Life Takes a Turn, A Doctor Blake Fan Fiction
Chapter One
No, I didn't think he would propose that day. That's not the kind of thing I'd let myself expect. But I had felt sure of him in a way I never had. He's a hard man to understand sometimes, and I think I know him as well as one can. But that's part of what makes him worth it all, that sense of not being completely sure what's coming next. I can say for those few days, since I bought that ticket home from Adelaide, I felt like he was only looking at me when we were in the room together. I felt like every smile was mine. And every touch begged another. I can't ever remember being that happy. And then, well, life takes a turn.
He hadn't kissed her yet. He hadn't even said he loved her. So, as far as Jean was concerned, she could wake up tomorrow and find that everything she and Lucien didn't quite say on the bus to Adelaide dissolved around her. She'd been feeling this way for a week, now. But still, every morning, Lucien arrived just after Christopher left for work. And every morning he looked just a little less nervous standing there with his shirt sleeves rolled up and a hopeful smile on his face. She got a little more comfortable each day, too, in fact that last morning she just handed him the baby on the doorstep while she finished breakfast.
Who would have known Lucien Blake was marvelous with babies?
But mostly, he made the coffee and washed the dishes while Jean showed Ruby how to make herself a schedule and held her hand while the baby cried in her crib. "She's fine," Jean said, squeezing Ruby's hand, in part to provide comfort but mostly to keep her from jumping up and grabbing the child. "She just needs to settle." And then she'd give Lucien a look to keep him from rescuing Amelia.
Ruby loved Lucien almost as much as Amelia did. He told her about the Asian Pit Viper they'd found in Ballarat and how Jean had pretended to shop for a vacuum cleaner to help solve the case.
"We did need a new vacuum cleaner!" Jean insisted.
"I remember you being very upset that week. Was it because of the broken vacuum?"
"Oh, my goodness," Jean said in exasperation, as she rose to fix the tea. But she patted Lucien on the shoulder as she walked by and he caught her eye with a smile.
It only took three days and the child was sleeping through the night. The dark circles started to disappear from under Ruby's eyes. She greeted her husband at the door again when he came home in the evenings and Christopher went from looking relieved and grateful to a little impatient.
Jean wondered how she ever could have thought she'd be needed here permanently, or even for an extended time. Did she ever think that? Or was she just looking for a way out. She had done many hard things in her life, but living under the same roof as Lucien Blake was, at times, one of the hardest. She had fought hard for the control she exercised every day to be Mrs. Jean Beazley. It hadn't come naturally or easily, but she'd done it. And she felt it fray around Lucien. His smile. His warmth. His touch. He felt like the one great adventure she'd always longed to take.
And then, it was like he didn't see her at all. What had she been thinking? That a man would come make everything alright? Would solve her problems – problems she didn't think she had till she'd met him? No, she was a widow who needed a stable job and a stable life. Leaving just made sense.
But Lucien had followed her, hadn't he? And he came to her son's house every day. He helped. He joked. He was clearly uncomfortable at times, but he didn't leave.
"Jean, I've received a telegram," he started, but she didn't let him finish. She knew this was coming.
"Then you have to go, don't you?"
There was an express bus early in the morning, before the house was generally awake, even Amelia. She would borrow Christopher's car.
"I'll take you," Jean said.
"I'm sorry. I meant to stay until…ah…"
She stopped him. She didn't want to hear it. Because whatever it was he was about to say, it probably wasn't enough, but she'd falter anyway. Better to stay ahead of it.
"Until what?" Jean asked. "You were going to have to go back to work eventually."
"Right," he said. And then Ruby had walked in and expressed her own sorrow at losing Lucien. Well, what did she expect? Jean heard herself snap at the girl but didn't actually mind. Sometimes people just needed to be stronger.
Jean bundled Lucien out the door soon after. He needed his rest, she told him and he did what she told him to do. He was suddenly just Lucien again and she was just Jean, or maybe Mrs. Beazley. Maybe he'd melted away her anger by showing up on that bus but never intended to do anything more. Maybe he'd held her like that because that's what it would take to keep her. Maybe he just needed his housekeeper. But she was done being Lucien Blake's housekeeper. Wasn't she?
The next morning had been about logistics and pleasantries during the short drive to the station, until the last awkward moment when she wrapped her coat tightly around. And the early morning breeze played with her hair. There wasn't anything left to say and yet, they hadn't said anything at all.
She couldn't stop watching him but couldn't actually look at him. She thought he might be doing the same. Finally, there was no ignoring that this was the goodbye they didn't say in Ballarat.
"They seem to be doing fairly well now, with the baby," Lucien offered, his eyes on his shoes as he broke the silence.
"They do. Ruby just needed a little help being strong."
"We all need that sometimes, Jean."
Her eyes shot up to his now. Sometimes he looked at her and he seemed so young. He was five years her senior and absolutely a grown man who could and did tell everyone else how to handle their own lives. But when he looked at her like that, he might as well be Amelia with her arms up in the crib. She opened her mouth to respond but didn't know what to say. He stepped forward. She thought he might kiss her then. She felt herself flush in expectation and immediately looked down at her own feet so he wouldn't see.
He stopped short. "Are you… are you staying long, Jean?"
"I don't know," she said. She squinted into the wind, looking toward the waiting bus. "They don't seem to need me much, but…" Why was this so hard? Just, send him off. End this for both of them. The corners of her eyes watered, probably from the wind. She was about to tell him he ought to hurry along when he continued.
"I need you, Jean. I need you so very much."
A train whistle blew and she met his eyes again. He put his hand on her cheek and someone had the audacity to bump into them with a trolley full of luggage.
"Sorry, ma'am." He said.
"Quite alright," she said. But it wasn't alright. It's just what you say.
Lucien smiled at her now and everything inside of her melted - whatever strength she thought she had, whatever moral fortitude. He reached out and cupped her entire face in his warm hands. He ran a thumb across her lips.
"Lucien," she said, hearing the tremor in her voice, feeling her knees weaken. She might actually stumble. How embarrassing would that be? But she didn't really care and that scared her more than anything. He could undo her completely and she was perfectly willing to let him.
"When you come home," he said, meaningfully and she understood. When, not if. Home, not back. He'd always been so clear about that. Home. "Can we see about things, about… us."
She nodded quickly, fighting back the tears and losing. He brushed them away with his thumbs as he always did when she cried. Yes, yes they would see about it. Dear Lord, please.
The bus driver told him they needed to leave, much like the one in Ballarat had told her just a week before. When she thought, maybe, she'd seen him for the last time.
"You'd better go," she said now, her voice catching.
He stepped forward awkwardly and kissed her on the forehead. It would do.
"I'll see you…"
"Soon," she said. "I'll call."
He exhaled. His shoulders relaxed. He smiled like the grown Lucien again. "Thank you," he said, and stepped onto the bus. She watched him find his seat. Watched him get settled. He caught her eye, and she waved but he wouldn't look away. Neither could she. Not till the bus had pulled all the way out and her eyes could only make out the shape of him through the window, and then, nothing.
He hadn't kissed her, not really. He hadn't said he loved her, not exactly, but she thought, maybe, it was all real, anyway.
She squared her shoulders, flipped her collar, walked straight to the ticket window, and bought a ticket home.