{ scene } dear magnetic boy you've never been with anyone who doesn't take your shit
Probably, James is aware, he should've spoken to Pelagia weeks ago; probably, he knows, there is a very specific conversation that they should've already had. Unfortunately (or very, very conveniently; he hasn't decided), home office had called him in and sent him off again, bung wrist and all, so he'd had no more time than to leave a note for her at the castle and pack a suitcase. It was supposed to be nothing more than simple fact-finding - going to a library or two, asking a few questions, shaking a few hands - and it would've stayed that way if Marc-Ange hadn't decided to muddy the waters and put James in the uncomfortable position of a conflict of interest.
While it's all sorted in the end - isn't it always? - it takes long enough that his wrist is out of the cast by the time he gets back to London to debrief. After the obligatory reassuring of the usual suspects that he's intact and intends to remain that way for the foreseeable, it's all the way back to the island outside Xanadu where he expects Pela will either turn up on her own in that irritatingly unpredictable way of hers or he'll contact her himself.
"Home sweet hideout," he says wryly to himself, tossing his suitcase onto the pier and following it with himself a moment after.