END OF THE MALLARDS

By

Ashleigh Anpilova

Set several months after Till Death Do Us Part.

Ducky finally thinks about his mortality and what his death will mean for the Mallard family.

A Ducky-centric gen story.

Written: October 2012. Word count: 500.

As he stared out of his sitting room window seeing the first fog of autumn that hid the world from him, Ducky was reminded of his homeland and how the fog would suddenly appear from an otherwise bright and sunny sky. How it wrapped itself around the hills, the trees, the houses; how it would envelope anything and everything; how it made him feel as if there was no one else in the world; that he was alone.

And alone is what he was; alone is what he had been since the death of his mother; he was alone in his house, a house he never should have bought; it wasn't a home, it was merely a house. His home had been Reston house, but foolishly he'd given that up, just as he'd given up the Corgis. As least if he'd kept them he wouldn't be alone.

But he was and as he stood staring at the fog he realized he really had always been alone. He lived alone; he'd nearly died alone. Alone on a deserted beach in Florida he had nearly died. Despite being a doctor and seeing death and destruction on a daily basis, he'd never really given any thought to his own mortality and what his death would mean.

However now alone in his house, alone for all he could see in the world, he thought about what his death would mean. It would mean the end of the Mallard family; he was the last surviving member. His father was long dead; his mother more recently so; neither of his parents had had siblings and nor had he. With his death the Mallard line would end.

He'd always known he'd never father a child himself and growing up when he'd grown up it wouldn't have been possible for a gay man to adopt a child. And now even though things had changed in that respect he was far, far too old to even be considered a suitable person to adopt.

No, he had no one onto whom he could pass the Mallard name, his possessions, his considerable wealth, the Mallard homes, one in England the other in Scotland, or indeed his wide and varied knowledge and family traditions. He had made a will, of course he had, he may not have given any real thought to his mortality, but his father had instructed him, when he had become eighteen, to make a will. And he had done so.

Of course it was a different will now to the one he had made at the age of eighteen and had updated before he'd left Britain. Jethro and the children would benefit, as would several charities, but it wasn't the same as leaving it to family, of leaving it to someone who would carry on the family name, the family traditions.

He turned his back on the fog and sighed softly; the Mallard name would die with him and there was nothing he could do to change that.

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