St. Mungo's Hospital, Afternoon

Balfour Spectre, looking oddly underdressed in the spare jeans and shirt he kept in his office, solemnly carried a paper bag of cinnamon rolls down the hospital corridor. If other visitors or patients caught a hint of the cloyingly sweet goods, it was only because they were still warm - he had come straight from the muggle shop in Piccadilly Circus. Only the best for his favourite wingman.

It was also to compensate for not coming in earlier.

He had been out of touch with the world after hearing of the explosions. Primarily to prepare the Haunting Hour but also because he had to sit down for a while and decide whether or not it would be worth approaching Ira over her warning to broadcast on the fifth (it wasn't). And there was division work.

Mrs Lanningham was the one who had eventually chased Balfour out of the office, clearing the last hour of his work day to come down to St. Mungo's. Nobody dared mention how she really cared for Margo, after all.

"Good afternoon?" he pushed open the door, ready to duck out if it wasn't a convenient hour - or if one of the handlers were about for a private word. Fournier had been restless all week. "Nearly got off on the first floor. I hope the change of scenery is treating you well." Balfour entered fully and with a tired, rueful smile.

No one ever said being in the hospital was fun.  Even when talking about hospital stays the bright side was never how fun it was.  Margo hadn’t forgotten this point from her extended stay at St. George’s in Romania, but it seemed somehow even worse at St. Mungo’s. 

At least in Romania the only people around to visit her were busy with the dragons.  Now, she knew people were working – she knew the world did not revolve around her, but the fact that the mediwitches and healers were just about the only people who came around consistently.  She’d had a few visitors, obviously.  Her Spectre roommate hadn’t forgotten to drop by and her family even dropped in periodically, granted they never stayed long.  At least Fournier had dropped by.  Australia had created quite the bond between the pair. 

Unfrotunately, no one had done her the favor of breaking up the monotony of taking potions and getting her vitals assessed all day long with only the sound of the wireless to keep her entertained.  The quidditch coverage on was terrible, but at least it was something.  Jordan really needed to step up his game… it was sad that she laughed at the joke in her own head. 

That was a new level of bored.  If she hit the next level, she might have actually written it down.  Journals were like the last step.  She refused to keep a journal during this stay. 

Instead, she began conversing with the wireless, calling Jordan names and informing him of the falsehoods he expressed over the state of international quidditch.  Obviously the Spanish team was not headed toward certain doom and she needed to let at least the wireless know that. 

Her and her small neck pillow (a gift from her older sister) were very busy… explaining… this particular point to the wireless in some colorful language when another voice entered the room and Margo’s head turned as her pillow struck the wireless and dislodged the tuner button just enough that static crackles were broken up with bit of Jordan’s commentary. 

Balfour! Her anger was suddenly lifted (for the most part) and Margo sat up a little taller, perfectly content to pretend the pillow hadn’t made the wireless wonky.  “I was wondering if you got lost downstairs!” She spied the box: a wider grin.  “At least you remembered the gift.”  Her way of saying she was pleased he had come.  “How are things? Much quieter on level 4, I reckon?”

There wasn't a disaster in contemporary history that could take the wind out of his friend's sails.

Balfour crossed the room, quiet laughter on the cusp of his grin as he switched off the Wireless before it gave one of them a headache. Quite enough of that static when he was setting up his broadcasts. He never liked being in hospitals, at least not as a patient for any longer than a few hours. The last time he'd been here and as bored as Margo looked, it had been before being promoted to Division head.

... which seemed a lifetime ago, come to think of it. Their department was a kind of home nowadays.

He grabbed the closest chair by its back, easily swinging it around next to the bed as the cinnamon rolls were deposited on to the witch's lap.

"It's always quieter when Fournier isn't threatening you with harm." Balfour remarked dryly, crossing his legs and fixing Margo with a knowing look. "We're not as hellish as the rest of the Ministry. I suppose I ought to thank Guy Fawkes for not using a hoard of dragons in his plot." Level four needed less pressure and attention to recover from the epidemic.

In a way it was almost beneficial that all eyes were turned on the Aurors or the Minster. Not that anyone would catch him saying so off the Wireless. Balfour searched his pockets briefly before turning up a pack of cigarettes. Could they smoke in here? The Healers turned a blind eye when he was at death's door last year but this wasn't the same, was it?

"Not much else. The Thestral's in Cumbria are about ready for their young." Unlike most equines they didn't have their foals at a sensible time of the year. He shook out a stick and lit up distractedly, leaving the pack on the bedside table if Margo felt the urge. "Don't tell me you're restless already?" Balfour breathed out a stream of smoke away from her, his expression a mixture of good humour and genuine curiosity.

The smell of yeast, sugar, and cinnamon was perfect mixed with the warmth on her lap.  That could only mean one thing: cinnamon rolls!  “You are a bloody angel!” Margo declared and jostled the top of the box open with one clumsy hand.  Hospital food was horrific.  Not even magic could fix that and she would not be stopped in her quest to seek out the deliciousness inside of the box. 

Maybe it was because the food was tinged with sick.  But the perfect spheres of cinnamon and bread… too perfect for this world, too purely wonderful to exist for moments longer than it had to.  She pinched the fluffy pastry in between two fingers and while Balfour messed about with his cigarettes, Margo was already one bite deep into the best thing she had ever eaten.

Way better than the croquettas her sister had brought – and Margo thought she might die when she bit into one of those.  Closing her eyes, the tension left her back and Margo, along with the buttery sweet goodness in her mouth, felt like melting.  So wrapped up in her moment, she almost missed Balfour’s comment.

And even despite half of the bite still in her mouth, she did have to respond.  “Y’know he doesn’t mean it.  Poor man’s maddeningly in love with me,” she smirked and winked before swallowing.  “He’s all talk when it comes to bodily harm,” completely true, actually, “besides, at least he’s been to visit me already!” she pointed out before taking another very exaggerated (and full mouthed) bite of cinnamon bun. 

She couldn’t imagine being at the ministry right now though, from what she read in the papers (that bored, yes – papers!), it was a madhouse. The explosions were just the start of it. She wasn’t necessarily jealous by any means, but she also didn’t want to be in the bed anymore.  She didn’t like pain and she didn’t like the aftermath.  She was petrified she’d have to spend the better part of a year recovering again (though that was, assured to her by any health care professional that came into her vicinity, not likely or necessary). 

“It’s so bloody quiet here,” Margo complained before putting the bun down and sucking the sugar off the tips of her fingers.  “And the food is shite, and I’m stuck in this bloody bed.” Everything suddenly warranted profanity and once the floodgates of complaints opened it was hard to staunch the flow of water.  “To make it worse, the only bloody company is some bints who checks my vitals and my neighbor-turned-doctor-cat-co-grandparent who checks in and is trying to fix my bloody stump.”  The relationship to her doctor did not really need explanation.  “At this rate,” Margo sighed, “I’ll be more metal than person by the time I’m 40 – if I make it that far!”

It was like watching a Kappa attack an unsuspecting swimmer, the way she tore into the cinnamon buns. He watched as he smoked and tried to extract the former image from his mind - parallels of the personal and professional mixing into one another again. Margo had a foot in either world, though. It was a precarious line to tread when he had to order her around but less noticeable in situations like this.

"Well you can't expect me to compete with someone who is maddeningly in love with you. I must concede to Vincent, he's a bigger heart than any of us." Balfour tapped his cigarette and brushed the ashes off his knee, thinking of the dragon handler with some fondness. "Mrs L sends her well wishes, by the way. I'm sure she'll be down herself if you'll have her. Probably knitted you something unflattering."

That was another familial thread. Anyone who got put into the hospital for long enough was bound to receive knitwear from his otherwise terrifying secretary. He never had to worry about running out of socks or scarves.

Balfour smirked, trying not to laugh at the inrush of expletives as Margo continued massacring the pastries -  it was simultaneously unladylike and extremely endearing - with her usual gusto.

"Would you like to borrow Whiskey for a while?" he offered with a trace of drollness, although serious in the proposition. Canine company was better than none, surely. He could use the flat all to himself and Johann for a couple of nights. "And if it means anything, I'm fairly certain you'll make it to forty. A dragon and three explosions? Somebody up there must like you, to survive those things. Can't imagine why." A mock shrug as he smiled at her.

They liked to joke about dying young. It was always a possibility. Joking made it acceptable, consumable. But it wasn't any easier to hear a good friend talk about it lightly.

"Unless you're tired of courting death." Balfour added as an afterthought and leaned into his seat, free arm along its back. "I wouldn't be surprised. If disaster is stalking you, best not to up his odds eh?" It was most certainly the Division Head speaking, trying to get a sense of the subject.

He knew that if or when Margo came back to the Ministry, she wouldn't be working the field for a long time. And he knew her feelings towards paperwork.

“You’re right; you couldn't hold a candle to him,” Margo conceded to his point about not being able to compete and laughed brightly.  She loved Balfour dearly, but he was still her boss.  Though Margo made little distinction, she knew it was something Balfour considered.  It was strange, it wasn’t as though he was her boss would have made her listen to him anymore than if she was his.  Margo operated almost exclusively on loyalty and trust.  Balfour had those things from her. 

She wouldn’t be sentimental enough to say so, of course, and instead would make glib comments about it to offset whatever very real feelings she had.  “I do hope it’s a rather horrendous seasonal sweater, personally.”  The holiday season was almost upon them and Margo would be the first person to agree to an ugly sweater contest.  “You think she feels bad enough about the double gimp that I can ask her for matching ones?” she raised her eyebrows at him with a cocky grin. 

It was probably not funny at all to anyone else, but dealing with the loss of an extremely valuable appendage was often (from Margo’s now comparatively vast experience) crushing, no pun intended.  Humor was a way to deal with that trauma.  An echo from a conversation from what felt like a lifetime ago reverberated in her ear: "You could try actin' like things mattered."  That just wasn’t her way though, was it?  He was another one.  Hadn’t really talked since then, and he hadn’t visited either.

Wetting her lips, it didn’t help to think about it – dogs, incidentally were completely related but just far enough off that she could pretend the thought was gone.  “I think Lizard would have a stroke,” Margo answered honestly.  Her cat was highstrung as it was, bringing a dog about probably wouldn’t help.  It was always a wonder she had a cat to begin with, but they didn’t need much nurturing and Margo was not entirely doting so it was a solid match as far as pets were concerned. 

“Or someone below,” Margo peered over the edge of her bed, “has a vested interest in my living on to cause havoc another day.”  That seemed far more likely than his benevolent watchdog from above theory.   “If that’s the case, I believe the devil deals in immortality… though his record on limbs is terrifyingly bad.” 

Margo was the picture of skill with a wand as a healer.  Cuts and scars and stumps… it was all a medical horror show.  Balfour’s question prompted the thought that if she did want to leave the office, there was probably a magic circus that needed an act for its tent of oddities. 

“You know as well as I do it’s not me whose tired of it,” Margo frowned.  “But it took over a year and a plague to get me back into the field after this,” she motioned with her remaining hand toward her leg and winced – her shoulder was sore.  “How long do you imagine it’d take now?”

If there was a Devil indeed - Balfour was positive the Devil was a she - it wouldn't surprise anyone to know that Margo might unwittingly strike a deal with her. But for all this joking, he knew that every instant his friend spent on this earth was a blow against evil rather than good. This was how much faith he had in the people around him.

The truth: Beasts Division was a cauldron of grubby, heartfelt emotion. It had to be because they held one another's lives in their hands. And then they pretended not to.

So he kept pretending.

"Immortality? I always did think you would outlive me." Balfour remarked dryly and took an especially long breath from his cigarette while he tried not to seriously follow that train of thought; many a night alone had been spent down those tracks. "But I can't believe you'll outlive Mrs Lanningham. She'll be cursing at all our funerals."

Death and his secretary. Safe topics. Balfour didn't want to depart from shores of familiar conversation, even if it was his doing that they were going to have to discuss what Margo wanted to do about working on Level Four. He worried about all the handlers and perhaps her the most, considering temperament and handicap. It would only irritate her to know it so the wizard never said anything to the effect. As far as he was concerned, bureaucracy was the problem. Not him.

"Three years." He replied deadpan, completely serious in response to her gesturing. "Two, if you're lucky. I'm not optimistic. I don't think we can afford to be." Balfour bit the inside of his cheek before stubbing out the half-smoked cigarette in a cup on the side table. The tobacco was beginning to taste bitter.

Smiling grimly, he met Margo in the eye and leaned forward in his seat. If it were anyone else he might have waited until they got out of St.Mungo's and came into work. For someone as restless as her, however, he knew that such restraint would feel like more of an unkindness.

Mostly because that was how he would have felt too. "Vincent is going to kill me for suggesting it before you did." Balfour half-laughed, already feeling the handler's glare on his face when he found out. "Do you want out, Margo?"

WARNING: Significant language here.  Margo is unhappy, Margo swears. A lot.

---

Margo laughed, quite brightly actually – before she started to cough.  Lungs still weren’t in good shape – she’d been told they didn’t know how long that would take to clear up, but she needed the laugh: the image of Mrs Lanningham, glasses still perched impossibly low on her nose, cursing them all straight out of this world and to wherever they went after.  Margo didn’t know, for all of her jokes about the devil and going to hell, if that business actually existed or not. 

She sort of hoped it did, but at the same time, by the time it came to find out, she wouldn’t have much of a choice anyway.  Every other time something like this happened, where she ended up in a bed, she hadn’t seen anything.  So, maybe that was the answer: nothing.  Mrs Lanningham would obviously have the final laugh. 

Or maybe anyone else making decisions.  As soon as it left his mouth, Margo could feel tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.  No matter how badly she didn’t want that to happen… She balled her good fist and slammed it against the bed, turning her head up while she bit her lip.  “Fuck,” she growled, deep and low, every muscle in her body tensing before she hit the bed again.  “Fuck!  Fuck! FUCK!” It didn’t matter that Balfour was right here, he could see her mad. 

It was the crying part.  She was wet angry.  It was a concept her mother had used on her many children.  When they were mad, she always asked if they were wet angry or dry angry.  Dry angry being you wanted to clock someone straight up on the side of the head and scream, wet angry being when you were so mad you had nothing to do but cry because even if you did hit something it wouldn’t make it better.  Unfortunately for the bed mattress, she was still going to hit it.  Rightly so: it didn’t make anything better. 

“Three fucking years, two even?” she was staring at the ceiling, trying to will tears back into her eyes, harshly wiping away the wetness with her free hand – despite the fact that her shoulder, lungs, and most other muscles in her body burned with pain and she felt like she might combust, engulfed in her angry and then a sad, pile of ash after the fact.  A few deep breaths through her nose, a few more muttered fucks to punctuate how fast her mind was working on how terrible those years would be.

She’d lose her mind… in that office all day, watching everyone else do what she wanted to do?  “Fuck,” she muttered again and sniffed, hard before exhaling, “dammit.”  It lacked the emphasis of her previous cursing, but after an initial outburst… she realized she was tired.  That was a lot of energy. 

It took everything in her to look at him. Red-rimmed eyes were no longer leaking, but she had to focus very hard to make sure they didn’t start.  “Doesn’t sound like any of this is about what I want,” Margo gritted through her teeth.   “I’m going to be forced out – just like fucking that.”  She turned her head again and laughed bitterly, “The fuck, Balfour?” she asked not really mad at him.  But he was the messenger and now was not the time to take the advice of very dead, very dirty bards.  “What other choice do I have?”

He pressed his lips together tersely, trying as hard as possible to appear neutral when Margo brought her remaining hand down on to the bed - expletives following colourfully and with more fervid, genuine anger than anything said in a Dragon sanctuary. Balfour watched as you would from a distance but his heart didn't let him remain removed from the situation. It sunk low, drawn into itself painfully in the way that hearts do, unable to solve the keen suffering of another human being.

The wizard rose from his seat quietly and smoothly, going to sit at his friend's side as she calmed down. He slipped an arm across her shoulder and squeezed - brow furrowed, eyes tracking her expression uneasily. Odin. There wasn't a soul on earth he'd wish this upon.

"Hey, come here. I'm sorry." Balfour pulled her closer into a hug and bumped heads affectionately, not knowing how else to extend the regret of having been a bearer of bad news. It wasn't him she was angry at. And was it anger, or frustration? Constantly coming up against a wall that doesn't want to give. "Listen. You're not being forced out. Ever. If you leave, we all know it isn't because you're being made to. There's always a place for you in the Division. It's home."

Of his many homes, perhaps the one he was so far most proud of having built. It boasted the best witches and wizards he'd ever known; present company included. One foot on the floor and the other half resting on the bed, Balfour drew back to give Margo a tired smile. Shit. He really didn't want to lose her.

Not that she would disappear from society as a result but he genuinely looked forward to working with her every day. She was hellishly competent. They got along. Wasn't much else to ask for, from a fellow handler.

"We can fight to get you back in sooner. Or if... I mean. Independently, it's not like you have to stop. You're twice the stubborn Graphorn that  Kettleburn was." He found that his voice was more confident, more cheerful than his heart - but it meant the world to him for Margo to see that she didn't have to give up the things she loved just because of something as banal as bureaucratic procedure.

Things would never be the same but that didn't mean that they would be bad. Balfour reached for her hand, taking it as carefully as he might a dragon's bairn. "I'm on your side, whatever you want to do. No argument."

Margo was typically a fighter.  Even for things that did not require fighting, she had always made it as such.  Just ask any of her siblings about the breakfast table and one would realize quickly that Margo did not waste a second of any day without a bit of fire propelling her forward. 

Unfortunately, Margo did not feel any of that desire at the moment.  When Balfour sat by her side, she didn’t even flinch.  When he pulled her in, Margo just let him.  She rested her head against his and blinked, holding back more tears.  This was so frustrating.  It had been an uphill fight to get back into the field and now that she’d done it  - and she’d done something good it was over again.  Just like that.  Through something that wasn’t even related to her work.  Something no one would have guessed would happen.  Sure, people had told her drinking was a self-destructive behavior, but… these consequences were extremely overblown. 

All of these thoughts… Margo couldn’t help it.  She reached up with her good hand and wiped underneath her eyes.  Wetness had accumulated and she rolled her eyes upward to try and staunch the flow of tears.  This was embarrassing.  She didn’t cry in front of people.  Margo was tough and crying was for people who couldn’t handle it.  Margo handled everything.  Or she thought she did. 

Balfour continued to talk and Margo nodded along.  There were, of course, possibilities.  She could freelance, she could move on, but at the same time… recovery and rehabilitation… it was going to take a while.  She knew she had plenty of well respected people on her side, that would help… but she also knew she’d never escape the stares and doubts. 

She could prove herself… but it was so much.   The work of it seemed daunting.  But, on the other side, a full life with no dragons and all of the people who had become part of her extended family was also daunting.  For someone who didn’t stay in one place for too long, change was intimidating. 

“Thanks,” Margo gave his hand a weak squeeze and sniffled, trying to regulate her voice a little better.  “I’ve always been the stubborn sort,” she laughed a little and turned a little more into him – no matter who it was, a little physical touch was comforting.  “But, I don’t know, Spectre.” 

“I don’t know anything anymore.” 

Balfour smiled in relief as he felt Margo squeeze his hand, resembling her good cheer a little more than she had been earlier. Disasters happened when they least expected them to - and it took some time, he thought, for implications to settle in. The world turned around on its head in the seconds between those explosions at the Leaky Cauldron. People were still reeling from it.

Alone with his friend in the quiet of the room, however, time stood still long enough for the effects to sink in one at a time.

He looked down at her hand and allowed a stray thought to pass through his mind without examining it in detail: that either Ira Almasy knew what would happen in Diagon Alley or she somehow helped it to happen. That she could be responsible for this. And following that, a pinprick of guilt.

Could he have stopped it? Balfour bit the inside of his cheek thoughtfully.

"That makes the both of us," his voice was warm and fond as he met Margo in the eye, expression soft. He didn't want to be responsible for her loss in any way, the very thought repulsed him. "But you don't have to make up your mind this instant. We have time." He patted her shoulder absently, thinking.

There was no rush and - for the first time in nearly a year - the fourth floor was working at a good, manageable pace. They were far from being at leisure but at least Margo wouldn't have to worry about leaving the team in a lurch. A professional one, anyway. Vincent was going to be gutted.

"When you're out of hospital we'll all get drinks, talk it over." Balfour proposed. He frowned only a little as he imagined the whole lot of them from the division driving the other patrons at Rover's a little crazy. "It's not something you have to do alone, you know that right?"

 It was comforting to know she didn’t have to make up her mind right away.  She didn’t have to declare what she was doing in this instant and it wouldn’t be in the papers the next day (or probably at all, really) to solidify what she wanted to do.  What she didn’t like was how… open it seemed.  New possibilities that she never considered were realities. 

Consequences she thought she’d never have to live with were creeping up on her.  When she thought she would die young, go out in a blaze (literal or metaphorical) of glory it hardly mattered what short term choices she made.  She said as much to any of her family members who asked:  “Why did you get that tattoo, don’t you think about what it will look like when you get older?”  Her snappy reply was always about how she didn’t intend to live that long. 

The way things were going now, it seemed like nothing would stop her from getting that old.  Perhaps the universe would be merciful somewhere else, but it certainly wasn’t right now.  “I know,” she murmured.  It wasn’t Balfour’s fault; she had to remind herself of that.

He didn’t make her decide to go out and grab a pint.  He didn’t make her choose the cauldron.  He didn’t detonate the bomb either – he couldn’t do that.  “It will take many bottles of whiskey to get me through this one,” she informed him with a sort of expectant smile.  “It would be so much easier… if someone else footed the bill,” another thought just put up into the universe… for anyone… someone maybe squished on the same hospital bed as her.  “Even several someones… if they were willing, of course.” 

Balfour laughed lightly, shoulders shaking in their boyish way as his friend's implication sunk in with blatant flair. This sounded much more like her than either tears or angry words. He nodded in cheerful affirmation and nudged her shoulder, mock reproach.

"Well." The wizard cleared his throat officiously, sitting up a little straighter in the hospital bed. "Once Fournier is through breaking my bones, I think an arrangement might be settled upon by which the division shall be socially obliged to take their favourite desk jockey out for a night on the town..."

No doubt Mrs Lanningham could bully the beast handlers into it, and without much effort. There would be many drunk tears. Margo was a level four staple - she would be sorely missed, certainly as a source of entertainment and gusto. It was difficult not to get caught up in the excitement of their duties when the witch was around to encourage it; typically through her own foolhardy actions. And here she was having lost a hand off the field.

Perhaps it was neither a fellow upstairs or downstairs that looked out for her. Surely it was a trickster: some Loki or Puck. At worst, he suspected, Iago. Mischief and the humour of tragedy.

"But not until you're cleared for it." Balfour added to his promise of drinks and company. "Healthy as a Hippogriff, and then as many bottles of firewhiskey as we are able to take." Somewhere in the distant future, his liver might recall this moment with regret.

Even though her eyes were still stinging and her nose was still stuffed, Margo smiled.  Maybe it was the imagery of Balfour and Vincent fighting… or the more likely candidate of a night out with all of her closest mates.  “If he does, you can probably request the bed next to mine,” she elbowed him gently.  She didn’t really feel like endangering his soft, inner organs at the moment. 

“You need to make sure Mrs. L comes,” she informed him.  “I have a suspicion about her.”  Margo raised her eyebrows, as though Balfour was supposed to know what she was talking about.  She didn’t know if she’d ever shared with him the idea that Mrs. L could probably drink them all under the table, but she felt like she must have.  It was the sort of thought that demanded to be shared with mutual acquaintances about the third party. 

Whatever. 

The moment passed and Balfour brought reality again.  Ugh!  She let him know the sentiment by groaning loudly and pouting.  “Do you have to ruin every fantasy?” she had an eerie resemblance to a fifth year student who hadn’t gotten the broom they wanted for Christmas. 

“I mean, my fantasies, that is,” a gleam entered her eye, “I’m sure yours are all taken care of…?”   

He half-smiled knowingly at the implication that Mrs Lanningham might be better at holding her liquor than any of the heavy weights on Level Four. She always did seem to know precisely how to cure a hangover but that could easily have been from decades worth of experience, working with beast handlers who overestimated their tolerance. The image of his secretary sat primly at a bar and sipping on Whiskey while the rest of them fought to maintain sobriety was... intriguing.

With their luck, none would remember it the morning after.

 “Do you have to ruin every fantasy? I mean, my fantasies, that is. I’m sure yours are all taken care of…?”

That was a sure sign that Margo was recovered from her little bout of crying, at least for the meantime. Balfour smirked and slid off the bed to approach the Wireless set she had been assaulting when he first entered. Trust her to bring that subject into a discussion of more sombre things.

"Not that it's anyone's business-" the wizard turned the dial, sound of musical static filling the small ward as he adjusted for a frequency that wasn't broadcasting post-Quidditch commentary. "- but you wouldn't be incorrect. Shall we have some entertainment?" Balfour settled on an old favourite, a hyperactive radio host with a nasal voice about to play tunes from the summer's festivals.

It was the sort of cheerful, mindless blather that they occasionally played on their floor when paperwork was slow in the afternoons but nobody could leave until it was all done. Balfour and Vincent would take turns dancing something traditional with Mrs L - or be told off for getting it wrong - while the others could have a good laugh at them. Margo naturally laughing the hardest. He looked back at her, smile tinged by nostalgia and fondness.

"We've had good times, haven't we?" Balfour moved to the end of the hospital bed, placing a hand on the railing. "And more to come, I'm sure."