The idea for this story came to me when I was listening to a song. Leonard Cohen died recently, and his music seemed to be everywhere suddenly. My favourite song of his has always been 'Dance me to the End of Love'.

I particularly love the Madeleine Peyroux version, which is easy to find on YouTube, if you've never heard it. I can't link to it on here, unfortunately, but just search under her name.

Anyway, I've used the lyrics of the song as prompts for the different chapters. I hope you enjoy it. And do go and listen to the song!

This first chapter is set just after the end of series 4.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin

Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in

Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove

Dance me to the end of love

Leonard Cohen

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Every day that went past seemed to shift their relationship a little, and not in the way he wanted. Lucien felt as though the ground under his feet was moving and his hold on Jean's hand was becoming harder to maintain.

Her rather desperate kiss as Mei Lin left was what he clung onto. He knew at that moment that she still loved him, despite all he had put her through. But as the hours and days slipped by, that kiss fell further and further into the background, and he came to realise it wasn't enough for either of them.

He wanted more of her. He wanted certainty, for her to agree to marry him, to have it settled. He wanted life to go back to how it was in those few precious weeks between Adelaide and the evening he could hardly bear to remember, when his wife came back.

He wanted Jean on his arm went they went into town. He wanted the ring on her finger to be his. He wanted the patients to call her Mrs Blake. He wanted her on his knee, in his arms and in his bed. He was impatient.

Jean wanted more too. She wanted Lucien to be hers alone, but she knew part of him would always be Mei Lin's now. Perhaps that would have been true even if Mei Lin really had been dead, but Jean didn't feel any better for knowing his wife, and perhaps even liking her.

Jean wanted an uncomplicated life; one where they could love each other, marry, and be together. Was that too much to ask? Apparently it was. Fate, or God, or maybe the war, had decided otherwise. Now choices had to be made, a divorce obtained, their lives examined by the townspeople. She wasn't sure she was up for the fight ahead. She was cautious.

So they worked through the days, drifting further apart and both powerless to stop it. Jean avoided the hand he offered as she got out of the car. She sidestepped his hand on her hip as she cooked the dinner, and turned her cheek to him when he tried to kiss her in the sunroom. And then she loathed herself for rejecting the thing she most wanted.

A feeling of fear, even panic, was growing in Lucien. He was losing her and could scarcely have said why. The more he tried to touch her, or even talk to her, the more she backed away.

He alternated between drink and work. The nights were for whisky, and in the daytime he found physical work to do, anything to keep him occupied. He suddenly became interested in the garden, and Jean found herself watching him, puzzled, through the sunroom windows, as he weeded the borders and mowed the lawn.

Jean turned to the housework for distraction. She cleaned the windows, dusted the tops of the wardrobes, wiped down the panelling in the hallway. The house had never been so clean. Yet she remained restless and unsatisfied.

One afternoon she found a patient in the waiting room, with tears running down her face. Jean offered a cup of tea, but when it was refused she sat down on the chair next to the woman. She scarcely knew her; she was a new patient.

"Can I do anything for you?" Jean asked sympathetically.

The woman shook her head and blew her nose on her handkerchief. "No, dear, thank you. No one can help me now. My William died last week. I thought we'd have longer. He went so suddenly."

Jean took the woman's hand. Inevitably her thoughts turned to Christopher, and her regrets. She wished she had loved him more, or at least better. They had wasted time arguing - time she had spent years regretting.

She patted the woman's hand and murmured something soothing. She really couldn't have said what she said to the woman. For the truth had suddenly fallen on Jean like a rainstorm breaking overhead.

She was wasting time now with Lucien that she could never have back. In years to come she would surely regret missing this precious bit of life with him. Mei Lin had gone, and that gave them a second chance, if only she would take it.

Lucien called the patient through to the surgery. He gave Jean a strange look. She had remained on her chair, looking thoughtfully into the middle distance, and she seemed unaware of the patient leaving her.

He shook his head, wondering, and turned his attention to the patient.

When the surgery was over, Jean appeared at his office door. She leaned against the door frame and watched him writing up his notes. Lucien knew she was there but didn't speak immediately; he was afraid she might be about to say something he didn't want to hear. Maybe she had decided to leave, perhaps go to Adelaide, or find a new job.

Eventually he could put it off no longer. "What can I do for you, Jean?" he asked, trying to keep his voice light and unconcerned.

She walked over and around his desk. "You can kiss me," she said. "If you want to, that is. I think we've wasted too much time already. We're not getting any younger, Lucien."

He pushed his chair back and looked at her curiously. There was an awkward pause where Jean wondered if perhaps he didn't want to kiss her after all.

Then he stood up and very gently, almost tentatively, he put his arms around her. Slowly her arms wrapped round his waist, and encouraged by this he started to kiss her - first her forehead, then each cheek in turn, and then her lips. Her lips felt like home. All his memories of those weeks when they had been so happy came flooding back.

For a brief moment Jean froze, then he felt her relax in his arms. She moved her hands from his waist and for a moment he felt left behind, but then she touched him again - fingers stroking his beard, the other hand on the back of his neck.

They lengthened the kiss till they were both breathless and grinning, then he was kissing her hairline, then her jaw, with tiny kisses that made her shiver. For long minutes they made up for lost time, till Jean's hair was coming loose and her cheeks were pink. Her fingers had found his waistcoat and the slow way she was unbuttoning him was driving him to distraction.

Jean breathed in the cotton smell of his shirt, yet underlying it there was another note of arousal and sweat, very faint but new to her.

Lucien drew his hand around her side, letting his thumb graze against her breast. Softer than he had expected, he curved his palm there instead. For a moment he feared she would pull his hand away, but instead she rested her forehead against his, catching her breath, before she kissed his cheek gently.

He wanted to ask her, why now? But the question was rapidly becoming irrelevant. She wanted him now and he was in no position to object. His lips moved against her, pleading with her to give him just a little more, and she stretched her neck out as he kissed it. Jean curved back, arms around his neck, and pressing her hips against him.

Even as he slid his hand down over her bottom and pulled her nearer, he knew this was the moment to stop. He looked her in the eye. "Jean...my Jean," but he didn't know how to finish the sentence.

She smiled as they slowly parted, just a little bit, so he was still holding her, but loosely now, more relaxed. She looked down and started to straighten her blouse, and heard him chuckling quietly.

Surely they deserved some happiness now, and he intended to make the most of it.