A/N: Sometimes an idea takes on a life of its own. A universe begun with Rewrite This Tragedy went on to spawn the interlude Nocturne in Shadow and Light. And while I've yet to properly conclude RTT, Nocturne then gave birth to Ring in the True. And that one's not finished yet either ... we've still got another New Year to celebrate. But in the interim, Isobel and Richard make some monumental changes, and it seemed odd to me to jump ahead a whole year without giving them their place. Well, that and the fact that this was originally only going to be a sort of intermission, Nocturne-style, but in the process of writing it has become something more. So, here ... have a chapter - lol! The hot stuff is up next, and then we'll rejoin Ring in the True. Make sense?
All song lyrics this chapter, as well as the title of this piece, are taken from the Rush song "Time Stand Still," written by Neil Peart.
Thank you for your ongoing support!
xx,
~ejb~
Time stand still
I'm not looking back
But I want to look around me now
April 2016
It had been a whirlwind of a week. Transition meetings at the hospital, ten-hour days at the office; saying goodbye to patients, briefing the other doctors regarding the cases being handed off. The retirement do, hosted by the hospital's board of governors on Thursday night, had been a lovely thing, full of dancing and drink and laughter with longtime colleagues.
They had both awakened Friday morning with heads protesting the previous evening's revelry, but after strong coffee they'd got up and going in time to meet the removal vans. In the afternoon they met with their own estate agent as well as the couple who'd bought the flat and their agent to transfer ownership, effective from Saturday noon. Then it was back to the flat where she'd passed the afternoon packing away their clothing and the few remaining kitchen things and cleaning. She had insisted, above his protestations, upon scrubbing all the hard surfaces with a solution of bleach and water.
"Broom clean, Isobel. That's all that was stipulated in the contract. We've kept this place clean enough one could eat off the floor on any given day. Don't waste your time, love!"
But she'd brushed him off; she was on a mission. After a bit the chemical smell had begun to get to him so he'd popped out to the DIY shops to collect the last of the items they required for the move. If he had been vexed when he'd left, there wasn't a trace of it when he returned with takeaway from the Indian place round the corner. "We'll be hard pressed to find a curry like this in Newton," she'd told him as they stood at the kitchen counter to eat. "One of few things I'll really miss about the city. But I can't wait for tomorrow."
It was a wondrous thing moving for good into a house they already owned and which was already nearly fully furnished. They'd offloaded the majority of the flat's contents on their coworkers and patients, and the removal vans had delivered the remainder to local charity shops, so that only a handful of furnishings would be going up with them the next day.
I let my skin get too thin
I'd like to pause
No matter what I pretend
Like some pilgrim who learns to transcend
Learns to live
As if each step was the end
It's going on midnight when he, through with patching nail holes in the walls and carrying boxes to the Rover, pulls her away from scrubbing the lavatory floor on her hands and knees.
"Come on then ... sit down before you fall down. We've a long day tomorrow. There's not a thing we've forgotten, between the two of us. Now come and have a cup of tea and then it's off to bed." He leads her by the hand and makes her sit down on the bed, pressing a mug into her hands. She accepts it gratefully, sinking back into the pillows where they rest against the headboard and closing her eyes.
"Are you alright?" he asks, sitting down beside her.
"Oh, yeah," she assures him, blinking prettily with kind, tired eyes. "Yeah, absolutely. If anything I'm amazed it's gone so smoothly. Moving house is meant to be fresh hell."
He hums his agreement. "I'm sure it helps that we've so little to do here, comparatively. And there's the fact that it was a cash sale …"
"I still can't believe we were able to fetch ten percent above asking," she interjects. "We couldn't have asked for a better outcome! Tying up loose ends at the hospital has been the hardest part …"
"And even that's behind us now," he adds. "Are you ready for tomorrow?" He leans his shoulder against hers.
She grins brightly, if wearily, giving an emphatic nod. "I'd go up tonight if there weren't so many things to do on that end - lighting the pilot and checking the chimneys and getting petrol for the generator. I'm sure it must seem odd, how unsentimental I am about leaving here—"
"Not to me, it doesn't," he interrupts, brushing the hair back away from her face. "Odd was, in my mind, your insistence on doing a deep cleaning when it isn't needed. But I've never known you to do anything without a reason …" He leaves his observation open-ended; she can reply or not. "Say, I think it's warm enough tonight we can open these windows; air the place out." He gets up to open the windows that face the street.
"Is it that bad?" she asks. He wrinkles his nose and she laughs. "I'm sorry, love," she tells him earnestly. "I suppose I felt it needed to be done because … well, it was catharsis, in a way. Closing a chapter. This place, this … this city, has never felt like home to me, Richard. Manchester was home for such a very long time. Two thirds of my life I was there. It was love and family and everything good to me. And then Reggie was gone and it was just too hard to be surrounded by reminders of him; us; our life. So I came here. And it's lovely, is Notting Hill. Truly. Taking the job as head of Obstetrics at St. Mary's was precisely the right career move, and something I'll always be proud having done. But Matthew was never really here with me, and the memories I do have are all around … well …" her voice breaks and she presses a fist against her chest, " … losing him."
Freeze this moment
A little bit longer
Make each sensation
A little bit stronger
Experience slips away
He's aware that she hasn't finished, but he slides in behind her, pulling her back to rest against his chest and smoothing his hands along her arms. He holds her silently, pressing tiny kisses to her temple when she turns her head to look at him.
"It's not to say that you and I haven't had some good times here, but when I think of us and home, I always think of Newton. I can't imagine why it took me so long to say yes when you asked me to move up there."
"Well, I knew there was no chance you'd say no," he says. "Come on, let's get under the covers." They turn them back and she is first to slip beneath them. He relishes the happy sigh that passes her lips as she lies down, and he climbs in and lies on his side, sliding his hand round her thigh to pull her leg between both of his.
She reaches out, smoothing her palm across his bare back. Oh, yes, she thinks, a smile gracing her lips as her eyes slip shut at the feel of him. This is what I need.
He continues, "You needed to buy into it. And I knew that you would, given time, or I'd never have suggested it."
She nods, her eyes still closed. She is content to listen to his voice, loving the way she can feel it where she touches him.
"I think I needed to be sure that I wasn't running from anything - reminders of Matthew or a fear of facing additional losses. Ultimately I couldn't live with myself if I were to do that, however appealing the prospect may have seemed at certain moments."
"And what have you concluded?" he asks, his thumb tracing circles on her hip. "I don't think I know this, actually. I'm sure I could guess, but I want to hear it from the horse's mouth."
She gives him a look somewhere in between amused and perplexed. "Thanks … I think. Just mind you don't go acting like a horse's arse!" She swats his bottom playfully and he grins against her mouth as he kisses her. "No, I think," she tells him, "I think that this year, the way it's played out, has shown me that everything I really want - the thing I can't live without - is right in front of me. Loving and being loved by you, truly being known, that's a gift. That it's come along at a point in both of our careers when we'd have been looking at retirement anyhow makes it obvious: this is our time. But enough of me … what is it you're most looking forward to now?"
"That's one hell of a bombshell to drop and then change the subject, young lady," he chuckles, stroking the tender skin behind her knee.
"Humour me," she whispers, affected by his touch.
"The quiet," he answers, "the space. The slower pace of life that far from the city. It puts me in mind of the way I was brought up. How about you?"
She feathers her fingers through his hair. "Oh, so much … the light, the openness. The smells of mock orange and freshly-mown grass, and the birds that come to the garden all year round. The way that every memory I have attached to that house is a happy one."
He sits up just long enough to switch off the light, then settles back down beside her. "I fancy being a proper landowner, with all it entails. Not just playing one at the weekends. You know how it was … I'd just get going on a project and we'd be made to turn round and come back."
"Mmm," she agrees. "I love it that you have the skill for that sort of work; that you enjoy it. And I'm happy we won't have to board the lad any longer. That he'll have the freedom to run like a hound should do." As if on cue, MacTavish pushes his nose through the crack in the door and jumps up on the bed. "Yes, hello. Did you hear Mum talking about you?" She accepts a kiss from him and he sidles up to Richard, wagging his tail. "Although I will want to install some sort of wireless perimeter fence, just to be safe …"
"Isobel," he chides her gently, "all in good time, love. You've got to get some rest now."
"I know," she replies. "I'm sorry. I'm rather like a child at Christmastime. I'll settle down now, I promise."
"It's alright," he tells her. He whistles at the dog. "Oi. Lie down, chap." MacTavish turns himself round in circles and curls up at the foot of the bed. Richard turns his attention back to his wife. "Can I hold you, darling?"
"Yes." She smiles, kissing him. "Please." She turns in his arms so that her back touches his chest. His arm comes round her, his hand snaking up under the hem of the nightshirt she wears (an out-sized University of Edinburgh t-shirt of his that she's appropriated) to rest on the warm bare skin of her abdomen. She loves the way he fits against her. The dog is on the bed, the hour ungodly late, but still she feels the slow burn. Wanting him. She focuses on breathing, on listening to him breathe.
"Have I said how much I love you this evening?" he asks, his burr thick in his fatigued state.
It takes every ounce of restraint not to stretch back against him. "You know I never tire of hearing it." She weaves her fingers through his.
"I love you, Isobel. Pleasant dreams, my beauty." He is nearly asleep already, poor soul. The week has taken more out of him than she realized. Her longing can take a backseat to compassion for one more night, she reckons.
I let my past go too fast
No time to pause
If I could slow it all down
Like some captain
Whose ship runs aground
I can wait until the tide
Comes around
"Pleasant dreams, darling. I love you." In a matter of seconds, his breathing becomes deep and even. She is running on pure adrenaline now, her body so starved for sleep that she doesn't know how she hasn't collapsed. But her mind won't be silenced.
She has retired, something she'd never have believed in a million years she would do. It's as if it had literally never occurred to her that one day she might not practise medicine full time any longer, so long has she been at it. She has been known as a hard driver, a go-getter, always in motion because while she is busy there is no time for her mind to wander. It was the reason she had thrown herself into private practise after Reggie had died. Keep going; don't feel. Don't notice the gaping emptiness in her heart, the half of her soul gone missing. It was only after meeting Richard that she'd begun to realise that her pain wasn't being subsumed at all; only deferred. And then had come the feelings of regret … if only she had slowed down to appreciate what she and Reggie had. She still could not have saved him, but perhaps she'd have let go of silly arguments; held him closer, kissed him longer. Loved him better. Would that have been possible? She loved him as well and as thoroughly as she knew how to do at fifteen, and twenty, and thirty, and they were ridiculously happy. But now …
Now that she has Richard, now that she has lived, having facilitated the first breaths of thousands as well as having watched more than she cares to remember slip irretrievably into death, there is so much more to love than she ever knew existed a lifetime ago. The tiny details one misses in the daily rush - the arresting blue of his eyes and the trill of his burr, the blessed mystery of arms that reach to hold her in the night once again - these are the moments not to miss; the memories that cannot be made without stepping back and slowing down.
When she does so, she is overwhelmed. How can love be like this? Was it always so profound, or are she and Richard unusually well matched, atypically attuned to one another? These are the puzzles that are hers to work out now. Now that her time is her own, her attentions undivided.
Slow down, and take it in. The evidence is all around her: she is not alone, never again. His breath coming in warm puffs against the back of her neck. The rasp of his moustache against her skin. His body enveloping hers. She realises, just before the blissfulness of sleep takes her under, that she is breathing in time with him. His heart beats steady and strong; she can feel it where his chest touches her back. This is life.
Make each impression
A little bit stronger
Freeze this motion
A little bit longer
The innocence slips away ...