#and that he might not even be john keel (ned coates knows)

[wastrelwoods]

once again unequivocally lost in the sauce at the implication that younger vimes suspects that john keel!vimes is his dad who left when he was young. my favorite subtext of night watch i love the way it just sits there just out of focus

[ironlime]

60 Years After

So somebody in the tumblrverse posted about their headcannon in which Ned Coats was Sam Vimes' kid having traveled through time. I am a fan of this. It explains a lot. So when I read it back in... April? I then sat down and wrote up this little fanfic thing. And assumed that I could not only get it posted today, but also edit it so that it's not filled with so many of my own headcannons. And is closer to the original material. But L-Space is my job, and it really does do crazy things to time (and space.) On top of that I was really hoping I could post this to that original headcannon post but... I can't find it. So, OP, if you come across this... Well, I'm sorry. I'm more sorry to Sir Terry (GNU), though.

Quick note: my friends and I have found it easier to call Vimes' kid "Wee Sam" than "Young Sam" because "Young Sam" is one of the names (along with Vimesy and Lance Constable Vimes) that Vimes calls his younger self and... yeah. We find it confusing when nerding out about a single series with two different characters called 'Young Sam'. So we Feegle it up. Even though I wouldn't be surprised if 'Wee Sam' is actually a bit taller than his dad.

~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~

“What happened just then, Sarge? You blurred.” Wee Sam said, while he thought Oh so that’s what that looks like.

“You only get one question, Ned,” The man who would be his father looked a little seasick, and Wee Sam knew exactly how he felt. “Now, let’s show Snapcase where the line’s drawn, shall we? Let’s finish it--”

To the majority of people there that day, Sergeant-At-Arms John Keel stood, turned towards the enemy, and charged. To two people, Commander Sam Vimes ran towards Carcer, ready to drag him kicking and screaming into the past. Or the future. Depending on who you asked.

That was what gave Wee Sam his frame of reference, actually. He remembered hearing stories about Carcer, about how his dad had arrested the bastard the day Wee Sam was born. But was this actually May 25th for his dad? Was this weeks before the arrest? Hours? He couldn’t ask. Not yet.

“Glad to see you’ve joined us and are getting along with the Sarge, Coats.” Fred Colon said, touching him on the shoulder as they ran towards the fight.

“Yeah, Fred.” Oh, Fred. Fred Colon had died a few years ago, happy and surrounded by great-grandchildren. But here and now he was young and actually capable of running. And he was running towards the fray.

Sweeper had told Wee Sam to stay away from the center of the fight, and to try not to actually kill anybody, so he stayed on the edge near the unconscious Lance-Constable Sam Vimes who had been hidden by his older, more cynical self. Three men in a battle with the same name, and two of them were the same person. Good thing Wee Sam was the only one who had to really keep track of which of them was where. He certainly didn’t trust anybody else to.

So he fought, in a very curbed way, knocking his adversaries unconscious when he could and doing his best not to step on Nobby Nobbs, who was doing his best to very slowly inch away from the battle while simultaneously pretending to be a corpse. Over by the Watch House, Reg Shoe was doing a much better impersonation of a corpse, seeing as how he was one, but in a couple of hours he’d discover that it just didn’t work for him.

“You’re nicked, my ol’ chum.” It was probably because he had been listening for it, but his father’s whisper carried. Nobody else seemed to hear it, and nobody but Wee Sam turned in time to see the two men vanish. In the same instant, a single body appeared on the ground near where they had been. So, now that he had seen that through, there was one more…

A dark grey-green shadow passed by his shoulder, and his mind registered Uncle Havelock before adding the word Young.

Havelock Vetinari ran into the fight, cutting down Carcer’s men much more brazenly than the Assassin's Guild would like, a lilac bud between his teeth. Even in Wee Sam’s time, when Vetinari’s wardrobe consisted entirely of black and everything he did was in moderation, the Patrician indulged in a little drama on a regular basis.

He chose to have Commander Sam Vimes in his life, after all.

There was a sound to Wee Sam’s left, which he recognized though his mind didn’t associate any words with it. It was a sound any human would recognize, even those who first approached the Delta where the Ankh River met the Circle sea thousands of years ago. If Wee Sam had to find Morporkain words for it, and as a Vimes he did like to use his vocabulary, they were Confused, followed by Hurt followed by… wait for it… there it was. Anger.

Wee Sam could make that noise, though he rarely did. His father’s upbringing, on the other hand, had been considerably less balanced. The kid who was the source of the sound ran into the center of the fight, and Wee Sam deftly stepped out of his way while pushing an adversary in his way. The boy chopped down the Unmentionable with one graceful movement, and Wee Sam felt that he could safely say that he hadn’t been the one to kill the bastard. And nobody had been so foolish as to tell him to prevent his father from killing anybody.

Vetinari didn’t pause, but he did turn to look at this vengeful newcomer. Vetinari hadn’t been there when young Sam Vimes participated in the first part of the battle, and Wee Sam recognized the young assassin’s look of interest.

Tell me, Uncle Havelock, will you recognize him in 15 years? Or will you need to get him well and truly angry to realize you’ve found him?

Wee Sam knew this wasn’t the first time Havelock Vetinari saw Sam Vimes, but this was probably the first time he saw the potential. That he was more than just That Kid Who Follows Keel Everywhere. I bet you didn’t actually expect him to be so damned smart. His father still didn’t think of himself as intelligent. It was infuriating, especially when he and his father were having a disagreement. A drawn out, decade-long, disagreement.

Young Sam Vimes sent a lot of the Unmentionables running, and Wee Sam cut down any of them which could be seen as ‘coming towards him with a drawn weapon’. Since they were escaping a fight, that was anyone who came within reach not wearing a lilac.

Time travel really can get to a man. He thought, feeling a little cold. There would be no arrests here, just death and fleeing and at the end of the day Sam Vimes, Havelock Vetinari, Fred Colon, Gaskin, and, less literally, Nobby Nobbs and Reg Shoe would all be left standing. That was all that mattered.

He saw Vetinari turn away from young Sam Vimes, who then spun, and for the briefest moment they had their backs to each other, and Wee Sam wished he had his paints. It was a gods awful place to paint, there was a reason battles were always ‘immortalized’ after the fact, but the color and everything was just perfect--

And then the color faded.

“You should have fallen by now.” Sweeper observed from behind him.

“I wanted to see them fight together.” Wee Sam admitted, not turning. He had a notebook on him, and a pencil, but he knew that even with Time paused he didn’t really have it. Not to sit down and do a proper preliminary sketch. He was just going to have to remember.

Vetinari had a stiletto, an assassin’s weapon used to kill up-close. Young Sam Vimes hadn’t learned to dual-wield yet, but he had good instincts for the sword. Wait until you discover the axe.

Sweeper sighed. “Fine, and now you’ve seen it. I’m going to put the time back on and you had better be prepared to drop.”

“Yes yes alright.” Wee Sam shifted slightly, so he could seriously inconvenience the man who he was blocking before he dropped.

“Oh and stop killing people.”

“I’m a Vimes. You knew that when you hired me.”

“Indeed.” Sweeper said, and it took Wee Sam a moment to realize it was an attempt at a Vetinari impression. Before Wee Sam could reply, the color came back, and his adversary frowned in confusion.

“Oi, you blurred!” The man cried.

“This just isn’t your day.” Wee Sam gave the man a wound which might heal, if somebody tended to it within the next 10 minutes, and then fell over in a needlessly complicated way, specifically so he wouldn’t hit Nobby Nobbs.

And when he landed, the boy was looking right at him, frowning. Damn, Nobby was always the brains of Colon & Nobbs.

��You ain’t injured.” The boy hissed at him.

“Try to pick my pockets and you’ll regret it.” Wee Sam whispered back. Of course he wouldn’t dream of hurting Nobby, but the kid didn’t know that. Besides, picking the contents of his pockets back would be a relaxing way to end the day.

Nobby was still frowning at him. “You got eyes like the Sarge...”

“Nobby, get out of here before you get stepped on.” Wee Sam growled in his best imitation of his father, the Sergeant, within the past three days. The kid’s eyes went wide, and he took off running. Wee Sam glanced over to where Vimes and Vetinari were taking care of the last of Carcer’s men, and the color faded once more.

“I hope you are pleased with yourself.” Sweeper said, which Wee Sam took to mean he could stand up and dust himself off.

“Young Vimes and Vetinari live to grow up and become two of the most powerful men in Ankh-Morpork history, Carcer went back to his time more or less accompanied by my my dad so the one can be arrested by the other, your rogue ‘Time Vigilantes’ have been sorted out, oh and I don’t cease to exist either. My work here is d--” He stopped, and watched as Q and some other Technical Monks lay down a man about the same age, size and coloring as Wee Sam. “Wait, so there really was a Ned Coats?”

Sweeper had walked off without him, and Wee Sam jogged to catch up. The old monk didn’t turn to look at him when they were side-by-side, but he did start talking. “Of course there was. He was also from Psudopolis and knew the real Keel.”

“How’d he die?”

“The Agony Aunts, on his first day here. He was the real reason the real Keel accepted a job in Ankh-Morpork. The real Ned Coats was not a good man.”

“Keel... left his home to track down a criminal…” Wee Sam slowed. “That’s what my dad did! As Keel! Only, it was Carcer he had to catch.”

“Time likes continuity.” Sweeper nodded, and thanked Wee Sam quietly for holding the door open as they entered the monastery. Once in the building, color returned, with motion and sounds and smells. They were back in the Present.

The walk through the building was in relative silence, the rumbling of the procrastinators keeping it from ever becoming truly quiet here. Wee Sam could sleep almost anywhere, but the rumbling reminded him of the steam engines back home and Susan’s offer to help him find a job in Sto Lat ‘if he really couldn’t stay in Ankh-Morpork’.

Not long after his parents first met his dad had gotten fired for a couple of days, and his mom had offered to get him a job working for Susan’s parents. Susan had been young then, and sometimes he wondered what kind of person she would have grown up to be with his dad as part of her household staff.

Of course, with his parents living in two different cities, he would have never been born.

His mother would have never left Ankh-Morpork.

Then again, his father had chosen not to leave. He had stayed on the case. He… sorted it out, more or less. He kept Vetinari from getting killed. Had he done that during the battle? Young Sam and Vetinari had been facing opposite directions, had Vimesy blocked any blows aimed at the future patrician?

There was the crunch of stones under his feet, and Wee Sam consciously acknowledged they had arrived at the Garden of Inner-City Tranquility. His eyes swept the space, falling on and acknowledging the Cigarette Pack of Air, the Cat Doings of Disharmony, the Sonkie of Organic Harmony, the Cabbage Stalks of Dim Comprehension, the Discarded Fish-And-Chip Wrapper of Infinity, the Beer Bottle of Pissing Off Sweeper, and….

“The Cigar of Capriciousness is still here.” Wee Sam said, stopping between the door and the bench Sweeper always went to. He tilted his head slightly. “Or… Another cigar. Same brand, same style, smoked the same amount, probably by the same man, at the same angle... but it’s wrapped just a little differently.”

“Is it? I’ve stopped noticing.”

“You haven’t noticed the cigar that’s been smouldering here for the past month?” Wee Sam turned to Sweeper in disbelief. “I understand not paying attention to the condoms and cat doings, but time passes in here!”

Sweeper shrugged. “There is always a cigar. Even if we get rid of it, a new one shows up. If the new one lands closer to the wall, the garden always pushes it to the center.”

“Always? Since, what, the dawn of time?”

“Oh no. Since the day you were born. Or thirty years before. It’s hard to say.” Sweeper was looking at him evenly, and Wee Sam suddenly realized his reaction was being gauged.

“My dad. But…” Wee Sam looked at the cigar. “He doesn’t smoke them anymore.”

“He does. On special occasions.”

“Like what?”

“Your birthday. And when he pays certain visits.”

“He talked you into not keeping me on?” His gaze moved swiftly from the old man to the cigar, and with purpose he stalked into the middle of the garden and brought his foot back, prepared to give the thing a swift kick.

“You did that just fine without his help.” Sweeper’s voice was quiet, but it froze Wee Sam where he stood. “Corporal, we both know you don’t want to do this.”

“The mission is over. Coats is dead. I’m not a corporal anymore.” His foot fell heavily, not coming into contact with the cigar but still sending a spray of stones ahead of them. He scowled as they came sliding back towards him, settling where they had been around his foot. “This job is the closest I’ve ever gotten to what I was made to do.”

“I realize that. I’m sorry.”

There was some silence as the last of the stones slid into place. The procrastinators here were small, used only for the bathrooms in the far right corner, even though the city’s sewer pipe system now meant that they were just inconveniencing themselves in exchange for saving very little money. Wee Sam had done the math.

“Did you tell Susan?” Wee Sam didn’t want to be the one to tell her, but he also didn’t want anybody else to explain that he had squandered this opportunity.

“No. That is your problem, my boy.”

“Good.” Wee Sam squatted down, getting a closer look at his father’s cigar. The smell brought him back to his childhood, and it was comforting if not at all healthy. His mother had never allowed them in the house, but his father smoked them all the time outside and in his office, so the scent clung to his uniform like… Well like Wee Sam had back then. “Please don’t hold… me... against her. She was just looking out for me. She does that. Wish I knew why.”

“She is aware of your potential.” Sweeper said, and Wee Sam was so surprised he looked over his shoulder at the old man. “You’re good at investigating and putting the pieces together. And, some day, you will once again make a very good cop.”

“Someplace other than Ankh-Morpork.” Wee Sam grunted, but the old man shrugged, and he asked, hopefully “In Ankh-Morpork but in the future?”

“That is not for me to say.”

“No, it’s for my father to say.” He glared at the cigar, and then pushed himself to a standing position.

“You know, I didn’t just take you on because Susan asked and there happened to be another Vimes-shaped opening.” Sweeper said as Wee Sam turned towards the door.

“No?”

“I wanted to get to know the man the Theives Guild deemed ‘too dangerous’ for membership.” Sweeper sounded amused, and Wee Sam turned to look at him.

“I keep killing people. Assassin's school graduate, and all.” Wee Sam reminded him, but Sweeper waved the comment away.

“We both know neither of those things are relevant to today’s theive’s guild.” Sweeper shook his head. “Your father is afraid of you becoming him; and, well, so is everyone else. Vimeses walk in and take control. Especially under Vetinari’s influence.”

“And how do you know what my father is afraid of?” Wee Sam asked, narrowing his eyes. He was choosing to ignore the comment about Vetinari’s influence because it was true. After 300 years of cops and / or drunks it took Havelock Vetinari telling his father ‘not’ to investigate three deaths to bring his family name back to the list of the city’s gentry.

“You should ask him.” Sweeper did not ignore the narrowed eyes, but he did meet them evenly. “What he’s afraid of.”

Wee Sam turned towards the door, intending to stalk out, then thought better of it and spun so he was completely facing the old man. “You know what? I think I will.”

Then he ran, took a leap to place one foot on the bench beside Sweeper and jumped so his hands easily grasped the top of the wall. His own momentum brought him sideways, and he hurtled over the top. There was an alley on the other side, and he landed lightly. He was exactly where he expected to be, of course, and took off at a run towards the Cemetery of Small Gods.

And slowed to a walk before he reached the gates. It would not do for him to be out of breath when he arrived at the graves.

Twilight was falling, so his dad would be there, but so would Uncle Havelock and maybe Reg Shoe. Wee Sam was less concerned about how Reg saw him, especially now that he had seen Reg alive, but as far as his family was concerned he wanted to take steps towards appearing dignified. Even though they had known him his whole life, and knew better.

Sure enough, he passed Reg first. The Zombie was carrying a long-handled shovel over his left shoulder, and nodded in acknowledgement. Wee Sam managed to nod back before they passed each other.

He had expected Reg to recognize him. Reg had never noticed him behind the barricade, his father never noticed him behind the barricade, but Wee Sam had been playing Ned Coats for a full month before Sam Vimes had shown up as John Keel. Maybe Reg had never noticed that his father was Keel? How did Zombie memories work, anyway? Their brains certainly weren’t making new pathways… Did vampyre brains make new pathways?

This train of thought kept him pretty well occupied, along with the question of how he could politely go about getting some answers, when he noticed Uncle Havelock and his ‘cane’ striding silently towards him. A simple nod wouldn’t do.

“Good evening, Uncle Havelock.” Wee Sam called, since his mother had drummed into his head that you always greeted your superiors first. Admittedly, this sometimes meant that he approached his uncle with a question about what he would call the color of the sunset above a specific building at that exact moment, or if there was a poison which exploded in a particularly satisfactory fashion, but the patrician never complained. Nor did he complain if Wee Sam wandered in his office and started talking about alternative methods for coding clax messages or an unusual bird he had noticed riding the thermals above the University. And, thank gods, Havelock Vetinari knew that a formal greeting from Wee Sam Vimes meant that he didn’t want to talk.

“Happy Birthday, Wee Sam.” His uncle replied, “I trust you’ll be on time for dinner?”

Oh. That was a reminder. And a warning. “Thank you. Yes, we won’t be long.”

“Good. See you then.” The Patrician nodded, and then passed him.

“Yes.” Wee Sam muttered, and then reached for his pocket watch. When he pulled it out, he saw the time was all wrong and swore quietly. Well, from the graves he would be able to see the Tower of Art, and set his watch to the present. The battle of the lilac boys had been in the mid-morning, and it was most definitely not a quarter to noon.

John Keel’s grave marker was wood, and though it had been replaced often it had never been strong enough to support the weight of an average-sized man. Reg’s, on the other hand, was granite, and he apparently didn’t mind that Commander Sam Vimes leaned against it more and more every year.

Wee Sam didn’t make any noise, he never made any noise, but he could never sneak around his father. Commander Sam Vimes turned his head ever so slightly, and Wee Sam tooka good look at him.

Oh gods, he was so old. When had that happened? True, the last time he had seen his father he must have been about 50, but before that Wee Sam had spent three decades watching his father age and yet… It had never struck him so hard. He never could quite reconcile his memories of young Sam Vimes, that kid who had joined The Watch for three square meals a day and a little extra cash for his family. But he hadn’t thought his father had changed so much.

The old man looked him up and down. “How’d the battle go? After I left?”

Wee Sam stopped abruptly, and looked down at his outfit. He had forgotten to change into the clothes he had left at the monastery. This outfit was a uniform the Monks had given him, so he wouldn’t have the problems ‘accidental’ time travelers experienced with their clothes and meals and things staying in the time they came from. He even still had his lilac, somehow, even though that had come from the past.

“Don’t you remember?” You kicked ass.

His father shook his head. “I remember the original timeline, when Keel died at the barricade. I was pretty sure Coats wasn’t there.”

“Yeah, I don’t think he was, either.”

“I guess Vetinari showed up?” His father smirked. “Had a lilac in his teeth and everything?”

“I thought you didn’t remember it.” Wee Sam frowned.

“I don’t, but he tells me about it sometimes. I think he’s waiting for me to remember, or maybe now he’s wondering why I don’t.”

“Because time travel is a mess.” Wee Sam turned away from his father and looked across the city. He could see his family’s house from here.

“So Sweeper explained it to you?” The interest in his voice was practically tactile.

“No, but I had to run around for a month foiling somebody who had been sent to kill Havelock Vetinari. And it gave me time to wonder.”

“Why it was different the first time around?”

Wee Sam shook his head. “Would I have survived being born if you didn’t go back and meet Lawn?”

There was absolute silence between them, until Commander Sam Vimes quietly swore.

“Sweeper told me you have to think of things as one event in front of another, which is fine, except if you hadn’t gone back in time you wouldn’t have known Lawn was competent. You had heard of him, sure, but he would have never crossed your mind.”

“So we owe your existence to the damn time monks?” There was an angry edge to his father’s voice, but Wee Sam already knew his father was protective as hell. That was how he had gotten into this mess. Sort of.

“No. As far as I can tell, we owe it to some modern young idiots who thought they could go back and kill Vetinari. Time tries to fix things, and so you were sent back in time, to meet Lawn and Carcer went with you and killed Keel so there was a place for you to be and when you were done my life got saved and the monks were able to send me back to save Vetinari’s life and… Time is what it should be. Go us.” There was something about owing his life to terrorists that made him feel sarcastic.

“For all we know Vetinari or Rosie Palm might have recommended Lawn.” His father pointed out, which wasn’t a bad alternative. But it wasn’t what had happened, and there wasn’t really anybody they could ask. At least, nobody who they could ask who would give them a meaningful answer. They both knew Vetinari was a capable doctor, but apparently neither of them could imagine Vetinari getting involved in a problematic birth when there were other competent people around to do it.

More silence. Wee Sam noticed the time on the Tower of Art, and pulled his watch back out. If they were going to avoid talking about the massive argument they had that morning, he may as well take the time to re-set his watch.

“There was the sound of dice.” His father said so quietly that it didn’t initially register.

“Hm?” Wee Sam pushed the pin in, and watched with satisfaction as his watch and the tower struck the time at the exact same minute.

“Before the Library got struck by lightning. There was the sound of dice. Were the people who wanted to kill Havelock associated with a specific god?”

“I… Don’t know. They didn’t say anything about one.” He shut the watch, and shoved it in his pocket. ‘Havelock’ meant his dad was worried. “But there was a thunderstorm, right? Was the sound of dice rolling at the exact moment as the thunder?’

“Yes.”

“Io!” They both said it at the same moment, and Wee Sam felt his heart fall to his stomach. The self-proclaimed King of the Gods had been trying to subjugate their family for a long time. The only reason he had eased up lately was because Wee Sam had trained with the witches in Lancre. And so, to a lesser extent, had his father. It made them harder targets. But Io was still The Thunder God because he had murdered all the others. And then there was the question of who he would be forced to answer to. And how. Neither of the Vimes men had an axe sharp enough for that.

“Damn, why didn’t I realize that?” His father asked the night at large.

“The gods are always playing games. And besides, you had no reason to think Io was responsible for… Well he’s probably not responsible for the Dragon Incident, at least. Or the Goblin Incident.”

“Yeah, but we’ve been operating under the assumption that he was involved in that Dam Slam.” He was rubbing his thumb thoughtfully over the inside of his left wrist, where the Mark of the Summoning Dark had been. When Wee Sam was 8 it had changed, to a symbol generally called the Guarding Dark by anyone who cared to reference it. His father never talked about either Mark, but Wee Sam didn’t blame him. The Marks were indicative of 7 year period which did a number on his view of magic, and his identity.

Speaking of.

“I haven’t told Susan yet, but the monks kicked me out.” He tapped his toe against the grass, bringing it down as softly as he could so it wouldn’t damage the grass. Leggy would be so mad if he damaged his precious ‘terf’.

“Do you want to be a Monk?” His father asked quietly.

“No, I want to be a Watchman.” He whispered. Today was his 30th birthday, though technically he was a month older than that. He felt so much older than that. “But you’re apparently so terrified of me getting myself hurt that you’ve been doing Every Damned Thing you can think of to get between me and that and so I went ahead and tried to join almost any guild in the city and quite a few refused me and I’ve been kicked out of Each. And. Every. One. which would take me and now the only thing I can think of is taking Susan up on her offer to put in a good word for me with the Sto Lat Watch unless you’re going to step in and mess that up too and I wish you would knock it the hells off because as much as I love mum and her dragons I cannot spend the rest of my life working at the damn dragon sanctuary so--”

“Corporal.” His father’s voice was conversational, and somebody who had spent less time listening for the Commander’s voice probably wouldn’t have heard it.

“I’m not finished! Will you--” Wee Sam stopped abruptly. “Is that why you made me a Corporal? You couldn’t have recognized me. I hadn’t been born yet!”

“I recognized potential. And I was right, though you didn’t have as much control as I originally thought. Was all that sparring really necessary?”

“You’ve been standing between me and what I’ve been made to do!”

“And how would 50 year old me have known that?”

“It was easier to fight… him… than you.” Wee Sam grumbled, then realized he was starting to dig up the sod with his toe. Feeling bad about the grass, he brought his toe down in the other direction, to flatten it back down.

“Easier? I kicked your ass. I’d probably have a harder time of it now.”

“I never wondered if I should hold back.” Wee Sam admitted.

“Ah.” The 80 year old nodded. “I know that feeling. I’ve often wondered what it would be like if Vetinari and I had a proper fight when we were young.”

“You could sell tickets and solve all the city’s financial problems.” Wee Sam shifted his gaze to his father. “Actually you probably still could--”

“No. Your mother would have a conniption.”

“Oh right. Yeah, she would. Shame.”

“Do I want to know who you think would win?”

“No.”

“Your faith in me is staggering.”

“Well I figure either it would be a draw or he’d kick your--”

“Yes I understood your answer to my question, thank you.” But he was smiling ever so slightly.

And then the city’s clocks started chiming 9 in the evening. His father pushed himself slowly to his feet, and Wee Sam offered his arm. Cheery had offered to get his father an axe to use as a cane, but Commander Vimes would not hear of it. He did touch Wee Sam’s arm briefly, but once he was standing straight he let go, and the pair of them headed towards the exit.

They didn’t bother to try talking until the clocks had stopped, about five minutes after Wee Sam’s watch struck the hour.

“Did those people who tried to kill young Vetinari have any friends who stayed in our time?”

“I believe so.” They were walking slowly, and Wee Sam waited a full block before he added. “You want me to turn all my information over to anyone in particular?”

“I’m not afraid of you getting hurt.” It didn’t seem like a related response, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t. “I mean, of course I am, but that’s not why I’ve been saying no.”

“Really?”

“I don't want people treating you like a target for their hate for me. If you could join the way Carrot or Angua or Cheery did, that would be fine. But it’s gotten so big since they joined up.”

“Ah.” He didn’t know what else to say.

“I don’t think it would be any better if you joined anywhere else within the Clacks network.”

“Which is pretty much the whole world at this point.”

“And there’s all this scrying now.”

“Which doesn’t need towers.”

His father glared at him, but didn’t tell him to knock it off. “So I suspect your joining a Watch anywhere would ultimately be just as risky.”

“Which is your reasoning for why I shouldn’t bother with Sto Lat.”

“No, my reasoning for why you shouldn’t bother with Sto Lat is that we pay better and have the best medical benefits on the Sto Plains.”

Wee Sam stopped abruptly. “What.”

“You survived the Watch I started out in. As far as I’m concerned, you can handle today’s watch.” The old man stopped and looked back at him. “You’re going to be the oldest cadet though. Because I’m not going to let you jump straight to Corporal. We’re not at war.”

“Right. Yeah. That’s fine.”

“We’re going to be late if you don’t get moving.”

“Right.” Wee Sam managed to keep himself from skipping, so the pent up energy became a jog to his father’s side. They walked in silence, Wee Sam’s mind racing as he wondered if there was some way for him to accidentally mess this up.

“You should give your mother two week’s notice though. It’s only fair.”

“You didn’t run this by her first?” Wee Sam turned to him, shocked.

“Oh we’ve been talking about this for years.” The unspoken word ‘decades’ hung in the air between them. “Her, Vetinari, Carrot, Angua, Cheery--”

“Cheery?”

“She and Igor think you should be in forensics. I mean, it’s your choice of course-- after you pass the tests.”

“Forensics would be great.” He agreed, and thought about how fun it could be to put his Medical and Alchemical and Assassin training to something useful for once. Which reminded him “You know, there is a smouldering cigar in the center of The Garden of Inner City Tranquility at the Monastery.”

“Yeah, it hit me after you left. I had called you ‘sunshine’ during our fight, and Vetinari basically asked how you were handling turning 30, and seeing him standing there with the lilac pinned to his shirt it hit me.” He paused for a moment. “He wore it in the original timeline too, you know. I wish I had asked, but we didn’t get along as well then.”

Wee Sam felt his mouth tug into a half-smile. For his father and the patrician, ‘getting along as well’ involved an increased number of arguments. Also, he remembered ‘Keel’ using that ironic term of endearment during their spar. “You realized I was Ned Coats.”

“So I… walked as fast as I could… to the Monastery and… knocked on the damned door… And threatened to make one hell of a scene if Sweeper didn’t let me in.”

“So of course he did.”

“Of course.”

“And he took you to the garden. And… you told him what you worked out?”

“Actually I just told him that if anything happened to you I was holding him personally responsible. I knew Ned Coats died. I just didn’t know if he died the way John Keel died. I hadn’t stayed long enough to find out.”

“And what did he say?”

“He asked if my holding him responsible was more or less lethal than Susan Sto Helit holding him responsible.”

Wee Sam laughed. “Sweeper hasn’t met mum.”

“Yeah, that’s true.” His father chuckled quietly. “Anyway, Susan will be at dinner so you can tell her all about how the monks kicked you out with an audience. Your mother will find it interesting, I’m sure.”

“Does mum know about you going back...”

“Oh yes. Vetinari can’t keep a secret from her.” And neither could her husband.

“Will there be anybody at the dinner who doesn’t know?”

“Hm, no. I don’t think so. You were the only one who wasn’t in a position to make conversation then, and while Susan wasn’t involved in my adventure as far as I can tell…”

“But with Susan who knows. In any case, I think I’ll wait until we can get some privacy.”

“Suit yourself, but be warned. Everyone knows I told you I was ok with you joining the Watch. They’ll make a big deal about it. You know how they are.”

Wee Sam looked up at the big, brightly-lit, house as they waited for his dad to fully get his breath back. “I’ll try to be strong.”

Commander Sam Vimes snorted. Wee Sam opened the door, held it while his father entered the house, and followed right behind him.

[wastrelwoods]

wait, am i a fool, when do we learn that coates died in the morphic street conspiracy in the first timeline? did i miss that too???

I could be wrong about it I'm extrapolating by what Vimes changed and it isn't said explicitly! My thoughts are

1) Vimes doesn't remember Ned Coates well enough to have a pre-existing opinion of him or trust him when they first meet, so it seems likely that Coates was not behind the barricade in the original revolution and is not on the shortlist of people Vimes remembers having worn the lilac. But he ALSO doesn't remember him in the same way as Quirke or Knock or Captain Tilden. It's like Coates was never there in his original timeline

2) We know he's the original John Keel's real protege and distrusts Vimes so much and even abandons ship because he knows he's lying about being John Keel. If he was so close to the real Keel, why wouldn't he have been there when the real Keel was?

3) We know he was involved in the Morphic Street conspiracy, he has the password in his locker and Vimes stumbles over it. We also know that in the original timeline, the meeting he attended was raided by the Unmentionables and very, very few people involved got away, most were arrested and tortured or killed

4) But in the new timeline, nobody is arrested or killed at all, because Vimes swings by and interrupts the sting operation

All that makes it feel like, to me, Ned was probably taken in that raid originally. POSSIBLY because he and Keel were tight, Ned Coates being arrested or killed might have been part of the real John Keel's motivation for taking down the Unmentionables' Cable Street station and doing the job he didn't have to do. That's the biggest blank I'm filling in but. The real Keel didn't have the same investment in Ankh-Morpork that Vimes does because he got there less than a week ago, but he probably DID have enough investment in Ned Coates to pull together a whole revolution in his memory