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After taking a short break from writing, imposed by my unco-operative muse, I'm going to try and post the last four chapters as soon as I can. Thank you for all the lovely comments and begging messages. I'm sorry it's taken so long but I hope I have done the characters justice.

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Chapter Seven

The dressing would need changing in a day or so but he thought one of the nurses might be better suited to dealing with the old woman. More than anything she wanted someone to talk to, someone to check in on her and he barely had enough time for his work as it was. Agnes was rather patient, he mused, and she would appreciate a few hours away from the hospital. He made a note to seek her out when he got back and suggest it.

"One of these days, Richard, you are going to walk into a wall, or get mown down by a horse and trap."

He blinked twice, trying to focus on where the voice was coming from, acknowledging that for once it wasn't in his head. Turning slightly, he came face to face with its owner. "Good day, Isobel."

She smiled weakly. "You need to pay more attention when you're walking down the middle of the road."

"I need more hours in the day. I have far too much to think about and not enough time."

Pursing her lips nervously, she studied him for a few minutes, "I was wondering, hoping really, that you might have a few minutes. There's something I would like to discuss with you."

"That sounds serious," he replied, suddenly concerned. There was something in her voice that made him think the worst, and the fact her eyes refused to meet his and he hadn't seen her in days, meant the chances of it being something as benign as the hospital were slim. He held out his arm, waiting for her to take it. "Of course, anytime. Please, let me walk you home."

She shook her head, tugging her bottom lip between her teeth hesitantly, not wanting to do what she needed to do in her own home, not least for fear she would chicken out again. "May we talk in your office?"

The nervous tightening in his stomach intensified but he nodded. "As you wish."

They walked in companionable silence along the street, conscious of the people around them, and through the gate to the small cottage hospital. The corridors were relatively empty at that time of day and he paused only once to sign a patients chart before leading her into his office. Discarding his coat and hat, he placed his bag on the desk before moving a stack of papers out of the way, prolonging the moment she dropped the bombshell that he was sure was about to follow.

"Would you like some tea?" At the shake of her head, he continued, "Please take a seat."

She remained on her feet, edging slowly across the room, her eyes drifting from one thing to another, and he knew then that whatever she said would include a reprimand.

Clasping her hands in front of her, Isobel momentarily studied the floor before lifting her head almost defiantly to look at him. "I'm fine. I haven't been in the hospital because I've been spending time with Mary and Edward."

"That's good," he chanced, his tone warm despite the apprehension coursing through his body.

"It is. I have to be needed, Richard, and I am. Who would have imagined that someone so small could need so much. And I've been sorting through Matthews belongings," she continued, the catch in her voice not missed by him. "Edward will be able to read all about his fathers exploits at school when he is ready."

Richard had to look away. He knew what was coming and he wasn't ready for it. While she had come and gone as it suited her over the months, he knew she was coming back, knew her absences meant she was healing. He wanted her to heal but until that moment he hadn't considered the possibility that working through her grief would eventually mean she would again abandon him. He let out a deep sad sigh at the thought, one hand instinctively pressing against his chest.

"I may not be sleeping as much as I did before, and I may not have regained my appetite fully but I feel better than I have in months." She paused when he still refused to look at her and decided there was no better time. "So you can stop interfering."

His head snapped round of its own accord, shocked by the anger in her tone.

"No more asking Moseley how I am doing. The poor man is very loyal and very worried, the last thing he needs is you musing about my pallor or whether I'm leaving the house. And Robert? Whatever made you think he might have the slightest inclination as to how I might be coping?"

Richard opened his mouth to speak. "I was . . ."

"Yes, worried, I know. I'm telling you here and now that you can stop worrying. As you can see I'm fine."

He was truly too shocked to argue. They had fought before, two people who were so passionate about their beliefs could hardly avoid defending those beliefs, but there was real anger and coolness in her eyes, and he had never been the recipient of that before. He could protest that as her friend he had every right to worry, or maybe defend his right as her physician to ask after her, but he was too stunned to offer either by way of explanation. "If that's what you want."

Isobel nodded mutely.

"Is this what you wanted to talk to me about?" he asked, leaning back against his desk, putting physical distance between them, mirroring the sudden emotional distance he felt from her.

"Yes." Though said quietly there was determination behind her words. "I think it's time I . . . "

"You know I'll do whatever you want."

Her eyes studied the floor, tracing the pattern in the rug, avoiding the sincerity in his eyes. When he had proposed she had initially thought he was lonely, looking for someone to spend his retirement with and that she was the obvious choice. The ease with which he accepted her gentle brush off seemingly confirmed it, until her world fell apart, and he emerged as the one person who truly cared enough to accept who she had become. He had never mentioned marriage again, probably never would, but it didn't stop her wondering if he loved her. Finally, she lifted her head and looked directly at him. "I wish you would just leave me alone."

His jaw gaped open as he stared back at her.

"Every time I turn round you're there waiting for me to break. Will you not be satisfied until I'm in pieces?"

"Isobel, that's not it at all," he protested. "The last thing I would ever want is for your grief to overwhelm you. But I need you to know that if everything becomes too much that someone is here for you, to listen, to act as a sounding board for your anger, to offer more than a long list of charity engagements to keep you occupied."

"And that someone has to be you?" she asked, her anger dissipating at the sincerity in his voice.

He shook his head, fearful he had stepped over the mark.

"Because I have spent every day since his death trying not to break in front of you."

Richard furrowed his brow. "But why?" It made little sense that she would fight so hard not to break before him, the one man who knew how to help her.

And that was the crux of it. Why had she tried so hard to hide her grief, to be strong in front of him when there were times all she wanted to do was fall into his arms. "Because that's the way it's supposed to be," she offered half-heartedly, ignoring the truth.

"Then that's the way it will be." He turned, intent on moving back around the desk but stopped, giving her a look of dismay. "But I don't think it's worthy of our friendship. And," he started, feeling bolder than he ever had around her. "I have to ask people how you are because all you ever say is that you're fine, and I know there is no earthly way you can be fine."

"Of course I'm not fine," she snapped, her composure failing, as she lost herself in the adoration in his eyes. "Matthew is dead."

He let the words hang between them, echoing in the silence of the room.

"Matthew is dead. My Matthew is dead." Somewhere deep inside of her the dam broke. Saying the words out loud to him gave it a finality she had been trying to ignore. For weeks she had been boxing up his belongings, relegating the bad memories to a corner of her mind, half pretending that he had gone away rather than focusing on the fact he was never coming back. And now, without warning, the stark reality was upon her and Richard was standing before her, his eyes full of love and compassion. "Oh my god, my dear darling boy is dead."

He had waited for the moment, part in trepidation, part in anticipation, but when it cam he had been thoroughly unprepared. How could he be. While he knew she would break, hoped she would find her way to him, he didn't know when, hadn't fully contemplated how he would deal with it.

"Richard," she half sobbed, half gasped. "He's not coming back."

"No, he's not," he said quietly. How many times had he told someone their loved one was gone, he had lost count, but this was different, he shared her pain because he loved her.

"No."

He hesitated, even more unsure of what she wanted from him. The first tear spilled onto her cheek and he suddenly didn't care what she wanted, only that she needed comforting. Crossing the room, he locked the door with a loud click against the silence of the office, before returning to her, his arms open wide. When she didn't move he pulled her against his chest and held her almost timidly, his hands high on her back, ignoring the way she struggled against him. He couldn't let her go, the keening almost breaking his heart, as he waited her out, her resistance finally waning and she collapsed against him.

"I miss him so much. There would be days when I wouldn't see him but he would drop me a note, and I knew where he was. And he used to come by for tea whenever he could. He was the only person who didn't think me completely foolish for wanting to help those women."

She continued to mumble against his chest, choking sobs dampening his waistcoat as she delivered a loving monologue about the boy she had single handedly raised, her desperate need to talk about her son finally breaking through her defences.

"He was so excited about being a father. I hadn't seen him that happy since the day he married Mary." Her thoughts drifted to that day, in the hospital as she told him mother and baby were both well. He had engulfed her in his arms, completely besotted by his child even before meeting him. An hour later he had been dead. Fresh sobs racked her body and she gripped his waistcoat, holding on tightly as if he too would disappear.

"What is the point of any of it anymore?"

Richard closed his eyes, his own emotions as close to the surface as he had allowed them since it happened. He wanted so very much to tell her how much she had to live for, that Edward was the point, but he remained silent, allowing her to voice the pain she had been concealing for so long. Saying it out loud would help he knew. He allowed his body to relax a little as she pulled him closer; one hand slipped to the small of her back as the other moved to her hair, no longer timid in his comforting.

"I haven't slept in months. I wander that damn house trying to tire myself out and I am tired, so very tired, so very very tired and yet as soon as I do fall asleep I wake up again."

Gently, he stroked her hair, breathing in the lemony scent of her shampoo, whispering a mantra of soothing words that she could not hear.

"Nothing gives me satisfaction anymore. Not the hospital, not the painting or the baking." She let out a sad sigh. "And the poor wee baby. He'll grow up without a father, or Mary will meet someone else and then he'll be gone from my life too."

"Mary would never do that to you," he said firmly, his voice rising slightly in volume at the absurdity of such a notion.

"Richard, I feel so alone, always so alone. It's so much worse than when Reginald died. He'd lived a life, we'd shared so much together but in a way it was a blessing, he'd been so ill, in so much pain that it was a relief that it was over. But Matthew had so much more to live for. I wanted to see him raise his son, to have so many more children. I couldn't you see."

"You're not alone," he whispered, trying to break through her tears, to stop the rambling. "Isobel, please let me give you something, once you get some sleep you'll feel better. It won't go away but you'll be able to fight it."

She shook her head as the sobbing intensified. "Why would I want to make it better?"

Softly he tugged her head back, forcing her to look at him. For me, he wanted to say. Because I'm here and while I can't bring him back I can be there, I can help you find a reason to keep on living. Except that wasn't what he found himself saying. "This isn't what Matthew would have wanted."

"I'm so sick of being what everyone expects me to be. Forcing myself to smile at banality and pretending that I'm not grieving as much as Mary. That I don't have the same right as she does to mourn him still. It's the upper class way, you know, stiff upper lip and all that. Well I'm just a doctors daughter from Manchester. I want to fall apart. I want to curl up in a ball and cry. I want to question why God took my boy. They have to let me do that."

He felt guilty, guilty for wanting to make it better for her, guilty that he couldn't. Without thinking, he held her more tightly, his hand catching on her pins as he caressed her scalp. His eyes fluttered shut as he tried to ignore the sudden current of love that swept through his body.

"I stand in that room sometimes, seeing his body broken and bleeding, and then I walk down the corridor and I can see him, practically running to his family, so happy. And he was in the men's ward after the Somme. . ." She took a deep steadying breath. "Do you remember the first time you went swimming, that feeling when you flailed your arms as you sank deeper under water? Trying desperately to reach the surface. That's how I feel, except I'm not flailing, I'm drowning. Drowning in grief, and I can't reach the surface. I kick and I scream and the water is still over my head. And part of me wants to drown because then I'd be with my baby."

"I know you won't believe me. But it will get easier." Drowning meant dying and he wasn't ready to acknowledge that she would rather die than fight to live. He had to get her to believe it would get easier.

"How would you know?" she asked, choking back another sob and looking up at him, her eyes wide, her expression one of hope.

"Because it has to. I can't believe there is a purpose for you to suffer like this for eternity."

Isobel considered his words, the simplicity of his statement coming she knew from his heart. "Then maybe I shall hold on to that thought, will it to be true too." Her eyes dropped back to his shirt, now almost transparent from her tears and she slackened her grip.
Suddenly she pulled back, as if remembering herself, her hand pressed firmly against his chest as she put distance between them. "I'm so sorry Richard," she said. "I. . ."

"You don't. . ."

"I must go." She started to move backwards, almost tripping as she tried to get away from him, her hand swatting against her eyes. "I . . . Good night, Richard."

She was gone before he had chance to reply, to offer his own bidding. He moved towards the door to go after her, but stopped himself, finding himself standing in the middle of his office, his clothes damp from her tears, his arms now empty. How could he go after her? What would people think? What more could he say? The room began to move around him and he sank into the visitor chair as he tried to regain his balance. She as much as told him to leave her alone and however much it pained him, he would respect her wishes. And then she had broken down; the grief he knew she was suppressing finally rising to the surface. He couldn't help but resonate on the fact the one thing he had hoped for for months had finally happened. As he sat trying to ignore the pain in his chest, and the overwhelming feeling of loneliness, he had to acknowledge the real prospect that in the process she might finally walk away from the hospital and from him.

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