Disclaimers: as ever.

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Epilogue: 21st Century - somewhere in the south of England.

'I knew we should have taken the motorway,' seethed Preston. 'We'd be home by now! But, oh no, you insist we take the scenic route!'

Preston's Volvo bumped up the country lane, splashing through large muddy puddles that filled cavernous holes in the broken down the road surface. Water sprayed up on either side, soiling the shiny, light blue metallic paintwork.

'I hope you're going to clean this car when we get home, Nigel!'

'He's supposed to be taking it easy, remember?' interrupted Sydney. 'That's why you insisted he stay with you.'

After the triumphant return of the Diamond Ruby to the museum in Calcutta, Preston, inspired by his newfound fondness for his brother, had begged Nigel to spend the remainder of his sick leave with him back in London. Nigel had eventually agreed, mainly because he had a ton of references to check in the British Library for his 'oh-so-nearly-finished' PhD thesis. Sydney had decided to pop along for a few days, partially to see how things would settle between her and Nigel, but also to soften the inevitable outbreak of World War 3 between the brothers. As suspected, the first missiles were being launched even before they reached home.

As Preston muttered irritably under his breath, Sydney decided it was time to aid her assistant. He had had disappeared almost entirely under the vast sheet of the ordnance survey map, as he tried to pin point their location.

'Nigel, have you any idea where we are?'

'We'd be have been fine if we took that turning I suggested near Windsor,' came a muffled voice. 'But when he insisted we follow the signs to Croydon, it completely spoiled my plans. And since he took that ridiculous detour to overtake the tractor, I don't know how anyone expects me to know where we are!' Nigel wrestled the map down to manageable size, not an easy task with only one good arm. He emerged, red-faced, from beneath its bulk to have a look around.

'We can't be that far off track…oh, look, there's some oast houses.'

Her eyes following where Nigel pointed, Sydney surveyed a pretty, whitewashed farmhouse, undoubtedly more than a couple of centuries old. Two, squat round towers were attached to its side. They had brown tiled conical roofs, topped with little, slanted white hats. One of them had a wind-vane on the top, shaped like a rearing horse.

'What are we doing driving by a bloody oast house, Nigel? Since when was Kentish vernacular architecture to be found between Heathrow and Hampstead?'

'You find oast houses in Sussex as well, you know!'

'Sussex?' squeaked Preston. 'That's even further off route… but we are not in Sussex, are we? That wind vane is unmistakably a Kent Invicta.'

Nigel glared at his brother, but quietly conceded that Preston was probably right.

'Can I help? reiterated Sydney.

'Please do,' grunted Preston. 'He is obviously completely incapable!'

'I'm fine, Sydney,' articulated Nigel emphatically. 'I'm sure I recognise that farm… I know exactly where I am.'

Sydney shrugged, not wanting to undermine Nigel's lie, and leaned back in her seat.

Ignoring most of the brothers' banter, she had been enjoying herself, distracted sporadically from an interesting paper on Amazonian nude sculpture by the countryside of southern England in winter: grey rolling hills, decorous commuter-belt cottages, stately homes shut for the season, and derelict shops.

The naked skeletons of cherry bushes, apple trees and hop gardens were overawed by the towering pylons, which marched across the landscape like an invading army of long-legged aliens. Nevertheless, a frail beauty remained, despite the many centuries of overuse by the greedy hand of man.

After a few more minutes of Preston's jerky driving down the winding, badly surfaced road, Nigel says suddenly: 'Pull over Preston, I need some air.'

'Oh God, I can't believe you still get travel sick!'

Nigel clumsily crunched the map down onto his seat, and climbed out of the car.

'No I don't still get travel sick, not usually. But you try reading the map while someone veers a ruddy great Volvo down these tiny lanes. It enough to turn anybody's stomach.'

He stomped several metres across a grassy verge, disturbing a rabbit, which darted back under a hedge. A little cluster of daffodils were prematurely pushing their way through the hard winter soil. Sydney wandered over to join him, placing her hand on one of his folded arms, as he stared resolutely across an empty paddock towards the steely sky.

'So we're back in Kent, you reckon?'

'I guess so,' said Nigel. 'To be honest, I think we've erred down some way towards Sevenoaks.'

'Are we back near Finchley Hall?'

'I don't think so, Syd. We're still miles from Canterbury. Why? Did you want to go and have another look?'

'Don't you? I don't think you ever showed it to me properly…'

'Good God!' interjected Preston, who was gawping at them from the car. 'You're not seriously proposing we go breaking and entering again? Haven't we pushed our luck enough lately?'

'Preston has a point,' grimaced Nigel.

Sydney grinned mischievously: 'It would be fun, though, wouldn't it?'

Preston mumbled something about nobody ever listening to the voice of sense, and switched on the radio. It was tuned, as ever, to Classic FM. The strains of an old waltz by Strauss started wafting through the still, January air.

An inkling of recognition sparkled across Sydney's face. Nigel, too, stopped and listened.

Sydney hummed lightly to the tune that had seized her in a hotel room just after their first visit to the cave. Her toes twitched, and her hips began to sway lightly.

A heart-warming grin spread across Nigel's face. He held out his good hand. 'May I have this dance, Miss Fox?'

Her smile radiantly matched his: 'With much pleasure, Mr Bailey!'

Sydney slipped her arm around Nigel shoulders, while he meandered his hand around her waist. He led her off with the carefully place stepped to the left, which avoided the daffodils, only to squelch on a sodden piece of turf.

Preston muttered another oath, and covered his eyes with his hands. 'You lead off to the right, Nigel… and preferably not through a patch of mud. Oh God…lighter steps! Lighter please… '

Nigel ignored Preston but grinned Nigel sheepishly, as he saw the brown sludge splash up Sydney's black leggings. 'Sorry. I'm not sure why I'm doing this…'

'Because it's fun, Nigel. Let's keep doing it.'

'Let's do that,' replied Nigel. 'And if it annoys, Preston,' he whispered. 'That's a bonus… I just hope I don't tread on your toes!'

Sydney rolled her eyes, but continued to enjoy herself immensely even as the soggy ground squidged beneath her feet. She adored the gentle way Nigel's hand rested on her hips, and their movements synchronised disarmingly naturally. As the waltz entered its final stanza, he grinned delightedly.

'I think I'm getting the hang of this. I have waltzed before, you know?'

'I know you have,' she smiled.

'You do?'

'Yeah,' she leaned in and spoke confidentially. Preston had started rummaging distractedly around the car, studiously avoiding looking at them. 'Last week we had a lot of time to talk, and Preston told me all about those ballroom dancing classes your mother made you both attend. Apparently he ran run off with all the medals… but something about the way he told the story convinced me that it with you who all the girls wanted to dance with.'

Nigel shrugged, his cheeks flushing pink. 'I guess I was never short of a partner…'

'I bet you weren't. It can't be easy being your older brother,' she laughed.

'Maybe not,' he conceded. 'I guess neither of us have gone out of our way to make the other look good… but it certainly hasn't been easy being Preston's younger brother!'

'Oh, Nigel! I don't suppose you'll ever learn to get on, even though you're both so alike.' He was holding her tight now, and she was so close that her breath ruffled his hair. 'But you're not that alike. There are reasons that its you I'm in love with…'

'Good God!'

The dance was interrupted abruptly by Preston's shout from the car.

'What is it?' asked Syd, slightly annoyed that their moment had been shattered.

He handed her a piece of paper that he seemed very keen to get rid of. 'I found this in the glove compartment!'

Sydney frowned as she read the words written in red ink pen:

'Nigel,

I'm sorry about what happened in the cave. I never meant for you to get hurt.

I should probably have taken your advice before, and moved on, but I couldn't let that bastard get away with it. Now I see the consequences of my actions could have destroyed me completely.

I'm going to try and start over, but it isn't going to be easy after what I've done. I hope I will see you at that history conference, one day. If I do, I will have a new name, and a new life. Maybe then we can begin again?

Best wishes,

Molly Gages

PS - tell Preston he needs to improve the security on his new Volvo.'

'That woman really doesn't know when to let things lie!' exclaimed Sydney.

'I feel a bit sorry for her,' sighed Nigel. 'I wonder what will really become of her?'

'I hope she manages to start again, like she says.' Sydney folded the piece of paper, and tucked it away. 'She liked you, Nigel.'

Nigel couldn't quite deny it. 'She didn't really know me,' he muttered, contemplating his now non-moving boots.

The final strains of the waltz were ebbing from the car. Preston was frantically searching every nook and cranny in his beloved vehicle, checking for any more bugs.

'I know you, Nigel,' said Sydney. ' I think I know you now, better than I ever have done before...'

'We do go back a long way, don't we?' he replied quietly.

'Yeah,' breathed Sydney, her lips closing in on his. His gaze flittered upwards to meet hers and she stared intently into his light, hazel eyes.

'The only question that remains,' he continued, 'is where do we go from here?'

The music finally ceased and their lips touched, as Preston, his car and the bright, winter world vanished. All that existed in time and space – for Sydney and Nigel – was each other.

It was only when Sydney broke away, that her world started spinning again, heady and fast.

'We just go on,' she told him, her words calm while her body rushed with emotion. 'We just go on. But we have learned something from history, haven't we? You and I are supposed to be together.'

'It's a bit of cliché, Syd!'

Nigel smiled sheepishly. She knew that his feelings were sincere, and wondered if his light words were for the benefit of Preston's straining ears.

'But I suppose, just this once,' he continued, 'we can take something from the lessons of the past…'

'Okay, just this once, then…'

Preston beeped loudly on the car horn, but Sydney wasn't listening. Neither was Nigel. They were testing a hypothesis suggested by the most recent history: that the truest happiness they had ever known was to be found in each other's arms.

THE END

Thanks for reading this all the way to the (rather sappy) end!

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