6 August 1959

It was still mid-afternoon when Lucien finally crept down the back stairs of the Lock and Key, traipsing across the carpark and down a sidestreet before reaching his father's unpredictable old car. His stomach was rumbling, and while his wallet was significantly lighter than it had been when he'd arrived he had more than enough for a bottle of whiskey, a loaf of bread, and a few eggs. Lucien wasn't much of a cook, but he can manage a bit of toast and a scrambled egg or two, and that would see him through until the morning, when Mrs. Penny would restock the larder and take over the business of feeding him. It did not occur to him until he slipped behind the wheel of his car that he could have stayed for dinner at the pub; Jean served food and drink as well as...entertainment, and he had gone round there many times before to purchase nothing more salacious than a pint of beer. Of course that had been before; before he'd fallen into her bed, before he'd started to pay her for other, more interesting things, before he'd quite lost his heart to her. It had seemed easier, somehow, to make excuses for his behavior, to allow himself the delight of her company of an evening, when he was not a customer. Now that he was he avoided the pub except for their assignations, perhaps, in part, because of Matthew Lawson's warnings. When his motives were perfectly innocent he did not care who saw him there, but now that circumstances had changed he had begun to take more care, for appearance's sake.

And he liked that not one bit. Lucien enjoyed talking to Jean just as much as…the other thing, and she deserved better, he thought, than his sudden shame. Why shouldn't he go round just to talk to her, slide her shillings under the table and hear her sweet laughter? He cared for her - loved her, he knew - and he did not want to hide her, or limit their interactions only to the days he came to her with money in his pockets.

I'll visit again soon, he told himself as he drove into town, intent on purchasing the wares for his supper. His travels had been long and trying and he had over-exerted himself with Jean, and so now was looking forward to an early night. Perhaps tomorrow, or the next day, he could come round just to see her. It would be very pleasant indeed, he thought, to sit beside her, to watch her sipping her tea, to watch her perfect red-painted nails picking at a biscuit, to hear whatever she might be willing to say. There was very little in life more pleasant than a moment spent with Jean.

His errands took no time at all, and he soon pointed his car toward home. No one knew he had returned, just yet, no one save Mrs. Penny and Matthew Lawson; Lucien had sent him a telegram when his itinerary was in place, and it was Matthew who had informed Mrs. Penny her itinerant employer was returning, Matthew who had fetched him from the bus stop, brought him back home at last. Lucien realized as he drove that perhaps he ought to have Matthew round for dinner the following night, instead of trekking to the Lock and Key as he had been considering, but as he pulled his car onto the drive in front of his house he found Matthew already waiting for him, leaning against the back of his police car.

"This is a surprise," Lucien called to him as he stepped out of the car, turning to fetch his bundle before slamming the door. He had not thought to look for Matthew this evening, though he realized now he should have known better; Matthew Lawson was a good friend, and no doubt wanted to hear about Lucien's travels and see for himself that he was well. Lucien had been rather tight-lipped on the drive from the bus stop earlier in the day, his thoughts brooding on his daughter and Jean both, and he knew that Matthew was too much a copper to leave a question unanswered for long.

"I figured somebody ought to feed you," Matthew grumbled, "since you wouldn't let Mrs. Penny come today."

It was only then that Lucien noticed the little basket sitting on the ground at Matthew's feet, and he smiled.

"Bless you," he said warmly, reaching out to shake his friend's hand. "Now come on, come in out of the cold. I've got a little something for us to share."

He held up the whiskey bottle, and Matthew grinned, and followed him inside.

"So tell me," Lucien said as he leaned back in his chair, overfed and perhaps a touch tipsy and utterly content, "what's happened while I've been gone?"

Though it was barely gone five when he'd returned home he and Matthew had tucked into their supper at once; Matthew had bought their food at the local chippy, and they both wanted to eat while it was hot. The whiskey had flowed, as well, and they were both of them relaxed, enjoying one another's company immensely. Lucien could think of no better way to spend a day; he had seen Jean, held her, loved her, spoken to her, heard her soft voice, felt her gentle hands trailing through his hair, and now he had shared a meal with Matthew, and he could still taste the vinegar on his lips beneath the whiskey. He was home, and he had come to terms with that, over the last month and more, had accepted that he belonged here, now, that he loved Ballarat, for all its shortcomings. There was nowhere else he'd rather be.

"Well," Matthew began, "there's a new pathology registrar. She takes some getting used to, but I think you'll like her."

"She?" Lucien asked, impressed. There was only one female doctor at the local hospital, and he knew the good old boys' club had made her life hell, on occasion. He admired anyone who was brave enough to pursue their passion in the face of animosity and ridicule, and this new pathology registrar had likely seen her share of both, for while women were slowly breaking into the world of surgery pathology remained, in his experience, starkly masculine.

"Dr. Harvey. Alice Harvey. She's...an odd duck. But she's damn good at her job, I'll tell you that."

"Good looking, too?" Lucien asked, raising an eyebrow insinuatingly at him. Matthew was an odd duck, too, Lucien thought, and he had been too long alone. It would be nice to see him settle down with someone, to know that he was not lonesome, to know that someone cared for him as he deserved.

Matthew scowled. "We're colleagues, Lucien," he said gruffly.

"I'll take that as a yes," Lucien answered, laughing. He took a sip of his whiskey, wondering if Matthew would use this as another opportunity to warn him away from the good-looking woman who'd caught his own eye, but mercifully he was spared such admonishment. Matthew simply took a drink, and then carried on with his accounting of events that had transpired in Lucien's absence.

"I'm sorry to say it, Lucien, but Nell Clasby has died."

The good cheer that had been slowly swelling like a balloon in Lucien's chest deflated suddenly, and grief roared through his heart once more. Nell was a dear, sweet woman, the kindly grandmother Lucien had never had, but always longed for. It was on account of Nell that he had even stayed on in Ballarat in the first place; she'd needed a physician, urgently, and he cared for her too deeply to leave her in someone's else's hands. It had all spiraled out from there; Nell had recommended him to other patients who had taken their business elsewhere after Thomas's stroke, and they came flocking back in droves. Nell was the one who had encouraged him to take over the police surgeon's role; just while you're here, she'd said, looking at him with eyes that seemed to see already how life in Ballarat had begun to agree with him. He'd looked forward to his quiet chats with Nell more than any of his other patients. And now she was gone, and he hadn't even been able to attend her funeral.

"That's a damn shame," he said, a bit thickly. I should have been here, he thought, I shouldn't have been gallivanting off on the other side of the world. Li doesn't even want to see me, and maybe if I'd been here I could have helped Nell. Maybe I could have-

"There was nothing anyone could have done, Lucien," Matthew said, demonstrating an uncanny ability to read his mind. "She was taking the medicine you prescribed for her. She had a massive stroke in her sleep. It isn't your fault."

What if it is?

"It's the nature of life to end, Blake. But you're a doctor, I suppose death is something of a personal insult to you."

"Only when it happens to people I care about."

My father. My wife. Nell - bloody hell.

"I saw your old mate Alderton the other day," Matthew said then. Perhaps he meant to take Lucien's mind off Nell, to stop him brooding, and he succeeded in part. Lucien's natural sense of curiosity had him taking the bait at once, but thoughts of Nell would return when he was alone once more, he knew.

"What's he up to now?" Lucien asked.

"To be perfectly honest, I don't have any idea. I saw him in the Pig and Whistle last week. He was alone, out of uniform. Given how we left things the last time I saw him I didn't think it would be appropriate to start interrogating him right there. I left him to his pint."

Lucien chuckled darkly. Yes, they had not left things in a good place between them, the last time Derek was in town. Blame for the deaths of the morgue attendant and the theft of the soldier's body had been placed firmly on Derek's man Hannam, but Derek's justifications had been too smooth, his disappointment utterly feigned, and Hannam had been whisked away to face punishment at the army's hands - that is to say, Lucien knew, no punishment at all. Sergeant Hannam had been acting on orders, and they all - Lucien, Derek, and Matthew - knew that Derek was the one who'd given those orders. But he had slipped away, a big fish swimming into deeper, murkier waters. Thoughts of him unsettled Lucien, now. There had been a time when he counted Derek his best friend in all the world, when he had quite literally placed his life in the man's hands. But now Derek had become a company man, had lost some of his humanity in the pursuit of the government's goals. Hannam had even tried to kill Lucien himself, and deep in his heart Lucien knew it was Derek who had put him up to it. They had been brothers-in-arms, once, and yet he no longer recognized the man his brother had become.

"Maybe he just has some business on base," Matthew said slowly. "The Major's an important man."

"Maybe," Lucien allowed. Maybe it was only a coincidence, Derek returning to the town where Lucien lived a few days before Lucien came home from China. Maybe their paths would not cross; maybe that was for the best. And yet Lucien could not quite bring himself to believe that. They were too closely bound, Lucien and Alderton. There was too much unfinished between them; the matter of sending his right-hand man to kill Lucien being first on a list of many things he wished they could discuss. Was there some piece of Derek still in there, Lucien wondered, some part of that man who had supported him through three years of hell, kept him alive when their Japanese captors whipped him within an inch of his life, who had wrung him out after too much drink more times than he could count, who had covered for him when he was drunk and suicidal in China after the war? Where was that man, and could he be found again, could Derek be freed from the forces that had so twisted him? Or was it too late, was he too far gone down this path to ever be redeemed?

"Here's to old friends, eh?" Matthew said, raising his glass. Lucien lifted his own, and as they clinked together Matthew added, "may we never meet them again."