Um, so I just saw the new movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and uh, yeah, go watch it now. Seriously.

This was inspired by one of the scenes in it, so mild spoilers.

Title: Never Too Long

Warnings: Like I said, mild spoilers for the movie, plus US and UK are humans and are both old. Old old.

Plus ELISABETAXYAOI. YOU GUYS LOVE THAT SO MUCH, APPARENTLY. IT'S HERE. SORT OF.

Begin~

It was sunset.

Arthur Kirkland was packing up his office. He was sixty-eight when he finally retired from his nearly lifelong career of being a judge. Not an important one, mind you, he never went past local court, but he'd worked as hard as he could and tried to always be fair (except for when he was in a bad mood, because then no one was safe).

Everyone was sad to see him go, but none were sadder than his young assistant, an American girl named Emily who kept looking up at him with great big doe eyes while he packed up his office and finally got the guts to say, just as he was about to leave for the last time, "Mr. Kirkland, would you like to come to America with me?"

He very nearly dropped his box. "What's this all of a sudden?" he asked.

"I want you to come to America with me, Mr. Kirkland," she said slowly. She was nervously grabbing at the ends of her dress.

"Whatever for?" he asked.

"You seem a bit down, sir, about your retirement, and I thought a free trip might cheer you up?" she said, though she phrased it like a question.

Arthur snorted. "Why would you think that?"

"Um, you mentioned once that you'd been there before, and I just thought you might want to return, sir."

Arthur didn't respond this time. Finally, he asked very quietly, "When did I mention this?"

"Back when I was still an intern, sir, at an office party."

He stared at her for a minute. "Free, you say?"

She grinned. "Yes, I'm sure my family would cover the whole thing, they'd really love to have you—"

"Fine. I'll go. But only if you carry these things out to my car for me." He handed her one of the many boxes of his things he'd kept in the office over the years.

"Of course, sir!" She took three (that girl was definitely stronger than she looked) and ran down the hall, her heels clicking on the marble.

Arthur leaned against the door. It had been quite a long time since he had been in America. Almost fifty years, eh? He knew he'd probably not make it back alive, what with that heart condition of his…

He had to go, though. He had some old debts to repay.

"So this is my mom and dad, say hi to them, my mom you can call Elizabeth, Dad's Gilbert but he prefers Gil, and these are all my siblings. Let's see, we've got Anthony, Francis, John, Catherine, Natalie, Edward who you should call Eddie, Bella and her twin brother Tim, and this little baby here is called Matthew." Emily took a baby from her mother's arms and rocked it back and forth, then handed him to Arthur, who was standing in front of the many children trying to take them all in. "Say hi, everyone."

The force of their loud "hello" nearly knocked Arthur over.

"I heard that families in this part of the country could get large, but I had no idea. How many children are there?" Arthur asked faintly. Emily had taken him directly to her home in South Carolina and introduced him to all of her immediate family that were present at the time.

"There's ten! Well, unless you count the step-brothers and sisters from Mom's first marriage, then there's fourteen, but they live with their dad and think they're too…what's the word? Posh. They act all posh and they don't like us and we don't like them."

Arthur nodded. He'd dealt with similar circumstances, only it was he who was considered 'too posh' by the rest of the family.

He realized he was about to drop poor baby Matthew on his head and quickly handed him back to Emily, who cooed at him and waved a finger in his face. Elizabeth, who was sitting toward the back, asked, "So what brings you here to the United States, Mr. Kirkland?"

"Please, call me Arthur. Um, your daughter invited me, actually. And I had some unfinished business to take care of."

"Unfinished business? What, you gotta kill someone who knows too much about you?" asked Gilbert with a cackle. Elizabeth smacked him with a frying pan.

"I'm sure it's nothing like that. But what is it, Arthur? You can tell us," she said kindly, turning away from her husband.

Arthur coughed. "There is someone I need to find. You don't suppose you could help with that…?"

Elizabeth beamed. "Of course. Come with me." She pushed her way to the front of all the children, who were currently being entertained by Emily's stories of her time in London. The girl was still holding Matthew and he bounced excitedly in her arms while Elizabeth led Arthur away to a more secluded part of the house.

"So, who is this mysterious person you're trying to find?" Elizabeth asked once they were away from all the hubbub. She led him to a study area with a computer and several filing cabinets.

Arthur sat down at the desk chair. "That requires a bit of a story. Are you sure you want to hear it?"

She leaned against the wall. "I'd be glad to." She grinned as a way to tell him to start.

"Let's see." Arthur cleared his throat. "About forty or fifty years ago, when I was seventeen years old, I moved from the UK to America. I had lived here as a child, though I hardly remembered it. Anyway, I was in a suburb by that city Richmond, and I made a friend in the private school my parents sent me to when the year started. It was also in Virginia, I believe. Anyway, my friend's name was Alfred. We were the very best of friends, you know. We did so much together. Anyway, one day we stopped being friends, and it became something, er, more." He looked back at Elizabeth. "I'm sorry if this offends you—"

"Offends me? Quite the opposite. Please, go on." Elizabeth's eyes were shining with glee.

"All right. Anyway, we spent a lovely two years together at school. I was in my, what do you call it? Junior year? That's when I started at that school, so we spent those two years together.

"But we both graduated, you see, and we were going to be separated. There was…quite a bit of crying on his part. Very emotional back then, he was. We decided to spend one last night together before we left. There was a, er, lake on campus." Elizabeth noticed Arthur's eyes getting misted over. "We sat there together, just looking at the sunset, and I realized I'd never be as happy as I was at that one moment with him."

Arthur was silent for a moment. "What happened next?" Elizabeth asked excitedly.

"We were caught," Arthur said shortly. "The next morning. Some boys from our year found us. We'd kept it a secret, you know, but that didn't really work out. People there weren't too big on homosexuality then—still aren't, you know, but I suppose it's a bit better—and they went after us. We ran like hell, but eventually they found us. He took the brunt of the attack, giving all this crap about being a hero. We went home that day, too. I spent the summer with my aunt in London, then stayed there for university."

"And?"

"I heard from my brother that his whole family had decided to shun him for it, and that he was having difficulty finding a college to accept him because of the connections people at the school had with the universities. I ruined his life," Arthur finished flatly.

They sat in silence for a moment. "Then why do you want to see him?" Elizabeth finally asked.

Arthur rested his head in his hands. "I don't know. Just to see him. To apologize? To see if he hates me? Just for closure, really."

Elizabeth nodded. "I'll help you as best as I can. What's his name?"

Arthur fished around in his jacket pocket. "His name is Jones. Alfred Jones. I have a picture here somewhere." He found his wallet, and pulled out a faded, tattered photograph of two young men, one with his arm around the other. They were both smiling. "The taller one, that's him."

Elizabeth looked at the picture for a moment. "I know him."

Arthur nearly fell out of his chair. "Know him?"

"Yes. He's my ex-husband's stepfather. Never had any children of his own, that I remember, but I definitely remember him. At our wedding he smashed some cake into Roderich's—my ex's—face. He wasn't like the rest of the family. Much more outgoing, less fancy, and all that."

"That sounds like him." Arthur was trying to recover from the shock that his search was going to be so short. "Where…where is he?"

"He lives by the coast, I believe, with my former mother-in-law. I can take you to see him tomorrow." Elizabeth smiled gently at Arthur. "I'd be glad to help you complete your journey."

"Thank you, Elizabeth." He stood up. "Well, mustn't keep your humongous family waiting, shall we? It seems to be almost dinner."

She grinned. "I've got a great one planned! Chicken nuggets and biscuits and mashed potatoes and barbecue sauce—you'll love it."

"I'm sure."

The next morning, before any of the children had woken up, Elizabeth and Arthur snuck away to find Alfred in the little town he lived in by the coast. They'd left a note for Gilbert explaining where they'd be and set off.

It took about two hours to reach the place, but they finally did. Arthur's heart pounded in excitement, and he tried to calm it as Elizabeth started pulling onto side streets as she tried to remember where her ex-in laws lived. Finally, she slowed to a stop in front of a cream-colored house. A few houses away on the other side of the street, there were some old men playing cards on a patio, but Arthur had no interest in them. He walked up to the front door and rang the bell while Elizabeth waited by the car.

After what seemed like ages, the door opened. It was not Alfred—it was an older woman. "Ah, hello, my name is Arthur Kirkland. I was wondering if I could find Alfred here? I'm—"

"I know who you are," she said.

"You do? Excellent. Listen, if he comes by, could you ask him to call—" But she ignored him. She strode past him onto the lawn and shouted at the table with the old men playing cards.

"Alfred! There's someone here to see you!"

Arthur whirled around just as the man closest to the street stood up. His eyes locked with Arthur's.

Arthur walked forward slowly toward him, then broke into a run. Alfred pulled him into a hug when he was close enough to touch him. "Arthur," he whispered.

"Alfred."

They stayed in their embrace for what seemed like ages. Finally, someone cleared their throat, and they pulled away from each other, both slightly embarrassed. "Ah. Um. Why don't you come inside?" Alfred asked nervously.

Arthur nodded.

AN: So yeah, go watch that movie now. If you need reminded what it was, scroll up. It's there. I didn't put in the angsty end because I didn't want a bunch of sad reviews (reviews I'm fine with, seriously, but you guys are always so sad at the littlest things).

It's a good movie. It was super awkward when Graham (Arthur) was like, "Uh, I'm gay" to (I can't remember her name, it's Jean or something) Harriet Jones (same actress) but then he found Manoj and it was cool.

Wow. Two updates in two days? (is what it would have been but I wrote it like two weeks ago so I'm lying now) Damn. I should watch more movies. Or something. Whatever floats your boats.

Maybe at 250 reviews I'll write a special. Something to do with Tony and FMB. Though I have no idea what.

AlsoifanyonedrawsmefanartI'. Preferably something cute. And good. If it's crap I probably won't. I'm going to be demanding and ask that it's from one of the fluffy things, like the unicorn one (which this one was kind of a sequel to, did you notice?) or the costermonger one. But it has to be good. That means real body dimensions, people. Don't give them heads that are like, a third of their body unless they're chibis, and they can't be too skinny.

I am so picky. I apologize.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! :D