A/N: This chapter felt like pulling teeth for some reason. I think it was a combination of flagging confidence and precious few blocks of concentrated time to work. I'm not the sort who can just jump from real life into my characters' minds. My kids are all working on 8-week intensive writing courses. It's my third-grader's first time having to do research and plan out his writing and he's been relying heavily on my help during their schooldays, which is normally when I grab the biggest chunks of writing time. It's fun, in a way; I'm getting to teach what I adore. It's also challenging because I have to slow down and step back and remember that he's nine. My second-grader, on the other hand, has been blasting through his grammar course like a renegade, forgetting left and right to show me his work before he submits it. But I do love his independent streak. My sixth-grader has done fine on her own ever since she figured out the topic of her essay. At any rate, I'm here. Been rereading a lot of my favorite DA fanfic authors, many of whom are UK-based, and their use of language has been insightful. So if I'm making Richard sound more Scottish at times, blame them. And Shetland.

Just a very quick word, and I'll leave you to it. Did you know that writers don't know whether you're reading if you don't review? It's true. I feel (wonder; worry obsessively) I've lost some of you and it's had an effect on my inspiration and confidence. You guys owe me NOTHING; I'm just putting it out there. I appreciate each and every one of you more than I can say!

xx,
~ejb~

"Don't go pushing the boat out," she'd told him when he offered to fix breakfast, and he hadn't argued with her. Hadn't argued, but hadn't exactly agreed neither. In spite of the delicious meal she had prepared for them last evening, or perhaps because of the nature of the activities undertaken by the two of them in the night, he finds himself well beyond peckish by the time he makes it downstairs.

He needs to make a proper trip to the market, he concludes after rummaging through cupboards and the contents of the refrigerator. Typically that's a task for Fridays after work, but when they were there yesterday he was singularly focussed, not on that with which he ought to have been preoccupied (namely; procuring the necessary ingredients for dinner), but on, well … her.

Still, there is bread left from the loaf she baked last night, and cherries that weren't needed in the pie. He's got plenty of potatoes in cold storage and he knows just what he'll do with them. And coffee. A full pot, drip-brewed, because she can't do without it any more than he.

By the time she emerges from the bath, he's got it well in hand. He doesn't hear her approach, has no idea she's there at all until he feels warm hands on his hips, soft lips pressed against his bare back trailing kisses from one shoulder blade to the other.

He moans softly at the contact, feels her smile like a caress against his skin. She slips her arms around his waist from behind and holds him. Her warmth suffuses into him, and time stands still a moment.

This is it. The missing piece of the puzzle that has been his life.

He is reluctant to break the still silence, but he doesn't want to seem impolite or to foster an air of unease. "Did you enjoy your bath?" he finally asks her.

She nods against his back, resting her cheek there. "I'm feeling much better." And then, more softly, "You feel wonderful."

He reacts viscerally to her words. His heart thumps hard in his chest, his stomach fluttering. His groin tightens. "Would it be very wrong of me to ask you never to let go?"

It still feels dangerous to lay his heart open to her like this, but he is through with suppressing his own needs.

She laughs beguilingly. "I don't believe so, no. Would it be wrong of me if I didn't want to let go?"

He grins. "Definitely not." Having finished the breakfast preparations, he shuts off the cooker and turns to face her.

"Do you always cook shirtless?" The corner of her mouth quirks in a tiny smile that he finds alluring. He sees the heat in her eyes as they rake over his body, clad in only his pyjama trousers.

"About as often as I bring my Chief of Nursing to my bed," he answers. He is undertaking an appraisal of his own. She looks soft as she stands before him in her bare feet; he is broader about the shoulders than she, and accordingly the v-shape formed by his dressing gown where one side of the fabric crosses over the other exposes the upper part of her chest. He wants to taste her there, where shadows fall on the concavity between one breast and the other. To feel her heart beating beneath his lips.

"Well, what is it they say about old dogs and new tricks?" She's smiling. Radiant.

God, he loves her, with her honeyed tongue, her pure heart and honest eyes, and oh! but hasn't he fallen on his feet? And for a moment he thinks, Right, sod it, and almost tells her, just comes right out and says it all. I want you, Isobel. Right here in the kitchen. Now and always. Marry me. Live with me. Lie beside me tonight, every night, forever.

After all, the moments that represent the best of them are those most nakedly truthful.

There's a case to be made, however, for letting those moments arise in their own time. What was it his mam was always on about? A little bit at the right time rather than everything all at once. The woman lived to ninety, after all, and one doesn't get that old without knowing something.

He takes a tiny step back in his mind. Reaches for her and lets go a sigh of relief when she presses close. She smells of soap and tooth powder, lavender and mint. Of springtime and hope and new beginnings. Her hair, still damp, tumbles down her back in waves.

"I'll never get used to this," he confesses, swaying their bodies to a silent melody as he holds her.

"I never want to," she answers. "Want it always to feel like this."

"About this always business …" he begins.

She kisses him abruptly into silence. "Breakfast first though. You've put in far too much work to let it spoil." She gives him a look that says, I told you not to bother, then kisses him again.

"Fair enough," he agrees. Perhaps he has gone a bit overboard. He's done egg and soldiers, griddle scones, bacon. Scotch pancakes topped with the leftover cherries. It's enough that he won't need to eat for the rest of the day, but she doesn't eat, as a rule. She picks at food like a bird when they're working, so if he gets carried away in the process of seeing her properly fed, he reckons he can be forgiven.

They're quiet as they eat, companionably so, passing sections of the morning's paper back and forth between them. She washes up when they're through, quelling his protest with a look, and fixes more coffee while she's in the kitchen. He looks up when he notices it's been silent for a while and catches her leaning against the doorpost, watching him. She smiles; he raises an eyebrow.

"You're easy to look at," she says with a shrug. "And it's my prerogative now."

He thinks he keeps his jaw from dropping open, but only just barely. She hands him his coffee cup, flicking her eyes towards the couch in a wordless suggestion that they relocate. She curls herself into the corner nearest the lamp, —her corner, as he has come to think of it— tucking her feet up under her, the fabric of the dressing gown shifting to reveal great expanses of bare leg.

He gives her a long look as he seats himself opposite her. Such beauty. "How do you suggest we do this?" he asks her. "Where shall we begin?"

"Believe it or not, I've never been in this position before, so I'll be making it up as I go."

"That's as good a place as any, then. What position is it that you reckon you're in?" He's trying not to be defensive, not to impose what he thinks she's thinking on the situation, but that remark she made about it feeling sordid, what they've done, is wearing away at him.

She sighs deeply, her smile vanishing. "The last 'first time' I slept with a man I loved, I was nineteen and it was our wedding night. So there was no wondering why it happened, what it meant about us, where we were going from there. I mean I know …" she pauses to look at him, tenderness in her eyes, "I know how I feel." Then her expression hardens. "But I've less certainty about your perception of … events. Of me."

"The sooner one of us comes out and says what we're really thinking, the sooner we'll arrive at a way forward." His turn to sigh, his ire rising.

"And neither one of us wants to be the one. I suppose we should look at that as a good thing; neither of us wants to hurt the other. I doubt we'd care so much if we didn't love each other." She goes quiet, and he says nothing, and then she adds, "You do know that I love you, Richard. I hope?"

He nods, after a moment. Her visage relaxes. "The day we ran into each other at the hospital, it made me furious to hear you say it, but as time went by and you didn't push for anything in return, I started to believe you." He's quiet for a moment, studying his hands. "I'm sorry that I doubted your motives."

"I'm sorry I gave you reason to doubt. I suppose that's the crux of it: can we ever put it behind us? My dismissal of you; my waging war on the way you ran the hospital. Taking up with Dickie, involving him in hospital affairs." She pauses as if the next words she plans to speak are a weight she cannot bear. "Marrying him."

"Can you give me an inkling of why you did those things? Your assertion that grief can make a person behave strangely … it's not that I feel you're trying to rationalise it, not exactly. But it does leave one wondering about your thought processes at the time."

She blinks hard, closes her eyes. Looks like she'd be eternally grateful if the floor were to open up beneath her and swallow her whole. "It's not that the question is unfair," she begins, "but it hasn't got an easy, linear answer. The truth is —and I know you hate it— that I took decisions, in grief, that I'd never have taken under normal circumstances. As it relates to the hospital, I should have accepted your suggestion that I come back as head nurse. I am a doer; I'm not an administrator, and it wasn't a wise move, accepting the position of almoner. Serving as chairman of the board whilst I was practicing was one thing; deciding matters from on high, when they had no bearing on my daily life, was another. I failed to consider how you would take it: my insistence that the hospital would be better managed by outsiders than by its chief physician of more than thirty years."

"Fair enough," he says, "but that's not the whole of it."

She frowns and wraps her arms around her middle defensively, protectively. He is vexed by the fact that she sees a need to adopt such posture in his presence. More to the point, he is suddenly and quite thoroughly irritated, full stop.

"What do you mean?" she asks.

"Can you tell me, truthfully, that there were no personal factors influencing your decisions?"

"Personal; meaning, between you and me?"

He nods.

"As in, did I have a vendetta against you?"

"Only you would know the nature of your feelings towards me at that time," he says with a shrug. All of the warmth of those first few moments after her emergence from the bath has vanished. If her affect is cold, his answer is suggestive of ice in his veins. How can he love her so much and be provoked so readily to acrimony?

This is why he was better off without her.

Her next words do nothing to discredit this assertion.

"It all comes down to the fact that you knew me too well. I used it against you; I paraded it in your face; I struck out at you because you would never have let me hide behind grief and cease living life."

"And you could have said and done anything your heart desired and Dickie Grey would have fallen for it, because he worshipped the very ground you trod upon!" he spits. "I just …" His chest aches as if she had reached in and torn out the very heart within it. He rises from his seat and begins pacing. "I can't …"

She turns to watch him. "Richard, make me understand. Please! Last night you said you'd never think better of me, that there was no turning back if we came together. I know that I've hurt you, but just exactly what have I done that is so unforgivable? I. Never. Slept. With. Him!"

"Suppose he hadn't died, eh? You could well have been married to him for thirty years, you realise. A stranger, Isobel. A stranger fixated on a self-invented image of you with which he fell in love. You're saying you'd sooner live a lie; that you'd have used him, taken advantage of his blind allegiance rather than chance falling apart in the arms of the man who truly loves you." He makes for the door, seething. As angry with himself as he is with her. Damned fool idiot!

She scrambles to her feet. "Yes. No! No, that's not what I meant. Richard, don't walk away! Please hear me out." He turns away from the door, plants his hands on his hips. Shoots her a look that asks, Satisfied? She nods, and continues:

"It was easier to push you away. You see, without me, you've made a life for yourself. A— And … and you've been safe. How could I let you get closer, knowing what would happen? Everyone I love dies!" Tears run down her cheeks and she turns away from him, swiping at them with obvious frustration.

He freezes. His knees threaten to buckle. Oh, shit. This had never occurred to him. As well as he claims to know her, how could he possibly have missed it? It doesn't erase the hurt or repair the damage done, but—

"Christ, Isobel, you think it's your fault, don't you? Your husband, your son … you think they're dead because you loved them!"

"I don't kn—" she begins to say, turning back towards him, "I don't …"

She can't speak, and, ignoring the voice inside his head that tells him to stay clear, he goes to her. Puts his hands on her shoulders. "Darling, in no way are you responsible for their deaths." He tilts her chin up until her eyes meet his own. "You have to know that."

Her brow creases. "It makes as much sense as any other explanation I've come up with. You see, there's got to be an explanation, Richard, because otherwise they died in vain, the …" she gulps back a sob, "the loves of my life."

This isn't about Dickie Grey at all, he realises. Neither is it a case of too much power having gone to her head. If he understands her properly, she was pushing him away from the fair onwards in a bid to protect him from herself because she believed she was some sort of harbinger of death.

If he still had any reason to doubt, it is swept away when she says:

"Dickie's death only served to further my suspicions. Perhaps I needn't love a man at all in order for him to be damned; perhaps all it took was proximity. I know it sounds mad, and I won't fault you if you don't believe me, but I've had many solitary years of these thoughts haunting me—"

"You can't see the forest for the trees," he finishes for her. Nonplussed, he shakes his head. He'd finally got his long sought-after explanation, but it bears no resemblance to any of his myriad imaginings. The only thing he knows for certain is that she is not the cold, calculating termagant he'd figured her for.

His hand reaches for hers; their fingertips touch and she gasps. Looks at him with an expression he can't quite read.

"Come," he tells her, steering them back to the couch. He sits down and she hesitates. He nods encouragingly and she seats herself towards the centre.

"Isobel, it's alright." He opens his arms to her. She eyes him haltingly for a moment, then comes to him, resting her head on his shoulder but otherwise holding herself rigid.

"Och! Come on, lass! I don't bite." He lowers his voice to a whisper, leaning close to her ear. "Not anymore."

It has the desired effect of getting her to laugh, and also (he notes with satisfaction) of causing gooseflesh to rise over the delicate skin at the junction of her neck and shoulder. His arms come around her waist and she relaxes into him. He tries to calm his heart rate when she lays her head on his bare chest. His efforts are in vain. Breathe in, breathe out. Sweet Jesus, she's warm. And soft. And underneath that dressing gown, she's—

Her words cut through his thoughts, mercifully, before he gets ahead of himself.

"Does this mean that I'm forgiven?" She turns her face to look at him without lifting her head.

"Oh Isobel," he tuts. "I forgave you in here (he taps his head) the day we met again. Surely I've said …"

"No." She shakes her head, "no, you haven't done. Which brings me to another sticking point. If I may …" Now she sits up, backing away from him enough to permit conversation.

He nods. "'Course. I reckon you'd better."

She smiles, then abruptly looks pained. Smiles again, a little sadly. "How to say this delicately …" she mutters, pausing to think. She folds her hands in her lap and studies them intently, and all the while he watches.

"Richard," she says at last, "I'm going to preface this by saying that you're the best of men, and far be it from me to suggest you change anything about yourself."

"Bloody hell," he grumbles, "this is gonnae smart then."

She graces him with a soft smile, squeezes his hand. "No, love. It's only that it isn't the simplest task, figuring out what you're thinking. You're not exactly the most forthcoming chap. I'd say it's to do with the fact that you're a man, but you see, that's just it."

He scowls. "No, I don't see. What's what?"

She chuckles, and that expression comes over her face again. The one that he thinks means something along the lines of, He's adorable. He considers rolling his eyes, but then the tips of her fingers touch his forehead, smoothing the furrow of his brow. He leans into the contact in spite of himself and catches her hand in his. Bringing it to his lips, he kisses the centre of her palm, and before she can contain it a tiny moan escapes.

"You're distracting me." She feigns a pout, and in response he grabs her by the shoulders and kisses it away.

He likes the ease of this, feels relief in it; now that the hardest part is behind them, they're back to good-natured ribbing and gentle flirtation even as they continue to tread on shaky ground. He reckons she knew what she was talking about after all when she said that they'd be alright.

She kisses him back and it becomes deep and slow and searching, conversation falling away for the moment. Overcome by the nearness of her, he pushes her back to lie flat and moves over her, kissing her forehead and eyelids and that irresistible soft place just where her neck curves into her shoulder. Her hands are in his hair as his mouth travels the path between her breasts. He pushes the fabric aside with his nose and nuzzles his way closer and closer to her nipple. And just as she sucks in a breath, her entire body drawn taut in anticipation …

He stops.

She opens her eyes and fixes them murderously on his own. "You mean old bugger! What are you trying to do to me, Richard?"

His eyes smile in answer and they both start to laugh. He helps her up and she pulls him to her. His head is on her chest now, and he concludes that this will do. She needs to be needed and he reckons he can handle making himself vulnerable once in a while, particularly if it means her holding him like this.

"I'm sorry, my darling. You were saying?" He chuckles as the words come out.

She runs her knuckles up and down the length of his spine and he tries not to think about the fact that her hands are on his bare skin. "Ah, yes. Before I lost my train of thought —can't imagine how that could've happened, can you?" She presses her lips briefly to his temple and he feels the smile that graces them. "Anyway, I was going to say that in spite of the fact that I could never return the sentiment, at least Dickie said the words."

He sits up. "Ah. There's the rub. Thought it would go down easier if I were in your arms, eh?" He tenses, moving away from her.

Undaunted, she kneels on the floor between his knees. Ducks her head under his clasped hands, propped as they are with his elbows resting on his thighs. "Hey, no," she half-whispers, warm puffs of breath on his chest. "No. I know that it ought to have been enough: your … your actions, your manner. The way that you treated me. I suppose that I was seeking direction, looking for a clear-cut path to follow. I never had to wonder what he thought, and when I was floundering, something about that appealed, if only briefly."

It's hard to hear, but the fact of the matter is that she's here now. With him. He'd do well to remind himself of that, and to keep reminding himself again and again.

His throat feels raw when he speaks next. "And if I'd said them? What would it have changed?" This is an altogether different kind of vulnerability to that of a few moments ago. This kind generates a rib-splitting ache below his sternum. She holds his heart in the palm of her hand, and forgive her though he does, it remains to be seen whether she can be trusted.

"Darling, there's no way to know what might have been." She catches his chin in her palm, makes him look her in the eyes. "But you're saying them now. And that makes all the difference."

She opens her arms and he comes willingly into them, accepting the comfort she offers. For the moment it's enough; after all, how long had he dreamt of this, never allowing himself to consider the likelihood of it ever becoming reality? He believes her now, believes that she loves him and that she has done for years. They've still so far to go, but never in a million years did he imagine they'd be here.

oOo

He must have dozed a bit because his next awareness is of soft humming and of fingers carding through his hair. There's a knot in his neck the size of a cricket ball, but his head is leant against something —her head, he thinks— and her touch is so soothing that he's loath to move.

She must have registered the change in his breathing, because he feels her lips press against his cheek. "Well hello, sleepyhead. Good of you to join us," she says softly.

He moves a little, enough to look at her, and leans his head against the back of the couch. "Somebody kept me awake half the night." He pretends annoyance. "She was rather insistent, too."

Smirking, she jabs him in the side with her elbow. "Oh, like you weren't!" Her cheeks flush beetroot and he knows she must be thinking the same thing he is.

"Oh yes. We certainly did." He affirms their shared thought and grabs her hand, kissing it. Wraps their fingers together.

"How did you?—" she starts to say, then interrupts herself. She smiles, a look of reminiscence crossing her features. "Oh, yes. I forgot how often we used to do that."

He's still groggy from his impromptu nap and he digs his fingers into the aching muscles at the back of his neck.

"Your neck didn't like the way you nodded off." No chastisement; simply an observation. Not that she wouldn't tell him off if she reckoned he needed it, mind. This knowledge makes him appreciate her gentle remark all the more. "Lean forward," he hears her direct him. "Chin to your chest if you can."

He does as he's told and in short order her hands alight on his shoulders. Her fingertips smooth across the area, assessing his condition. "Just here, yeah?" She locates the source of his discomfort.

"Aye," he grunts as she begins to knead.

"Sorry, darling. Going to hurt a little more for a minute but then it should start to improve. The muscle is in spasm; you ought to let me give you something for it."

"No. It'll put me flat on my back for the rest of the day." He doesn't mean to be gruff.

She doesn't flinch. "I'm not going to push. Breathe, Richard."

Oh, right. He'd forgotten momentarily. He draws a deep breath as she applies pressure with the pad of her thumb to the centre of the knot in a twisting motion.

Suddenly his muscles relax, the pain vanishing. She continues to touch him, the warmth of her palms ensuring he doesn't cramp up again. He groans with the relief of it.

"Better?" she asks, leaning forward to press a kiss to the back of his neck. She doesn't let go, her arms coming around his shoulders to enfold him.

"Much. You're an angel."

She chuffs a laugh, warm breath against his skin. "Remember that the next time I get your blood up." He echoes her laughter. She kisses his cheek. "I should have a hot bath," she suggests. "I'll bring you up a cup of tea."

He raises an eyebrow. "Will you heck. How positively scandalous, Lady Merton!"

She has the good grace to laugh, but then she wrinkles her nose. "How rotten is it that I can't stand being called by his name?"

He smirks; he simply cannot help it. "Depends on whom you're asking," he says with a shrug.

"Well, what does the good Dr. Clarkson have to say on the subject?" Oh! The look on her face! It's one part smug; one part amused, and entirely provocative.

"I believe the exact words are … 'Thank you, Jesus.'"