XII:

"Good morning, dear heart," Jean said, giving Lucien a quick kiss as she plated up his eggs and toast. "I'm afraid I've got rounds at the hospital this morning, so I'd best get a move on."

"Jeanie, before you go," he said in a gentle voice, capturing her hand and pulling her back to him for a moment. "Happy anniversary, my darling."

She paused, then murmured, "It isn't our wedding anniversary, Lucien."

"No, it's the anniversary of the day we met," he said, a small smile on his lips. "I think that's just as important as –"

She cut him off with a kiss, perhaps more forcefully than necessary. "I love you so much," Jean breathed against his lips, nipping at his lower lip teasingly. "Ridiculous, sentimental man…"

"I am," he agreed, chuckling.

"I am going to be late," she sighed.

"Just another moment," he said hesitantly. "Jeanie, I know… I know it's been a couple months since I came home and I've been… not myself. Or, rather, not the man you remember me being. And I am sorry –"

"No, Lucien," Jean said, stopping him by putting her fingers over his lips. "You do not have to apologize to me for what happened to you in that awful place. I really am just glad that you're home, I promise. And if I make you feel uncomfortable, just tell me so, and I'll stop whatever it is that I'm doing that makes you upset." She smiled sadly, stroking his beard. "I'm grateful that you even let me close, considering what you've been through."

"That's just it, darling," he said, leaning into her touch, "you're home to me – you're everything safe and wonderful and… I'm scared that I'll destroy that."

"I'm much stronger than you give me credit for," she reminded him softly, smiling. "I seem to remember taking none of your nonsense the first day we met – and any subsequent day, for that matter. Which made you more determined to be an arse to get my attention."

"Yes, well… you were the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen in my life and you looked at me like you couldn't spare me the time for change for the bus," he commented.

"I didn't have change for the bus," she teased, chuckling, and giving him a kiss. "I was quite broke until your father sent me some money. And, yes, I do know how that sounds." She sighed and patted his cheek. "I need to get going."

"Wait, I – I have something for you, but we've somehow gotten away from the plot," he stammered, reaching into his trouser pocket and producing a square, flat ivory jewelry box. "I… I bought this in Singapore before the Japanese invaded," he explained, "because it reminded me of you."

"Lucien, you didn't have to –"

"No, but I want to," he said, eyes shining. "I want you to have it, Jeanie; it's always been yours, love."

She sighed and took the box, opening it for his benefit. She didn't want to tell him that she didn't need tokens and trinkets of his affections, just said affection, because it would offend all of the efforts he put in to surprising her, and if it made him feel wanted and needed, so much the better. Jean stifled a gasp as she beheld a beautiful large brooch in the shape of a lotus blossom fashioned out of delicate petals of jade flanked by a setting of gold and diamonds. "Lucien –"

"Something beautiful for my beautiful girl," he whispered gruffly, giving her a kiss on the cheek. "Now, you'd better be off, yes?"

She stared at him for the longest time, tears in her eyes, not trusting herself to speak, to ask any of the questions she wanted to, or to even breathe, but finally, she nodded and gave him back the box. "Will you put it away for me?" Jean asked practically, the only thing she could manage to conjure in the moment. "Lucien – thank you."

His smile didn't quite reach his eyes when he said, "Anything for you, Jeanie."

When Jean got home, she bypassed the dinner table, despite Thomas calling out to her and ran upstairs without a word of acknowledgment or greeting. She didn't trust herself to say anything without crying; it had been that kind of a day, to have laid waste completely to all of her defenses and all that was left standing was her… but for how long?

Her dress was ruined: despite the surgical greens and lab coat, it had borne the worst of her day, and she didn't want Leigh to see it. Nor did she want her daughter to see her face such as it was, tear-streaked and horror-stricken.

She had lost two patients – one to childbirth, one to the ravages of cancer. And she had been forced at one o'clock to rush into emergency theatre with the surgeon on duty and Susan Tyneman due to unforeseen complications with the pregnancy, resulting in a termination and a complete hysterectomy due to a baseball sized cyst that had been growing on her ovary. It was no wonder she couldn't carry a pregnancy to term – it was a wonder she was even alive!

Jean grabbed her robe and clean underwear and went into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. She got into the shower and turned the water up as hot as she could stand and just stood under it, shaking and letting it pound on her until it ran cold, making her shiver. That was when she realized that someone was pounding on the door. "All right, all right!" she shouted. "I'll be out in a minute!"

She turned off the shower and rested her head against the wall, trying to ground herself again, trying to get her bearings, to remember that it was all right, that everything would be all right… but the reassurance felt hollow. She toweled herself off and put on the clean undergarments and her robe, and met Lucien at the door. "I'll be down for dinner after I get clothes on," she said quietly.

"I can bring it up," he volunteered.

"I'm not an invalid."

"I didn't say you were."

"I'm not hungry anyway," she whispered, turning away before she broke down again. The last thing she wanted was to add to his pain. "Can you… can you get Leigh ready for bed and I'll tuck her in and tell her a story?"

"Jean, you need to eat something – have you eaten anything today? Have you even stopped and had a cup of tea or a biscuit or something since breakfast?" he asked, resting a hand on her shoulder. "Darling –"

"I had a cuppa just before I rushed into theatre with Mrs. Tyneman," Jean said quietly, rubbing her forehead tiredly. "But nothing to eat since breakfast, no. And I stopped carrying sweeties in my pockets because Leigh would steal them once she realized they were there."

"Sweetheart, go lie down – I'll put Leigh to bed and…"

"But she'll have gone all day without having seen me since she got up," she protested. "What kind of mother does that make me, Lucien?"

"A very tired one," Lucien said in a no-nonsense tone. "Go lie down and I'll bring her in to say good night."

She turned around and nodded, allowing him to pull her into his arms for a tender, warm embrace, before he stepped away to tend to their daughter. She went to their bedroom and changed into a flannelette nightgown and was just settling onto the edge of the bed when Leigh scrambled into the room, calling, "Mummy, mummy."

"Hello, my sweet girl," Jean greeted her as Lucien scooped her up and dropped her onto the bed. "I missed you today, darling."

"Mithed you, too, mummy," Leigh agreed, snuggling up to her and resting her head beneath her mother's chin, arms wrapped wide around her torso.

Jean didn't know how long they stayed like that, but eventually, Lucien gently pulled the little girl from her arms with a smile. "I'll put her to bed now," he said softly. "She just wanted her mum for a bit and she was out like a wee light."

"Mmm," Jean agreed.

"And I'll bring up a tray with your dinner on it," he said.

"I'm really not –"

"Jeanie."

"All right," she said, giving in. She would try, for his sake, to eat a little, even though her stomach was in knots, her anxiety higher than she could tolerate. She sat in silence, staring straight ahead, fiddling with her cuticles nervously, until he came back with a wooden tray of food. She looked at it, then at him, the sweet compassion and anxious love painted upon his face and burst into tears.

"Jeanie… no, sweetheart, please don't cry," he pleaded. "Darling, I know you had a hard day – it must have been bloody awful – but please, it's not worth making yourself ill over."

She let him settle the tray onto her lap and made an effort of eating some of the roast, potatoes and veg, then picked at the fluffy mounds of mashed potatoes and said, "When the Tynemans are through with me, I'll lose my license to practice, I'm sure… and it will be well-deserved. What happened today is my fault and if Susan dies, I am to blame."

"Jeanie, that isn't true – there is no way on god's green earth that you would intentionally harm another human being," Lucien said.

"I didn't," she shot back sharply. "But I didn't catch something, and it almost killed her, and now she could go septic in the next couple of days. And that is my fault – entirely, solely my fault." She stabbed a brussels sprout viciously and muttered, "Everything that happened today is my fault. Both deaths and Susan Tyneman."

His eyes widened. "No, no, love," he said insistently. "Darling, look at me – look at me. You aren't god, Jeanie – none of this is your fault. You're very much a human being, flesh and blood, Jean Blake: you get it wrong just like all of us do. Today was just a day when it happened more than most. It isn't all your fault, sweetheart. I promise." They had both talked each other through the same thing so many times as to be ridiculous now, and yet, the words still had to be said time and again, the guilt and shame of losing patients and being infallible still stinging like the crack of a ruler on the back of their knuckles in school.

"I can't talk about it," she said. "If you were there, if you were practicing – maybe, it would be different, but… I can't. You aren't."

He nodded and reached out to stroke her face, to wipe away her tears, to gently tuck her hair behind her ear. "Soon," he promised softly. "I am trying."

"I know – and it's selfish of me to want you back in the thick of this world with me," she murmured, "but I need you."

He smiled, just a little. "It's nice to know that," he said. "Truthfully."

"Lucien… what am I going to do?" she whispered.

"You're going to finish your dinner and lie back and try to get some sleep because it does no good to worry," he said.

She scoffed. "Right, Mr. Nightmare."

"Well, I seem to recall a sure-fire way to get you to sleep," Lucien said.

Jean blushed. "Lucien!"

"What?"

"Really?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Warm milk, dear."

She blushed harder, trying not to think of him heavy between her thighs, filling her with unsatiable bliss. She woke most mornings with him pressed against her, hard and wanting, but he shied away from her touch like a feral creature, so she lived in a constant state of aroused frustration. If she wasn't convinced that she would go to hell for fingering herself, she probably would, just to get some relief – and then he goes and makes a stupid comment like that.

"No, thank you," Jean said. She threw the covers off and handed him the tray that had been balanced on her knees, then got up and put on her slippers. "I don't need warm milk, Lucien."

She went downstairs in search of the bottle of sherry that Thomas kept for her, pleased to find that it was only half empty, and she very quickly did away with half that volume. She settled onto the settee and waited for the world to stop spinning. Instead, Lucien joined her, a sigh and a pout on his lips. "Jeanie… drinking really isn't the answer," he said.

"Then what is?" she shot back. "You don't want to make love to me – and I have wanted so badly to… just… god help me, Lucien, I have wanted to…" She lowered her voice to barely more than a whisper. "I have wanted to make love to you so much the last few days, I can't even stand myself. I know it's wrong, that you don't want me that way anymore –"

"Jeanie, of course I want you," he interjected.

"I have not drunk nearly enough sherry for this conversation," Jean said, over-enunciating every last vowel and consonant while looking him directly in the eye and glaring. "You are a liar, Lucien Blake – a liar and a cad and you do not want your wife as a husband should want a very willing wife who wants to… to… bed him – no, I do not want merely to bed you. No, no, I want to fuck you until you remember why you married me in the first place. Because I love you and I need you and I want you, Lucien. Damn you." She waved the nearly empty sherry bottle in his face. "I am stronger than this – damn you."

He reached out and plucked the bottle from her grasp effortlessly and set it aside. "You are the strongest woman I have ever known," Lucien said very softly. "And there is no weakness in wanting, Jeanie. None at all." He ever so gently captured her wrist in his grasp and pulled her closer to him. "I love you and I didn't want to frighten you off, Jean. I'm not the same man you married – not anymore. The war changed me, and not… not for the better. But you haven't run away yet, and I think… I think I could –"

"Don't you dare pin this on me," she whispered. "I've tried so hard –"

"I know," he said, nodding. "You've been the best, Jeanie. The very best – my wonderful, beautiful wife. My Jeanie – my girl, who kept me alive in the worst of it because I knew I could come home to you."

"Lucien… if you don't want to have sex with me, just say so because then at least I can learn to live with disappointment," Jean said, looking away from him. "I don't have to understand, I just need to know so I can stop expecting –"

He cut her off with a fierce, passionate kiss, leaning her back over the arm of the settee, making her moan and struggle slightly against the onslaught. But then she relaxed when his tongue ran over the seam of her lips, gently parting them and urging her mouth open into a deeper, hungrier series of kisses that rather reminded her of the early days of their tryst in London, when everything was new and shiny and full of bright colors and lights and happiness. Dear god, he was an excellent kisser, and his hands were all over her breasts, finding the familiar places that made her shamelessly shudder with want and gasp into their heady kisses.

"We can't down here," she panted between kisses as he groped her, the situation quickly getting beyond all hope of containment – not that she wanted to try to contain it at all. She wanted him in any way she could get him, as fast as she could get him, immediately.

"Dad's gone up," Lucien exhaled, kissing down her neck, growling when he came to the collar of her nightdress. "This has got to go – or at least come up."

"Up," she responded, grabbing at the hem, yanking it up around her waist, giving him a fair view of her bare legs and knickers, and a flash of navel. He growled again and his hands wandered up beneath the edge of the nightgown, tickling her ribcage, his fingers tweaking her nipples. She tried to smother a cry of pleasure but it came out as a squeaking noise instead, and he looked rather satisfied with himself.

"How could you possibly think for even a moment that I could ever not want you?" he asked. They fumbled together with his belt, his trousers, her knickers, his briefs, the layers of clothing between them barely pulled down to their knees or up around their waists, or in the case of her knickers off and onto the floor, before her legs were wrapped around his hips and he was kissing her with the desperation of a drowning man. Drowning with the want of her.

Dear god, they were dying with the need of each other, and the moment he found the little bundle of nerves between them, pushing her closer to the edge of madness, her whole body tensed with anticipation of the fall. He played her like the most delicate instrument, coaxing the most intimate, loving song out of her, until she was mewling his name in delight, her climax pulsing through her like a runaway train, begging him to come along for the ride.

He had that frightened, panicked look again, the wild animal slinking around the edges of civilization looking for scraps, and Jean reached up to stroke his beard as he pulled his fingers away from her body, clearly overwhelmed by her response to his attentions. "Lucien, please," she whispered. "Let me love you – I love you," she promised, her words slurring both from alcohol and pleasure. "I won't hurt you." She murmured, "Why don't you sit on the settee and I'll do the work?"

"Jeanie, I –"

"Just sit down, and kiss me, you ridiculous man," she scolded softly, helping maneuver them into a more comfortable position with him seated and her straddling his lap. They kissed and petted for a few minutes, getting him back into a more stable but excited mood, less likely to bolt, and then Jean reached between them and stroked his erection boldly, giving him a good squeeze near the tip just like he liked in a handjob. He groaned into their kiss and his hips bucked, so she did it again, pleased that he got even harder in her hand and was basically as close to ready as she thought he should be if they were going to continue. "Lucien… do you want to – we can stop –"

"Don't you dare stop, Jean," he panted.

She smiled gently and kissed him, deepening the kiss as she positioned herself, sinking onto him with a satisfied purring hum in the back of her throat as her body adjusted to take him in. For his part, his eyes had closed in an expression of ecstasy she had only seen on his face twice before, and she felt a very feminine kind of smug satisfaction in knowing that she had such power over him. And then she was fully seated against him, breaking the kiss and laughing breathily. "I feel very naughty doing this where anyone could come in and find us," she murmured, shifting her hips ever so slightly, feeling a rush of white hot bliss fissure up her spine. She felt full, loved, and he looked like he was going to die of the pleasure of it all.

"You're at least partially covered," he growled, bringing her down for a kiss, making her move and gasp as she felt another frisson of sensation slice through her. "Jeanie – don't try to make it last. We have forever now."

"I know we have forever," she breathed, pressing her forehead to his, "but I need now – we need… Lucien, love, we need now." She shifted her hips, drawing up, then lowering again, a high-pitched sound leaving her throat as the angle pressed just the right place to make her weak and giddy. She wanted that high, needed that high, craved him, wanted the feel and the taste of him, the desire for all of it so overwhelming after years of denial and abstinence.

They moved faster in tandem, fingers tangling together, then in one another's hair, in the pieces of clothing left, bodies pulsing with pleasure and need, finally shattering into a million shards of pure ecstatic agony. And when Jean could finally breathe again, she found herself breathing in the warm, reassuring sweaty smell of his cotton shirt, and she smiled, splaying her hand over his chest where his heart was still hammering away.

"Jeanie?"

"Mmm?"

"I love you."

"I love you, too, Lucien…"

"Should we clean up and go to bed?" he asked softly, tucking her hair back.

"Maybe that would be best," she murmured.

"Tomorrow can't be as bad as today, right?"

"We can only hope," Jean said with a small smile.

"Besides, it's not all been bad."

She smiled and kissed him soundly on the lips, unsurprised that he deepened the kiss and pulled her tighter to him again. "No, not all bad," Jean agreed, blushing and ducking to nuzzle his nose with her own. "Some excellent," she praised with a quiet earnestness that made him blush a little as well. "Come on, let's clean up and away to bed."

They walked up to bed holding hands and went to sleep with Jean stretched out on top of Lucien like a sleepy cat sunning herself, her head tucked beneath his chin, her arms around his torso. And she hadn't been happier since the day they were married; it was stupid how blissfully happy she was just to know that he still loved her that way.

They were just sitting down for lunch when the doorbell rang. "I wonder who that could be," Thomas muttered, getting up to go check. When he came back, Lucien was just finishing cutting Leigh's sandwich into triangles, and Jean was portioning out the little girl's sides. "We have a visitor," Thomas announced.

Jean looked up to see Patrick Tyneman standing in the doorway behind her father-in-law, his imposing bulk rather frightening to her in the moment – she was still terrified after the day before. "Mr. Tyneman," she greeted very quietly.

"Patrick," Lucien said snidely, "did they let you out of the boardroom long enough for a quick visit to the hospital between meetings?"

"Very funny," Patrick said with a huff. "I came to see Dr. Randall about my wife."

"Shall we go into the surgery?" Jean asked softly.

"No, what I need to say can be said here."

Jean swallowed hard, then nodded. "All right. Would you care for a sandwich? I'm afraid it's last night's leftover ham, but it's still edible."

"No, thank you, Dr. Randall," Patrick said. "I… well, I know you've been caring for my wife in a professional capacity since you returned from Sydney and set up practice with Dr. Blake, and I just wanted to say that, no matter the outcome of… well, yes. Susan… and I have had our differences and we have both tried very hard to have another child besides Edward, and you have tried to help us, very much, and I am grateful to you. Yesterday, you did everything in your power to save my wife and our child, and I cannot express to you my… my gratitude and my…" The man was nearly in tears, and Jean felt terribly guilty in that moment.

"Mr. Tyneman, there's no need –"

"Dr. Randall, there is every need," Patrick said firmly. "You are a decent woman, a kind woman; my wife has not always been so to you. If there is anything in the future that you and your family require that I can arrange for you… please do not hesitate to ask. I am in your debt, even if Susan does not live through this."

"Thank you, Mr. Tyneman," Jean said softly. "I certainly don't deserve that, but I will keep it in mind for the future. Are you certain I can't interest you in a cup of tea or a sandwich? Leigh thinks the sandwiches are particularly tasty today." She smiled over at her daughter, who had a mustard grain smear on her lips.

"I should get back to the hospital," Patrick said, waving his hat and sighing. "I just… I didn't want to let this go for too long, Dr. Randall."

"No, of course not," Jean said. "Nor should you. And you should go be with her now."

Patrick nodded and turned to leave, but he looked over his shoulder and said, "Oh, Lucien? You should really sit the board exams and renew your licenses. It's absolutely ridiculous that your wife is the breadwinner of your family."

Lucien had been about to take a bite of his sandwich, but instead, he carried it over to Patrick and held it out with a predatory smile. "I don't think it's so ridiculous when my wife can bake such bread as this on top of running a medical practice and doing home and hospital visits daily," he said with pithy sarcasm in evidence. "Good bye, Mr. Tyneman."

Once Patrick was gone, Jean said, "I didn't bake that bread."

"He doesn't need to know that," Lucien retorted.

"And Patrick Tyneman doesn't need to be praising you with one breath and casting aspersions in the next," Thomas said with a heavy sigh. "Jean, you're rather pale, will you sit down a moment?"

Jean sat down and sighed. "It's the nature of the beast to be gossiped about in this town," she said with a frown on her lips, toying with her lunch. "I should go to the hospital later."

"No, you're resting today," Thomas reminded her.

Lucien settled in next to her at the table and smiled winningly. "I would be much happier if you'd follow doctor's orders and rest," he said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. Jean blushed and looked at her sandwich.

"Enough, you two," Thomas sighed. "If you haven't already had sex, please do, before something besides the butter melts."

Leigh said, "Mummy, daddy, what's secths?"

That did it: Jean's face took on the hue of an over-ripened tomato, and Lucien was caught somewhere between laughing and sputtering in embarrassment.

They never did give her an answer.