I did my best in researching for this fic, but Google cannot make up for lack of life experience, so I ask forgiveness for any liberties I have knowingly or unknowingly taken. I have never been to Paris, or Australia, or the 1960s.
In the beginning, it was just an idea. A beautiful thought, whispered in the middle of the night, let's go to Paris. It was their anniversary, and the sun had set many hours ago, and night was a time for dreaming after all. They were throwing thoughts around, trading whims and fancies as his hand slid over her stomach beneath the sheets, when he brought up the idea of traveling again. She was worn out by a lovely evening, and brazen from a few-too-many sherries, and blissful in her lover's arms as they talked about the next year of their marriage. And so, when he asked her, where do you want me to take you next, she let slip the first thing that came to mind.
"Let's go to Paris."
The hand that had been drawing slow circles on her skin came to a halt, as did the steady rise of his chest behind her. "Paris?" he echoed, and all of the playful sweetness which had dripped over their conversation seemed to vanish. "What do you want with Paris, eh?"
"Oh, I don't know," she answered, "I just like the idea of it, I suppose. I've always thought it sounded lovely and…romantic."
He hummed in response, and as his hand began moving again she relaxed a bit.
"And you?" she asked him. "Where do you want to go?"
"Oh, the beach, I think."
"Really?" She lifted her head off the pillow, rolling onto her back so she could get a good look at his face. The grin she saw there made her think perhaps he wasn't completely serious. "That's easy," she told him, "it would only take a train ride."
"Good. I want to see you in a bathing suit."
"Lucien!" She swatted at his chest in mock rebuke, laughing at his boldness. "It would have to be a very modest one," she told him, "you couldn't catch me in some flimsy strip of a thing."
He was leaning in as she said it; by the time she finished his face was no more than an inch from hers. "What if," he asked, his breath ghosting over her cheek, "I ask very nicely?"
Then his lips were on hers, and any thought of Paris was almost forgotten.
Almost.
It was late the next evening when she thought of it again. It was Lucien who brought it to her mind, as they sat on the sofa in front of the fireplace in their usual position: him by the arm of the sofa with a glass of whiskey in one hand and his other arm around her, and Jean herself curled up against him, knitting.
"I meant what I said last night," he said, apropos of nothing.
"Which part?" she asked him, eyes on her knitting. He had said quite a few things last night, throughout dinner and the drive home and the short walk to their bedroom and into the late hours of the night. It had been their anniversary, after all, and he was full of compliments and declarations and sweet nothings. Not that she was complaining.
"About traveling," he clarified. "I think it's about time we took another big trip. Perhaps on our anniversary next year."
"Do you mean like a second honeymoon?"
"Maybe. Can you believe it's been four years?"
She looked up at him, allowing the movement of her hands to come to a pause, and oh, the way he looked at her still warmed her from her head to her feet, still made her breath catch in her throat when she saw all of his love for her just written on his face like that. And when she thought how long it had been that he'd been able to love her honestly and out in the open, she hoped she'd never lose gratitude for that, never forget the days of secret tears and stolen touches, when loving him felt like something to be ashamed of.
And yet, with all the freedom of a loud and public love, it was the quiet, private moments that she cherished. It was nights like these, cuddled up on the sofa with him while they watched the fire and drank whiskey and knitted another scarf. It was the quiet nights, she supposed, that made the quiet months worth the wait.
Four years. Could she believe it?
"Yes," she said. "Yes, I can."
His arm, draped loosely around her shoulders, tightened its hold just a bit. "Well, what do you say?"
"I say it sounds lovely," she told him, setting her knitting down beside her. "Where do you want to go? Not the beach, I suppose."
He laughed, a warm, rich sound that made her heart swell in her chest. "No, not the beach. Unless that's what you want. I'll go anywhere if it's what you want."
"Except Paris," she said, unthinking, surprising even herself. She watched the smile drop from his face.
"What do you mean?"
She shrugged. "Well, you didn't seem to like the idea when I brought it up last night. I wondered why, is all. What's the matter with Paris?"
"I wouldn't know," he admitted. "I've never been."
"Never?" she repeated, incredulous. It didn't seem right to her, that this wonderful man who had seen so much of the world had managed to miss Paris. In all their years together, even their months-long honeymoon, Paris had never come up—she'd figured, somewhere in the back of her mind, that he'd been before, and didn't particularly care for it. But that he had never been at all, that was a surprise indeed. "Well then, shouldn't we go together? It could be wonderful."
"I don't know." He leaned back against the couch, staring at the fire, but his eyes seemed further away than that. "I always thought I would go. In fact…" he rubbed a hand over his beard, pondering. Go on, she wanted to plead, but she held her tongue. Let him take his time. "In fact, my mother promised to take me one day."
"Lucien," she breathed, as the pieces fell into place in her mind.
His gaze moved upward, and she followed it to the ceiling, where the gold leaf pieces shone down on them, sparkling in the flickering light of the fire. She knew what those pieces represented, to him; the first time he'd told her about his mother, he had told her of their source. Whenever she caught his eyes moving in that direction, she knew he was thinking of her.
Lucien let his eyes rest on the ceiling for a moment, still a little bit in awe after all these years at the charming beauty of those little flecks of gold, still wondering how they managed to stay up there all this time, when nothing else in this house had ever seemed to stay. This room had been hers, when he was young, still was in a way. His father had hardly ever stepped foot in the studio before her death, and not once after, as far as Lucien knew. It was Maman's space, but she had let Lucien in here whenever he liked, would show him her work, ask his opinion on a color choice, tell him about her childhood. She had told him of Paris, of the people and the art and the Eiffel Tower, an incredible structure which started construction the year she was born. I'll take you there one day, mon amour, she had told him. We'll see it all together.
"Well, we never made it there, of course." He felt Jean's hand come to rest on his, and he looked over at her, finding her face pulled tight with emotion.
"And you never did, either."
It wasn't a question, but he answered it anyway. "No, I didn't. There were times I could have, but I've always been content with my memories of what she told me."
She squeezed his hand, and he smiled softly at the subtle show of support. "What did she tell you?"
Lucien had never shared these memories with anyone, not even Mei Lin, but when Jean looked at him like that, he couldn't deny her a thing. So he told her. He told her of Paris, of the lights and people and the art and the Eiffel Tower. "It's seventy-four years old now," he said. "As old as she would be." Jean sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder.
He told her how his mother refused to ever paint the tower, insisting she couldn't capture it on canvas. "The tallest tower in the world, that's what she always said."
"That's incredible," Jean replied.
"But it's not anymore."
"No?"
"No. The Tokyo Tower, now. They built it five years ago."
She nodded slowly, and the fire crackled on underneath their silence as she took in what he was trying to tell her.
"It's not…what it was, then," he said. "When I was ten, and she talked about taking me to the Louvre, showing me the streets she grew up on, it sounded incredible, and magical, and— oh, well, we had such big dreams back then."
"And now?" Jean watched him, torn at the thought of all those dreams resting in his heart with no hope of ever being fulfilled. She saw that hesitant look in his eyes and recognized the fear that reality would not live up to expectation. That Paris would be dull, that the tower would fall short, and what that might do to his mother's memory.
She knew what it was, to dream of things unreachable, but she also knew, now, what it was to reach those things anyway. She had dreamt of love, and leisure, and pretty things, of seeing the world with a man she loved by her side. She had tucked those dreams away for decades, all but abandoned them by the time Lucien tore into her world and swept the dust off of them. And if he could make all her dreams come true, why couldn't she do the same for him?
He hadn't answered her, and so she answered herself. "We should go."
He looked at her; his eyes flickered once, twice, up to the gold leaf on the ceiling. "I'll think about it."
"Lucien," she said. It wouldn't do for him to think about it, she thought, not when it was so clearly the right choice. She leaned forward until their noses were almost touching. "Let's go to Paris."
The next breath that came out of him was so close she felt it. She watched the soft, uncertain smile that slowly grew on his face. "Alright," he said. "Let's go to Paris."
They wouldn't only go to Paris. This would be a long trip, longer than any vacation they'd taken since their honeymoon, and they intended to make the most of it. They spent the next several months planning and dreaming and saving. They made lists of places they had loved on their honeymoon, and places they had missed but would love to see. They would stop in London for at least a day or two, if only to see Mattie and her daughter—she'd be almost two years old by the time they got there.
Paris would be the last place they reached, the pièce de résistance, and they would spend the longest amount of time there. They planned to visit every place Lucien and Genevieve had dreamt about and more—the Musée du Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Notre Dame Cathedral. Lucien had even dug through some old records and found the address she grew up at.
"There's no chance the house will still be there," he told Jean the day he found it. "It's been almost sixty years, and they've had to rebuild so much since the war."
Jean just smiled as she took the piece of paper from him. "We'll go and see."
"Darling, there's no point."
"No harm, either," she said, turning on her heel to go put it somewhere safe. "We'll find out what's there now, in any case."
Getting the time off was relatively easy. Dr. King was happy—perhaps a bit too happy—to take Lucien's patients for a few months, and Dr. Harvey could certainly hold down the fort at the morgue.
"I'll enjoy the work," she told them over dinner. "God knows I do most of the paperwork anyway."
Matthew wore a smirk where he sat next to her at the table. "I suspect I'll find that less evidence goes missing while you're gone."
"Careful, Lucien," said Jean with a hand on his arm. "If we're gone too long, you may not have a job when we get back."
The months flew by. At night they whispered dreams and hopes and wishes. In daylight they made lists and plans and itineraries. Jean poured over travel brochures while Lucien brushed up on his French and taught her some key phrases. They rang in the new year in 1966 with a bottle of champagne and the next day started packing. On January 8th, they were on a bus to Melbourne, where they would switch to a train that would take them to a boat which would head for Europe.
As the bus began to roll away from the stop, Jean leaned her head against Lucien's shoulder, and he took her hand in his.
"Do you know what this reminds me of?" Lucien asked.
"Yes," she whispered.
She felt, more than heard, his soft chuckle. "Of course you do."
That trip to Adelaide would always stand out in their memory above any other. "What a ride that was," she said, and they both knew she was talking about more than the bus.
"Do you think about it often?"
She thought for a moment. "Sometimes," she admitted. "Not as much as I used to, but sometimes I wonder what would have happened if…" she shook her head sheepishly.
"If I hadn't made it to the bus in time?"
She smiled against his chest. He always seemed to know what she was thinking. "Yes."
"Well, let me clear it up for you." She felt his fingers under her chin and her eyes found his as he gently lifted her head up toward him. "I would have been on the next bus out," he told her. "And if there hadn't been another one, I would have gotten in my car and driven there myself."
"You would have driven seven hours?" She had to laugh a little at his bravado.
"Yes." He wasn't laughing. The fire in his eyes, coupled with the way his voice dropped an octave as he spoke, made her heart skip a beat. "No question."
There was no response to that but to kiss him soundly, which she did, heedless of the people around them on the bus.
The trip was lovely, every bit of it. The ship was nice, if a bit crowded, and reminded them of their honeymoon. There was dancing and dinner and games, and they found plenty of opportunities for entertainment during the weeks that they were on board—although, really, they didn't need to leave their cabin to entertain themselves.
They docked near Rome, and after that it was train rides and hotel stays and sight-seeing and just the two of them. Jean wanted to pinch herself twice a day to see if she was dreaming, but she'd learned to stop doing that long ago. Lucien was all of her dreams rolled into one, tangible and shining before her, and she was continually teaching herself to accept it.
In many ways, she thought herself lucky to experience so many wonderful things rather late in life. They weren't old yet, she thought, not by a long shot, but nor were they a couple of twenty-year-olds tearing through Europe with backpacks and their parents' money. Youth is wasted on the young, she'd heard it said, and sometimes travel was as well. Not so with them. They'd had enough of life to know how to savor the best parts of it, and savor them they did.
Mattie was glowing when she met them in London, and kind enough to let them stay with her for a couple of days. She and Lucien traded medical stories and he caught her up on the latest exciting mysteries. They got to meet her husband and her beautiful little girl as well as explore London. From the very first day on the ship to the last night in London, there was an air of anticipation for the week and a half they would spend in Paris, but it didn't stop them from enjoying every moment that led up to it.
They had planned the timing of their trip very strategically. On March 24th, they were on a ferry across the English Channel, arriving in Paris late in the evening and heading straight for their hotel. The next morning, five years to the day after saying "I do," they woke up together in the city of love.
Lucien was the first to wake, an unusual occurrence for them. He woke slowly, becoming gradually aware of the sunlight streaming in through the windows and brightening the room, but not quite willing yet to open his eyes and face the day. He felt Jean's breath on his chest, her arm draped loosely over his waist, and thought she must have snuggled closer during the night. Absently, he let his hands wander over her back, feeling silk and lace and trying to remember what nightgown this was without opening his eyes. It must be new, he thought, still too sleepy to place it…and then he remembered.
He opened his eyes, taking in the hotel room and his beautiful wife, wearing the piece he'd insisted on buying for her in Vienna. She had blushed at its low-cut neckline, and chided him for the extravagance, but he had won her over with whispers of what it would do to him to see her in it. And last night, when she had emerged from the bathroom wearing it for the first time, he had made good on those promises.
He smiled now, remembering where they were and why. They were in Paris, and it was their anniversary, and his bride was just as beautiful now in his arms as she had been five years ago. No, even more beautiful, he thought, for he loved her even more now.
Shifting gently in the bed so as not to jostle her, he moved back enough that he could take a look at her sleeping face. A short tuft of greying hair had fallen over her forehead, and his hand seemed to reach out of its own accord to brush it back over her ear. From there, he let his fingertips trace over her face, following the curve of her cheek. She had perhaps a few more lines in her face than she used to, and a few more grey hairs, and he loved her all the more for them. If she were awake, now, and could hear his thoughts, she would remind him that he was responsible for a good many of her grey hairs, and he would laugh and agree.
As his hand reached her chin, her expression stirred, eyelashes fluttering ever-so-slightly as she began to wake. As soon as he realized it, he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers, wanting his kiss to be the first thing she was conscious of.
After a moment, she smiled against him, and then hummed softly as he kissed her more firmly.
"Mmm, good morning," she said, when she found enough space to speak.
"Good morning, my love," he replied, letting his lips ghost over her cheek. "Happy anniversary."
He pulled back enough to look at her and found her eyes were open and shining with mirth. "Happy anniversary, Lucien. What time is it?"
He glanced at the clock on the bedside table. "Just after 8:00," he said. Traveling through all these time zones had done a number on their body clocks. Though he had big plans for today, they'd agreed to allow some time to lie in after getting in so late. "The hotel restaurant serves breakfast until 10:00, so we've got a couple of hours."
"Oh, good," she said, as her hand found the back of his neck. "That's plenty of time." She pulled him in and he went willingly, meeting her in a much deeper kiss this time. A lot could happen in a couple of hours.
After a very good morning, Jean and Lucien did manage to get themselves out of bed and down to the dining room for some breakfast. From there they went back up to their room so they could get ready to leave. They left earlier than they needed to, really, but it wouldn't do for them to miss their reservation. Today they were to eat lunch in the Eiffel Tower.
"Ready?" Lucien asked Jean, as she stood looking in the mirror, fidgeting with her hat.
Letting her hands come down, she tilted her head this way and that, giving herself one final look before turning to her husband. "Ready."
Lucien took her in, from the lovely blue hat to the color of her lipstick to the way her dress cinched in on her waist, emphasizing the curve of her hips. "You look lovely, my darling."
Her face brightened, if it was possible. "Why, thank you. You look very smart yourself." She reached out her hand and he lifted his chin, allowing her to straighten his tie. When she was satisfied, she patted his shoulder, brushing away imaginary specks of something or other and letting her hand linger on his chest. He took the opportunity of her closeness to wrap one arm around her waist and lean down for a quick kiss. She pulled back after a moment, wiping remnants of lipstick away from his mouth with her thumb. This was a familiar dance to both of them, but that didn't make it any less enjoyable.
"Shall we?" he asked, holding his arm out for her
Her eyes were shining as she took his arm. "Let's go see the Eiffel Tower."
The first excitement of their outing came the moment they stepped out of the hotel. Jean had to gasp as she looked across the street. "Oh, they're beautiful," she said, looking out at the row of cherry trees which lined the road. "We must have walked right past them."
"I suppose we did," Lucien agreed, as they started down the sidewalk. They'd gotten in after dark the night before and hadn't had much time or light to see any sights before going straight to bed, nor had they opened the windows this morning. That they had such a view right outside their room was a delight indeed.
Their bus would meet them just down the street from the hotel, so they made their way to the end of the sidewalk and stood for a while, admiring the cherry blossoms and discussing which parts of their stay they were most looking forward to.
They weren't alone on the sidewalk, but they might as well have been with the way they carried on. They climbed aboard together, talking and laughing and taking no notice of the other passengers around them. Jean hardly noticed that there were others on the bus at all, much less what noise they were making, until it suddenly came to a halt. One minute, Lucien was telling Jean a cute story about his mother's childhood; the next, a hush had gone over the bus, and even Lucien stopped in the middle of his sentence. It only took a second for Jean to follow his gaze out the window, and then she knew why everyone had gone so quiet. They'd just turned a corner, evidently, and now from where they sat they could see the tower in all its glory.
Well, Jean had heard talk of the Eiffel Tower, and listened in rapt attention to Lucien's secondhand descriptions from his mother, and some of the magazines and travel brochures she'd read had pictures in them. Seeing it in person, however, now that was another thing entirely.
"Well?" She whispered, just loud enough that only Lucien would hear. "What do you think?"
"I think…" he paused for a moment, taking a deep breath as they got nearer to the tower. "I think that my mother was right," he finished.
Jean leaned her head against his shoulder, delighted, as they both watched the monument draw closer. "Yes," she said, "I suppose she was."
For the Louvre, they set aside an entire day. It was, after all, the biggest art museum in the world, and had been at the top of their list when they planned their trip. They arrived early, before the worst of the crowds, but there was a bit of a queue when they got there. It was worth it, though, with all the beautiful artwork they got to see.
Many women blushed and clutched their pearls when they arrived at the location of Ingres's Grande Odalisque, the nudity of its subject not quite to the tastes of some tourists. Perhaps Jean would have been among them once, turning her nose up and denouncing it as an insult to art. But it was years now since Lucien had turned up at the Colonists' with a similarly controversial work, and the two of them could only smile at one another, eyes shining with fond memories of his first few weeks in Ballarat.
Of course, Grande Odalisque would be far from the most provocative work they encountered as they moved through the museum, mostly following the crowd. It occurred to Jean that she had probably never stood in a building this full of people in all her life before travelling with Lucien, first on their honeymoon and now for their anniversary. Yet now, as they walked arm in arm through the largest museum in the world, quietly sharing their thoughts on the beautiful works before them, it felt like the most natural thing.
"You're quiet," Lucien remarked softly, as they made their way down a corridor, following the flow of the crowd. "Penny for your thoughts?"
She shook her head, not sure how to put them into words. "I guess I was just thinking how incredible it is, that we're actually here, among hundreds of other people, in the Louvre." She looked up at him in wonder. "I couldn't have even imagined this, a decade ago. Less time than that."
Her arm was looped loosely through his, but he dropped it then, letting her hand slip into his instead. "I couldn't have either, my darling. You know, it's been one year to the day since we started planning this."
"That's right," she realized. "It was the day after our anniversary."
"And before that day, I really didn't think I would make it to Paris, not ever."
"And here we are." She squeezed his hand as she said it, watching the look of joy on his face, her heart full to bursting with love for him.
"Here we are indeed," he said, lifting her hand to his face so he could give it a tender kiss. They'd come to a halt without quite meaning to, stopped near the wall where they weren't really in the way, but he tugged gently on her hand and they started moving again. "We should keep going," he said. "I think we're nearing the Mona Lisa."
"Oh, good," Jean replied. She had, of course, heard of the Mona Lisa, it being the most famous painting in the world, but she hadn't ever seen it. She knew it was a portrait of a woman, and it was supposed to be very beautiful, but that was about all she knew.
The museum was fairly quiet—anything more than hushed murmurs from its patrons would feel quite disruptive—but as the people in front of Lucien and Jean went into the room called the Salle des États, they grew all but silent. It rather reminded Jean of their trip to the Eiffel Tower the day before, when the bus had gotten so quiet at the sight of it. She and Lucien shared a glance, both of them quieting as well in anticipation. The crowd moved slowly through the space, feet shuffling as everyone tried to get a glimpse of it, and so it was a moment before they made it into the room.
When they did, Jean let out a happy sigh. "Oh, she's lovely," she said sweetly.
"Yes," said Lucien, "I suppose she is."
They had to wait for the crowd to move along before they could get close enough to really get a good look at it, but when they finally could Jean peered at it curiously.
"Well, it's a good painting," she said softly.
"Yes," Lucien agreed, "it is indeed."
"But…" Jean stopped herself, not wanting to be rude.
Lucien had no such concerns. "But it's hard to see what all the fuss is about isn't it?"
Jean brought one hand to her mouth to hide the change in her expression as she suppressed a giggle at Lucien's bluntness. "Yes," she answered. She looked up at the painting again. It was beautiful, of course it was. The background was lovely, the shading was impressive, and the expression on her face invited all sorts of questions. The woman herself was pretty, naturally, but— "I've heard some call her the most beautiful woman in the world," she murmured to Lucien. "Or read it, at least. Can you believe we're looking at her?"
"I believe that I'm looking at the most beautiful woman in the world," Lucien replied, his voice a whisper that tickled her ear. "But you, my darling, are not."
She looked at them, then, finding his gaze trained on her, and couldn't help the smile that spread over her face, no matter how cheesy she thought he was being. "You're very sweet. But I would guess that hundreds, perhaps thousands of men have used that line on their sweethearts, standing right where you are now."
"Oh, I'm sure they have," he said. "And they were wrong, all of them."
She knew beyond doubt that he meant it, and she loved him for it. But she knew, too, that there were people waiting behind them to see the painting. "Come along," she said, tugging his arm toward the other end of the room, "we'd better get out of the way."
Perhaps the Mona Lisa was not the most remarkable thing they'd see on their trip; perhaps it wouldn't even make top five. But she'd be happy to call it the best painting in the world, as long as Lucien would keep looking at her like he was right now.
"How is it?" Lucien asked his wife as they ate their dinner.
"It's marvelous," she said, "and yours?"
"Oh, it's delicious. I think we were right to come here."
"Definitely," she agreed. They'd taken a bit of a gamble when they decided to eat at Aux Trois Mailletz on their last night in Paris. It wasn't as famous as Maxim's, or as high-end as Tour d'Argent, or as pretty as the Rotisserie de l'Abbaye. But Lucien had heard that it was an excellent place for dinner and dancing, and he did not intend to spend ten days in Paris with the love of his life and not dance with her at least once.
It had been a somewhat last-minute decision, coming here, but one that they were glad of. Perhaps Aux Trois Mailletz was more of a piano bar than a fine restaurant, but the food was still wonderful. When the time came for dessert, they ordered a mousse au chocolat that they didn't truly have the room for and shared it between them.
The jazz band had been playing all night, the smooth brass tones mixing with the voice of a talented singer to create a warm and romantic atmosphere, but now they began to attract more focus. It was that time of the night—most people were finishing their meal, and there was a wide open space just waiting to be filled, and Lucien watched one, two, three couples step out onto the dance floor before he pushed back his chair and stood. Jean looked up at him as he did so, a playful, questioning look in her eye.
"Mrs. Blake," he said, rounding the table until he was directly in front of her, "may I have this dance?"
"Yes, you may." She accepted him gladly, placing her hand in his outstretched one and letting him lead her out onto the floor. She'd always loved dancing, since she was a little girl whose father spun her around the room, and she welcomed the feeling of his hand on her back, his breath on her cheek, his eyes on nothing but her own.
"I love you," Lucien said, responding to nothing save her presence and the sensation of being so wonderfully close to her. It was as if the words had no choice but to pour out of him in a moment like this, when he had the privilege of holding her in his arms.
"I love you too," she said as they swayed together, listening to the music. The lead singer was really quite lovely, even if Lucien only understood two thirds of the French lyrics. He could tell that the song was about love, and that was enough. It was enough, he thought, to listen to a song about love and not understand the words, to look into the eyes of his beautiful wife and not understand how he'd won her heart, to dance in a restaurant in Paris and not understand how he'd made it here at all.
"Thank you so much," he said, surprising himself with the way his voice broke under the weight of a sudden onslaught of emotion.
"For what?" she asked, eyes filled with equal parts joy and confusion.
"For bringing me here," he replied. "For making my dreams come true."
"Oh, Lucien," she said, letting her hand leave his shoulder for just a moment and land gently on his cheek. "You've made all of my dreams come true. Don't you think you should have a turn?"
With that she gave him a chaste kiss and returned her hand to its proper place, not waiting for an answer to her question. In truth, there was a part of him that wanted to say no, that he didn't think he should have a turn, that he wasn't worthy of the way she'd insisted upon fulfilling his deepest, most suppressed wishes. But it was a long time now since she had put those insecurities to bed, and he thought it his duty to let them stay there, so he said nothing, and instead just pulled her even closer.
They said goodbye to Paris the next day, taking one last walk past the cherry trees—still pretty though most of the blooms were gone now—and then boarding a bus to Marseilles. Then, late in the evening, they found themselves once more on a ship, with another long journey ahead of them and a lot of rest to catch up on.
Jean flopped onto the bed as soon as they made it to their cabin, not even bothering to undress. Lucien chuckled at the sight of her, hat pressed awkwardly against the duvet, feet hanging off the bed, shoes still on. "I know I should change," she mumbled, "but I'm not sure I can move."
"Let me," he said, kneeling at the foot of the bed. Taking his time with the buckles and straps, he removed first one shoe and then the other, and rubbed his hands over her sore feet. She hummed contentedly at the sensation, and so he let his hands travel further, smoothing over her calves in hopes of relieving some of the tightness there. After a moment he stood, rounding the bed so that he could lean over her and unpin her hat.
"Hang on, let me at least sit up," she said, when it proved difficult for him. So she did, and he sat down and let her rest against him while he removed it and set it aside on the nightstand. Then he set to work on her hair, taking time and care to be gentle as he slid pins out of the carefully arranged curls. When he could run his fingers through it, he did so, letting his fingertips skim against her scalp. All this he did wordlessly, and she let him wordlessly, either too trusting or too tired to feel the need to instruct him.
"Anything else I can do for you, Jeannie?" he asked, wanting to ensure her comfort before he sought his own.
"Yes. Lie down with me."
He smiled, dropping a kiss to the top of her head. "Of course. Just give me a moment." He stood up and kicked off his shoes, removing his tie and his jacket as well before he returned. She had managed to find her way under the covers, and so he joined her there, sliding under the sheets, his hand finding her hip as naturally as the sunlight found the horizon every morning.
"I can't believe I'm so exhausted," she murmured as he settled in behind her, "when we've been on holiday."
"I can," he replied, finding her hand under the sheets and lacing his fingers through hers. "We've hardly stopped moving since we got off the boat. But now we've got another long trip ahead of us. There will be plenty of time to rest up before we're back in Ballarat."
"That's good. I suppose you'll be itching to get back to work by that time."
He laughed. "Probably."
"But you've enjoyed yourself?"
"Immensely, my love. More than I could ever have imagined."
"I'm so glad," she sighed. "I wanted so badly for this trip to live up to what you and your mother had always hoped for."
"It most certainly has," he said, eyes drifting closed even as they spoke. "But in the end, well, it wasn't really about the sights and things."
"No?"
"No." He shook his head gently, and let the motion bring him closer to her until his nose was brushing against her hair. "The reason that my mother and I would have loved Paris so much together is the same reason that you and I did."
"And what reason is that?" she asked, although she suspected she knew the answer.
Though she couldn't see his smile she knew it was there as he tightened his embrace, drawing her into him, and then he answered. "We got to see it with someone we loved."
Jean just hummed at that, a soft, tired, happy sound. Lucien's hand, wandering along her waist, slowed to a stop before long, and his breaths against her soft dark curls grew long and even.
As the last rays of sunshine disappeared beneath the horizon, and the ship began the long journey to Australia, Jean and Lucien drifted off to a deep, peaceful sleep, warm and safe in each other's arms.
