A/N: Soundtrack: 'You There' by Aquilo.

In London (Mid-October)

In London, the rain poured. It was not like the rain in New York, which fell to wash out the heat or the streets. Here, it poured pointlessly. In the morning, she walked along gray buildings and took the tube with thousands of others from the outskirts of the city to Victoria and walked along gray buildings to the offices of The Times newspaper on Victoria Street. She was one of only a few women working at The Times. She wasn't sure what she had expected of her job, but it did not involve taking photographs of any kind. She was assigned to filing away negatives, which was where most of the women worked. For as far as Therese knew, Mireille was the only female staff photographer – Mireille whom she had met when she had visited Paris with Carol for New Year's Eve 1951, and who had recommended her for this job in London in 1953. But Therese hardly even saw her now since they worked in different departments.

And Therese did not know whether she was losing her luster, or whether she just did not care anymore, because she did not bother to approach anyone about the fact that she had ambition. She simply worked. It was mindless work, and she lost herself in it. She studied the negatives, and memorized the names of the photographers scrawled on the back, and sometimes she saw a man in a suit slip into one of the darkrooms or heard low voices talking in the corridor, and she wondered what they might be talking about. Then she went to eat her packed lunch with the other people from the filing department. She did not say much at lunch either, and the people were nice, but they did not ask her many questions. They were different from the people in America.

America. She was far away from it now, and it felt far away from her. There was not as much space here as there was in America. She looked out of the window, and the people seemed to be piled on top of one another, a street urchin and a businessman and a wealthy woman in white, and the buses were piled on top of other buses, and the houses were old, carried the weight of history with them. In the filing department, the desks were dirty and the corridors were long and dark. But she liked the clang and bang of the heavy cabinets, rolling them out towards her and running her hand along the papers so neatly filed away. She did not mind the dust, did not mind the women with their headscarves and wrinkled hands stacking the pictures, did not mind the crowds at the beginning and the end of the day.

She did not even mind that she only spoke to Carol on Wednesdays. Hearing Carol here was not the same as hearing Carol in America. One day, she even missed her calling time with Carol, because they'd delayed locking up at the office. She walked home through the gray fog. She went to sleep. She lay in her bed with the fog surrounding her.

That was when she realized that she had been suppressing the thought, the one and only thought that had only ever really been on her mind, no matter where she was or what she did. She missed her. She missed her so unbearably much that she thought it would pull her apart into all the corners of the world.

The thought came to her, and she hated it. Guilt tortured her. Was this what she had left New York for? She could not sleep. She tossed and turned, writhing in her sheets as if it were high summer, when it was only ever getting colder and colder outside. Still, she slept for hours, not wanting to do anything else, even if that meant she dreamt feverishly – of murdering people for love. One night she dreamt of killing her old neighbor who was a florist and burying her body in the backyard, only to take all her flowers and send them away with letters of love. Everything I see, I see for you, she wrote in her dreams one night. Everything I photograph, everything I admire, I admire for you. I wish for you to see it. I wish for you to admire it as I do. I carry it with me only to give to you. I carry myself only for you. Then she woke up and went to the office, and called Carol but said little, and came back and went to sleep, until they threatened to fire her because she was dreaming at her desk.

At that point, she decided she would spend all her time on work. From one day to the next, she went from sleeping half a day to sleeping three hours a night. Every morning, she was at the office before anyone else, save the art editor. Every morning, she was dusting and reorganizing the entire filing department. Finally, the art editor, a Mr Harrison, stopped and asked her why in the world she was there at that ungodly hour. He was an older man, distinctly British, always in a striped suit. But she wasn't intimidated. She told him that she cared only about perfection and her work and that that was why she didn't care to be anywhere else during the day. He laughed. He allowed her to leave her filing cabinets for one weekend and accompany Mireille to a mill in Bolton to do a corner of his colorful picture page.

The next time she accompanied Mireille, it was a few days later – to a factory in Lancashire. She saw rolling hills and bombing sites. Within two weeks, Harrison told her that she could try being an assistant photographer, if she wanted to. The news spread through the offices like wildfire. It was surely the quickest a young person had been promoted in the history of the company, they said. Therese barely heard them. She wrote Carol to tell her, but did not call. She went home and worked, and eventually she slept, too. The restlessness never left her altogether, but she was familiar with it now. It slept with her in her bed, shared breakfast with her in the morning, walked her to work, tickled her at the office, and laughed with her in the evening. But she knew what it looked like now.

And when Mireille invited her over for drinks to celebrate her promotion, she even said yes.

They went out dancing to Cy Laurie's Jazz Club in Soho. Therese watched Mireille dance, in black slacks and a golden blouse embroidered with stars. The music shook the night air. When they had met in Paris, Mireille had been wearing a cream suit that Therese still remembered. Therese asked her if she still had it, and Mireille said that she did and that Therese could borrow it if she liked. Therese had started to dress better since her promotion, and Mireille complimented her black jacket and silk green shirt. Mireille's accent still sounded like Paris. Her black hair was shorter now, but she still wore the same red lipstick, and she still had the same laughing glint in her eye that Therese had liked.

They ran into Mireille's French friends, writers, photographers, actors. But Mireille didn't leave Therese behind. They talked about photography, and she learned that Mireille had worked for The Times for nearly ten years, that she had been to Africa and the Middle East, and that she had been a painter before then. They walked back to Mireille's art deco flat in Bloomsbury. The streets were quieter here. The Georgian houses glittered in the distance. They climbed a wooden staircase. Mireille tossed her keys onto the counter and her shoes into the corner.

'My feet hurt!' she said, reaching for the wine glasses. 'White or red?'

'Red,' Therese said, smiling. She looked around. The wallpaper was green-blue and there were photographs on all the walls, newspapers on the tables. There was a leopard print divan by the windows. The lamps were golden. She took off her coat. 'Soho seems far away here.'

'Yes! The best of both worlds.'

Therese walked past the marble kitchen and across the room to look at one of the pictures on the wall above the divan. It was a black-and-white image of a girl in a dress running through a field. 'Who's this?'

Mireille came over with the wine. 'A friend,' she said, and gave Therese a glass. 'But your pictures are better. À ta santé!' They made a toast. 'Remember the last time we toasted? Paris, in 1951 or 1952?'

'Yes.' Therese smiled. 'I remember.'

'Here's to remembering one another!' Mireille laughed, her light laugh from Paris, and, for the first time in London, Therese felt a sudden thrill of excitement. A few splatters of rain had begun to fall against the windowpanes. She looked at a painting that Mireille had made in the South of France.

Mireille lit a cigarette. 'Do you know that I showed Mr Harrison your portfolio, when he asked me who you were?'

Therese looked up. 'You did?'

'Do you know what he said?

'What?'

'That you had an eye for contradictions.'

Therese did not understand.

Mireille pointed at the first picture Therese had seen. 'This girl, running, and the field, still. You took a photograph this week that was better – that couple embracing in the shadows of a dirty club. London is a city of contradictions now, after the war, you know. But there are not many who can capture it.' Cigarette smoke billowed up between them. 'A true artist never settles for one truth.'

Therese blushed. 'Thank you.'

Mireille looked at her. 'Are you a girl of contradictions, Therese?'

Therese felt the excitement flood her mind. She met Mireille's gaze. 'I don't know,' she said. 'Are you?'

Mireille looked at her a moment longer, then laughed. 'Funny! More wine?'

Therese looked down and realized she'd emptied her glass. Her hands felt hot. She laughed, too. 'Yes. No, please, I'll get it.'

But, as she went to the counter to look for the bottle, she stopped. Mireille had begun to say something about the Elgin marbles, the stolen sculptures of the Parthenon, and was asking whether Therese had seen them at the British Museum, and Therese recalled telling Mireille in Paris that the Greek sculpture of Nike would be what she would remember most from the city, recalled Mireille saying that then the Elgin marbles would be what she would like most about London. But Therese had not been to see them yet, suddenly did not feel like she had seen anything of London, really. She became aware of a faint feeling of not knowing where she was. She remembered the pictures she had taken of Carol next to Nike at the Louvre, remembered Carol's arms around her as the fireworks went off outside.

When she turned round, Mireille was standing nearby. Her eyes were close, and dark. 'You look just as beautiful as you did in Paris,' she said.

Mireille took a step towards her, and Therese stood cornered by the sink. She stood, rooted to the spot, like a deer caught in the headlights, as she watched Mireille approach. Why didn't she move, why didn't she move. She was so alone. She closed her eyes, and she saw Carol. She felt the brush of a sleeve against her arm, and she felt Carol. A shadow passed over her face, and it was Carol's shadow. But as soon as the lips touched hers, soft but thin, soft but ill fitting, she knew they were not Carol's. She stiffened beneath them, and then the lips were gone.

When she opened her eyes, Mireille was looking at her. 'Tout va bien?' she asked. She raised a hand to Therese's face but Therese ducked out from under it. She went over to the coat stand.

'I should go.'

'Did I do something wrong?'

'No,' Therese said, putting on her coat. 'It's getting late.' She struggled with the lock on the front door.

Mireille came over to help, and Therese stepped away, but Mireille did nothing. She unlocked the door and shot Therese a sweet smile. 'See you at work?'

Therese nodded, and then she was gone, out on the street, out in the wind. She was so alone, and now she was crying, when all she had wanted was to feel Carol's hands on her arms, holding her, comforting her, to hear Carol's voice, laughing. She realized that she had been waiting for Carol to join her in London, for London to come alive for her with Carol, and that it did not make the slightest difference that Mireille was an artist and that Carol was not. And she knew, with a deep sense of disgust and dismay, that Mireille would never mean anything to her beyond the memory of the time she had spent in Paris with Carol. She walked another three blocks and the tears were like ice on her face. Then she walked into the first telephone booth she saw.

The operator couldn't understand her. She had to repeat the address three times. Then the phone rang. It rang for what seemed like a century.

There was a click. 'Carol Aird.'

Therese could not say anything. Speak again, speak again, she thought, as if she were talking to a muse.

'Hello?'

'Carol, it's me,' Therese said, and heard that she was still crying.

'Therese?' A pause, then, 'What is it? What's the matter?'

'You were right,' she said, 'about Mireille.'

'What do you mean?'

'About Mireille, that she–' She faltered.

'Oh,' Carol said. And Therese knew that she had already understood. 'What did she do?'

'It– It doesn't matter. What matters is that she never– she never asked me here because she thought my work was good.' Why couldn't she string two words together?

'Therese, what happened?'

'Nothing.' She could not bring herself to say it.

'Did she kiss you?'

There was never any point in pretending. 'Yes.'

'And are you in love with her?'

'No, of course not!'

'Well, that's a relief,' Carol said with a little laugh. It was a joke, but Therese thought she heard something more in it, a breath or sigh of emotion. It pulled her up short.

She hesitated. 'You were right,' she said.

'Listen, my love' – she did not think Carol had ever called her that before – 'these things happen. She finds you attractive. Who can blame her?' Therese began to smile. 'But that doesn't mean she doesn't think you're a good photographer. In fact, the one probably has something to do with the other.'

'You think?' She began, like a child, to wipe the tears off her face with the back of her hand.

'Of course,' Carol said and waited for Therese to say something. But Therese only wanted Carol to keep talking. She never wanted to hear what anyone else had to say. 'Why don't you tell Mireille that you made a mistake – you don't have to mention me if you don't want to – and that you just want to work together. She's a smart woman, I'm sure she'll understand. But you know all this.'

'All right,' she said. 'I'll do that.' Carol waited on the other end, across the frantic ocean, waited as she always waited. 'I'm sorry I woke you.'

'It's five hours earlier here, silly,' Carol said.

'Oh, right.' And Therese began to laugh like a madman. She laughed for a solid minute, until Carol finally found a place to interrupt.

'Please, darling, go to bed!' But Carol was laughing, too.

'I'm going!' Therese protested. But she didn't want to.

A breeze swung around the phone booth. 'Still with me?' Carol asked, after a moment.

'Yes.' She listened to the wind. She didn't know whether she heard it in New York or London. 'I miss you,' she said.

The line crackled. 'I miss you, too.' Silence. Therese closed her eyes. 'Speak on Wednesday, as ever?'

'Yes,' Therese said. 'As ever.'

'But call anytime. I don't mind.'

'All right.' Therese had not opened her eyes. She listened to Carol's breath. 'Good night.'

'Good night.'

When she stepped out of the telephone booth, the night felt cold. She started to walk home. She took out her camera and took a photograph of the fog-filled street. The sky was oddly bright and full of stars. At a traffic light, she looked up, and, in one of those rare moments in her young life, she did not feel in the least bit alone.

A/N: Sorry for the long wait! I had to cover quite a bit of information in this chapter, so I hope it works as a stand-alone piece. The art editor of 'The Times' is modeled on Ulric van den Bogaerde, who was the real art editor of the magazine until 1957. It was also under him that 'The Times' became the first newspaper to publish color photographs in 1931. The locations that Mireille and Therese go to are also ones where actual photographs for Bogaerde's 'picture pages' were taken. (Bogaerde was also, funnily enough, the father of Dirk Bogarde, which is why I randomly decided to give my editor the surname of a different 20C English actor, Rex Harrison.) Also, Cy Laurie's Jazz Club actually existed, of course.

Fancasting for Mireille remains Eva Green, as ever: .

Mireille's compliments on Therese's work are inspired by the famous photographs Brassaï took of Paris (also mentioned in my previous 'Paris' fic), saturated with light and shadow, dirt and beauty.

I'm afraid it will be a bit of a wait till the next installment, since my studies have started again, but I kind of try to make each scene work in and of itself, so I hope you don't mind too much and continue to enjoy!