John's eyes snapped open and he coughed to clear his throat. A shift in his body sent shards of pain through his stiff right leg but his more pressing concern had him counting to a hundred and back. Breathing a sigh of relief, as he settled enough to even consider turning on the sofa, John tried to trace the source of whatever woke him in the dark. It was another moment before he noticed a figure standing in the shadows with hands held up in the air.

"Sorry. I… I was coming for a glass of water and I didn't-"

"It's fine." John pushed himself up, fighting back the haphazard pile of blankets and rubbing as his eyes to try and see better in the orange-hued darkness now that the fire only burned to embers. He then blinked at the harshness of the bulb he activated when he turned on the lamp next to the sofa. "I don't sleep well."

"On the sofa?" Anna jerked her thumb back over her shoulder. "Or you don't sleep well in a general sense?"

"Well, the sofa's not really doing me any favors."

"You can take you bed back if you need to get more comfortable." Anna pointed toward the ceiling. "I'll fit better than you on the sofa and since I can sleep anywhere it's-"

"The sofa cost me about as much as the bed so it should be good enough to sleep on." John stood, limping a moment as he tried to get his right leg to move like the rest of him, stumping into the kitchen and flicking on a light. Both he and Anna squinted against the brightness of it, despite the transition they experienced with the lamp in the living room. "But it's not a matter of comfort."

"No?"

"No. It's more that I don't really sleep in general, like you suggested." John shook his head, leaning on the counter a moment to take the weight off his right leg. "I've got chronic insomnia and a host of pains in so many places in my body that I'm always upsetting something."

"Consequences of a long boxing career?" Anna leaned over the counter as John dug in a cupboard for a glass to hand her.

"Part of it." John stretched, noting Anna's expression at each pop and grate of his bones with the motion. "The other part is the normal wear and tear that comes with aging less gracefully than most."

"I'm sure every sports star with their rack of injuries would agree with you."

"They would." John sighed, "The body's only meant to go so far and when you've made a living off pushing it to the limit, or abusing it in my case, then you've got to compound those aches with age."

He rolled his shoulders, wincing at a pull in his muscles that he slowly relaxed out to release his arms. "After awhile your body stops healing the same way and you've got to limp to the finish line."

"Is that why you stopped?" Anna played with the glass in her hand and John noted she rolled the sleeves of the borrowed jumper five times to get the fabric to the middle of her forearm. "Boxing, I mean."

"I would've been smarter if I had."

"How'd you mean?"

John shrugged. "Maybe it's the male in me, but I ignored the signs."

"Of injury?"

"Of being finished." John snorted, "Every man, as far as I know, wants to believe they're Batman and indestructible. That they can push past their limits and conquer all their enemies to reign supreme."

"Not true?"

"Not in the slightest." John chewed the inside of his cheek a moment. "I think we all secretly know when we've reached our peak. We're idiots if we pretend otherwise but we all see it. And, for me, I saw it and ignored it."

"Can I ask why?"

"Pride mostly." John thought a moment, "But I think I wanted to go out on my terms. I didn't want muscles and achy joints telling me I was an old man. I wanted to go out when I felt it was time and not a second sooner."

"Is that why you took on The Bull?"

"Of course it was." John shook his head, "I was an idiot to think that was going to end well for me."

"In a fair fight-"

"I would've kicked his ass. But…" John shifted his hip to get back around the counter and move out of Anna's way as she operated the tap to get water from the sink. "He didn't fight fair. And I knew he wouldn't."

"So you were tempting fate?" Anna put the glass to her mouth and sipped at it. "Crying at the storm to 'do it's worst'?"

"Hubris, the downfall of heroes." John sighed, leaning back against the counter. "And I paid dearly for it."

"Because it ended your career?"

"That was part of it, yeah." John shrugged, "The other part of it is you can't really box the same way once you've got two compound fractures in your leg. Even if they use titanium to fix the breaks."

"Then the…" Anna stopped, the glass not even to her mouth. "I'd heard rumors about that fight but I didn't… I didn't watch it myself."

"It's age restricted on YouTube. Or so they tell me." John clicked his teeth together. "Apparently the sound of cracking bone is enough to get some people vomiting so they've got to put up warnings."

"So much for a fair fight."

John nodded. "I guess Thomas 'The Bull' Barrow didn't like the idea that a has-been like me was kicking his ass and continually driving him to the rope or the mat when they'd come all the way to Liverpool to see him wipe the floor with me."

"And that's when…"

"Yep." John mimed a punch to the back of his head. "The referee couldn't stop him in time. The sucker punch he used to cold clock me had me out in a second. I don't even remember hitting the mat. But when I woke up…"

John let out a rough laugh with no humor, "It's a strange thing to be wheeled down a hospital corridor and look up just enough to see two juts of bone sticking out from your leg."

"Ouch." Anna cringed and John nodded.

"Yeah." He sighed, "Worst part was the disassociation."

"Sorry?"

"The image of it." John waved a hand. "At first it was like they weren't even my bones. My brain couldn't comprehend it. Not like the ache at the back of my head or the blow across my jaw that had my teeth wired shut for three weeks. But my legs…"

John flexed his jaw, a popping sound echoing through the kitchen. "When I finally did manage to recognize what happened and what it meant I blacked out." John snapped his fingers. "Next time I woke up I was in a compression cast as they tried to put my leg back together."

"That would've been a miracle."

"It would've been." John let out a breath. "And bless their intelligent, diligent hearts, hands, and minds but they tried. For thirty-six hours they kept at it."

"Thirty-six hours?"

John nodded, "I had three separate surgeons working on me in eight hour shifts as they tried to rotate in and out so no one was too tired to focus on the literal jigsaw puzzle that was my leg. But…" John ran his tongue around the inside of his teeth. "But, for all their efforts, they realized there was nothing they could do to save the leg and then they sawed it right off to prevent necrosis and all the other, disgusting problems that come from rotted and corrupted flesh."

"What?"

John frowned, "What do you mean 'what'?"

"I mean they took your…" Anna's eyes glanced down. "But they couldn't have sawed your… Not if you-"

John tugged up the right leg of his pajama trouser to show her the prosthetic. "I'm supposed to take it off before bed but I don't always. Hence some extra aches and pains that keep me up at night."

"Where…" Anna stopped herself, "I probably shouldn't ask, that's rude of me to assume and-"

"Just below my knee." John sighed. "You can't really box without a tibia… or your own foot. At least I couldn't. Not in the arenas I was used to anyway. And, by that point, I was past my prime to try and box for the Paralympics or whatever they call that division. So I washed my hands of professional boxing, took the nice sum of money they paid me not to prosecute Thomas Barrow into prison, and decided I'd finally use that degree Robert was on about me getting at University."

"You just turned around and started a whole new life?"

John nodded, "There wasn't much else to do. Especially since I was hoping that no one would even know what happened."

"Why…" Anna sipped at her water, leaning back over the counter and holding the glass between her hands. "Why keep it a secret?"

"Why not keep it a secret?"

"It's not like it's a shameful thing." Anna contemplated her water glass. "You weren't the aggressor and no one could ever say you were at fault."

"But then I'd always been a victim and I didn't need anyone's pity." John's jaw hardened. "And certainly didn't want it."

"I can understand that." Anna gave a sad smile. "It's difficult when you've got to balance what someone's done with how others will see your part in it."

"Life's never fair that way, is it?"

"Not in my experience, no."

John offered a mirthless laugh, "But I'm guessing this isn't the kind of conversation you expected when you came down for water."

"No but…" Anna gave a shrug of her own, "If we're trapped together for a few days we might as well not be strangers in your rather lovely house-cabin."

"Fair point." John took a seat, leaving his right leg to hang off the edge of the stool. "You don't mind if I-"

"It's your home." Anna finished her water, drinking loudly enough John was sure she tried to cover the sounds of him unlocking the mechanism for his leg to make it less awkward. For him or for her he was not sure. But, and he only begrudgingly admitted it to himself, he was grateful for her effort.

For her efforts not to pity him. And for her efforts to treat him no differently. And, admitting with a hint of a cringe to his begrudging, for her tact in allowing him the measure of pride his attitude demanded.

When John propped the prosthetic on the floor, sighing slightly, he turned back to Anna. "In the spirit of sharing the space…"

"As I said, I can take the sofa."

"That's not what I meant." John shook away the thought. "I don't mean to give up the sofa."

"Is it comfortable for you?"

"That's not really the issue."

"Because you won't sleep anyway?" Anna gave a little snorting laugh that threatened to put a real smile on John's face.

"Exactly."

"Alright then." Anna leaned on the counter, her arms spreading to pull the overly large jumper a little more taut. "What is 'in the spirit of sharing' that you've got on your mind?"

"I was curious about something you said earlier."

"Which was?"

"You called yourself a 'professional bitch' and I wondered what that was about. Or, rather, what it meant."

"Was the definition not clear?" Anna pointed toward his bookshelves, "I'm sure you've got a dictionary over there I could pull out for you."

"Very funny."

"I try to be." Anna smiled back at him.

"And I'm sure you succeed with people who aren't bridge trolls like myself."

"Bridge troll?"

"Of course." John put his hand to his chest, "I know I'm a cantankerous bastard and unashamed to admit it."

"Maybe you could stand to have a touch more shame about it."

"Maybe." John conceded before nodding at Anna. "But while I'd define you as professional and uncompromising, I wouldn't call you a 'bitch'."

"Not to my face."

"Definitely not but probably not at all."

"Even when I showed up, unannounced, at your door?"

"Even then." John nodded his insistence as Anna raised an eyebrow. "You never met my ex-wife, Ms. Smith. She was far worse than anything you threw at me across my dining table."

"So you'd call her a bitch?"

"I did." John grimaced, "Often and most of the time to her face."

"Yikes."

"Since we're divorced I'm sure you can assume it wasn't a happy marriage."

"I've heard a few stories at Chambers, being honest, and none of them were good." Anna left the glass rim down in the sink and came around the counter. "But this isn't about her."

"No." John raised his head to look at his high arched ceiling. "I'd rather she not darken the doorways of this house, even in thought."

"I can abide by that." Anna went to the table, taking the chair she occupied hours earlier in an entirely different context. "I called myself a 'professional bitch' because that's what normally gets hurled at me in this job."

"Because you take no prisoners?"

"And because I usually tell any of the men that hit on me exactly where they can shove their intentions… And how hard."

"I hope you tell them they can sod off."

"I usually tell them to go screw themselves but I was trying to be polite." Anna shrugged, "At the end of the day I guess it's a compliment, in a perverse way, that the only real insult they can drum up is that I'm a professional."

"Which is unprofessional of them."

"True. But since they only mutter it to one another, or hiss it at me, around watercoolers or cocktail parties I guess there are worse situations."

"In my experience, a man who has to insult a woman to feel like a man wasn't really a man to begin with."

Anna eyed him a moment, "Is this from personal experience?"

"Partly." John worked himself off the stool and manage two hops to land carefully in another chair at the table. "But when my wife and I hurled insults at one another it was not to prove anything to ourselves."

"Words to wound then."

"Efficiently and often, unfortunately." John shrugged, "I've tried to never insult a woman for doing her job."

"Then you're one of the few."

"I'd like to think I am." John waved his hand, "I'm sure you're aware that most of those men, who call you a 'professional bitch' are sexually frustrated."

"I figured that out a long time ago." Anna scoffed her laugh. "They either want to screw me or are completely emasculated because I handed them their asses."

"Heaven forbid you be a more capable solicitor than them." John shook his head, "I've always detested bitter, impotent men?"

"Really?"

John nodded, "They're the kind that blame everyone but themselves. Anyone who lacks the ability to introspect isn't worth knowing."

"How'd you figure?"

"Because if you can't look at yourself and say 'what if it's me' then…"

"Then why bother?"

John nodded again. "I did a lot of thinking during and after by divorce and I recognized I wasn't an innocent bystander. I was just as guilty and that changed a lot about how I dealt with myself and my problems. Those toolboxes…" John waved his hand, "They're looking for someone to blame. They don't believe in solving a problem because they want to hand it off to someone else."

"Usually" Anna shrugged again, "But I don't like jackasses like that bother me. In or out of court."

"I don't think that's true."

Anna raised her eyebrow, "Are you calling me a 'liar', Mr. Bates?"

"No." John shook his head, "But I think you're trying to dodge something."

"And what would I be dodging?"

"The fact that no one who calls herself a 'professional bitch' can claim with a straight face that she's not bothered by that." John held up a finger, "And if you insist on saying it then you're either a robot or you're lying."

"So I can't take it as a title for myself?"

"Not if you're using it to introduce yourself to an equally cantankerous bastard who lives alone in Scotland." John offered her a small smile and Anna matched it. "You're not the only one who's faced people doubting your abilities."

"The contexts are vastly different."

"Fair point." John conceded, "But… I…"

He cleared his throat, "If I do ever come back to chambers, I'd like to think you wouldn't believe you were alone in your suffering."

"Misery does love company." Anna checked the time, "I think I might try to sleep some more."

"Good idea." John stood, holding the back of the chair as he reached for his prosthetic. His hand stopped short and he winced before facing Anna. "Could I…"

"Take the bed?"

"No." John put his weight on his left leg and his hand on the back of the chair to stretch his other hand to point. "Could you get in that closet and grab the crutches just inside the door?"

Anna followed his directions, padding across the floor to the closet and returning with the aluminum crutches. John gripped the handles, the fit his arms into the cuffs to maneuver out from the table. "Thank you."

"You move pretty well on those."

"I had to learn how when I was in physical therapy." John shifted around the table, shutting off the kitchen light on his way back into his sitting room. "And sometimes, when my leg swells, it chafes and rubs with the prosthetic and I've got to give my leg a rest so…"

He stopped himself, flexing his jaw. "You don't need to hear about it."

"I don't mind." Anna sat on the edge of a chair in the sitting room as John lowered himself back to the sofa. "It's nice to talk to someone."

"You don't talk often?"

"Not about things that don't have to do with work." Anna shook her head, "I'm a bit of a workaholic."

"There's usually a reason for that."

"It can't be because I'm good at my job?"

"Sure it can but that's not usually the only reason." John leaned back into the sofa cushions. "I got good at boxing because I had an abusive father and I wanted to crush my fist so hard into his face it's pucker up and he'd never recover."

He shrugged into the cushions, "Or even just break his nose hard enough that he wouldn't raise a hand to me or my mother again."

"Did it work?"

"Hell no." John shook his head, "I busted my ass in the ring and at Uni for my father to continue being the bastard he was until he finally died in a hospital bed."

He ground his teeth. "His liver killed him in the end. And serves him right too. He and his precious drink."

"The killer of men, women, and children alike." Anna let out a breath, "And the leading cause of many a person losing the reason they need to remain rational and capable human beings."

"Was your stepfather…"

"Oh yes." Anna shuddered, "I can't drink whiskey because every time I smell it I smell him and I remember that night."

"I liked whiskey." John sighed almost wistfully. "The only skill I really learned from my father was how to drink and, I'm ashamed to admit, part of me misses it."

"Roger always liked Scotch. Or Kentucky bourbon." John raised an eyebrow and Anna only shook her head in confusion. "Don't ask me why, I've no idea."

"Is a good lager not enough for… Roger?" He frowned, "Who the hell is 'Roger', by the way?"

"My ex-husband." Anna waved off John's open mouth. "It's… going on three years ago now."

"So we're alike in that too?"

"Our marriages failed for different reasons I think."

"Let me guess," John held up a finger, "He was one of those people who called you a 'professional bitch'."

"No." Anna shook her head. "Roger was always good to me."

"Then I'm the asshole who thought-"

"No," Anna shook her head again, stopping John continuing. "It's…"

She took a breath and let it out slowly. "It's a bit more complicated than all that but just about as sad. Even if it's sad in its own way."

John flexed his jaw, "If you don't want to-"

"It's not…" Anna offered another sad smile. "It's not so personal I can't share with you after what you've told me."

"There's no principle of exchange here."

"But I'd like…" Anna took another breath, "I want to talk about it with someone who understands what it's like to not want pity despite the tragedy of a circumstance. To want people to be there without feeling the need to say something. Or to have to say anything at all."

She finally turned to meet his gaze. "Do you understand what I mean?"

John nodded. "You just want someone to stand by you instead of always rushing to your aid when you stumble."

"Yes." Anna stressed and then sighed in almost relief. "Finally."

"Finally?"

"Finally someone gets it." Anna made a face, "Oddly enough, before you only Roger really got it but since we're divorced it's… It's weird to go to him and commiserate about it all."

"I'm guessing the 'it all' would be why you divorced."

Anna nodded and took a deep breath. "We had a series of miscarriages. From a host of problems that we tried, for a very long time, to treat as if it was no one's fault but…" She shook her head, "When you're stressed and exhausted and in pain, both mentally and physically, you lash out and say things you don't mean but you've been thinking and…"

"And it's a mess."

"Well, enough time in that situation goes by and you're clinging to the last shreds of hope you can muster together. So much so that when a tiny spark appears…" Anna snapped her fingers. "You smother it."

"Another miscarriage?"

"This was… Quite a bit worse, actually." Anna flexed her jaw, "We actually had a baby. It was a high-risk pregnancy and she spent the first month of her life in the NICU."

John noted how Anna's fingers flexed in the arms of the chair, as if digging in for support. "I was exhausted at hospital and Roger was working and…"

"She died, didn't she?"

Anna nodded. "The nurses couldn't understand it. They tested everything and even the autopsy showed nothing but what should've been healthy organs growing and functioning." Her hands moved to her lap, her fingers twisting and pulling at each other. "And you try not to blame yourselves, or each other, but when all the doctor can write on a death certificate printed a month after he signed the birth certificate is 'failure to thrive' well…"

John said nothing as Anna wiped at her eyes. "Whenever I think about it I just think of how archaic the phrase is. How completely ridiculous, in this age of medical miracles, that kind of designation should be. And yet I buried a coffin practically the size of a shoebox because they couldn't find a soldi reason for why she died. Even after the inquest there was nothing to be gathered from it."

"That must've…" John shook his head. "I can't even fathom."

"I still can't and I lived it." Anna sighed and let her head hang back as she continued. "Roger and I… We just… We couldn't recover from it. We tried to heal ourselves, tried to heal together, but then we… We realized it would always hang between us."

"So you divorced?"

Anna nodded, "He took a job in Germany I think and, last I heard, he's doing better. He seemed more at peace anyway."

"And you?" John nodded at her. "Do you feel any more at peace?"

"I feel less sad about it now." Anna hissed through her teeth. "For the first year afterward I was a mess. I could barely function."

"I don't blame you for that."

"I don't either but…" Anna raised her hands to let them flop back to her lap. "You can't grieve forever."

"I guess not."

"And," Anna's lips twitched toward a smile. "Not all of us can burn down a house to make ourselves feel better."

John snorted a laugh at her. "No, I guess they don't have an excess of those for pyro-therapy do they?"

"Not yet." Anna sighed, "Roger and I chat once a year, on her birthday. And, sometimes, we go to her grave together."

"Maybe the two of you'll come back together despite it."

Anna shook her head, "At this point that'd be regression for the both of us. And… For as lovely as that might be in a romance novel or a movie, I don't think it's wise. To try and start over from a point of so much… Historical detritus, for lack of a better term, it'd be foolish."

"But not impossible."

"Not impossible, just not wise." Anna pushed herself to stand. "That all being said, I should let the two of us sleep."

"Feeling exhausted?"

"I did have to drive a ways to get here and we've had a deep conversation." Anna put a hand on her chest. "I don't know about you but that kind of thing tends to be a little exhausting."

"Well I've no soul so it just washes through me." John managed a wink and Anna groaned.

"If I knew you better, I'd hit you with a pillow."

"Give it a few days, locked here together, and you might just think about sinking one of the knives from the block in the kitchen into my chest."

"I make no promises." Anna gave a little smile. One that, for the first time that evening, was not sad. "Thank you, John."

"For?"

"For trusting me with your story and listening to mine."

"Trust is a two-way street." John tapped a finger to his temple. "It's all safe here, I promise."

"Good enough for me." Anna nodded at him. "Good night John."

"Good night Anna." He waited until he heard his bedroom door close before switching off the light in the sitting room.