her.

“How…what…where did that suddenly come from? I don’t understand. Why…I mean…I knew that his family always pressured him to marry but they can’t force him to, can they? Didn’t he inherit his grandfather’s money? So he’s not dependent on his family at all, is he?”

“He isn’t, you’re right about that.”

“So why did he change his mind? Why does he get married now if his parents can’t technically force him?”

“I don’t know, Jo,“ Ricky whispered. “I asked him over and over again but he wouldn’t give me an answer. I don’t know what’s gotten into him. He never wanted to marry, he despised the idea of marriage and he doesn’t even like women.”

“It doesn’t make sense…” Jo shook her head. “What happens to the two of you now?”

“Oh, it’s just fantastic. I’m pretty much going to be his mistress. I still get to stay in our flat and he’ll be there whenever he has time and doesn’t have to be with his…wife.”

“No!” Jo protested. “It doesn’t add up. And it certainly doesn’t sound like Alfie. If I wouldn’t know it any better, I’d say someone brainwashed him but the thing is; nobody can brainwash Alfie. He’s the most strong-minded person I know. Nobody and nothing can affect and influence him.”

“I think,” Ricky said in a lowered voice, “I think that he just wanted his family to back off and leave him alone, that’s why he finally accepted their wish for him to get married, and they will maybe leave him alone after that. I don’t know…”

“But then they will continue pressuring him to produce male heirs,” Jo replied. “Trust me, they never back off, and they sure are obsessed with male heirs in that family.”

Ricky took a deep breath. “I don’t want to be someone’s mistress, Jo. I want to be what you are to Liam. The only one in his life, the one he’d walk through fire and protect from any harm.” He sounded sad and defeated, and it broke her heart. “But I think the whole thing with Alfie…I can never be ‘the one’ in his life. He always has others on the side. It’s never just me. We’ve been together for about six years now, and in those six years he still hasn’t stopped sleeping around. I was never enough for him. I was never what my mum is to my dad, or what you are to Liam. I’m just not enough for him.”

“Oh, Ricky…” Jo had a hard time holding back her tears now, and she pulled her best friend into a tight hug. She couldn’t really find the right words to say. She couldn’t say that Alfie would change, because honestly, he had six years and he certainly had changed in some ways, but with many other things he was still the same. Alfie was not the type who could be changed that easily. He was much deeper than any other person Jo knew, and probably the most complex person Jo had ever met.
Most of the time Jo wondered if Alfie was even capable of being together with someone, or if he was just better off alone…
And yet there was this tiny flicker of hope she sometimes managed to catch. The tiny glimpse of hope, just a small flicker, that showed that there was something in Alfie nobody normally saw: kindness. And that’s what she saw when he looked at Ricky. No matter how rude and insensitive he acted sometimes, and even when he wasn’t the nicest guy to Ricky at times, but there were those rare yet valuable moments when Jo caught him looking at Ricky, and the way he looked at him changed her opinion about him. That look, she always thought, was love. The purest form of it.
Yet why did he once again hurt Ricky so much and turned away from him? She really didn’t understand.

“Daddy you look very pretty.” Jane said with such a strong Irish accent that it even surprised Liam.

“I think he looks funny. You have so many layers on. You look like Fi.” Jill said giggling sounding a lot more like her mother.

“Well thanks the both of you. Jane remember how I told you that man don’t look pretty they are handsome? Girls are pretty. And yeah I guess you could say I look like Alfie, he always wears so many layers.” Liam chuckled and kissed his girls. Jane had insisted on wearing one of her most pretty summer dresses while Jill wore very proudly her bell-bottoms and her Swedish clogs, the younger twin really enjoyed the 70’s fashion.

“Why can we not come too? Fi can’t marry this girl he is marrying me and Auntie Ricky.” Jill said with her pounding lips.

“Yeah tell me about it. I wish you girls could come, we would have a lot of fun. But you will be with Betty, Dan, Henry and Edward, while mommy and I will be at this wedding.” Liam brushed some lose hair out of Jill’s face. She liked her hair flying wild in the wind.

“Dan said we can ride our tricycles in the garden. Daddy when will you teach us to ride our bikes without the training wheels?” Jill asked impatient.

“I will, I promise.” Liam kneeled down and pulled both girls in his arms. “You will be good right? Don’t do any mischief Cupcake and you need to eat your meals Princess.”

Both girls nodded and kissed Liam on the cheeks.

“Liam are you ready? The car is there and Betty just took the boys in the garden.” Jo was wearing... one heck of a dress and she looked unhappy even more. Liam got up pulled her in a tight hug and whispered in her ear.

“I know you don’t like this dress and the makeup and well neither do I but you are gorgeous. I cannot wait to rip this off you and show what a bad, bad girl you are.” Liam felt a little bad for talking with his wife like that but at the same time, he knew that he never hurt her no matter how wild they did it. Jo giggled nervously.

“I still can’t belive that Alfie gets married in St Paul I mean what is he a king?” Liam peeked out of the window when the car stopped, there were actually bystanders and the media to report about this wedding. Jo took a deep breath when Liam got out of the car first and then took Jo’s hand -just like she had practiced with him- to help her out of the car. People started screaming and pushing and photos were taken. Lady Josephine. Jo Williams. Jooooo. Jo, Liam….

“This is insane.” Liam whispered making sure not to move his lips too much.

“Why do you think I wanted a country boy?” Jo made sure that it was impossible to take a picture of her without Liam and the short walk from the car into the church seemed to be a mile long. Of course Liam and Jo were not allowed to sit with her parents or Alfie they were sitting with the other young married couples, all rich snobs.

“Is breá liom tú mo chomh iontach, buachaill tír iontach! Do rud ar bith sa saol seo mbeadh mé ag iarraidh é seo!”

“Is this what your mother wanted for you and Laxiusque? Man look at this there are some foreign looking people and I thought the Jackson’s hate anything not English.” Liam pointed at a group of very blonde and blue-eyed people. Jo laughed. “I know how dare they to invite people from the Swedish Royal family, those peasants.”

Before the ceremony began, Liam, as Alfie’s best man, managed to get a few minutes alone with his friend before Alfie had to leave and wait at the altar.
“Alfie?” Liam stepped behind his friend who was adjusting his tie. He looked very handsome, but it was just not right.

“Little Man,” Alfie said, not turning around.

“How come they let me be your best man, by the way? In your family’s eyes I’m just an Irish peasant.”

“I was allowed to choose my best man.”

“What about James?”

Alfie hesitated for a moment. “I don’t want him near my family.”

“What do you mean?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Liam stepped a bit closer. “No, really. Why is that?”

“Because…” Alfie cleared his throat. “Because they can touch him. He’s not protected by anyone. You, on the other hand…you’re married to a Williams, so my family can’t harm you, or at least they wouldn’t do that because they don’t want confrontations with the Williams, but James…I just don’t want him close to those people.”

Liam understood, and it proved to him once more that no matter how mean Alfie could be at times, he was always there for his best friends. They truly meant more to him than he cared to admit.
“Alfie-“

“I have to get going now.” Alfie got up and finally turned to Liam. Even though Alfie looked always very posh and rich, today, in this insanely expensive, hand-tailored suit, he looked like Britain’s wealthiest man. Although he certainly was heir to one of Britain’s wealthiest families, so it wasn’t that far off. “It’s show time.”

“Alfie, wait.” Liam followed him quickly. “You still haven’t told me why you decided to get married.”

“Because I fell in love,” Alfie replied sarcastically.

“Come on!”

“I have my reasons, Little Man.”

“But it’s not fair to Ricky. Think about it, you can’t just-“

Alfie suddenly stopped so abruptly that Liam almost ran into him. He turned to Liam and shot him a cold look. “Don’t tell me what I can and what I can’t do. You don’t want to sound like my family, do you?”

“I’m sorry, I just-“

But Alfie already continued walking towards the altar, followed by a very confused Liam. Liam, who took his position behind Alfie, noticed how his best friend wouldn’t look at anyone. He seemed strangely relaxed, which was another thing that confused Liam.
Liam glanced over to the first row, where all the Jacksons were sitting, including Alfie’s sister Cecilia, who was pregnant with her third child by now. She already had two girls, two horribly annoying brats. Lady Charlotte Jackson, Alfie’s mother, had a little fan with her and complained about something while her husband was more focused on making eye contact with a young woman a few rows behind them, which disgusted Liam, since the girl Lord Broderick Jackson was so keen on checking out looked no older than 18, maybe even younger - and he was in his fifties. And then there was Lady Eleanor Jackson…Even though she had the same kind of cold, somewhat sour expression on her face as the rest of the Jackson clan, there was something different about her. Liam couldn’t quite point out what it was but as he watched the old lady he felt like she wasn’t part of that family. She, who was actually a born and bred Jackson herself, appeared to be a little different than the others. Liam had no idea why he was getting that impression of her. After all, he had heard many stories about her and Alfie himself had told him what an awful woman she was and how much she hated her grandson, but strangely, Liam didn’t think Lady Eleanor looked like a hateful person at all. A bitter one maybe, but not a cruel one. Maybe she was just particularly good in disguising her cruelty. Liam didn’t know much about her, really.
Lady Eleanor seemed to have noticed that he stared at her, and he immediately looked away when she shot him a cold glance. Her opinion about him, the simple peasant boy from Ireland, was probably not the best, he was quite sure about that.

The organ began to fill the giant church with music while a flower girl made her way to the altar. Next was the bride’s maid of honour, who was also her younger sister- and Liam caught Lord Broderick checking her out as well. She was certainly not older than 15.
Then entered the bride, a skinny little thing of 17, with mousy brown hair tied up in the back, a conservative hairstyle that wouldn’t let one single strand of hair stand out. A veil covered her face, but the veil was thin so Liam could see a bit of her face under it. The bride-to-be looked so young, it seemed like they married Alfie off to a child. Her father, an older gentleman in uniform, gave his daughter away at the altar. As Lady Annabelle Buxton stood so close to her tall, muscular future husband, she looked especially small and fragile. Liam could see her shaking under that enormous white dress that looked heavier than she was. He could also make out a set of large, frightened dark eyes under the veil. She didn’t dare to look at Alfie. Liam knew this was a bad idea. They couldn’t marry this shaking, skinny thing off to someone as rough as Alfie, who would break that poor girl. Liam really didn’t want to know what Alfie would do to her in their wedding night. She was definitely still a virgin, and she would be terrified of physical contact for the rest of her life once Alfie was done with her.

The Reverend cleared his throat and began the ceremony. Liam glanced briefly at his wife and his parents-in-law, but then his eyes fell to the Jacksons again. Lord Broderick seemed bored by the Reverend’s speech but his wife had a hard time holding back her excitement. She looked like a winner, and she probably felt like one, too, because she had been fighting for this so long. Her son was finally getting married, something she had almost given up on.
Lady Eleanor, on the other hand, seemed wary, almost as if she didn’t quite trust what was going on around her. She was a clever woman, unlike Alfie’s parents. Very clever indeed…

The Reverend had talked for a while, especially about the importance and heritage of both families that were united today, and then he approached the most important part of the ceremony. He looked at Alfie and re-adjusted his glasses.
“Do you, Lord Alfred Broderick Grayson Gameliel Arthur Vortigern Oxford Cyril Whitfield Ernest Algernon Jackson of Oxfordshire, take Lady Annabelle Margaret Lydia Esther Buxton to be your wife for as long as you both shall live?”
It got so quiet in the whole cathedral that one could hear a pin drop. Liam had a hard time not to break into laughter while listening to Alfie’s ridiculously long name. He literally had to bite his lip. Lady Charlotte looked like she was almost fainting, that’s how anxious she was but her son didn’t pay attention to her. Instead he looked directly at his grandmother and a smile crossed his face that reminded Liam of a psychopath. Lady Eleanor didn’t display any emotion, not even at the sight of her only grandson grinning viciously at her. Alfie looked at her one last time, then he turned right towards the entire audience, who were all holding their breath in anticipation.

“Fuck, no,” he replied dryly.

Loud gasps escaped from the benches, especially from the ladies. One of the members of the Swedish Royal Family said something in her native tongue while the others just stared in bewilderment. The loudest gasps, though, came from his mother, who looked like she was choking on something and needed air.
The Reverend frowned, as if he wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. Alfie let out a dry laugh, still facing everyone.

“I will not marry this woman,“ he said so matter-of-factly as if he told everyone that he didn’t like the rain. “Or any other woman for that matter.” He leaned a little closer to Annabelle and whispered: “No offence, but you look like you give lousy blow jobs. And besides, I’m too big for you…if you know what I mean…”
The poor girl didn’t say anything, but she was still shaking.

“I am here today,” Alfie continued in a louder voice so that everyone could hear him, “because my family wouldn’t understand that I will never get married, so I realised I needed to tell them here, and in front of everyone, that I will not marry. Ever.” He looked back at the first row. “Mummy dearest, do you get it now? You. Don’t. Own .Me. You can’t make me do things against my will. Nobody can. Not even you, Father. You might be powerful in this country but you can’t rule over me. You can trample over everyone else, let everyone kiss your ass, but that won’t work with me.”

A big blue vein at Lord Broderick’s temple stood out and he looked like he was about to jump up and beat the living daylight out of his son but Liam noticed how Lady Eleanor grabbed Broderick’s arm harshly and hissed something that only her son could hear.

“And Grandmother…” Alfie’s attention was now back on the old lady. “You’re a pathetic old hag. Find someone else you can annoy, but back the fuck off from my private life.” He didn’t need to mention Ricky, whom Lady Eleanor had already attacked verbally on more than just one occasion. She knew what his grandson was referring to. To Liam’s surprise she didn’t look shocked or mad at Alfie’s cold words towards her. She actually looked…wait, was he just imagining it? If Liam didn’t know it any better, he’d say that Lady Eleanor Jackson looked hurt.
Impossible. He probably just imagined it. And yet…for a split second there was something sad in her brown eyes and Liam found himself feeling sorry for her, despite all the cruel stories Alfie had told him about that woman. For that brief moment she didn’t look like a Jackson. She looked human.

“I will not bow to anyone, not even the royal family,” Alfie said loudly. “I hope everyone here stops objectifying me and planning to use me as their potential match for their daughters. Trust me, they are better off not marrying me.” He glanced at his watch. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have better things to do than wasting my time with each one of you here.” He looked at the Reverend, who, in his forty years of preaching, had never come across anything like this. “And for God’s sake, Reverend, close your mouth or you will catch flies!”
And with that, Alfie was out the door. Liam still stood there, completely confused. Annabelle, even though dumped at the altar, seemed weirdly relieved. She was probably happy that she didn’t have to get married after all.
This would be in the newspapers. This would even be shown in the news on television. This would become big.
Liam had sometimes issues standing up to difficult parents who didn’t want to accept their son’s or daughter’s grade he had given them. His best friend Alfie, on the other hand, had just stood up to an entire nation…

While all hell broke loose in church, Colin Williams leaned back in his seat and took a deep breath.
“Wow,” he said.

Jo, who had gotten up because she wanted to go to Liam, noticed her father’s headshaking and wanted to check on him. “Are you okay, Daddy?”

“Incredible…”

“What?” she asked.

“This, my dear Jo,” her father explained, “is true power. Not what all the other Jackson men had done over the centuries, but this, right here. I think…” He paused for a moment.

“You think what, Daddy?”

“That boy might lack respect and politeness, but I think Alfie might be the most powerful Jackson in history.”
Jo’s eyes widened.

“He was right,” Colin mumbled. “Arthur was right all along. He knew what he was doing when he called Alfie the ‘special one’…He knew it from the start.” He chuckled quietly. “That sly fox.”

Ricky had been invited to Scotty’s little cottage and was delighted when Marge was there as well. “Ricky it is so good to see you again. My girls made us some snacks. I heard that you are quite a cook yourself?” Marge led Ricky in the living room, she knew Scotty house by heart and felt just as home in it as she did in Garden Eden and… another house.
Ricky smiled shy at her. He hadn’t forgotten the odd encounter at the barbeque not long ago. “It is nice to see you again Miss Adams.”

Even though Marge seemed happy to hear her name she still shook her head. “Please call me Marge. And it is nice to see you.”

Ricky giggled and followed her inside. “Ricky! Oh it is so good to see you. Can you believe it this idiot of boy is getting married to a child bride? I swear the Jacksons are insane.” Scotty laughed flirty at Ricky when he hugged the young boy.

“Come boys sit down it is starting. Oh look at all these pretty dresses.” Marge took her cup of tea and watched the TV.
Scotty laughed. “Just a word and you could get a dress like that.”

“It wouldn’t be right. For what do I need a dress like that?”

“Not sure, but you would sure look pretty Squirrel. And Arthur would like to see you shine like that.”

“Oh shush you silly boy.” Marge laughed. Ricky was watching the two, when Scotty invited him he didn’t really feel like watching his boyfriend marry another girl but something made him come anyway and now he was glad he wasn’t alone. There were commentaries and pretalk before the ceremony got broadcasted, all three got excited when they recognised a face and it did not surprise either Scotty nor Marge that Ricky knew quite a lot about the upper class.

“So Ricky, may I asked how it feels to watch your partner marry someone else?” Mage asked gentle.

“Awful, I mean I tried to talk to him why but he is shutting me out. I know he does it to get his family off his back but next they will pressure him for heirs… I mean…” Ricky went pale when he realised that he just admitted to Marge and Scotty that he and Alfie were together. But to his surprise neither Scotty nor Marge seemed appalled. “How long do you know?”

Marge smiled. “Since well a long time. I always knew that Alfie preferred boys over girls not a surprise with that family history and about you… since I’ve seen photographs of him and you at a polo game in Bath. And to explain the acceptance… I live with girls that got brutally raped, about half of them never ever lie with a man again and all try how it feels to lie with a girl.”

“Me, I just think society needs to wake up and see that people love people no matter what gender. I’ve seen some interesting things in Asia.” Scotty said leaning back watching the TV.
Ricky was a little surprised but also glad somehow. He turned to the TV as well and listened to the reverend.

“Do you, Lord Alfred Broderick Grayson Gameliel Arthur Vortigern Oxford Cyril Whitfield Ernest Algernon Jackson of Oxfordshire, take Lady Annabelle Margaret Lydia Esther Buxton to be your wife for as long as you both shall live?”
“Fuck, no,” Alfie replied dryly.
Loud gasps escaped from the benches, especially from the ladies. Alfie let out a dry laugh, still facing everyone.
“I will not marry this woman,“ Alfie said so matter-of-factly as if he told everyone that he didn’t like the rain. “Or any other woman for that matter. I am here today, because my family wouldn’t understand that I will never get married, so I realised I needed to tell them here, and in front of everyone, that I will not marry. Ever. Mummy dearest, do you get it now? You. Don’t. Own .Me. You can’t make me do things against my will. Nobody can. Not even you, Father. You might be powerful in this country but you can’t rule over me. You can trample over everyone else, let everyone kiss your ass, but that won’t work with me. And Grandmother… You’re a pathetic old hag. Find someone else you can annoy, but back the fuck off from my private life. I will not bow to anyone, not even the royal family. I hope everyone here stops objectifying me and planning to use me as their potential match for their daughters. Trust me, they are better off not marrying me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have better things to do than wasting my time with each one of you here. And for God’s sake, Reverend, close your mouth or you will catch flies!”
The cameras followed Alfie outside where reporter bombarded him with questions. Alfie showed some rather rudely away and said into one camera apparently responding to a question “Fuck them all!”

Marge was smiling approvingly, Scotty was laughing in shock while Ricky actually had started crying. Marge was the first to speak. “Well, well Alfred who would have thought that you are just hiding the little confident boy that so desperately wanted to be anything but a Jackson. Well done, well done! You will do it after all.”
Ricky turned to Marge. “Do what?”

“Break the curse of course. Daddy was right he truly is the Special One.” Marge got up to get another pot of tea, while Scotty could just not stop laughing it was defiantly a crazy laugh but he seemed pleased. Ricky wasn’t sure what was going on, why did Alfie not tell him that he would do this? He basically just admitted the rumours that he is gay -not that he will admit that himself- and he’d proven again that he loved Ricky but for some very stupid reason he could not tell him.

“You know it’s a Jackson trait not to share what you feel and to push those away you love the most. I know it is hard and scary at times but keep pushing the wall will come down and then for a while you have a broken Alfie but once he is rebuilt he will be stronger than ever.” Scotty said getting himself a whiskey and handed Ricky a glass as well. Ricky wasn’t sure but he felt as if Scotty was talking about Arthur but why should Scotty talk about Arthur in this way?

Chaos had erupted in church, and Colin couldn’t hide the fact how amused he was about this whole thing. He clearly enjoyed watching the finest upper class people running around like headless chicken and the news reporters following them like flies. Alfie sure as hell knew how to stir up trouble, that’s for sure. The Jacksons, of course, didn’t behave much different than the rest except Eleanor, who just sat quietly on the bench, almost absent from everything around her. She didn’t notice that Colin was watching her from the distance.
“Now this was a royal waste of time,” Cecilia complained. “My back aches all morning and the stupid brat is kicking me all the time.” Her hand rested on her big stomach. “I could have stayed at home and just-“
But her parents weren’t paying attention to her. She was the last thing on their minds right now.

“My heart!” Lady Charlotte used her fan in exaggeration. “I’m getting a heart attack, I just know it! I always knew this boy is going to be the death of me. I can barely breathe, I-“

“Shut the fuck up, Charlotte!” Lord Broderick shouted. “You are going to be the death of me with your damn yammering!”

“Broderick, the cameras, don’t forget the-“

“Screw the fucking cameras! Like our reputation can get any worse…I could just kill this dirty, little, back-talking brat! He was always out to get me.”

“Now you sound plain paranoid,” his wife mumbled.

“It’s true! I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s planning an attack against us, and will kill us off, one by one.”

“You sound delusional, Broderick. Alfred will not kill us, he will-“

“Ruin our family, precisely!” Lord Broderick didn’t care whether people could hear him or not. “It’s all my father’s fault! All this time he spent with Alfred, getting to him, telling him God knows what about his own family! This today…this is my father’s work! I should have never allowed him near Alfred, he manipulated him with wrong ideas. And I don’t even want to know what else he did with him all those times they were alone…”
He couldn’t continue. He suddenly felt a hard slap across his wife.

“Don’t you ever dare to say something about your father like this!” Broderick’s own mother, the petite, little Lady Eleanor Jackson, had slapped her grown son so hard that a visible red mark remained on the Duke’s face.  “You have no right to speak about him that way!”

“I have no right?” Lord Broderick repeated sarcastically. “I am the Duke, Mother.  I am the DUKE! I have every right!  And you know just as well as I do that Father’s influence on Alfred ruined every-“

“Shut your mouth, Broderick!”

Everyone around them gasped, including the Jacksons. Nobody had ever seen Lady Eleanor like that.  “You should better ask your wife what she did with Alfred all that time they were alone.”

Lady Charlotte gasped in shock while her husband turned to her, frowning. As Lady Charlotte stuttered something and tried to find excuses, Lady Eleanor turned her back on her family and quietly slipped out of the church. She had enough of this. She just wanted some quiet time now.
She got into one of many Rolls Royce that were waiting outside St Paul’s, about to give the driver the order to get her back to her house in Oxford, when suddenly the door opened and none other than Earl Colin Williams climbed into the car and sat down next to her.
“Good morning, Eleanor,” he said, smiling friendly at her.

“What in devil’s name…?!”

“Care for a chat?”

She still looked confused and outraged at him. She needed a moment but then she found her composure again. “No…no, in fact I do not. Driver, would you please-“

“Oh, I have to get back to Oxford too, so we can share the same ride, can’t we?” He still smiled at her, then ordered the driver to leave.  

Eleanor was clearly not pleased about this. “I do not wish to speak with you.”

“Come on.” Colin chuckled. “We know each other for a very long time now. I believe since I was born, and you were…four years old, I think?”

She didn’t say anything. They did have a long history. After all, Colin Williams used to be her husband’s best friend. They were almost like bothers while growing up, and she, too, had been familiar with the Williams family during her time growing up. Especially his mother, Lady Josephine Williams… Her close bond with Arthur had always bugged Eleanor immensely.
Eleanor crossed her arms like a sulky child.
“What could you possibly have to say to me? Do you have anything further to add to my humiliation?”

Colin looked at her with a gentle expression. “You stood up for Arthur, back there, in church. That was really nice of you.”

She pressed her lips together, not replying to that.

“You know…” Colin cleared his throat. “That young man, Ricky Butcher, he is-“

“I cannot believe you would mention this…this person to me!” She was clearly upset but Colin remained calm.

“Eleanor, please listen to me. If you would actually take the time to get to know him, you would realise how similar he is to Arthur. Not the same person, of course, but there are so many similarities between them and-“

“How dare you compare a lower class boy to my husband? Have you lost your mind?” She looked furiously at Colin. “And how could you possibly expect me to spend time with the working class? You and your strange family might do that but certainly not us Jacksons. Your family has always been peculiar after all…”
Colin didn’t take her words personally. He also didn’t mention the fact that her own husband used to spend almost more time with the lower class than with his own piers. He had actually taken care of the lower class, as if they were his children. And Eleanor knew that. She knew it just too well.

“Anyway,” the older gentleman continued. “You do care about Alfie, no matter how much you hide it, but you do care about that boy, and deep down you care about his happiness. And Ricky Butcher, no matter what you think of the lower class, but that boy is the best thing that could have happened to Alfie.”

Eleanor’s face looked frozen. There wasn’t any expression that could reveal her thoughts.
“How can you support this…illness?”

“I don’t support an illness. I support love.”

She was quiet for a moment. “It is not right.”

“You know Alfie always went his own way. He always chose his own path and he wouldn’t let anyone interfere. He always did his own thing, even while Arthur was still alive. He’s always been an incredibly head-strong boy, that one. And if a life with Ricky is what he chose, he will not change his mind or let anyone else change it.” He paused briefly while watching Eleanor. He could tell that he was slowly getting to her, whether she liked it or not. “I know it’s hard for you to accept. It probably feels like you have to re-live the past all over again.”

“It has nothing to do with…that.”

Colin glanced at her intensely, and then, very gently, said: “Come on, Eleanor. You know better. It has everything to do with it. Arthur was the only one in your family you cared about, and he remained always unreachable to you because of the way he chose to live and the way he chose to love. And Alfie, now the only thing you remotely care about, has chosen a similar way.”

Eleanor didn’t respond.

“You do know that making Alfie’s life hard and forcing him into marriage and other things he doesn’t want will only make him stronger, right? Look what he’s done today. The more stones you and the rest of your family throws his way, the stronger he grows. And you know why this is?”

“Because he is stubborn,” Eleanor replied coldly.

Colin chuckled. “Because he’s a very, very special Jackson boy. Apart from all his negative attributes, Alfie might have a very special place in the history of the Jacksons. Arthur already knew that when Alfie was just a wee boy.”

Eleanor bit her lip.

“And you know it, too, Eleanor. You don’t want to see it but you know it.”


Meanwhile at Scotty’s cottage

“I have to go!” Ricky exclaimed while the news showed the aftermath of Alfie’s exit. “He’s probably on the way home. I hope you don’t mind, I know you invited me and- ”

“Of course not, my dear.” Marge smiled gently at the young man. “You have somewhere else to be.”

“And we sure as hell get some entertainment here,” Scotty said. “I mean, when will I ever get the chance to watch aristocrats making a total fool out of themselves? Look at them…this is the best entertainment I had in ages!”

Ricky laughed. “Rich people sure look funny when they get mad. Or when they try to run.”

“And Eleanor slapping that horrible son of hers?” Scotty turned his head to Marge. “That was pretty cool, wasn’t it?”

“I do not support violence,” Marge said, “but in this case I cannot say that I didn’t enjoy it.” Then, with a quieter note, she added:  “Daddy would have likes this. I mean, all of this. And his little special one…how handsome he looked today, didn’t he? So, so handsome.  Oh, he would have loved to see this.”

Ricky watched the two curiously. “Would you tell me more about Arthur next time?” he asked, almost shyly. He knew how much Alfie hated the fact that Ricky researched his family. “He sounds like a very interesting person.”

A warm smile played on Marge’s face. “Of course, Ricky. I’d love to tell you more about him. I wish he could have had the chance to meet you. He would have loved you, that’s for sure.”

Ricky blushed a little and smiled shyly, then he said good-bye to the two, thanking them again for the invitation and hoping to repeat that soon- well, without the part where his boyfriend almost got married- and then he hurried out of Scotty’s cottage and went straight home.
At home he was too nervous to sit down and wait for Alfie. He was pacing back and forth until finally, what had felt like an eternity, he heard the key in the lock and the door open. In came Alfie, still wearing his suit. Only the tie was missing, which he had ripped off the moment he stepped out of St Paul’s. For some reason Ricky was shaking as nervously as he had the first time Alfie had touched him intimately.
But then Alfie smiled. He literally beamed. He smiled at Ricky as if he had never seen anything more beautiful, and this was the kindest, most honest, loving smile Ricky had seen in ages. Ricky could honestly not remember the last time Alfie had smiled at him like that. It sure had been a very long time…
“What are you staring it?” Alfie asked. “Get over here, Penguin.”
Ricky’s heart felt a thousand times lighter as it had all morning, and then he just ran into Alfie’s arms and buried his face into his shoulder. God, he smelled nice.
“I thought I’d lose you,” Ricky whispered, feeling close to tears again.

“You silly boy.”

“I’m a man.”

“You’re not a man,” Alfie said quietly. “You’re a boy.”
Since Ricky had his face buried into him, he didn’t see the way Alfie looked at him. He didn’t see this gentle, kind expression in his eyes that made his eyes look so much like Arthur Jackson’s. If Ricky would have looked up, he would have seen what Jo had tried to tell him earlier. That special look Alfie had when he looked at Ricky…

Liam found Jo and kissed her. “You know if upper class weddings are always like this we should go more often.”

“Liam!” Jo chuckled and kissed him back. “Did you know that he planned that?”

“No I had no clue. I thought he had a plan but not this, though if you ask me it makes a lot of sense. It was a smart move.” Liam held her tightly. “Can we go home?”

Jo laughed. “Well the girls are taken care of, why don’t we go and get new clothes and then spend the day in London. You know I once knew a boy we always had marvellous dates in London. We could even go and see if we Dick is home.”
Liam laughed and kissed his wife. “That sounds perfect but let’s call Betty that she knows we are not at the wedding. You know in case Dick is not home we could… use my bedroom.”

Jo laughed when she turned to leave with Liam but seeing her mother sitting motionless in the church bench she stopped. “Just a minute Liam.”

Liam followed her gaze and nodded. “I’ll be waiting in the back.”

Jo kissed him one more time and then went to her Lady Elizabeth Williams. “Mother? Are you alright?” Jo sat down next to her mother not touching her. Elizabeth slowly turned her head at looked at her daughter.

“Are you happy Josephine?”

“Yes Mother, very happy.” Jo smiled encouraging at her. “Are you?”

“Am I? I was once happy. I met a dashing young man when I arrived in London. I loved living in India but my siblings were dying, it was so hot. I should have been sad but I met Colin and I was enchanted… but then I gave myself to him and I destroyed everything. The moment we lost the first child it all went downhill. I try to be the girl again but I lost her. Why does Alfred not marry the girl? Would he not be happy?”

Jo looked at her mother. “I don’t think he will be happy by marrying a girl he does not know, love or desires and you know that Mother. You always wanted to protect me from harm when you were so strict and I do not dwell on it. I do not hold a grudge against you. We change with time and the ones that love us will smile and stand by our side loving the one they met and loving the one we became. Daddy loves you so much and so do I and even Liam loves you. We all care very much for you. Why don’t you and father and go for a nice walk in Hyde Park?”

Colin was standing next to his daughter. “That sounds like a lovely idea my love.” Colin kissed his daughter on the top of her head. “Are you alright my little princess?”

“Yes I am. Liam and I will spend the day in London, like go to the planetarium.” She obviously wouldn’t tell her mother that she had planned to let Liam fuck her brains out which included ripping this dress apart. Jo hugged Colin tightly. “Is Mother alright?”

“Yes she is, a new medication. I don’t think it is the right one it makes her melancholic. Go and spend the day with your husband. I was hoping I could take the twins for a day out soon, maybe when school starts.”

Jo smiled, kissed her father on the cheek and whispered. “They would love that very much, maybe you mange to convince mother to come along. I know that Jill is concerned for her wellbeing and Jane wants to be a Lady like her.”

Colin smiled. “You are such a good girl.” The older man chuckled again. “I am sure Arthur is in heaven dancing.”

Jo looked at her father she remembered a little of Arthur Jackson, he was her father’s best friend and a regular guest at Waterfall Downs. And still she was sure that the Arthur she remembers is different to the Arthur Jackson her father knew.

“This is a day to rejoice and even though there is still a long way ahead the first step is done, well no not the first but another step towards a true happy ending. Come my Love let us go to Hyde Park and enjoy the sun.” Colin took Elizabeth’s hand and together they went through a side door to avoid he crowd.

Jo went back to Liam and kissed him again. “I love you.”

Liam grinned and kissed her back. “Is your mother alright?”

“No her new medication is not agreeing with her, but Daddy said he would sort it out. He asked if he could take the girls out for a day. I said they would like that.”

Liam and Jo walked out together.


“Lady Jo, Lady Jo is it true that you knew Alfred Jackson would not marry today?”
“Is it true that he is homosexual?”
“Aren’t you scared that he is hurting your children?”

Jo froze and so did Liam. Jo turned around at looked in the camera, she shouldn’t say a word but she also knew that the parents of her pupils were watching. She felt Liam build up an avalanche of attack when she took his hand and said loudly. “Are you homosexual? Are you Alfred Jackson? If any of you is either let me tell you something. Waterfall Downs always opened its doors for outcasts and did not judge them. We should not pretend to be God, the Lord alone does the judging and unless you can walk on water, turn water into vine or command a storm to calm down with nothing but words you have no right to be the judge of people. I would let Alfred watch my daughters any time and he is often a guest at Waterfall Downs Academy, married or not. And if anyone has a problem with that well they don’t have to be a guest of Waterfall Downs then.”

Liam looked at his wife. “Fuck you are so hot right now! I love it when you are the headmistress.”
Jo laughed. “Come on lets go to your old flat and see if Dick is there and in case he is not well that way we will have a little fun without him.”

The driver was weary to drive them to the named address but he did it anyway, he didn’t like it when he was told to just leave them here they would take a train home.

“Did you see his face? He thought we were joking.” Liam laughed when he unlocked the door and walked in. “Dick are you home? It is me Liam and Jo.”

He didn’t notice that Jo was standing suddenly rather shy at the door. She had closed it but her hand was frozen in midair. She shook her hand and turned around. “I’m alright.” Since Dick did not answered he had turned around to Jo and saw her struggles.

“Well it would surprise me if you were. You god kidnapped out of this flat so I know that you need to make sure the door is locked. Go ahead lock them all. I’ll wait and then I’ll rip this dress of you… unless that is a little too much for you.”

Jo smiled shy at her husband turned back to the door and locked every lock making sure they all were secure. “Sorry.”

Liam pulled her in his arms. “No need to be sorry I would even understand if you say you never want to come to this place again. You know especially since the new information the píosa fuilteach míolra[url=#_ftn1][/url][1] send us.”


Jo leaned ehr head against Liam’s heart. “Don’t do anything that would cause your J’s to lose you. We can’t live without you.”


“I won’t... Now sex in my bed or the living room?”


“Oh definately your bed, I don’t know what it is but this old bed gives me the feeling many couples before us already had really good sex in it.” Jo laughed as she pulled Liam into his old room.
 


Meanwhile in Oxford in a small cottage outside of town

“Well that was something.” Scotty still chuckled. They had turned off the TV and were sitting in his small garden now.
Marge looked at him for a while. “Why did you never find a new partner?”

Scotty looked for a long time at her, this once he let her read his soul. “There was just one man in this world you would have trusted to be with, for me once I found my soul mate there was no second best. Once I found him I could never be with anyone else.”

Marge nodded understanding. “But you still have the occasion encounter don’t you? Men get restless without intimacy.”

“And you know that because?”

“I read Scoddy, I read.”

“You read? Never Squirrel.” Scotty laughed but then sobered up and asked. “Did you ever find a boy?”

“No I thought about it a lot and there were a few that fancied me but… there was just never the right. Never my prince charming, but that is alright I have a fulfilled life with all my girls and we have Neverland for the boys, we often do activities together so that they all learn how to be with the opposite gender, it somehow makes us a family. Speaking of family did you contact your sisters?”

“Well the only one I would want to contact is Hannah but… what am I supposed to say to her?”

“Hello Hannah, I’ve missed you and I am sorry I disappeared.” Marge said as if she knew he would ask her that question.

“Seriously there must be something in the water, but you got incredible cocky.” Scotty laughed heartily, he always had a laugh that made Marge smile. In those few months they found each other again she started to fall into her old pattern, she called him for a lot of things… big things such as decisions live changing and small like a nightmare. He might not be her daddy but he sure was her dad in a weird way.

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[url=#_ftnref1][1][/url] bloody piece of vermin