The Art of Loving

[48] Time, It Flies..

It had been busy since Brian and Ellie got back from Scotland. After Ellie got the job offer from the hiking equipment company, she had gotten in touch with them as soon as possible and arranged everything for her trip. She didn't have to leave for another three weeks though, so even though she was excited, she spent a lot of that time with Brian, just relaxing with him, but also starting to work out a possible plan for her thesis project. She wanted to see if a project on astrophotography was feasible, with Brian's support, so they spent some time in the libraries of Imperial College and the Royal College of Art, researching on what was out there and what might be possible. 

They made quite some progress by the time Ellie left for the Alps, so it was up to Ellie's supervisor to approve, or not. They would have to see, but that had to wait until mid-September when she had the next appointment with him. Before that, Ellie had her week long employment in the Alps, which she was equally excited and nervous about. She was confident in her photography skills, but it was new and it was exciting. Brian did his best to support her before she left, as sad as he was to see her go, he was very happy for her, and he was proud of how talented his girlfriend was. The week was tougher for him, he found it weird not to see her for so long, but he got through it. Ellie, on the other hand, had a very exciting week, full of new experiences. She learned a lot, her colleague was a more experienced British photographer who helped her get used to the new work environment. It was such a positive experience for Ellie which really helped her with not seeing Brian or hearing his voice for so long, even though she thought about him every day.

Because she did so well with not seeing him, she was surprised by just how excited she got when the time to see him again came. She arrived at Heathrow late at night, so she didn't really expect to see him until the following day. However, she had forgotten that Brian's parents lived basically around the corner of the airport, he came to pick her up. She never thought she'd have one of the cliché airport scenes, hugging and tears of joy and all that, but... with Brian she had to expect the unexpected, as much as she surprised herself with that. He accompanied her to her flat, helping her with her suitcase. And even though Ellie was tired, they spent the night catching up, which ended up mostly being Ellie telling Brian about everything she had experienced. And Brian couldn't be happier about it, it made him even prouder to hear how well Ellie seemed to have done.

A week after Ellie got home, she met with her supervisor to discuss potential thesis project topics and he was fascinated by the idea to look into astrophotography and gave her the go to do more research on that, which she and Brian immediately got into. Brian had enough to do himself, and yet he insisted on supporting Ellie as much as he could, because he loved the project and felt responsible for it too.

Only a few days after that meeting with her supervisor they were getting ready to leave for Cornwall, for the wedding of Brian's friend. Roger would be at the wedding too, but he had driven down there earlier than Ellie and Brian to spend some more time with his family. So Brian had convinced his parents to let him borrow the car again for the three days and Ellie came to meet him at his parents' house in Feltham with her luggage. They were only planning to be away for three days, but a wedding required fancier clothing so she still brought a considerable amount of things with her.

They had gone to visit his parents a few times after they got back from Scotland. At first it had only been so Ellie could give Ruth the few souvenirs she had brought, but Brian had hoped it would help Ellie to get along a bit better with his father because they still struggled. And it helped, they warmed up to each other more and more. Ellie's relationship with Ruth was much, much better still, but at least the hostile feeling from their very first meeting was gone between Ellie and Harold. And the fact that she had gotten offered the job in the Alps had helped with that a lot. It was one of the reasons why Ellie was no longer dreading going over to Brian's parents' house.