Title: Too Long A Sacrifice
Characters: Lucien Blake, Jean Beazley, Charlie Davis, Matthew Lawson
Rating: T
Wordcount: 2375
Warnings/Spoilers: S4 spoilers, and DBM speculation (particularly house/room layout).
Summary: Sometimes, Lucien Blake thought he had never left that pit in the Ban Pong POW camp; other times, he looked at Jean and knew better.
A/N: CHALLENGE: by 4.8, Jean clearly knows that Lucien is going to be "nervous" locked up in a police cell, and gives him the chalk so he can distract himself by solving the case. Nobody, on the other hand, seems to actually know that Lucien has traumatically induced claustrophobia in 1.8. Everybody does, however, suspect something is seriously wrong. So, how does this understanding come about between Jean and Lucien? Why? Let your imaginations go and explore why this might be the case.
This is my answer to that question. This chapter takes place sometime during S2, I think. There should be two or three more chapters. I'm new to the DBM and writing about Australia, so please be kind. (This remains unbeta-ed and barely edited. I welcome any and all feedback, so please review, friends. To borrow: we may be small, but we are fierce. )
Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
…W.B. Yeat, "Easter, 1916"
Jean Beazley has never seen anyone have to force a drink down Lucien Blake's throat before. But there is Superintendent Matthew Lawson standing in front of him on the driveway, forcing him to swallow what looks like half a bottle of bottom shelf whiskey. She doesn't know why Lawson is here at the Blake house at half past midnight, but she knew it couldn't be anything good.
Dr. Blake hasn't been home all day after he went haring off that morning in search of some detail or other, and if Jean were pressed, she would have had to admit that she had fallen asleep knitting on the couch, waiting for him to come back. The night wind is cold against the fabric of her blouse, and she rubbed her arms, once, twice, trying to understand what is happening.
The rain had finally let up, almost an hour ago, but most of the Superintendent's uniform gleams wetly black under the pale moonlight. He moved to Blake's side, and Jean let out a breath she isn't aware she's holding.
Lucien is wrapped up in one of those gray, woolen police blankets, what she can see of his face looks chalky, and his pants and shoes are filthy with mud and soggy with water. Lawson said something to him, after he handed the empty bottle to Constable Davis.
"Sorry to bring him back so late, Mrs. Beazley." Lawson apologized, but there isn't a hint of apology in it. Jean nodded, knowing that something is terribly wrong. Why hasn't Lucien said anything? Normally he can't keep his mouth shut.
"We, uh, ran into a bit of trouble with Mr. Hopkins." Davis added, unhelpfully. Hopkins, Jean thought, a farmer on the far edges of town. He'd had some argument with his wife a while back she knew, but nothing else. "The doc was in that root cellar for a while—!"
Lucien groaned, pushed off Lawson's arm, and almost fell over onto the drive, all in the space of a few seconds.
"Shut up, Constable." Lawson growled, grabbing Lucien around the waist and hauling him up again. The blanket had fallen quite far down on his shoulders, and Jean can see that he's soaked through, sans jacket, and covered in mud. Lawson pulled Lucien after him, and with a shambling gait, they reach the front door.
"Blake." He muttered, near Blake's ear. "Come on, man!" He barked, propelling him through the door. Jean follows after them, concerned.
"Would tea help?" She asked, as tentatively as Jean Beazley does anything.
"'lo Jean." Blake slurred, and reached one hand for her. Her quiet gasp seemed as loud as a shout in the hallway, for Lucien's hands are shaking like leaves. It's the first time he's spoken since they came back, and his usually melodic voice sounded raspy and hoarse.
"Tea, yes." Lawson agreed, and then commanded, "Davis, get on it." Lucien has decided the best idea right now is to rest his head on Lawson's shoulder. It would look funny, Jean knew, Dr. Blake practically leaning into Superintendent Lawson like an eager puppy, if it weren't so wrong.
"What happened?" Jean said quietly, as she opened the door to Lucien's bedroom. In the almost two years she's known Lucien Blake, she's seen him in all states, including drunk out of his mind more than once, but she's never seen him like this. He's not moving at all, not just in his usual vibrant and vital way, and that's all wrong.
"Sit down, Blake." Lawson said, wearily, taking Blake's upper arms and sitting him on the edge of the bed. Jean shut the door behind them for privacy, as Lawson knelt, to take off Blake's filthy shoes, and Jean almost doesn't see what happens next. Without a word, Lucien has thrown off the blanket, and thrown himself at Lawson.
Lawson's cry of "Blake" is cut off by Lucien's hands on his throat. The world stands stock still for a moment, for Jean saw nothing of the kindly, gentle country physician in Lucian Blake at this moment, his eyes, normally so blue and warm, are cold and shuttered, his jaw set tight. It would almost be like two schoolboys scuffling on the ground, except there are no good-natured complaints or faux attempts at wrestling.
And all the muscles in Lucien's considerably powerful frame are straining against Lawson, almost as though he is trying to kill him. Lawson looks like he is trying to say something, but his face is turning red. Jean doesn't know what to do, but that she has to do something.
"Lucien." She called, softly. It isn't her right to command Dr. Blake to do anything, but he is, she knows, particularly courteous to women. A plea from her might succeed where Lawson's force will fail. Blake stopped for a minute. "Lucien." She said again, and he turned, to look at her, leaving off Lawson entirely.
"Jean?" He said, uncertainly, searching her as if seeing her for the first time. And then, he sat back on his heels, still looking at her, head cocked. His hands are still shaking, and he has pressed them to his chest, almost as if he is trying to make himself as small as possible.
"Get off, Blake." Lawson sid, from where he is lying underneath Blake on the floor. One of his hands has come up to rub at his neck, but otherwise, he isn't moving. He knew something, Jean decided intuitively, but Lucien isn't listening to him.
"Jean," Dr. Blake said again, and he sounded almost like a little boy, lost and more than a little confused. "Why is it dark?"
"The door is shut." Jean almost forgets to leave off the 'sweetheart,' at the end, but even looking at the tall and muscular form of Lucien Blake, all she can see is the blankness of those blue eyes at this moment. It's almost like looking at one of her young sons, utterly bewildered at why it's decided to rain again, or why the sky is blue.
"Why?" He said, quietly, and Jean doesn't know what to say, but goes with her instinct.
"We can open the door, if you'd like." She offered carefully, moving to the doorknob. He nodded, slowly, once.
"Please." He said, and sounded much more like himself. All this time, not more than a minute or two, Lawson has lain silent and still on the floor. In fact, except for their heavy breathing, and the few words they've said, the house is silent. She opened the door, and switched on the light.
"Why don't we get off the Superintendent?" Jean said agreeably, as if she were talking to a terrified small child. She extended her hand, and Blake took it, getting up. He swayed, a little, on his feet, and then Jean said, "Let's take off these wet things, yes?" A little nod, but at least he's looking at her, now, instead of through her. She undid the buttons on his shirtsleeves, his eyes on her hands the whole while.
Lawson got up slowly, and looked at Jean.
"Thank you, Mrs. Beazley. I'll take over from here." He said, and Jean accepted gracefully.
"Of course." She said. "I'll just go help Constable Davis with the tea, shall I?"
By the time she came back with tea, sweet and well-creamed, and in sturdy mugs, the Superintendent has managed to get Dr. Blake into dry sleeping things and into his bed. He looked half asleep already, and he has, she suddenly noticed, a large purple bruise forming on the side of his face.
"Thank you, Mrs. Beazley." Lawson said, taking the mug of tea gratefully. "I wouldn't mind something stronger, but it's probably not the time."
"Can I get you something else to wear, Superintendent," Jean said, gathering Blake's wet things into the basket on her other arm. "Dry, at least?"
"No, thank you. I won't stay long." He drink half the tea in one go, and then sighed. "This case is a bloody shambles."
"I'm sorry about just now," Jean said, "with Dr. Blake." He just shook off her apology, but his eyes turn back to Blake in his bed, and he looked grim, she realized. She put down the last mug of tea she had brought, for Lucien, and took up the basket in her arm. She doesn't shut the door behind them.
"What happened?" She asked again. Davis is hanging around the edges of the entry hallway, looking unsettled but unable to hide it and unable to do anything about it.
"Hopkins spooked when Blake showed up asking questions. He took off running, but not before he cocked the doctor in the face, and left him locked in the root cellar." Lawson said succinctly, and Jean can hear a whole story behind that sentence. "Davis found him, just in time too, half an hour more and the floodwater wound have completely filled the cellar."
"Thank you, Constable Davis." Jean managed, around a suddenly choked throat. Hours in a locked root cellar, in the dark, with the floodwater slowly rising? No wonder the doctor seems worse than unsettled. Davis doesn't say anything, but just looks more uncomfortable. Lawson is talking again, but Jean felt as though she is listening from down a long tunnel.
"I'll call back around tomorrow. See how he's doing." Lawson said, with a nod of his head towards Lucien's bedroom. He puts his mug on the side table. "Thank you for the tea." He said, and he's gone out the front door.
"Mrs. Beazley." Davis said, all earnestness and unease. "The doc, he wasn't himself, you know. When I got him out."
"Yes, Charlie. I understand."
"Goodnight."
"Goodnight." The door shut behind him with finality, and Jean let out a long, slow breath. The clock in the hallway struck one. Time for bed, she thought. The tea things and laundry can wait until tomorrow.
It's a funny thing that Dr. Blake's yelling doesn't wake her, but that the front door opening and slamming on its hinges does. She's out of bed and in her dressing gown before she even thinks about who would be opening the front door.
She met Mattie at the stairs.
"Jean?" Mattie said. "What was that?"
"Nothing." Jean said, and seeing the patent disbelief on Mattie's face, patted her forearm gently. "I'll take care of it." Implicit in her tone, she hoped, is that Mattie shouldn't see this.
Something of this must get across, for all Mattie says is "oh," and then, even quieter, "goodnight, Jean."
Jean is down the stairs and out the door the minute Mattie's back is turned to her.
She is not surprised to see Dr. Blake standing out in the front garden, hair standing on end, breath coming in quick and fluttery pulls. He can't settle his mouth into closing, seeming not to notice that he's opening and shutting his teeth quickly every few seconds. He doesn't seem to notice her, and he always notices her.
"Dr. Blake," she said to his rigid back. "Lucien." She said again, and he let out a long, shuddering sigh. They stand there in a fragile silence, and Jean barely noticed the cold, seeing how the doctor's hands are still shaking. Jean thought she might say something, but cannot think of anything to say. She knew how to deal with Dr. Blake in his wild and frantic moods, but this is something else, something brittle and sore.
She had told him, once, furiously, that other people had suffered through the war. And that was true. But she knows—knows in her bones that way she knows that Jack will always be trouble and Christopher the dependable one, that some fundamental part of Lucien Blake has been changed by terrible suffering. Other people might say he had been broken beyond repair, but if that is the case, Jean thought, why would he be so kind, kind beyond sense?
"It brought it all back, that cellar." He offered finally, pointedly not looking at her, trapping his shaking hands under his arms. "Stealing that pineapple." Jean doesn't understand, but perhaps she doesn't need to understand, just to listen, to hear the truth of the suffering he's undergone. He fell silent, working his jaw.
"Pineapple, Lucien?" He swung his head, just a little almost to see her, but settles for facing the stars. Breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth. One, twice, three times.
"We were starving, you know. And I never thought they'd miss a single can of pineapple. But they did." He laughed, hollowly, and Jean thought perhaps he might be crying. The studied lack of emotion in his voice is a telltale sign, she knew, that he's feeling too much to express at this moment if ever.
"Forty days in a pit in the ground." Suddenly, he's standing close to her, close enough she can feel the heat rising off of him, like a horse too mettlesome to run. "Too small to stand, too narrow to lie down."
She felt his hand, too hot, resting on her shoulder. He's running a fever already.
"I can't…" He half-voiced, and breaks off. Is that why his throat is so hoarse, she wonders, from yelling out in fear at a hellish memory come true again. "Small spaces bother me." He finished, perhaps a little lamely, his willingness to expose her to his pain already seeping away with the remnants of his nightmare.
"Back to bed, Dr. Blake." Jean replied firmly, seeing the way exhaustion and grief is pulling at his eyes. Doubtless he'll be sick in the morning, but illness she can deal with—this fragility she can't. Not yet.
The clock in the hall sounds half past three by the time she's settled him back in his bed. And, as she pulled the quilts over him, he's already starting to get drowsy. Jean cannot help herself, as he shuts his eyes; she smooths down his hair gently over his brow. She took her hand away haltingly, and stood there for a moment, sorry for him.
"Stay." He said, more unguarded in that word than she has ever heard. "Please."
And so, in the chair by his side, she does.