As she stepped through the doorway Jean did not find the stairs and the comforting vision of home waiting for her on the other side, as she had expected, but nor did she find darkness, as she had discovered the last time she'd walked through the doorway. Instead she was plunged into a bright, brilliant light, and she closed her eyes tight against it, tears sticking her lashes together. Her heart was aching, still; she spun on her heel, blind and devastated, her hands reaching for the door, searching for some way back to the past, to the vision of that life she had loved so dearly, but her hands met no resistance. Hesitantly she opened her eyes, blinking away her tears and the stunning light, and found that the door had vanished; she was standing beside Genevieve in an open field, beneath a blazing midday sun.

"Please," Jean whispered to the silent spirit standing sentinel beside her. "Please, take me back."

If only she could go back; perhaps her family would not notice her presence, but she would be able to see them, as they had been, to watch love unfolding all around her, to soak in the warmth of those memories, rather than be wounded by them, but Genevieve just shook her head. It wasn't fair, Jean thought, that she should be granted such a vision and yet not be able to enjoy it; what was the purpose of their jaunt to her past in any case, if they only stayed for a moment and saw nothing of consequence?

"I don't understand," Jean said raggedly, "and I don't want to see any more. I just want to go home. Please," she added. No matter how devastated she might have been a part of her still recalled that she was completely at Mrs. Blake's mercy, and she did not want to upset her captor unnecessarily.

Mrs. Blake's answering smile was enigmatic; Jean could not quite understand what it was the woman was trying to tell her, but there was an air of expectation about her, as if they had come to this field for a purpose, and that purpose would soon be revealed. A distant sound like the slamming of a car door seemed to echo off on the distance, and Mrs. Blake jumped into a action like a dog who'd caught a scent, marching off across the grass and taking Jean with her. As they walked the scene resolved itself; they were not in a field at all, Jean realized, but winding through the graveyard beside Sacred Heart. Jean knew this place well, but she could not reckon why Mrs. Blake had brought her here - not to mention how. Jean's rational mind was working overtime ignoring all those questions, about how Mrs. Blake had come to be here, how she could touch Jean as if she were real, how they had traveled to the past and how they had come to be in the graveyard. It was too much for her to puzzle through all at once, and compounded by the grief of the vision they'd just retreated from altogether Jean feared she was too fragile to face the answers in any case.

She could just make out the shape of a few cars parked at the edge of the graveyard, and from what little Jean could see of the look of the cars and the look of the church it seemed to her they were no longer in pre-war Ballarat, but instead in a time closer to the one Jean knew. Jean did not often venture this deeply into the graveyard - Christopher's marker was at the edge of the field closest to the church, and she did not visit her parents much, these days - and so the stones around her were unfamiliar, but she and Mrs. Blake turned a corner and she found a most familiar sight indeed.

It was Lucien, dressed in the same grey suit he'd been wearing when Jean last saw him, a bundle of flowers clutched in his hands. He marched purposefully towards them but took no more note of them than Jean's past self and Christopher had done; he could not see them, could not hear them. That was a strange feeling, seeing Lucien so close to hand and yet paying her no mind, and Jean liked it not one bit. She rather thought Mrs. Blake didn't care for it, either; Genevieve's expression was pained as she led Jean along behind Lucien, and then the three of them came to a stop in front of one of the gravestones.

"Hello, mum," Lucien said quietly as he laid the flowers down on top of the stone and brushed a few errant leaves away from it.

Oh, Lucien. Jean's tender heart grieved for him, to think of him visiting the mother he'd lost when he was just a child, the mother he had so adored, the mother who stood close to him now, though he didn't know it.

"It's Christmas Eve, today," he said, "and I thought I ought to bring you something."

If it was Christmas Eve, and Lucien was in Ballarat wearing that same grey suit, Jean supposed she must have found herself back in the same day she'd left, albeit several hours earlier, or perhaps Christmas just the year before, while Jean had been away. She shifted somewhat uneasily on her feet; if this was the present day, Lucien hadn't told her that he'd visited his mother's grave, and she suspected he would not appreciate this breach of his privacy. Then again, she supposed, he would likely be so intrigued by the forces that had brought her here he might forget the invasion entirely.

"I often wish that I could speak to you," he said, and with a furtive glance to make sure no one was watching he hitched up his trouser legs and plopped down on the grass beside Genevieve's headstone.

"It seems to me," he continued, "that no matter how old or wise a man might grow, he will always need the counsel of his mother. God knows there have been so many times over the years when I could have used your help. I've made such a mess of so many things. Of everything, really. And you...you always handled things so beautifully."

"Oh, I know," he added hastily, "there was so much about you I didn't know. There's a lad called Charlie, here in the town, he just moved into our spare room. He's a good lad, it's nice to have him with us. We had to shift a lot of dad's things to make space for him, and I found...oh, I found all sorts of things. I never knew that you were allergic to dogs, or that you had diabetes. Maybe you were trying to protect me, to give me a happy childhood. I did have a happy childhood, you know. Until we lost you."

Our and us and we; Lucien had spoken of his home as if it did not belong to him alone, casually including Mattie and Jean in his brief description of Charlie's arrival. It touched Jean's heart, to know that when he thought of home he thought of them, too, that he was not as focused on himself as he so often seemed to be. But his words wounded her, too, to hear him say how happy he had been before his mother's death, to know how terribly sad he had become after.

"Agnes is well, I thought you'd like to know that. And your painting of her is still in the house, the Tynemans will never get their hands on it. I hope that would please you."

Genevieve was smiling, Jean saw, as she listened to her son's words, but there was a world of sorrow in her gaze. And why shouldn't there be, Jean thought; she was a mother herself, and could think of no fate crueler than to be taken from her children too soon, to leave them all alone for forty years, lonesome and confused. If Jean had been in her place, watching her own son, unable to answer him, unable to touch him, she was certain she would be broken by the grief of it.

"Selfishly," he said, "I've come to ask you a question. Oh, I know you can't answer me, not really, but I've no one else to ask, and if I don't get it out I'm afraid it might eat me alive."

Jean held her breath, waiting; what could weigh so heavily upon his heart that he could not seek counsel from the living, from Matthew or Alice or Jean herself, and was forced instead to entreat the dead for answers?

"There's a woman, you see," he said, and Jean twisted her hands together anxiously, fearing she knew what woman he meant, fearing she didn't. "Her name is Jean," he said, and she sighed, the breath she'd been holding leaving her all at once. "And she is...oh, she's just lovely. You'd like her. Well," he laughed, "perhaps you two wouldn't quite see eye to eye, but still. She's kind, and she's clever, and she's beautiful. She...she makes everything make sense. I hardly know who I'd be without her now, strange as it is to say." He plucked absently at the grass, his gaze focused on his toes, his expression almost bashful, as if he knew his mother could hear him after all. "All the noise, all the confusion, all the questions, everything just...stops, when I'm with her. When I was young I thought that love was big and loud, like a fireworks show, or a bomb, I suppose. But now I think that love is quiet, and steady. I think that love is what makes the noise of this life into a song."

What a dear man he was; the tears had begun to flow once more down Jean's cheeks, and as they listened Genevieve reached out, and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder as if in comfort. If only he could have said those things to her, and not to his mother's stone; if only she'd known he felt this way, that his heart longed for her so desperately, not for a moment's pleasure but for her, perhaps...perhaps…

Then again, perhaps not, for the memory of Christopher's hands was strong in her mind, and the bite of fear was stronger still. Losing one love had nearly broken her; to risk another might be more than she could bear.

"The problem, as it were," he said, "is that I don't think I'm what she wants, somehow. She was married once, lost her husband in the war same as I lost Mei Lin. And she loves him still. It's...oh, I don't know the word. Knowing that she loved him that much, that she grieves for him still when Mei Lin is no more than a memory to me, knowing that she can feel so passionately but she's spent all her passion on a ghost...it isn't...I wish that I could take even a piece of that love for myself. I told you it was selfish, didn't I? She'll not have me, I don't think. I make too much of a mess, and I can't hold a candle to the man she remembers. That's a blow to the ego, isn't it, to think she loves a ghost more than she'll ever love me? Maybe I need taking down a peg or too. Maybe she'll teach me humility."

Is that really what he thinks? Jean asked herself as she looked at him now, this man so imposing, so intimidating in life, sitting on the grass, telling his mother how he would never be good enough for Jean. Did he really think she wouldn't love him? Could she? Did she? Would she have to let Christopher go before she could ever love Lucien?

Better not to play at all, the words her father had spoken to her once, than to lose it all on one bad hand. What if she took this risk with Lucien, and found only sorrow? Would whatever they found together be a sweet thing, or would it fade, and leave her lonesome once again? Her life was not so very bad, as it was; she was content. Given the choice between the contentment she had, and a joy that might be only fleeting, which ought she to choose?

"I said I had a question, and I suppose it's this. Ought I to risk it? She's my housekeeper; if I tell her...how I feel, what I want, and she doesn't want the same, I'm sure she'll look for employment elsewhere. I don't want her to lose her home, and her livelihood, because of my foolishness. She's spent more time living in that house than I have, it wouldn't seem right to force her out. But if I don't...bugger it. Sorry. You see my dilemma?"

"I want her, you see, rather a lot. I want...I want so many things. And I think maybe, maybe she might want something, too. But I don't know, and I don't want to hurt her. The last thing I'd ever want is to hurt her. I've hurt so many people…"

He lost his voice, hung his head in defeat, and Jean felt her heart breaking, right along with his. For so long she had been worried, wondering whether she was imagining the force of gravity that seemed to pull between them, imagining the look in his eyes, wondering whether what he felt for her was worth the risk. And all this time he'd been wondering the same, afraid to show his hand lest he wound her. What a pair we make! She thought. But now she knew, knew for a certainty, what it was he wanted, and she could...couldn't she? He spoke of love, and want, but what of a life? What would their future even look like, should she accept him now? She could hardly even imagine it, what might become of her should she take his hand.

"I suppose," he said, "I ought to give it one last chance. Third time's the charm, eh? There was this day in the sunroom, you see, and in the garden, once, when I thought...well. At any rate. There's a bit of mistletoe in the parlor, and Christmas is a time for love, is it not? Maybe...maybe this is our last chance. And if she'll not have me now, then I'll know."

Oh, no, Jean realized with dawning horror. The moment she'd shared with Lucien in the parlor later that evening had apparently not been a cruel twist of fate, as she'd thought, but rather one last overture from him, hoping to see whether she was interested in him at all. And she'd turned him down! What he must be thinking now - or then, or tonight, or whenever, it was all a bit muddled in her mind. Had he turned his heart against her entirely? Had she lost her last best chance to tell him that she did care for him, that she was only afraid? If she'd only known, perhaps she would have made a different choice. Perhaps she might have -

"It's terribly lonely," Lucien said softly, "This Christmas business. My daughter's on the other side of the world, and our lodgers have gone home, and Jean is...she's so lovely. We could have a proper Christmas, I think, just her and I together, but she's been keeping her distance. I've been rattling around that house all day, thinking of you, and wishing...oh, I wish for so many things."

Beside her Genevieve sighed once, softly, and then went to her son, resting her hand gently atop his head as he stared at his shoes, lost in his own grief. The sight of them together, Genevieve reaching for him, wanting to comfort him even from beyond the grave, and Lucien lost in sadness, never knowing she was there at all, sent silent tears coursing down Jean's cheeks. It wasn't fair, she thought, that Genevieve had been taken from her son, that poor Lucien didn't know just how loved he was. Yes, he made a mess of things, sometimes, but Jean was rather adept at cleaning up mess, and he was so wonderful, really, brave and tender and kind, and when he smiled...she'd do anything, to see that smile of his.

Maybe he's right, she thought, looking at the pair of them, mother and son, separated by the veil of death. Maybe love is the quiet. With Christopher love had been a whirlwind, reckless and wild, but it had settled, after, and it was the quiet Jean remembered most. So, too, it was the quiet moments with Lucien that most affected her; that day in the sunroom, his arms wrapped tight around her, that day in the garden with her hand wrapped in his, but more than that, it was a quiet cup of tea in the morning, his warmth beside her as she washed the dishes and he dried them, gentle conversation and a warm, tender smile. But oh, he could be loud, too, like a bull in a china shop, rushing around town, always causing trouble, losing sight of what was in front of him. Could the quiet moments drown out all that noise?

For so long Jean had been clinging to her past, certain that she had had her love, and lost him, and would never find his like again. The vision Genevieve had showed her only reminded her of how much she treasured that love. Could a new love ever be as good, as warm and all encompassing, as the old? Could Lucien could love her, love her truly, in the way that she needed? Could she be the one to make him happy, and banish the sorrow that haunted his steps? Or would he grow tired of her, Jean who was not as reckless as he, Jean who held him back when he longed to rush forward, Jean who did not share his courage? It was all so dreadfully confusing, she hardly knew which way was up.

Lucien began to rise slowly to his feet, and Genevieve left him there, walked back to Jean and once more caught hold of her hand.

"Can we go home now, please?" Jean asked her plaintively. She had seen so much, learned so much on this night, her heart was aching, and her bed was calling to her. If only she could crawl beneath the blankets and sleep this night, perhaps everything would make more sense in the morning. She did not want to be here, in the thrall of this ghost, this figment of Lucien's past, pulled through the world by some force of fate she did not understand. She wanted to return to where the world made sense; she wanted to go home.

Mrs. Blake turned them, and as they began to walk across the grass that same door appeared, and this time Jean approached it gratefully, hoping that their strange journey was at an end.

A/N: more soon!