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TITLE: Another Time, Another World.
AUTHOR: Truly Bohemian.
FANDOM: Jeeves and Wooster.
PAIRING: Implied Jeeves/Bertie.
RATING: G, I'd say.
DISCLAIMER: All belongs to Wodehouse, except the characters of Gloria and Margaret. I just hope he doesn't mind me putting them in.
NOTES: This is going to seem really bad by tomorrow morning.

Gloria looked at the faded picture that she held in her hand. It was strange really. She felt completely detached from the person in the picture… She had never really known that man; she had never really been part of that world. They were very different to what they were now. And yet the picture made her spirits lift slightly, just because the man in the picture was smiling in his particular way. She felt he was - well, had been - very happy. He had beautiful eyes, which she had checked were blue, and she couldn’t understand why her mother laughed when she saw the photograph, saying that he looked as separated from the world as he was to that day. Gloria never mentioned how wrong she felt that was. Her Great Uncle belonged to that world. The thought spun her emotions… He was separate to her world. That’s why he still smiled, but never in the way that he had done. Gloria felt as though she had only ever really seen him smile in fading photographs. But he wasn’t even in mourning for his lost world now; no one had ever thought to tell him how hopeless it was to keep searching for it. He was still trying to find his way back to it.

“And this was his father,” Her mother continued, passing along another sepia coloured photograph, “He died when your Uncle was very young.”

Gloria nodded, putting the previous picture to one side.

“And there’s the silly young blighter again,” Gloria’s mother grinned.

“No need to be quite so offensive, young Margaret,” There was a sound of shuffling feet, and the man of the hour entered the kitchen, a cigarette in one hand and a mug in the other, “Good morning Gloria,” He smiled in his empty but benign way, “What are you ladies doing?”

“Just sorting out some of these old photos,” Margaret told him loudly (his hearing was not as good as it had been), “You really should get rid of a few. There’s far too many.”

“Nonsense.”

“Well, then we’ll have to get you a bigger house. And, as I recall, it was bad enough trying to get you to move from your old flat, let alone this place.”

Gloria sensed him peering down at the photographs from above her shoulder. He murmured something about moving back to the old flat if he ever had the chance.

“Who’s this?” Gloria asked, as she was handed another picture.

“That’s just Uncle Bertie again. Why?”

“No, no,” Gloria shook her head, feeling slightly frustrated, “there are two men in the picture. They can’t both be Uncle Bertie.”

Great Uncle Bertie leaned in closer and his brow furrowed in an off put manner. “I always thought I looked rather good with a moustache. Are you quite sure that’s me?”

“It’s you,” Margaret reassured him.

“But who’s this other person?”

“Jeeves of course.” Uncle Bertie smiled, “Goodness me, that was when we were out in America…”

“Jeeves…?”

Margaret took her daughter’s hand and brought her closer. “You remember Reginald, don’t you honey?”

Gloria could remember Reginald. She had only met him three times at the most.

When she was six years old she had paid her first visit to her eccentric Uncle Bertie. She’d only seen him once before that, at a Christmas dinner, and knew about him mostly through other family members’ talk. When they had arrived, Reginald had opened the door and led the guests in. Reginald had prepared lunch, and had sat next to Uncle Bertie at the table. He had explained why Uncle Bertie was so hoarse, suffering as he was with a bad cold.

“Who is Reginald?” Gloria could remember asking.

Her mother had looked awkward for a moment, then taken her hand and crouched at her level, “Reginald is… the man your Uncle Bertie lives with.”

Gloria had not thought this a very satisfactory answer, but she was not given another.
She had instead watched the two grey haired men in the garden, Reginald supplying tea and “whatnot” (as Uncle Bertie termed it) while the guests sat with them. When they were finally alone, they just sat closely and she saw Uncle Bertie resting his head on Reginald’s shoulder. She had toyed with the idea of Reginald being Uncle Bertie’s doctor, but by the time she left their house she was quite firmly convinced that he was his husband.

The family visited twice more during the year. When they returned the next year, Reginald was no longer there.

Gloria’s mind wandered back to the present, and the kitchen table covered with papers.

Now she could see Bertie gazing at her, and he looked as sad as she knew he was.

“Did you just ask who Jeeves is?”

Margaret now took hold of her Uncle’s hand gently. “She was only young when he died.”

“Yes, yes, I know that. Of course I know that.”

But no, Gloria thought, he hadn’t. He had forgotten. Did he often forget that Reginald wasn’t there? Reginald must have been another large part of the world he was constantly searching for…

She watched him now wander slowly out of the kitchen door into the garden, which had only been tended sporadically since Reginald had died. She saw her mother bite anxiously at her lip. They could both see him through the kitchen window.

Gloria wondered if her mother really understood why he was crying.

Cross-posted to by_jeeves.