A/N: I'm going to apologize in advance, this has not been edited at all.
17 May 1959
Christopher left them in the evening, catching the late bus from Ballarat to Adelaide, and Lucien was truly sorry to see the lad go. Lucien wouldn't hear of Christopher paying for a taxi to take him to the bus stop, not when Lucien was more than capable of driving himself, and it had afforded him a rare opportunity to speak to Christopher alone. Not that they'd said much; Christopher was a quiet lad, and Lucien hardly knew where to begin striking up a conversation. He'd said all he could on the matter of Jean's treatment and her health, and though his heart was bursting with questions - what had Jean been like, as a young mother? How did her sons regard her? How on earth had Christopher fallen in with Ruby in the first place? - he did not dare give them voice, for even he knew there were some matters which must be approached delicately, and this was not the time for it. At the bus stop Christopher had shaken his hand, and murmured take good care of her, doc, before the driver called out a warning and Christopher marched away, back straight like a good soldier. And as he went Lucien found himself hoping it was not the last he'd see of the young man; he rather liked Christopher's steady, serious nature, and he had very much appreciated the smile Christopher had returned to Jean's face.
With Christopher safely away Lucien had rushed home, and ducked immediately into his bedroom. They'd eaten an early supper, so that Christopher might share it with them; though Jean had only picked at her food she had managed to swallow a bite or two of the chocolate cake Mattie had lovingly - disastrously - baked for her, and they had sung for her, but the birthday festivities were not over just yet. There was one more gift Lucien meant to give to her, and he had chosen, rather deliberately, to give it to her in private. Oh, there was nothing salacious or untoward about this present, but it seemed a rather personal thing, and he knew that Jean would not want an audience any more than he did when the time came for her to open it.
Holding the gift tight in his hands he stepped out from his bedroom, and made his way slowly across the house, listening intently for any signs of life. The soft sound of the wireless drifted down from upstairs; Mattie had her own, and the faint strains of that Bobby Lee song Lucien heard everywhere he went seemed to indicate she had gone to bed for the evening. The kitchen was spick and span, and deserted; the ladies must have cleaned up while Lucien was seeing Christopher off. The sitting room was lifeless, too, but then Lucien had expected that; Jean had grown partial to her own parlor, and her sofa so near the fire. The doors to the studio had been left open as if in invitation, and so Lucien did not hesitate to step inside. Jean was curled once more in the corner of her sofa, but her head was leaning back, and she was not moving, her hands not busy with her usual knitting, and so, thinking she must have been asleep, Lucien approached her cautiously, quietly, not wanting to give her too much of a fright if it could be avoided.
As he rounded the edge of the sofa and came to a stop in front of her his heart did a funny little flip in his chest. She was, as he had suspected, fast asleep, her legs drawn up beside her, curled beneath the folds of her robe. Her knitting had tumbled from her hands as she slept, to land in an untidy heap on the floor. Though she was resting the lines of her face were drawn and haggard, as if, even in dreams, she were suffering some discomfort. And yet for all that, he thought she looked lovely, in that heavy pink robe, in her soft satin pajamas, her dark hair tumbling round her face. Such a delicate face she had, those high cheeks, that smooth jaw, her neat little nose, but her bones were made of steel, and he knew it well. Carefully Lucien knelt, gathered up her knitting and set it gently on the coffee table, and then he reached out, and brushed her hair back from her forehead with a gentle hand.
At his touch her eyes fluttered open, a soft sigh escaping her; there was pain in her grey eyes as she blinked slowly into wakefulness, but she did not admonish him for having woken her, for having touched her.
"Lucien," she breathed his name, a small, sad little smile tugging up the corners of her pale lips. "Did Christopher get off all right?"
"He did," Lucien assured her. "He is quite well, and he asked me to look after you."
Jean laughed once, gently. "Did he? I thought I was the one who was meant to be looking after you."
"We can look after each other, eh?" Lucien said. That's what they had been doing up until now, anyway, he thought; she had kept him fed, kept him from drinking too much, kept him focused, and he had done everything in his power to keep her well.
"Are you cold?" he asked then, noting the way she seemed to burrow deeper inside her robe, as if struck by a sudden chill.
"I'm always cold, these days," she grumbled. "Except sometimes I'm so hot I can hardly think," she added, addressing those words to Lucien's back as he was already halfway across the room, making his way towards the little quilt rack at the end of her bed and the fluffy white blanket that lay folded there.
"An unfortunate side effect of the surgery, I'm afraid," Lucien told her as he returned to her, blanket in hand. "Your body's going through rather a lot of changes all at once."
While he spoke Lucien gently laid the blanket over Jean's lap, tucking the ends carefully under her legs, and when he looked up at her he saw a baleful expression on her face. Perhaps she did not need him to tell her about all the changes she was currently experiencing.
"Better?" he asked a bit sheepishly, well aware that he had overstepped the mark and hoping she wouldn't point out his failures.
"Much," she said, a bit primly. "Thank you."
For a moment Lucien stood, looking down at her, having quite forgotten why he'd come in there in the first place. He still held her gift in his hands, and Jean spotted it, arched her eyebrow at him curiously.
"Is that for me?" she asked.
"Oh! Yes," Lucien rushed to answer, plopping himself down on the sofa beside her. "Happy birthday, Jean."
She murmured her thanks as she accepted the gift, turning the little box over slowly in her hands. Such a little thing, that box, clumsily wrapped by Lucien's own hands, and yet suddenly it seemed a very big thing, and not for the first time Lucien found himself wondering at the wisdom of it, giving this thing to her. Giving it to her now, when they had only known one another for less than a year, when things had been so tense between them, when Jean was so very ill, was the sort of gesture that might be easily misinterpreted, but somehow he rather thought that Jean might understand.
"Go on, open it," he encouraged her when she hesitated.
Jean offered him a small, bashful smile, unaccustomed as she was to being on the receiving end of someone else's kindness, and then she neatly tore the paper away, revealing the jewelry box beneath. As her hands ghosted over the box Lucien held his breath, waiting, hoping, with everything he had, that she might like it, that she might see it for what it was.
In a moment she had the box open, and she gasped his name, staring down on the item inside in wonder.
"Lucien."
"Happy birthday, Jean," he said again, for he did not know what else to say. Inside that box there lay a small jade brooch in the shape of a flower, a trinket purchased long before, a lifetime before, a world away.
"Thank you, Lucien," she said earnestly. With an unsteady hand she reached out and traced her fingertips across the brooch. "It's beautiful."
And then she looked up at him, her eyes bright and shining in the light of the fire, tears gathering there, though she refused to let them fall.
"Was it…" she ducked her gaze, looked back at the brooch, as if she could not keep her eyes from it. "Was it hers?"
She had understood him, then, he realized. Clever Jean, she'd taken one look at that little bauble, in a style so different from the one favored by the ladies of Ballarat, and recognized at once the significance of it, where it had come from. Did she understand what Lucien meant in giving it to her? That remained to be seen. Perhaps she'd think it tasteless of him, to give her a gift meant for someone else, instead of buying something special for her. Somehow Lucien thought not; having lost a love of her own, he rather thought that Jean might understand that he had given her a gift as precious to him as his own heart.
"No," he answered truthfully. It was not Mei Lin's; she had not ever worn it, had not ever even seen, had not know that it even existed, for time was a cruel mistress, and he had purchased it too late. "I bought it before the Japanese invaded," he told her. "I thought it might make a good present one day. And indeed it has."
A single tear slipped past her, and she nodded once, shortly, in understanding. Lucien had bought that brooch less than a week before the Japanese came calling; when it became apparent that Singapore was next in the line of fire he had sent the brooch, along with several other precious items - the photographs of his family, a few letters, other odds and ends - in a package to a bank in Melbourne, with directions that his belongings be kept in a deposit box. At the time he thought he would call for his belongings within six months, or a year, but it was five years before he ever set foot inside that bank, and when he did, when he ran his fingertips across the photographs of his wife and child, across this brooch he'd meant to give to the woman he loved, he'd broken down and wept.
But it was a beautiful thing, that brooch. It was a beautiful thing that spoke of care, and concern, and warm feeling, and it ought to be worn, he thought. It ought to be treasured by someone other than himself, ought to fulfill the purpose for which it had been purchased. And now he rather thought that it had, for though it had brought Jean to tears he knew that she would treasure it, always, and wear it with pride. It had found a home, now, no longer tucked away at the bottom of his trunk, a forgotten memory of grief, but a reminder now of hope, and a promise, perhaps, for better days to come.
"I don't have anywhere to wear it," Jean mumurred, half to herself, but that made Lucien smile, too. She rarely left the house these days, too physically drained and too wary of questions to venture into town, but Lucien remained certain that better days were coming, for both of them. On impulse he reached out and covered her hand where it rested against the little box.
"You will, some day," he told her. "It won't be like this forever, and you'll be able to go out and live your life, just as you please."
To his surprise, and his delight, Jean turned her hand over beneath his, and clung to him, fiercely.
"Thank you, Lucien," she said, and he knew then that she was not talking only about the brooch, and a lump formed in the back of his throat, looking at her beautiful face, knowing how she was suffering. If he still believed in God he would have prayed, then, that she be delivered safely through this trial. He did not know what would become of him if she didn't.
