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Elle writes: This is also my homage to England and a certain British filmmaker.
Elizabeth says: This set-in-the-future fan fic not only has a GREAT title, it is also very, very good. I love it, and I'm in awe of Elle. (Ok, I'll stop babbling now :) )
Heather says: I agree with Elizabeth, this is a great fic!
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The John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, England, November 2010
Dr. Michelle Bauer eyed the telephone cord wound around her fingers. If she wound any tighter, she might seriously endanger the use of her digits.
"Rick, I know I promised I'd make it home but well,... Things are really busy and I have to get that paper out Monday... I promise I'll be home for Christmas. I know I didn't make it last year, but I will this year... Rick, where do you think I'm going to find a turkey in England?... You know most of the world does not eat turkey on the fourth Thursday in November... I promise Rick, I will try to have turkey on Thursday. Give my love to Abby, Aunt Meta, the little one. Bye."
Michelle hung up the phone, and started rubbing her temples.
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Springfield USA
Rick Bauer hung up the phone and sighed.
His wife looked at him over the rim of her coffee cup. "She's not coming?"
Rick shook his head. "She has to finish that paper for a presentation at the university in London," He sighed. "When she decided to go to Stanford Medical School, I thought it would be good for her. When the residency at Mass General came up, I said, give it time. But then the internship with the World Health Organization, and now this fellowship in England... Abby, she can't run away from Springfield for ever!"
"I know," she set the coffee cup down. "But I also know that Michelle is not going to come home until she's ready."
"Do you think she'll ever feel ready?"
"I don't know."
Rick's shoulders slumped in defeat.
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Oxford, England
Michelle trudged back to her flat, fingering the rings on the chain around her neck. Most of the time, she felt fine. Mostly fine.
It was always a bit easier to be out of the country for the holidays. Too many memories of burnt turkeys, off-key singing, Morticia at the dinner table... Despite herself, Michelle chuckled. What she wouldn't give to see Morticia at the table one more time.
It was easier to be out of the country. Period, Michelle thought ruefully. No driving by the university, no pictures in the house, no running into the family.
Her key was in the door of the flat before she remembered her promise to Rick to find a turkey for Thanksgiving. She trudged off again.
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The market:
"A turkey!" The counterman looked at her incredulously. "Miss, every turkey in Oxford has been reserved since the beginning of the term. You have to compete with all the other Americans."
"Yes, yes, I know it's late," Michelle was rubbing her temples harder, now. "But sir, there's no other way to get a turkey?"
"No, miss," the counterman looked down at her, noticing the gaunt figure and the circled eyes. More kindly, he said, "But the new don at Pembroke, he just picked up the last turkey about an hour ago. He lives up at the old Kenworthy Cottage. If you hurry, you might still be able to catch him."
Michelle thanked the man, and trudged off.
Eighteen hours at the hospital and now this. Maybe she should move back to the States when the fellowship was up at the end of the year.
The nightmares had stopped last year. She didn't wake to backfire anymore, and she no longer relived the eulogies in her dreams.
She and Danny had planned to move to the coast for her med school, anyway. When the time had come, she had gone on her own, and kept going and going...
She shook herself. She was at the cottage.
"Hello!" She wasn't sure if anyone was home. "Hello!," she opened the gate and walked up to the door to knock. "Hello!"
The door opened.
It was him.
The same dark, curling hair, the same stubborn chin, the same hands, although they were turning white from gripping the door knob. It even looked like the same leather jacket.
Michelle could only utter the first words that popped into her head.
"Morning, sexy!" and then she fainted.
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Michelle's eyes blinked and focused on a strange ceiling. She tried to sit up on the lumpy couch she found herself lying on.
"You're finally up. How are your feeling?"
Michelle tried to turn to where the voice was coming from. When she saw him again, she opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out.
It was him. It had to be him.
He was standing at a stove, dressed in black jeans and a sweater, setting on a kettle of water, probably for tea.
He came over to her, extending a hand. "Michael Adams, Fellow of Pembroke College..."
That wasn't right. "Huh?"
He smiled gently. "Let's try again. My name is Michael Adams, I'm a Fellow at Pembroke College. And you are?"
Michelle kept staring at his outstretched hand. It was his hand, she was positive of that.
He sighed now. "I'm afraid my French is rusty and my German is atrocious, so unless you speak Latin or Greek, we'll be at a crossroads for a while."
Michelle shook her head. "I,I, I, you, you..."
"Ah, now we're getting somewhere," he said, encouragingly. "I'm Michael Adams, and you are..."
"... Michelle Bauer," she finished.
"Another American! Pleased to meet you, Miss Bauer. How are your feeling?"
"All right, I guess." She kept staring at him.
"Are your sure you're all right?" He shifted a bit under her gaze.
"Yes," she realized what she was doing. "Oh, I'm sorry. It's just ..., you look like someone I once knew."
She blinked. "But you're, you're a Fellow at Pembroke?"
He laughed. "I get that a lot. Yes, I'm a Fellow at Pembroke, Michael Adams, B.A., M.A., and Ph.d., specializing in Renaissance drama. If it's in iambic pentameter, I'm your man."
She chuckled.
"Is that what you came for help with?"
She stared at him blankly for a moment.
"I do reserve the right to interrogate all young ladies who faint on my doorstep."
"Oh," she faltered. "No, actually I'm a fellow at the hospital. No, I came for turkey help."
"Turkey help?"
She turned, embarrassed. "Yes, well, you see, I wasn't able to make it home for Thanksgiving, and my brother made me promise I would still try to do a Thanksgiving turkey, but when I got to the market all the turkeys were gone, but the counterman was kind enough to tell me that you had the last turkey, and perhaps I could catch you before you cooked it," she drew a deep breath. "Did I make it?"
It was his turn to shake his head. "Sorry. While you were..." He gestured at the couch, "I set the bird to seasoning."
"Oh." The disappointment was evident. "I'm sorry to have bothered you. You were very kind." She got up.
"No!" the exclamation startled her. She turned to look at him. Perhaps it was a remnant of shock; he looked perfectly placid. "Why don't you stay a moment, and share a cup of tea? You took quite a tumble when you fainted."
She looked up at him. For a moment, she could almost believe... "I'd like that."
A few hours later:
"So, he's dead isn't he?"
Michelle quizzically looked at him over the teacup.
"The person you said I look like, he's dead, isn't he?"
Michelle slowly nodded.
"It's very flattering to have a beautiful woman faint on my doorstep, but it's not an everyday thing." He leaned forward. "Why don't you tell me about it?"
Michelle leaned back in her chair wearily, "It's a very long story..." She told him about the meeting, the first marriage, the annulment... She left out the gorier details of the family, really all about the family...."we were going to get married again, and then he died in a car accident a week before the wedding."
"A drive-by shooting, you mean," The voice in the back of her head whispered.
"I'm sorry."
"It was a long time ago," she was rubbing her temples again. "Thank you very much for your hospitality and company."
She genuinely smiled at him. "I really hadn't talked about it in a while; you're very easy to talk to. Thank you."
She gathered her things, and he watched her. Her bag, her coat, her umbrella...
He opened the door for her, and as she was walking out the door, he reached for her arm. "Wait!"
She looked back at him.
"The bird... it's too large just for me, and I don't have any family here either. Why don't you come and share it with me? We'll have bad cranberry sauce and lumpy mashed potatoes, the whole bit. Two yanks in Oxford."
She smiled, and impulsively, she hugged him. "I'd like that. Thank you."
"Six o'clock."
"Six o'clock."
And she was gone.
He shut door, walked over to the kitchen, and poured himself a stiff scotch. "That was stupid, Santos."
Outside the cottage, Michelle took a look back at the cottage before she began the walk back to town.
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He downed another shot of scotch. He'd had to have another just to control all the screaming in his head to run into the road and watch her make her way down the road. Thank God, she had fainted when she first saw him. He didn't know what he would have done otherwise.
When he had picked her up, he had immediately longed to bury his face in her hair and inhale her scent. In a moment of sheer insanity, he'd actually considered leaving her on the porch.
He'd first laid her down on the bed, and then realized the mistake; he only wanted to lie down next to her and hold her. So he'd moved her to the couch.
And watched her sleep. And thought.
He had thought about how much he'd missed her. How tired she looked. How God must have it in for him to put her on his doorstep when he couldn't touch her, couldn't wake her one more time with a kiss, as they'd used to in the morning.
Or maybe God was playing His own private little joke on him..
He'd asked God many times if he could see Michelle one more time. He'd never thought about what would happen if she saw him as he was now, a specialist in dead languages with a salary less than a substitute teacher's, living in an ancient leaky cottage, which he could only afford because the senior don was on sabbatical. Most of the time, he didn't miss the Italian suits or the Jaguar, but it would have been nice to have a better couch for her to sleep on.
Watching her, lying there, appreciating the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed deeply, relaxed in her sleep, he indulged a fantasy for a moment, a fantasy in which by chance meeting she came into his life as Michael Adams now, and fell in love with him all over again.
He'd woven the fantasy so many times over the years, he knew exactly how many times she would kiss him when she accepted his proposal again (5), the number of buttons on the dress she'd wear when they were married (20, all of which he would undo afterwards), and the bed and breakfast in Yorkshire where they would stay afterwards for twenty pounds a night (the site of Thrushcross Grange in "Wuthering Heights"; he thought she'd appreciate the irony). Not exactly the honeymoon in Mallorca he'd promised her, but in the fantasy it was more than enough.
And then he had thought of the life she must have now, with a loving family, rewarding career saving lives, perhaps even a husband, a good man, the good life he had always wanted for her.
Hell, she'd have a life.
And then he knew what he had to do. It was all going so well, he'd lied and told her he'd already started the turkey. She was leaving. Perfect. It was over.
And then, the devil (or was it an angel) in his ear, had said, "Tea. What could it hurt?" It would be chance to find out how she was doing. Appreciate the good in her life.
"You wanted to know if she still thought of you, you mean." That was definitely the devil.
He hadn't been able to believe it. She was here, sitting in his chair, leaning on his pillows, drinking his tea, laughing at his jokes again...
He thought it might have been just another of his fantasies but her lipstick was still on the teacup.
"Then you had to blow it," he muttered to himself. "How are you going to get through a full turkey dinner? You barely made it through tea without blowing it!"
He laughed, but there was no one there to hear him.
It was the hug. Typical Michelle, hugging the world.
But for him, for him, the feeling of her arms around him, her head on his chest... He'd been so close to putting his arms around her, resting his chin on her head...
It would have been a dead giveaway. He might as well have shouted, "It's me! Danny, your friend, lover, husband, and fiancee. AND I STILL LOVE YOU!"
Hell, he'd wanted to do that too.
"That was stupid, Santos." Asking her back again was begging for trouble.
"I'm Michael Adams, Fellow of Pembroke College, specializing in Renaissance drama. I'm Michael Adams, Fellow of Pembroke College, specializing in Renaissance drama. I'm Michael Adams...."
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