A/N: Tiny little drabble inspired by DA 6.8 stills - so definitely not spoiler-free.

She's turned on the lamp next to the settee and stretched her feet out towards the fireplace. It's been cold at night, much colder than September ought to be. Using up coal really is an indulgence, but they can afford it. They're not as often at the cottage as he'd hoped.

He watches her as she mutters under her breath. She's knitting - something soft and small and white.

"I, eh… I've never seen you knit before," he says.

She looks up at him, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"It's been a while," she says and holds her work up to him. "And it shows. Perhaps I should practice before starting anything as ambitious as a pair of booties."

Charles sits down next to his wife and touches the soft fabric of her handiwork.

"Anna will be pleased," he says. He doesn't know why he feels a lump in his throat each time he thinks about Anna's news, but he has to swallow hard to get rid of it.

"Do you think so?"

She has lowered her knitting into her lap. The light of the fire highlights a suspicious gleam in her eyes.

Charles nods. "I do."

They both stare at the flames that lick at the coal in the fireplace. They don't speak for a long, long while; both of them are occupied with thoughts of the ever-altering future and a past that cannot be changed.

Finally Elsie says: "It will be lovely to have a little baby around."

Charles leans in and kisses his wife's temple.

"Yes. It will."

Elsie sighs, pulls up her shoulders until they click and picks up her knitting where she left off. Charles picks up the book he's taken out of the library. Elsie glances at him when he opens the cover. Her smile warms him; steadies him. He takes a deep breath and holds up his book and starts to read, out loud:

"The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home." *

* The wind in the willows - Kenneth Grahame (1908)