A/N: Ummm ... what to say about this piece? Isobel and Richard made me do it? In all seriousness they did finally become lovers in One More Morning, which was a necessary installment in the retirement AU because it delves into the backstory behind some of the events that take place in Sweet Seasons. Then, while I was away a few weeks ago, I kept thinking that there needed to be an exploration of Isobel's headspace after they went to bed together. I sat beside the crashing ocean and heard wisps of it in my head, being told from her point of view. And what about that? Well, I'll just say that I was away from my husband for nine days and nights and my imagination ran away with me(?). There'll most likely be an epilogue to this coming before too long, though we are back into homeschool full swing now so my time is very, VERY limited. At any rate, I hope you enjoy.

xx,
~ejb~

I was frightened the first time I woke up beside him. To be sure, I had indeed invited him to share my bed, something I would not likely have done but for having drunk half a bottle of wine and just coming off a days-long stint at the hospital. I don't think I'd have had the nerve to say the words, but under the circumstances I'd dropped off to sleep in his arms on the loveseat out on the balcony, hazily mumbling something along the lines of "Let's go to bed" when he nudged me awake.

I don't sleep, as a rule, or at least I hadn't done since Reg died. The bed had always proved too big and too empty, the night unbearably long, the whole scenario a reminder of all I'd had … and lost. I had taken to dossing down on the couch in my office most nights, the quiet there preferable to that of the physicians' lounge. I'd work until my eyes refused to stay propped open and then toss and turn until the clock displayed an acceptable hour at which to shower and dress. The perks of department headship, I suppose: a private en suite. On the nights I had to be at home, I'd settle down on the sofa with Air Crash Investigation or one travel documentary or another and on a good night I might manage three hours' sleep.

So imagine my surprise when I awakened in the bedroom of my flat, in the bed I'd come to despise, after having slept a full eight hours. Now picture my bewilderment at finding a solid male presence beside me, behind me, his arm slung round my waist. I was frozen in place, trying to work out whether to dive for the mobile and dial 999, when I'd felt the movement of his thumb drawing circles on my hip and I'd smiled, turning over to face him.

Richard. Oh, Richard. In an instant, trepidation and uncertainty were replaced by a feeling which I can only liken to having been falling one moment, flailing, hurtling towards destruction and then suddenly being caught up; rescued, drawn close the next. That sounds terribly melodramatic and hopelessly romantic and I've never been given to such notions before, but do you know something?

It is most certainly dramatic. And unquestionably romantic. And I love it.

I'd been on my own for so long when we met that I kept him at arm's length for a long time. It was instinct, purely unintentional. Self-preservation was my means of survival, and I never had to say it to him. He understood somehow, and accepted what I gave with grace and gratitude, never pushing past the walls I'd built around my heart while somehow simultaneously, wordlessly challenging me to look beyond them. I don't know whether he knew before I did that Isobel was in there somewhere, buried beneath defence mechanisms and deferred grief. I suspect so, knowing him as I do now. Or perhaps he was taking a huge risk, showing such love and care to someone he couldn't be sure would ever return those feelings. That's rather like him as well.

Whatever his motivation, it's certainly paying dividends now. I am his.

Is it strange to read those words coming from me? It is from my end, make no mistake. If my upbringing as a physician's daughter determined to blaze her own trail in medicine had taught me anything, it was that I belonged to no one but myself. I never wanted to garner favour as the daughter or the sister of a Dr. Turnbull. In fact, it was that bull-headed stubbornness that apparently attracted Reg to me, or so he liked to say. And I wasn't about to be known professionally as "Dr. Crawley's wife" either, though nothing's ever thrilled me more in my private life than being exactly that. But you see, that's just it. Reg never sought to tame the independence out of me, and therefore I was delighted to do life beside him, ever his champion just as he was mine.

Just as Richard is mine; I am his. I never held my heart away from him because I didn't love him; in fact, it was much to the contrary. I knew from the time of our first meeting that he was going to become a close friend, and by the time he took over as Chief of Neonatology at St. Mary's my heart had set its affections upon him. No, indeed; it was fear that had kept me from admitting my love for Richard. I had to somehow reconcile that loving him was not synonymous with betraying Reg's memory. And I couldn't allow my feelings to take root without first being completely forthright with Richard. You see, as deeply in love with him as I am, there will never come a day, so long as there is breath in my lungs, that I do not love Reginald. Had we two not been separated by his senseless death, we would be celebrating our fortieth wedding anniversary this year. I felt surely that my devotion to him, even after spending as many years widowed as we were married, would put Richard off me, but I should have known that he'd make it safe for me. That's what he has always been: a safe haven. The one and only place I can be entirely myself; where my imperfections are no surprise. Where I can love two men simultaneously.

"I don't for a moment believe that one love must end because another has begun, sweet girl," he had told me, and in those words I found freedom.

If it is hard for him (and I would think it has to be), he doesn't let it show. He has been my friend for so long that I would know if he were holding back, but he continues to love me with the utmost kindness and devotion and I know, I know, though we are yet to discuss it, that his past and my own are not very disparate. All he has said is that he was engaged once, just out of medical school, and that the wedding didn't go forward. Whatever details he hasn't shared, I'm confident that it isn't because he's withholding something I need to know. I suspect that there is still a great deal of affection in his heart for his fiancée, and in that regard we are both learning to hold fast to first love while concurrently moving on.

He is not the only one with stories left untold. I shared with him — because I had to before we made love for the first time — that I'd had a hysterectomy after Reg died. I'd come a very long way by that point, from absolute certainty that I'd never so much look at another man after losing my husband to the solace of knowing that Richard has my whole heart for the rest of my life, and therefore giving my body to him was the natural extension of the love we share. And he'd been so tender, almost reverent, that I'd nearly let it slip. But the timing was all wrong; while I did indeed shed many tears that morning, I was not going to allow the pervasive, creeping sorrow over losing my daughter to intrude upon the joy of intimacy found once again. And she's the last secret, is my little girl, that Reg and I ever shared. I cannot quite explain why it's so important to me to guard that knowledge for just a while longer, but it's as I've said: I am in love with two men. Theorise away about how you'd handle yourself in the same situation, but you'll never truly know until it happens to you. And no one hopes any harder than I do that you never, ever find yourself in my position.

Here is the thing though: I want Richard to know about Fiona. I want to be able to hide in him when I miss her, and to speak of who she might have become. I want to tell him because when he knows, he will thereby know everything about me, and I want nothing so much as to be known by him. Even when the things he tells me are hard to hear, they are precisely what I need. Even when I am unlovable, he loves me.

I told him that I wouldn't ask him to move in with me. Modern woman though I am, there are enough of the old ways in me that I can't quite work out where I stand with all of that. Domestic partnership and "living in sin" and sex outside of the confines of marriage. For reasons unknown to me I feel it's more acceptable for the younger generation than it is my own, though I still can't say I condone it. Clearly I'm not bothered enough that it has kept me from loving Richard, but I absolutely despise the implication that there are illicit overtones to anything we do together.

I told him that I wouldn't ask him to move in with me because we've each of us lived a lifetime alone, and I never want him to feel smothered or like he's losing his own identity. I said, "Come and go as you please," even as I meant I've been alone for so bloody long and I never want you to leave but I don't want to overwhelm you. But once we had made love it was as if by some unspoken mutual understanding our lives became interwoven all of their own accord, and we've yet to spend a night apart since then that hasn't been necessitated by our work.

We speak of marriage in vague terms, and I know it's got much to do with his having all but proposed once, when he was rather squiffy, and my not having recognised it as such until well after the fact. I'd failed at handling his heart with the care it deserved, even if we'd yet to admit we loved one another at that juncture. It was not our finest moment, that. But I feel we are close upon the subject coming to the forefront again, and as I told him before I took him as my lover, there is no turning back now. I would not open my heart, my arms, my bed to him if I didn't intend upon permanency. Call me old-fashioned if you will, but experience has taught me that sharing one's body is the ultimate expression of intimacy and for me, anyway, it is sacred.

oOo

"Hello, darling." Richard breaks my train of thought, pushing open the half-closed bathroom door. Steam rises from the bath as cold air intrudes upon the warm damp and I cringe.

"Close that, will you please?" He does, and then turns back to me, sitting down on the edge of the tub. I greet him properly. "Hi, love. Plenty of room for you."

"I rather fancy the view from here," he says, leaning in to close the distance between us. I will never tire of this: the intensity in his eyes, and how I can always tell he's going to kiss me by the way he stares at my mouth beforehand. That little anticipatory hitch in my breath, the way his warmth precedes the brush of his lips against mine. The rush of blood pounding in my ears, the flutter in my belly. All of these things I'd long believed were gone from me. And then, suddenly, he was mine.

"Richard." His name trips readily off my tongue in between kisses. I sound wanton to my own ears and there was a time, at the start of things, when I worried about that, whether he would be put off. Imagine my delight at finding that nothing could be further from the truth.

I watch as he rolls his shirtsleeves to the elbows. The movement of muscle and sinew in his forearms; his long, slender fingers manipulating the fabric. He was in meetings for most of the day today. Glad-handing the donors, the finance committee. The stuff of his nightmares, and I know he's craving the chance to be quiet now, to be still. Shame I spent most of the day in theatre; I missed the sight of him in coat and tie. But this is better by leaps and bounds.

He kneels beside the bathtub and I will myself to keep my eyes open. My instinct is to close them in advance of his touch, but the thrill of watching him wins out.

"I love you," I tell him as his hands disappear beneath the bubbles. I gasp as the tips of his fingers dance across my rib cage. I knew it was coming, but the thrill never dies.

"Isobel," he sighs as his hands settle at my waist. He leans over me to bury his face in my neck, his lips seeking the pulse point there. He is a treasure, and never more so than in moments like this. How humbling it is, and what a gift: he trusts me with his vulnerability. My heart threatens to beat its way out of my chest at the thought of what's to come, but already, this is intimacy. His hand is on my breast and my back arches of its own volition, dying to press in closer, to take my pleasure. But there is a balance to be struck here. Yes, I want him. I ache with it, my pulse beating a mantra of Love me, fill me, take me, and if I took control now I know he would graciously give it to me. But I want to be his safe harbour, to receive the priceless gift of love as he gives it. This is marriage, I think as I run a damp hand through his hair. He's never spoken of numbers, of how many before me, except to say there have been few. Beautiful as he is a part of me finds that hard to believe, but scrupulous as he is I know it is truth. But he does not need to tell me that it is only I who have seen him like this, and I do not need a legal document to tell me that we are set apart, he and I; each one only for the other. In my heart and soul, in all the ways that matter, we are wed.

"I'm here, my darling." My husband, my heart wants to say.

He draws back to look at me and I watch as his eyes travel over my body from head to toe. "Christ, you're beautiful," he tells me. The wonderment with which he says it causes me to choke back a sob. He is my redemption song after a lifetime spent mourning the loss of this.

His touch, at first, is as if he is fingering the pages of a favourite novel, checking to see all the words are still there.

I hear the unasked questions in his focused gaze, the roving of his fingertips. You're here? You're mine? You love me?

"I'm here," I repeat, dropping kisses on his forehead. "I'm here with you, Richard. I'm yours."

Later, after we lie together and after he sleeps and perhaps after a curry and pint of Old Engine Oil (delightful, incidentally, in spite of the dubious moniker) at the Indian place round the corner, he'll tell me what's rankled him so. I suspect it's something to do with being made to kowtow to Dickie Grey and his awful son Larry. I am in complete agreement with Richard as it pertains to Larry and every unsavoury adjective ever applied to the man, but where Dickie is concerned I just have to roll my eyes. The notion that Richard sees him as a threat to our relationship is truly, utterly laughable. Dickie is congenial enough; he's a lonely old widower, and on that count I can relate. But therein lies the beginning and end of any commonality between us.

There is absolutely no comparison between the two men, and the mention of Dickie's name has no place in our bedroom (or our bathroom, as the case may be). "It's only you for me," I tell Richard. "You're the one I want here," as I draw him down to my mouth and kiss him, "and here," as I take his hand, pressing it to my heart, "and here," as I bring our hands to rest at the apex of my thighs.

His eyes are dark as he fixes them on mine. He never needs permission, but still he always asks. "Isobel …"

My hand atop his own squeezes his fingers. "Darling."

Wild blue-black eyes again, and his palms sliding over the tops of my thighs. He brushes his lips against each kneecap, and his moustache tickles. "Open for me."

I don't even try to stifle the moan that escapes my lips at his forthrightness, and I watch his eyes as my knees fall open. I am wet, and not just from the bath.

I grin as he raises an eyebrow at me. "Is this the way you wanted me to find you?" he asks, feathering his fingertips along my inner thighs, making the muscles twitch.

I would tease if I wasn't so far gone already, and he was not so obviously in need of affirmation. And so I take the straightforward approach. "I thought about you all day." It's all I need to say. He knows.

He touches me so gently, just there, tiny flicks of his thumb that make me clench. Once again I fight to keep my eyes open, to watch him. This is decadent, wanton, exhilarating. If I'm thinking at all, it is something along the lines of Oh God, ohgod, inside, please! and, He's so beautiful, and he wants me! Blood rushes to my head, swollen damp at my centre, his strokes lengthening in response. My hips rock into his hand.

"Easy," he murmurs, "breathe." He ceases the movement of his fingers, pressing his open palm against me firmly. Slowing me down; holding me there. "Look at you," he whispers, raw and thick with emotion as I hang suspended on the edge of euphoria. "Isobel."

"Richard …" It comes out strangled as I fight for breath.

"Beauty," he proclaims, slipping his fingers inside slowly, steadily.

I bite my lip hard. Not yet; my internal reminder. Notyetnotyet ohjesus as he presses up, theretherethere and I'm gone.

The duration of the average female orgasm is eight seconds. I've recited this fact to my patients more times than I could ever count. How, then, is it possible to feel an entire lifetime's worth of sensations and emotions in less time than it takes to blink twice? It's the ultimate reward for complete and total vulnerability. I've never been able to understand why anyone would want to do this with someone unless there was love and trust present, but my God, when there is! I never did believe in miracles, but I've a feeling it's time to try*. It's a very strange time to think of a Fleetwood Mac song, but it's far less clichéd than most other attempts at explaining the phenomenon.

I am shaking when it's over, and I need to be held. He helps me to my feet and wraps me up, first in the bath towel and then in his arms. I lean into him as he kisses my forehead, my cheeks, my lips. I watch, captivated, as he works the towel over my skin.

"Turn," he commands, and when I do I feel his lips brush against the top of my spine. He kisses each of my vertebrae on the way down as he dries, and I think that I can hear him naming them off in his head. He repeats the action on the return journey, sucking on my neck. "I need to feel you, sweet girl," he breathes, scraping his teeth along my earlobe.

"Come," I tell him, and he drops the towel as I take his hand. I turn down the covers on my side of the bed as he watches, and when he finishes with his side I stand before him. I'm certain that his tie is slung over the gear lever in the Rover, and it makes me smile as I reach up to caress the patch of skin at the base of his throat where the topmost button is open. "I wish I'd got to see you earlier," I tell him, leaning in to kiss that spot.

He holds my head in place for a moment, and when he moans I can feel it against my lips. "I still don't understand why you're so fond of seeing me with a tie on."

Straightening, I step up to whisper in his ear as his arms come around me, his hands pressing my hips into him. "I fancy taking them off of you."

He grins in response and growls, bending to kiss my neck and tickling me with his stubble. I shriek with laughter and pull him to my mouth, kissing him hard.

"Oh, my girl," he sighs as the kiss breaks, "I do love you."

"And I love you, though you have entirely too many clothes on at the moment." I flirt a little, since his mood is lightening. I never knew I still had it in me! Love is, indeed, a many-splendoured thing.

"Are you planning to do something about that?" He returns my serve and my knees go weak. I am powerless against that lilt of his.

"Jesus," I mutter, "you're wicked, you know. Now keep still."

He grins again, a flash of something impish in his eyes. "I promise I'll behave," he murmurs, hot breath against my neck that causes me to lose my balance momentarily as I lean in to open the next of his buttons. I curse him under my breath even as my belly tightens at the feel of his hands on the bare skin of my waist, ostensibly steadying me. I am fast becoming drunk on the nearness of him, his heat and his beauty. He is dark and brooding one moment, rakish and playful the next and the last thing I feel right now is steady.

"Bollocks," I giggle, and so does he. "Dammit," I whisper as I open another button. "Bloody vest." Of course he would have worn one, but it's terribly inconvenient at the moment.

"Patience, Isobel," he says with a smirk. "Some say it's a virtue, you know."

"Yeah, well, it's not one of mine," I tell him as I get the shirt off him at long last. "Arms up."

He lifts his arms as I free the hem of his vest from the waistband of his trousers, undoing the belt, button and zip while I'm there. I press my palms against bare flesh at last, sliding them over his abdomen and ribs, lingering for a moment at his chest and savouring the strangled groan he emits. As I lift his vest over his head and off, he steps out of his trousers, leaving only his shorts and socks. I pause to look at him and he takes my breath away … from the ankles, up. I don't know what comes over me but next thing I know I'm doubled over, giggling like a mad fool and he's stood there, hands on hips and a scowl deeply etched across his brow.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I choke, breathless, the giggles catching me up again. "It's just … your socks!" I truly don't mean to be rude, but there is simply nothing sexy about them.

"Oh, Christ, woman," he huffs, bending to remove them. Just when I begin to worry that he's cross with me, he catches me at the waist and lifts me off my feet, twirling me around. When he stops he holds me there, his hands cradling my bum. "Better now, love?" he rasps, taking my lips in a searing kiss.

"Much," I breathe against his mouth between kisses. He lowers me until I feel the mattress beneath my back. As he follows me down my hands reach for the waistband of his shorts. "Lose them. Now," I tell him. What has come over me? You make loving fun*, I think, and my God, it's true.

I watch as he kneels above me, unable to stop the "Ohh!" from leaving my lips when at last he is bare before me. "Beautiful," I murmur, holding my arms out to him. I end up laughing even as tears fill my eyes at the feel of it when he presses his body to mine.

"What's this, precious, hmm?" he asks, wiping away a teardrop. "You're alright, aye?"

Smiling, I nod. When I open my mouth to speak my teary voice breaks and we both laugh. "Oh, will you look at me? I'm a hot mess." I lean up to kiss him. "I still can't believe …" Words fail me. "This … Us. I never thought …" Overcome by the strength of my love for him, I find myself sobbing, unable to finish.

He pulls me closer, dropping his head into the crook of my neck. "Hush now, beauty," he soothes, "I know, I know. I love you, Isobel. It's all I know." He is so seldom given to sentimentality that those few words say it all.

We lie together, kissing and touching and breathing as one. He is half hard already when I take his length in my hand, bringing him to rest against my own heat. He hisses and I feel the strain as he tries not to thrust into my hand. We are still new to this, but I think I know what he needs. I push at his shoulders until he raises himself up, and then I turn over to lie on my stomach.

"Isobel!" he gasps, tracing my spine with his fingers.

I look back at him over my shoulder. "It's what you want, isn't it?"

He kneels behind me, tracing absent circles on the backs of my thighs. "It is, but—"

"I want you to," I tell him. "Please, my love."

"I want you to enjoy this." He kneads my lower back, my hips, my bum.

"You've got nothing to worry about there," I breathe, his touch building heat inside me once again.

Slowly he raises me up on my knees, stroking tenderly between my legs. I push my hips back, grinding my bum against his erection. The contact is electrifying. He teases the head of himself at my entrance and presses his palm firmly against me. Dimly I register a strange sound in the room, a high, keening sort of whine, and I realise that it's coming from me. I reach back to grasp his hip. Please, darling, I plead with my eyes. So ready.

The front of his thighs brush against the back of mine and his hips press forward as he enters me. It's painstakingly slow, in part because I know he's afraid of hurting me but also because if he feels anything akin to what I'm feeling, it's not something either of us would relinquish anytime soon. The initial penetration feels so good it's almost unbearable. The stretch, bordering on painful, that turns round in an instant, dissolving into bliss. We were made for this, I think. This way, this deeply, his chest draped over my back.

"Yes, we were," he rasps in affirmation and I realise that I was thinking aloud. He throbs inside me and I feel it. The walls of my sex clench him and we cry out in unison.

I wish that I could manage to do something other than sob when we make love, but I was dead, for all intents and purposes, for twenty years; cast from a life of love and oneness into a yawning abyss of cold grey nothing, devoid of feeling. And now all I can seem to do is feel, and with Richard all the sharp delineations are blurred ‒ between the emotional and physical, present and future; sometimes even pleasure and pain are difficult to distinguish. Where does he begin, and where do I end? I feel it all simultaneously with him, and it's wondrous and terrifying. It's love, and it is the single greatest force in all the universe.

Powerless against it, I sink down onto my chest as he moves me. Is it possible to feel what's inside someone else's heart? Because I sense that I'm feeling not only my love for Richard, but his for me as well. His arm is around my waist, his fingers pressing their shape into my ribs, marking me. His lips etch divine profanities like freckles into my shoulder blades. It is thrilling to know that he thinks of me in these ways, and I think of the looks shared between us now as we pass in the hospital corridors.

I know you, our hearts whisper, murmur, shout. I know you inside and out; yesterday, today and forevermore. And I love you. In spite of it all. Because of it all.

He slips against a sacred spot inside me and I come without his hands, without my hands. A first for me if ever there was one; cue the tears once more! My orgasm triggers his own and we collapse into a boneless mass of damp skin, heaving chests and quivering limbs. His head is on my breast as I stroke his hair.

"Isobel," he gasps when he's able to speak. "What. Was. That?"

"Oh, darling," I laugh-sob, "nothing like that's ever happened to me before."

Lifting his head from my breast, he smooths his hand over it, resting his warm palm over my heart. "Jesus, love." He kisses the tip of my nose. "And you really are alright? I didn't …?"

Grinning, I lean in to kiss him deeply. "Sweetheart, one does not … come like that when one is in pain. The very last thing you did was to hurt me. Do you know how long I've wanted you … that way?" I feel my cheeks colour slightly at this admission. You'd think that an obstetrician would have no difficulty talking about sex. And I don't, in a clinical setting.

It's Richard's turn to grin, and how I love that mischievous twinkle in his eye when he does! "Do you have any idea how pretty you are when you blush?" He smooths the backs of his fingers across my cheek. His eyes turn grey and serious. "Thank you, my darling, for knowing how I needed you."

Talking of blurred lines, it seems to have become unacceptable societally in recent days for a man to need a woman sexually. Women are empowered to take what they need from men and I don't disagree (though I don't agree with taking it to extremes). But when a man has a woman who loves him, why should he be shamed for expressing his need of her?

"Richard," I tell him, taking his chin between my thumb and forefinger. Making sure he hears me. "I am yours, my love. Always. You need never ask, alright? And never, ever doubt that I love you."

"I know it, Isobel." Possibly the sweetest words I have ever heard him say. Then he smiles, fully, and the moment becomes sweeter still. "For the first time ever, I know that I am loved."

I was a divinity student once, if you can believe it. One of the things I love best about being English is the Church's high view of women. Somewhere between pursuing a degree in music performance and taking the decision to become a doctor, I did a year of Hebrew studies. It's a beautiful language, ancient and rich and musical, and certain bits of text have stayed with me all these years. Here now, in bed with Richard after what we have shared, after what he has told me, the words of King Solomon's bride ring in my head:

Ani l'dodi v'dodi li. I am my beloved's; my beloved is mine. The fullness of love, romance, intimacy, reverence and mutuality expressed in four words.**

We drift off to sleep for some hours and I think of the secrets he whispered against my skin. I still remember the shapes of the Hebrew characters, and as I reach out to lay my hand over his heart I trace them there with the tip of my finger.

* - Lyrics are borrowed from "You Make Loving Fun" by Fleetwood Mac, from the Rumours album (1977)

** - Herrnson, Rabbi L. (2015, April 21). Ani l'Dodi v'Dodi Li-What's In It For Me?