A/N: I was going to save this one until I'd written all of it and post it on Christmas day, but I thought we all needed a little treat.

24 December 1959

"I must say, Jean, this is shaping up to be the best Christmas I've had in quite some time," Lucien announced from his armchair. He was smiling wistfully at the Christmas tree, a whiskey glass clutched in his hand, the lights twinkling merrily across his dear, sweet face.

"I'm glad," she told him earnestly. The Christmas before she'd spent a whole fortnight with young Christopher and Ruby, left poor Lucien to his own devices. The Christmas before that she'd not met him yet; old Doctor Blake had been in hospital, clinging stubbornly to life, and all of her letters to his wayward son had gone unanswered, and Mattie had gone home to Melbourne for the holiday, and Jean had been, for the first and she hoped the only time in her life, all alone on Christmas. She could certainly agree that this Christmas was going far better than the previous two; Ruby was a high-strung girl, and not actually Jean's daughter, and she'd found it difficult staying under that roof, where Jean was not the hostess and yet not quite a guest and all of Christopher and Ruby's traditions were foreign to Jean, who had spent so very little time alone with them both. And that Christmas on her own had been dreadful, had left Jean more lonesome than she had ever felt in all her life. This was certainly an improvement; Lucien was in good spirits, and the house was decorated beautifully, and Jean had made enough biscuits to fill every tin in the house, and all was well.

It was not, she thought, her best Christmas ever. There had been other Christmases, in what seemed to her to be another lifetime, full of the joy of children, the love of a family, warm and all-encompassing. No doubt Lucien had his own lovely memories as well, memories of his wife, his child, his mother, those women he had loved so dearly, lost to him by the turn of time and the cruel twist of fate. This Christmas was nothing like those, boisterous, loud, sparkling like the fancy paper he'd used to wrap the gifts under their tree this year. There was something quiet, something almost expectant about this Christmas; Charlie and Mattie had caught a bus to Melbourne together, gone to see their families, and Lucien and Jean were left with only one another, and all the world seemed to be holding its breath.

It doesn't seem like Christmas without the children, Jean thought, without her boys and Lucien's daughter, without Mattie and Charlie underfoot. Matthew Lawson and Alice Harvey would come round for tea on the day, and that would be perfectly nice, but Christmas without the children felt strangely, painfully quiet to Jean. Without the excitement over presents, without their chatter, without the smiling faces of those she loved, without the comforting rituals of togetherness, what was left to her? Lucien had passed more Christmases alone than Jean had ever done; perhaps he was more accustomed to this nostalgic sorrow, and welcomed it as part of the season. It was still a new experience, for Jean.

Things would be different, this time next year. Ruby was expecting a baby - Jean was even now in the process of knitting a blanket for her first grandchild, filled with a joy that felt strangely like sadness - and with that baby the cycle would start anew. All the old traditions would be revived, for the sake of a child, and it would be for Christopher and Ruby the way it had been for Jean and her Christopher so many years before, the enchantment of the season returned with holy reverence as they taught their little ones everything they had learned when they were small. The tree seemed bigger, the lights brighter, the Christmas mass more moving, viewed through the eyes of a child. Perhaps this time next year Jean might be sitting by a hearth with a baby in her arms, and perhaps her heart would be lighter, then.

But for now, for this night, Jean was alone, with Lucien. Lucien who, while perfectly polite, had begun to make her feel a little uneasy, begun to make her heart flutter in her chest as it had not done for such a terribly long time. She had felt it, now, the brush of his fingertips against her cheek, the heavy warmth of his arms wrapped around her in comfort, the delicious potential that seemed to hang in the air whenever she was alone with him. Maybe this is the beginning of you being ready; she could still hear him whispering those words in her mind when she closed her eyes. He was ready, she knew that now. He would have kissed her that day in the garden, if she'd let him. Would have kissed her months before in the sunroom, if the phone hadn't rung and brought them back to their senses. Sometimes when he looked at her - the way he looked at her now, his eyes warm and serious, his lips slightly parted, his chest still, as if he had stopped breathing altogether - she could almost hear him thinking it, thinking of her, thinking of kissing her, thinking of consigning them both to the flames of madness.

He might be ready, and perhaps Jean had made a beginning - she had thought, more than once now, of how it might feel to kiss him, and felt only a wild, rushing yearning at the idea of it, rather than the shame she had expected - but she was not there. Not yet. To kiss him, to hold him, to open her heart to him - as she longed for, as he longed for - would be to take an impossible risk. To risk her future, her stability, her home, her reputation, to risk everything she was and everything she had for a man known for his caprice, a man whose mood shifted with the winds, a man who oftentimes forgot everyone and everything that was not himself. He could be dear, could be generous, could be tender, when he wanted to be, when the moment was right, but Jean was not certain, not yet, that he could be those things for long enough to make this risk one worth taking. What would become of her, when something brighter came along? What would become of her, should he grow tired of her? How deeply would it bite if she risked her heart on love for the first time in nearly two decades, and only to find that he didn't want her, after all, and all her hopes had turned to bitter disappointment? Perhaps, she thought, sometimes the potential of a thing was sweeter than the thing itself. Perhaps his kiss was better imagined, and not felt.

"Well," he said into the strange, introspective silence that had sprung up between them. "It's late. I think I'd best be off to bed."

He rose slowly to his feet and so too did Jean; he was the master of the house, and she was not in the habit of lingering downstairs after he'd gone to bed. If he was ready to sleep, she would follow, up the stairs and off to her own bed. Carefully she tucked her knitting in its basket, switched off the lamp, and moved to follow Lucien out of the parlor.

"I'll make us a nice breakfast," she told him as she went. His back was to her, but he paused as she drew near, turning to smile at her softly.

"Bubble and squeak?" he asked hopefully. He did so look like a little boy, just then, hopeful for a treat, and she did so want to give it to him, to give him happy memories, and joy, to make up for all the years of heartbreak he had endured.

"If you like," she told him, smiling. "Scones, too, I think."

"With jam and cream?"

Jean laughed at him; she couldn't help it. How eager he could be, how easy to please. When he'd first come to her his eyes had been wild and his belly underfed, but he had grown happy and satisfied under her gentle care, and she was glad of it.

"Oh, I think we must," she said.

There was that smile of his, that smile that she sometimes thought he saved just for her, warm and softer than any look she'd ever seen him direct at anyone else. They were alone, on Christmas Eve, and he was quite the handsomest man she'd ever met, with quite the softest heart, and he was smiling, and the earth seemed to shift beneath Jean's feet as she looked at him.

You could, a little voice whispered in the back of her mind. All alone, with no one to see, you could -

"Good night, Lucien," she told him, her smile fading somewhat as she made to step by him, to walk out into the corridor, up to her bed. She could, but she wouldn't; caution must win the day, for she had learned the lessons of a reckless youth through grief and suffering, and could not bear such pain a second time.

She had no sooner reached the threshold of the parlor, however, than his hand reached for her, caught her arm gently, stopping her in her tracks. Before Jean could ask what on earth he was doing he pointed just above her head, and she lifted her chin, and looked, wondering what he had seen, what had caused him to reach out for her. The breath left her lungs as she realized what was afoot; hung there on the lentil of the doorway was a bright, merry sprig of mistletoe.

That was why he had stopped her. That was why he stepped up close, now, his hand still resting on her arm, his breathing slow, his eyes wide with longing. Oh, his eyes; he'd looked at her just like this, that day in the sunroom, serious and yearning, his gaze dropping to her lips, his own lips parted, hopeful, ready. Every man on the verge of a kiss shared a certain look, Jean thought; she'd discovered it when she was young, and never forgotten it. A sort of determination, a sort of recklessness, a sort of want that dispelled all rational thought, and left behind it only need. He was close, so very close now, and he was so tall, and so strong, and so handsome, and touching her so gently, and you could, you know, her heart whispered. It would be the easiest thing in the world, to smile at him, to lift her chin and let him have her. How marvelous that would feel, she thought, to be wanted, to reach out with both hands for the love that had been missing from her life for so long now, the love that stood just within her reach, the love her heart clamored for.

It would be easy, in the moment, but the consequences of it would be impossible to bear. She was not ready, to take this risk. Too many times in the past risk had turned her life to ashes in her hands, and no matter what she might have longed for, no matter how beautiful it might have seemed in the moment, she feared that this time, too, she would take a gamble, and she would lose. Better not to play at all, the words her father had spoken to her once, than to lose it all on one bad hand.

"Good night, Lucien," she whispered sadly, and slipped away from him before she could think better of it, her steps slow and heavy as she pulled herself away from him. Part of her longed to look back, to see if he had hung his head in sorrow, or if he was watching her with eyes full of questions, but she could not bear to see her own disappointment written on his sweet face, and so she did not look.

She just went, up the stairs, stopped off in the loo for a moment and then barricaded herself in her bedroom. Her mind was full of memories as she changed into her pajamas, let down her hair, crawled beneath her blankets. Christmas Eve as a child, falling asleep with her nose pressed to the window, waiting for gifts that would never come; Christmas Eve as a woman, wrapped up tight in her husband's arms, rocking against him and laughing, trying to keep their voices soft, trying not to wake their sleeping children; Christmas Eve as a widow, with only old Doctor Blake for company; Christmas Eve now, lonesome and yearning, with a handsome man downstairs she dared not touch. What would the next Christmas Eve hold, and the next? What would become of her, if she were not ever ready for his kiss, his wild, reckless heart? What would become of her if she was? Too many questions, too many memories, and too few answers; her mind churned in and around itself like a pit of wrangling snakes until at last her eyes closed, and sleep claimed her.