A/N: I wanted to get these words on the page at Christmas and it didn't happen. Then I wanted them done in time for Valentine's Day and, well, it almost happened. I'm considering almost the new bar to aim for when it comes to my own ambitions of late.

So this piece is compliant with the others in the modern Richobel retirement AU. One need not necessarily have read them all in order to understand the context, but let's be real: those reading my work anymore are longtime friends and followers who are familiar with the storyline. Thank you, loyal readers.

This will have at least one more part (which is possibly finished, unless I decide it needs to be broken into a third as well). And the beginning gets out of M rating on a technicality. As to inspiration, I've been hearing Penny's voice in my head ... just various things she's said in interviews about grandmotherhood and growing older and wiser. And then there's my own amazing Yankee grandmother, who knows all of the words to every song ever and has sung them all to me over the years. This chapter makes references to "All Things Must Pass" by George Harrison. And there are always the Buttershaws of Last Tango in Halifax and the Hardcastles of As Time Goes By, whose love stories provide me with no shortage of ideas.

xx,
~ejb~

She's taking a domestic turn these days. Cooking dinner for herself and her husband is one of the simple yet profound joys from which she derives great satisfaction in her retirement. She would angst over the sort of statement it makes with regard to feminism … except for the fact that she couldn't care any less if she tried. She has had years —a lifetime— of blazing trails; achieving the highest solve rate of any physician in the history of Obstetrics at St. Mary's Hospital chief among her accomplishments. She looks back with pride on those years. There is little about them that she'd change if given the chance. Just the one thing, really.

It would have made a change to have had someone to share it with. It isn't that Matthew was uninterested —quite the contrary, in fact— but he was busy with the business of young adulthood: reading law at Oxford, interning with a barrister in the West End, getting a flat with some colleagues and falling in love. He was his mother's pride and joy, so attentive that there were times she was fairly forced to shove him out the door to go out with friends. No; what she had missed during her years of driving hard was someone to tell it all to at the end of the day, a warm body to lie with. Someone to champion her causes and to take her to task when she was wrong. But she's had enough run-ins with regret to have discovered that self-flagellation solves nothing, and in her best moments she can learn from her mistakes and move on. After all, few know better than she just how short life can be.

Besides, she has it in abundance now. All of the things she missed have come back to her once again. For the second time she has found love with her best friend, and it's been rather like the last pieces of a jigsaw finally sliding into place. The time she spent on her own sharpened her self-awareness, ensuring she had no doubt in her capacity to exist independent of a relationship. But the fact that she had those desert years, after having spent just as many in a wonderful and fulfilling marriage, kept her heart tender; when love did come along again she was keen to welcome it.

She chuckles softly when she realises she's fallen rather deeply into a session of wool-gathering whilst washing up. Dinner is ready whenever her husband is, and as she pops it into the AGA to keep warm she wonders idly where he's got off to.

It's time to check the fireplaces. It's funny; she'd stayed in this house a thousand times over the years, often for long stretches, but still there has been a steep learning curve since moving up here full time. One of the biggest shocks to the system came the first time she had to have the fuel tank filled, to the tune of £770. They've since worked out a system of keeping the wood fires banked constantly, so that they're only using fuel to cook and to heat water. Bless her husband and his having been brought up in the country!

On her way to stack the big fireplace in their bedroom, she walks past the nursery she fixed for their grandson and stops abruptly.

All things must pass
None of life's strings can last
So I must be on my way
And face another day

Intrigued, she pauses in the open doorway. There is her husband, walking back and forth in front of the window with a drowsy baby George propped against his shoulder. A near-empty bottle sits on top of the dressing table, a hooded towel hangs from a hook beside the cot. The babe has been swaddled for bed. Richard is oblivious to her presence as he continues to sing softly:

Now the darkness only stays at night time
In the morning it will fade away
Daylight is good
At arriving at the right time
But it's not always going
To be this grey

All things must pass
All things must pass away
All things must pass
All things must pass away

She retreats to their room, quickly stacks the fire before her purpose gets forgotten, and sits down heavily on the bed. Tears that have no basis in sorrow spring to her eyes. It's a phenomenon she first discovered as a new mother half a lifetime ago. It is possible for the heart to be so overwhelmed with love and joy that it manifests in great, heaving sobs and copious tears, which her daughter-in-law refers to as 'ugly crying.' Oftentimes since falling in love again, and of particular frequency over the past year, she has found herself overcome like this. It ought to be beneath the dignity of a woman of her stature to behave in such a way, it's just …

It's just that—

The door opens and closes and she straightens up, sniffling, wiping her eyes on her sleeve.

"There you are! I thought I'd find you in the kitchen. The wee chap should be down for a good few hours now. He's had a bath and nearly finished his bottle and—" He stops short when he sees her tear-stained face. "Darling? What is it?"

Shaking her head and smiling softly, she rises and moves to stand before him, her hands going to the lapels of his shirt. "Happy tears," she assures him. "I was on my way to stack the fire in here and I heard you. 'All Things Must Pass …'" She pauses as two teardrops slide down her cheeks, then chuckles as she wipes them away. "Here I go again. I used to sing that song to Matthew. I watched you through the doorpost for a minute and …" More tears. "... I've seen you soothe babies hundreds of times, and I don't know whether you'll know this but it's got to me every time." She looks up at him adoringly. "It's beautiful, Richard. So much so that it hurts a little, especially with George." On seeing his furrowed brow, she goes on, "I think it's different with him because he's ours. I'm thrilled that you've got a grandson."

He grins ... "As am I," … and then frowns, "but you said it hurts you. Why; is it because of the year we've had?" He leads her to sit beside him on the settee at the end of their bed and wraps his arm around her.

Resting her head on his shoulder, she nods. She can smell the baby's sweet, just-bathed scent on his shirt. "We were so close to losing Matthew after the accident, and what would I have done if—"

"But we didn't," he interrupts, squeezing her hands. "He's alive, and well on his way back to full health now. Well enough to take his wife out dancing on Valentine's Day. That was a brilliant idea of yours incidentally, us keeping George for the night. You know they'd never have left him otherwise. Certainly not with Robert and Cora!"

That gets her to laugh. "Oh, imagine it! Robert changing nappies in a biohazard suit. And Cora wringing her hands when the lad refuses a bottle." With a shake of her head, she pauses briefly. "No, you're right; Matthew is on the mend and he'll be back working full time by spring, and what did we learn the first week of medical school? Forget about the 'what-ifs;' it's what is that matters. But it's all rather different when it concerns one's own. It brings up a few things I thought were old news. Losing Fiona, and your loss of Jessie and a daughter you hadn't even known about until it was too late."

"Isobel," he breathes, drawing her closer. They hold one another in silence for long moments.

"I know it's all so far in the past and I've no desire to dredge it up again," she says, breaking the silence. "Can we leave it, for now, at my having 'all the feels' —as I've heard the kids say— at seeing you with George? I feel a fool and besides, dinner's ready."

He fixes her with the look she's begun to refer to as 'You Can Run, But You Can't Hide,' lifting her hand to his lips and pressing a kiss to the back of it. "Alright then. But I will want to come back to it at some point."

She kisses his forehead. "Yes, I know. How do you stand it, Richard, hmm? Me and all the feels."

"Give me a bit of credit," he teases. "I knew what I was signing up for."

That's the truth. The benefit of having been the best of friends for a dozen years before they were anything more means that each one knows the other better than they know their respective selves. For the first time since coming fully into her own, she can say that there's someone who knows everything about her and loves her —not in spite of it all, but because of it all.

Dinner is rife with smouldering looks, the wine steadily flowing as they hold hands under the table. They don't need to go out in order to feel they're getting full mileage out of the holiday. Lounging together on the couch in the conservatory after the dishwasher is stacked, watching snow fall as they sip what he calls 'Scotch hot chocolate,' each has all they'll ever need. They are long enough together now that companionable silence is a thing to be cherished, and when he reaches for her with that expression on his face she comes eagerly into his arms, holding her breath as she awaits the brush of his lips against her own.

Kissing him is yet another marvel. There is both comfort and thrill in the thrust and slide of lips and tongues, the easy warmth of stretching out to lie together. The element of surprise gets the best of her when he rises, offering her his hand. "Shall we go upstairs?"

She feels his eyes on her body as he follows behind her. There is exhilaration at any age in being longed for by the object of one's affection, but the rush of knowing that, aged 61, she captivates him is peerless. She changes in the bathroom; a spritz of L'Occitane Verveine, bare beneath her white nightie.

He devours her with his gaze as they pass one another, he in nothing but his shorts on his way to the bathroom and she to the bed. She slips beneath the covers, sitting back against the headboard, her mind flashing once more on the sight of him singing to his grandson as she waits for him.

He pauses on his return trip to the bedroom. She is reclining with her eyes closed, dark lashes curling against her cheeks. The corners of her mouth are lifted in a sweet hint of a smile. As he climbs into bed beside her, the shoulder strap of her nightgown slips down. He glides the backs of his fingers over the soft golden skin it exposes, his lips following suit before putting the strap right.

Tiny pinpricks of electric current dance along her nerve endings at his touch. She shivers and they both giggle.

"Cold, love?" he teases, laying their pillows flat.

She plays along. "Mmm. Frozen stiff. Pity I've no husband round to warm me up."

He pounces, laying her down, her wrists loosely held in his hands against the pillow. "Haven't you?" he rasps, tickling her neck with his moustache.

"Ooh, sorry," she coos. "I can still scarcely believe you're mine sometimes."

"C'mere, beauty," he murmurs, spooning up behind her. There are few things in life she loves as much as this, even if she's never been able to work out precisely why. It's secure, with his arm around her, enveloped by his warmth. And it's provocative: his breath on the back of her neck, the curve of her bum tucked into the cradle of his hips. It's home to her. She has never felt a sense of rightness like she feels when they are together this way.

She sighs deeply, her body melting into his. "This," she whispers, unaware of having done it until he answers:

"Yes."

Moving her own hand to rest atop his, she entwines their fingers. They are quiet. He kisses the patch of skin beneath her ear and she exhales a breathy, "Ohh." She fights the urge to roll her hips against him and he feels the tension in her body.

"Move, sweet girl." He speaks right into her ear, brushing her hair aside to rain kisses on her neck and shoulder. She wiggles her hips and feels him twitch, beginning to harden.

"I'm tempted to get carried away," she remarks as he lifts the hem of her nightgown, groaning when he discovers the absence of her knickers.

"If it wasn't so much fun to let it simmer," he breathes.

"Mmm." She nods, her stomach tightening deliciously when he flattens his palm over her abdomen. "The benefits of experience." Theirs is the ability to ignite the spark of desire and let it burn long and slowly, no mad rushing towards one's own end.

"Will you tell me now what you couldn't bring yourself to say before?" He strokes her belly, her hips as she circles them against him.

"I don't want to get maudlin, but you spoke just now of supposing we'd met earlier. I've indulged in the odd flight of fancy myself and … well."

"Go on," he prompts her.

"I love to watch you with babies. You have a way that men don't often come by naturally, and it's nothing to do with being a neo.* I'm … I'm just sorry you weren't a father, Richard." Realising how it could come across she adds, "I do hope you hear that the way I mean it. It isn't an indictment."

"No, I know it isn't. I should say, I know it because I've had similar thoughts myself," he confesses.

Nonplussed, she turns over her shoulder to look at him. "Have you done?"

"Only I never thought it prudent to tell you because … well because you were so happily married when it would have been a possibility, and then when you weren't anymore you lost more than just your husband." He shrugs. "I didn't see how your knowing about it would promote anything positive."

Leaning up momentarily, she grabs his face and kisses his cheek. "I love you," she tells him. "You've always got what's best for me in the forefront of your mind."

He answers by holding her tighter.

"Will you tell me about it now?" she asks gently, mirroring his earlier enquiry.

"I've worked with medical staff all my life, but I've never met anyone who comes by nurturing the way you do. And it isn't flattery; I saw it from the first consult we ever did together. Don't take this wrongly, Isobel, but … you're such a mother. I know it's just one facet of your character, but it's a prominent one. It went a long way towards your success and it wasn't anything you had to do. It's just who you are. I hope I've not put my foot in it."

She turns in his arms, levering up on her elbow to see him more easily. "Of course you haven't. When we were coming up a person could call things as they saw them without others inferring that they were ... pigeonholing. And anyway one of the best things about you is how plain-spoken you are. The words you say mean exactly what they sound like they mean, no reading between the lines required. It's a wonderful compliment, Richard." She pauses, fiddling with a stitch on the coverlet. "I wish you'd known my mum. She was everything I've ever wanted to be. And what you said about me … those are all things I saw in her. She was … do you remember in the eighties when we all started trying to be everywoman?" He nods and she continues, "Well I've never managed to carry it off, not really. But Mum did, and she wasn't even trying. Anyway, I didn't mean to interrupt you. Do go on."

He smiles indulgently, smoothing his hand from her shoulder to her hip. "You love without trying, whether or not you realise it. You see good in people I've quite honestly written off. Look at your relationship with Mary. She's blossomed under your guidance. You're far more of a mother to her than Cora's ever been, and I don't need to have known them long to say that with confidence. And all of these things make me wonder what it would have been like to have a family with you. And, well …" He trails off, turning his head away before she can see the red flush that tinges his ears.

"You aren't fooling anyone, you know," she rebukes him softly, feathering her lips over his shoulder. "Come on. Tell me."

He sighs. "I suppose it makes me sound like a Neanderthal, but I would have had quite a thrill seeing you carrying a child of mine. I don't know …"

"No, darling, you do know," she asserts. "Anyway I'd love to have had your baby. In theory. I had hyperemesis with Matthew—"

"Oh, God," he groans sympathetically.

"Oh yes, right up until thirty-two weeks. And you know we couldn't treat it then the way we do now. Luckily I avoided hospital because I had Reg and Eddie. But I had an NG tube, and intravenous hydration, and it wasn't pretty. Of course it was altogether different with Fiona …"

"I'm sorry," he tells her, suddenly solemn. "I didn't mean—"

She cuts him off with a kiss. "No, I know you didn't—"

"And anyway it's useless to talk about because it could never have happened."

She senses his embarrassment and turns away from him again, knowing he feels too exposed to face her. In order to maintain a connection she reaches for his hand, bringing his arm around her waist. "You see that's where you're wrong, darling. It benefits you to be talking to a woman because I happen to think it's romantic, even having seen reality from every possible angle as I've done. It's a natural extension of our loving one another that we think about it."

They fall comfortably silent as she snuggles against his body and he holds her. His touch is soothing and reverent and arousing by turns, and she gasps when he glides the tips of his fingers over her bare breasts and belly. She still hasn't worked out how he can do that to her … lulling her nearly to sleep whilst somehow coaxing the ache inside of her to a fever pitch simultaneously.

"Richard?" she says after a time.

"Yes, beauty?"

"I would, you know."

"You would what, love?"

"Have your baby, if I could. It doesn't change anything—"

"But it's lovely to share the same dream."

"Yes it is." She turns her head to kiss him. "Goodnight, my darling."

He kisses her again, deeper this time. "Goodnight, sweet girl."

*neo - neonatologist; Richard's specialty prior to retirement