A/N: This image has been in my head for nearly a year, but I couldn't find the time to write everything else that needed to go around it. Now I'm committing myself to it in the hopes I actually get the motivation to fic again. Tally-ho!
It was very dark, and very late, and outside the house a summer wind was scratching leaves against the gravel of the driveway. A deluge was going to start at some point during the night; upstairs a window, slightly loose in its frame, rattled and shook as each gust of wind pushed against it. But it was warm; it was late November and on the cusp of summer, pollen and dust making the air thick and almost unbearable in the back of the throat, and causing an untenable scratch in the eyes. Even inside the house the air felt heavy and oppressive, and the impending inevitable downpour was a welcomed thought.
The Doctor had gone to bed early, as was his usual habit during the week, and Jean was left alone to fold the laundry sheets in the quiet of the living room, with Bing Crosby softly crooning through the record player, just loud enough that she could hum along to the familiar tunes.
Even now, it was still a struggle to get used to the trappings and the space of this house; to be accustomed to the endless rooms both used and untouched, and her ability to fold laundry in the relative safety of the lounge rather than trying to race the weather outside. The war had been over just gone four years, and she sold the farm and moved to this grand house almost three years ago, and yet still it caught her by surprise to have so much space, and so much freedom. When not assisting the Doctor in the practice, her time was her own; Christopher Junior was away with the Army and already rumbling about Korea and Jack was in the city, though what he was really getting up to was anybody's guess. She worried for both of them, for different reasons, but they didn't need her and they weren't in Ballarat any longer. There were no crops to tend, no fences to be mended, no children underfoot. It was just her and an older gentleman who was kind but circumspect, his own wounds running deep, the two of them politely skirting around each other in this big and empty house.
Some days the peace was a salve on open wounds, helping her heart to quiet after so long not knowing what happened to her husband, after struggling to run the farm on her own, after raising two sons who she loved with all her heart and yet couldn't seem to reach. Some days the three years in this house felt like nothing at all, barely a glimpse of time, yet offering her moments of reprieve at every opportunity.
Other days the quiet threatened to cloud her mind and send her mad, the struggles of her old life like a shadow in the corner of her vision, and she knew any moment the Doctor would come in and name her for the fraud she truly was; some days the quiet was a curse, and she longed for the constant exhaustion that farm work could bring.
Time moved differently when there was money. Oh, she still mended and sewed dresses for her own savings, and she was frugal with the Doctor's daily accounts, never indulging at the stores though he had told her time and again to buy anything she saw fit for herself or the house. But if a shingle came loose, a handyman was called for and paid in the same day without question. If the butcher had fresh steaks, two would be cooked for dinner that night without guilt. The Doctor paid her a fair wage that covered her position as both his secretary and his housekeeper and she didn't always know what to do with it, and so it sat untouched in an account that was all her own. Idle hands make the devil's work, her mother used to chant. As a young woman it sounded like an excuse to keep her motivated in helping around the house and keep her out of trouble. But now, with her own scars and heartbreaks knocking at the edges of her mind begging for attention, she understood what it really meant. It wasn't the devil's work she was worried about; it was the weight of her past pulling her under like a stone in a pond should she give it even a moment's consideration.
Tonight was a night for her mind to race as she pondered what direction she would travel next, and though she hadn't yet delved into true melancholy, the weather and the music and the late hour made her mind foggy with possibilities and questions and anxieties. Was three years enough time to stay, and if she didn't where would she go? What other options were there for a woman such as herself; upstanding in the community but bound to a life of service, as was her place and the place of her father and mother before her? This job was a Godsend and her conditions were fair and if she wanted, if circumstances would allow it, she could easily stay here for the rest of her life. But to put her fate in the hands of a benevolent older man whose own health had recently started to decline seemed wasteful and asking for trouble, and part of her wondered if she would be better off looking for housekeeping work at one of the hotels in town, although that would leave Doctor Blake in a terrible position. There had never been many whispers in town of anything untoward; Doctor Blake was a respected member of the community, and people still remembered his late wife and his grief of her passing. Between his and Jean's good reputations, nobody dared suggest their arrangement was anything more than convenient for the two of them.
But she still wondered sometimes, on nights like tonight, if she would ever marry again; if a suitor would one day turn a corner and capture her still-fragile heart and take her away from this life the way Christopher's death took her from a life tending the farm. Part of her hoped so, one day, maybe; another part screamed against such an intrusion when the loss of Christopher still felt so close to the surface and the tenor of his laugh still rang in her ears on the days she missed him most. Nights like these left her all out of sorts, not least because she detested running her mind in these useless circles.
Her musings were cut short suddenly, making her start. All at once a dozen sounds echoed through the house – the clouds above finally broke free, and from nowhere a summer storm rattled against the windows and rumbled overheard, the electrical thunder and lightning cracking and booming around them so close she could taste it in the air. The sudden onslaught of rain battered the roof and the wind pushed it into the windows, and for a second she wondered if the house would give way under the weight of it.
Barely a minute of that racket had passed when another knocking sounded out, this time from the corridor, echoing through the house; a harsh and firm tap at the door. Jean lowered the sheet she was folding to hear it again, and then again it sounded, desperate this time and distinctly someone knocking to be let in out of the weather.
She put her sheet over the back of a dining chair. At this hour, she thought, but walked briskly through the house all the same.
What she found on the other side of the door was so strange – so out of place and unreal – that somewhere in the back of her mind she knew it would change her life forever. But in that moment her thoughts were blank, as she stared at the handsome stranger who was taking shelter on the porch, and blinked twice. He was slightly dripping, having obviously been caught in the beginnings of the storm, and his hair was breaking free of its style because it was wet through. His clothes were old and a bit tattered, the shirt white but the pants obviously military issue. On his shoulder he had an Army rucksack, so like the one Christopher – both of them – had hoisted on his shoulder as he boarded the bus, and for one heart pounding moment a million possibilities flashed through her mind. He didn't wear a jacket, and Jean's first uncharitable thought was not regarding the temperature but that perhaps he didn't even own one.
But it was not the dishevelled hair or the old clothes or even the hopeful, pleading eyes of the stranger that caught her the most. It was the child in his arms. Hair as black as pitch, no more than seven years old at a guess, her limbs wrapped around him in trepidation and fear, though whether from the storm or for their destination, Jean couldn't be sure. The stranger's missing jacket was draped around the child to protect her from the rain, and it slid to the ground as he shifted his grip of her. Overhead the storm cracked again, lightening flashing somewhere high above the clouds, the wind whipping around them, and the small girl squeaked her surprise at the intrusion and burrowed further into the man's arms.
Jean took stock of the image in a second, cataloguing, assessing, determining if it was safe for him to be here, who he was, what he wanted. Hi beard was unkempt but she could see he was handsome, somewhere underneath the scruff and the drawn skin and baggy eyes; there was something familiar about his face yet she couldn't place him.
But the child. The child was the enigma to her. The child belayed any preconceptions she could conjure just by looking at the man alone. If it had only been him at the door she may have left him be, closed the door in his face, bolted it shut for good measure. She would not be standing with her mouth agape, her hand still holding the front door open, blocking his way to the house, bordering somewhere between hostility and pleasantry. If he was a doctor's patient it was far too late at night and he should attend the hospital surely, and if he was a degenerate she would send him on his way. But in his arms was a child, her skin a shade darker, her hair straight and midnight-black, holding him tightly with her entire little body, and her face tucked against his neck though his jacket had kept her dry, and so Jean remained frozen and uncertain and confused.
The moment lasted barely a few seconds, and yet their eyes locked on to one another and a million questions and answers rolled between them. If she was confused then he was utterly baffled, and if not for the absurdity of the moment she might have laughed at the two of them, mouths agape like muddled fish frozen on the front porch.
A door opened in the hallway just beyond her right shoulder.
"Jean, who is i-"
Thomas Blake, bleary-eyed and in disarray, his dressing gown tucked tightly around him, stepped forward and then stopped dead. His face drained of all colour and his step faulted, and for a moment Jean was certain he would topple over. But he didn't fall; he took a tentative step forward.
"Lucien" he whispered, eyes like saucers.
"Hello Dad"
Just as Jean was putting all the pieces together she was barrelled out of the way of the door; whether Thomas reached for him or Lucien stepped inside of his own volition she couldn't be sure, but suddenly the two men were in front of each other in the hall, not quite touching one another, the child between them like a shield.
For a long, tense moment nobody spoke, and so Jean closed the front door and leaned her back against it, staying out of the way but watching everything with the eyes of a hawk, looking for trouble or uncertainty, or a sign of what she should do. From her position she caught a glimpse of the child's face over Lucien's shoulder. Large black eyes peaked through the curtain of her hair, and though she hadn't been crying the girl was obviously terrified. The only thing Jean knew about the Doctor's son was that he had been in Singapore at some point during the war; anything further about his goings-on or where he had been since was a mystery to her, and would have remained so except for the fact he was now standing in their hallway dripping on her carpets with a child in his arms.
His daughter, she wondered, or a stray that he picked up in his travels like her son once did with a mangy puppy from the street? The girl was Chinese, or looked it to Jean, but the trust – the way Lucien's hand never left her back as he stood and faced his father for the first time in almost fifteen years – told her that regardless of their story or their true relationship the girl was Lucien's child now.
The silence lengthened to an unbearable point, the wind still lashing outside.
Finally Lucien spoke, his voice raspy with emotion. "I didn't know where else to go" he said, and the girl's face tucked back against his collar and out of Jean's sight.
"I wrote to you" said Thomas. His voice was thick with restrained tears, his eyes angry and hurt and relieved all at once. "You sent all my letters back"
"I didn't have anything further to say" said Lucien. He didn't sound contrite. He sounded defeated, and sad. Jean had to wonder just what transpired between them to have sent the son so far away from his father for so long. She wondered if they were like Jack and Christopher, so alike in their nature that they drove each other mad, until Christopher wasn't there anymore and Jack ached and lashed out with the hurt of it. Or was it like Christopher and his oldest son, so different in nature they could never understand one another no matter how much they loved each other, leaving the younger bereft and confused when those questions could never now be answered.
Or was it something else entirely. A pain wrought upon this family and wounds etched so deep as to never heal properly, leaving a scar across its back.
"We only need to stay a night, and then I'll find other lodgings" said Lucien at last, his fatigue reverting to anger in the face of his father's perceived rejection.
"You'll do no such thing" said Thomas. His voice was like stone; cold, harsh and unforgiving, and Jean had never heard him speak like that to anyone. His shoulders held a barely-restrained tension that made him look ten years younger and so much crueller than she thought possible. She was frightened, as was the child, whose arms clutched just a fraction tighter. Everything was so tense, and balanced on a knife's edge. Jean wanted to go back to folding her sheets and go to bed and forget all about this stranger and his charge and the life-altering moment she was bearing witness to, but like a car wreck she couldn't look away, and something told her she would soon be in the midst of whatever was happening here. And so she stayed still as a monument, guarding sentinel over the scene.
"This is your home, Lucien. This is your home and you will stay tonight and every night that you need, for as long as you need. You will stay forever if you have to. But this is your home"
All at once the tension left the room as though a valve had been released. Lucien's shoulders sagged and the child looked up at Jean again. Thomas' tension now made sense to Jean, and the depth that his still waters ran endeared her all the more to the old man, for the devotion he was showing his prodigal son. For his part, Lucien seemed taken aback by the display, but he chose not to react strongly in response, offering his free hand to his father in thanks which Thomas took firmly. Before anybody could comprehend what was happening Thomas stepped forward and wrapped his other arm around Lucien's free shoulder in an awkward half-embrace. Neither man seemed to know what to do, but Jean could see the struggle within Thomas not to break and her heart cried for him. No matter what had passed between them before, this moment seemed to transcend the pain of it and offered both men a chance at mending bridges. Thomas was determined to see it through and to ignore his natural reticence for the sake of his son, and Lucien likewise didn't pull away from his father's attempt to hold him close.
"It's good to see you, son" he whispered against Lucien's shoulder, voice breaking.
"You too"
When they did step away from each other the air felt cooler and easier to breathe. For the first time, Thomas seemed to register the little girl in Lucien's arms and his gaze flicked between her and Lucien in askance. He seemed to know something he couldn't put voice to, and so Lucien took pity.
"Dad. I would like you to meet Li. My daughter"
The air left Jean's lungs as though she had been sucker punched, and Thomas' eyes – recovered from the shock of Lucien's arrival – at once filled with tears again. Hearing her name, Li poked her head out to look at Thomas, and they stared at each other for a very long moment.
"Your daughter" whispered Thomas, wonder and awe written all over his face. Jean knew, then, that Thomas had no idea he was a grandfather, and the revelation of it brought a lump to her throat. What could have possibly happened to have put them at such odds that this child – this quiet, precious little thing in her father's arms – was a stranger to her own family. And how miraculous was it that they had made their way here, now, to stand in the hallway of Lucien's childhood home – the house he had left when he was not much older than little Li – and bring this family back together now. Jean placed her shaking fingertips against her lips, holding in her tears, trying not to break the spell that had descended upon them all.
"Welcome home, Li" said Thomas. "It's a pleasure to meet you"
At Lucien's subtle coaxing Li opened her mouth, and in broken English replied, "Hello Grandfather"
Thomas' watery laugh was a balm to their fractured and highly-strung mood. He looked up at Lucien again, beseeching. "You have come such a long way to be here" he said, and though the tone was the same as with little Li he held his son's gaze like his life depended on it, and once more Jean's throat felt thick with emotion. To be witness to this moment made her feel blessed beyond measure, and she couldn't bring herself to look away, and so the four of them stood like that for many long heartbeats as the storm battered on outside and their newly discovered normal started to shift around them. The walls of the house expanded to accommodate the new occupants and Jean forgot about folding sheets and worrying about her position and even her melancholy was far from her mind as, before her eyes, a broken little family took the first steps towards healing.