Alan walked into the office one morning in November, shaking the rain off his umbrella and putting it into the stand by his door. He'd taken to walking to the office in the last few months as a way of avoiding the fact that his sleep was so disturbed. He would wake in the early hours, either from a night terror or just naturally, and would read or work on case files from around 4am until the time came to get ready for work. On the plus side, his billables were up so Paul was happy, and he was able to take on extra cases which he was passionate about. Hanging his coat on the coat rack and taking a seat at his desk, he unbuttoned his suit jacket and adjusted his pants where they were now a little loose. Probably all the walking, and the lack of appetite in the weeks after Rosalie had left. He'd done his best to move on, just like he had from all the others, but something about her had stuck with him. He realized, in a bittersweet moment, that he had loved her and never told her, and now she had probably moved on to some hunky French archaeologist who whispered sweet nothings in her ear, and knew all those freckles on her back that he remembered so well, and inhaled her scent one last time before they fell asleep. He had probably said je t'aime, Alan thought with irritation.

There was a knock at the door about an hour or two later, and Alan was deep into a case so he didn't look up as he invited the visitor in. It was probably Katherine with some more case notes.

"Alan?" It was a voice he recognised and as he looked up he saw a familiar head of blonde curls, even blonder than they had been before, and her face was more tanned. Her full lips were turned up in a grin, and she had lost weight. She was wearing a burgundy shift dress belted at her slender waist, black heels and a black overcoat with an elegant black leather handbag.

"Rosalie!" He jumped up excitedly, then calmed himself. "You should have said you were coming back." She looked at him slightly confused.

"I told Dad to tell you. I got back a couple days ago. He must have, uh, forgotten."

"How was your trip?"

"It was… it was good. I got to do a lot of thinking. I got you a present," she said, walking over to his desk and producing a garland of garlic cloves.

"You shouldn't have."

"What else would you have wanted?" He looked at her and she had a strange look in her eyes that he couldn't read. He stepped around his desk and kissed her on the cheek, smelling the familiar scent of her hair and letting his lips linger a little longer than necessary.

"Would you have dinner with me tonight? I'm drowning in case files but I'd really like to hear about your trip."

"I'd be delighted to. I'm staying at Dad's so maybe we can meet at that bar with the good blues band?"

"I'll make a reservation for dinner. Let's meet at the bar at 7?"

"Sounds good to me, I'll see you there." She smiled again and gently squeezed his arm before leaving the office.

Back on the street and hiding from the drizzle under a canopy, Rosalie took a deep breath to steady herself. He'd looked good, better than when they were together, if perhaps a little tired. He had lost weight and it suited him. She thought about how she had panicked when trying to find the perfect outfit to see him in, not too revealing but enough to remind him what he'd missed out on. She was a little irritated Denny hadn't mentioned her return to Alan as she had expressly told him to do so, but that might explain why he hadn't called. It was either that, or the reason he looked so good was because he'd found someone else. She knew that he had a reputation of course and in the dark nights she'd spent tossing and turning in an uncomfortable bed in rural France she had imagined him with other women. Kissing them the way he kissed her, telling them the fantasies he'd shared with her, holding them the way he'd held her. It had upset her the first few times, but after a while it became a comforting pain that would settle her to sleep, like picking at an open wound. She pulled an umbrella from her handbag and walked back out into the rain.

Later that night at dinner, Alan watched Rosalie as she talked about her trip. She was passionately explaining the geographic relevance of a shard of pottery and how it meant trade between Romans and a specific tribe of Gauls had begun years earlier than had been previously thought, talking with her hands as she always did when she was excited, but something was off. She was guarded somehow, not as open as she had been before. He presumed it was because the imagined hunky French archaeologist, probably called Jean-Phillipe or something, was real and she was about to let him down gently. At the bar she'd kissed him on the cheek but then sat down promptly without a hug. She had laughed at his jokes and stories of his adventures with Denny whilst she'd been away, but she looked distracted and kept playing with the stem of her wine glass. Her cell phone had buzzed a few times and she had checked it, looking up at him then back to the phone. It felt different.

"What's going on, Rosalie? Like what's really going on?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"You're different. I can feel you closing yourself off. Is there something I should know?"

"No. Is there something I should know?"

"What makes you ask that?"

"You've lost weight, you look good. That's a new tie."

"Don't deflect the question. What's going on?" Rosalie sighed deeply and drank from her wine glass, pushing her plate away from her.

"When I left… did you meet someone?"

"No. I thought you did."

"What?"

"You didn't tell me you were coming back, you're keeping your distance, I thought you'd met Jean-Phillipe and were going to move to a gite and perfect the art of cassoulet." Rosalie looked at him for a moment, then laughed.

"Oh shit, maybe we should start tonight again." She poured them both another glass of wine and leant across the table towards him. "I didn't meet anyone Alan. I buried myself in my work and tried to ignore the fact I couldn't stop thinking about you. I told Dad to tell you when I was coming back in case you wanted to be friends again. There's no Jean-Phillipe, no gite, no endless cooking of flageolet beans. I thought you were shacked up with some high-powered attorney with legs for days and a house in Aspen, so it wasn't appropriate for me to be too familiar."

"Certainly not Aspen," Alan said with a smile. "There wasn't anyone else. You were it. And I… I missed you."

"I missed you too. Can we start over?" She put her hand on his and he suddenly caught a glimpse of the chocolate-coloured lace bra she'd bought the night before the party. He remembered it well.

"Yes please. Although we should probably get the check, it looks like you might be my dessert for the evening."