Spooks (MI5): Fanfic: Day Trip to the Seaside

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Title: Day Trip to the Seaside
Fandom: Spooks (MI5)
Rating: G
Length: 310 words
Summary: The day trip began well ...

Ten-year-old Lucas North was enjoying the unexpected day trip to the seaside.  He had run up and down the beach, laughing as the waves splashed against his bare legs.  And now, while his parents sat on an old blanket, reading their books, he was clambering over the rocks, searching for little creatures in the many rock pools.

Looking up he saw his mother was waving to him; their picnic lunch laid out ready.  “Mind how you come,” she called.

Lucas ignored the instruction and began to leap from rock to rock.  Suddenly he slipped on one of the rocks, slippery with seaweed, and, with nothing to slow him up, he fell hard.  Cautiously he got back to his feet and made the rest of the way over the rocks more carefully.

He limped over to his parents and his father looked at him scornfully.  “There’s a tap at the top of those steps,” his father said.  “Go and wash your knee there.  And make sure you wash your hands too.”

Slowly, Lucas climbed the wooden steps and washed the blood off his knee.  It stung, but he took little notice.  He didn’t bother to hurry, lunch was only fish paste sandwiches and a hard-boiled egg, and with any luck his father would have eaten the tomato by the time he got back.

When he returned to his parents and had sat down on the sand, his mother passed him a plastic plate with his sandwiches and egg.  “You took so long, your father ate the tomato,” she said.

His father looked at him and said, “This wouldn’t have happened if you’d exercised some self-restraint.  Remember, Lucas, those who do not practice self-control will end up dashed upon the rocks.”

Lucas didn’t want to exercise self-restraint, he wanted to leap around.  He didn’t yet know how many rocks he would encounter.