A/N Thank you so much for all the lovely reviews - they help keep me going when I wonder whether I should carry on with my writing!

The Judge looked relieved to be talking to someone he expected, "Good. You're not – well, you're not quite what –" He took a deliberate pause and broke their handshake. It left her somewhat bereft, she grimaced at her own ridiculousness. He waved his hand in the air as if dismissing a sentiment he'd never expressed, smiled again and continued, "no matter, please, sit." Edith directed herself to the green wingback chair, "I just have to get out of these, give me a moment."

He continued to divest himself of his judicial robes. He pulled his bands from his neck and folded them neatly in two. He reached around and clicked a gold stud before removing it and dropping it next to the bands on the desk. He glanced up at her and smiled as he removed his starched collar, "you must have heard me swearing?"

"Not exactly –" she tried not to be distracted but it was difficult as he opened up the first three buttons of his shirt and drew his fingers gently across his neck allowing his skin to breath. His neck muscles tightened and relaxed. She licked her lips and carried on, "I guessed you weren't very happy though – from your tone."

He smirked, "yes, 'not very happy'. That's a polite way of putting it." He started working on the robes themselves. They were black with purple cuffs and collars and stopped just past his knees. They were held in place by a black sash running from his left shoulder to hip and a thick black loop of fabric at the waist, "I've been battling with defence Counsel in my trial. I made a number of decisions which didn't go his way." He pulled the sash over his head and untied the one at his waist, "which is fine. That happens all the time. If I'm wrong he can appeal me – it's the way it works." He worked on the buttons running down the centre and pulled the robes off his shoulders, "But he's disrespectful in the way he speaks to me, as though I'm a child and fresh out of law school, as though I haven't done this hundreds of times and then he tries to re-open the decisions-" he raised his voice and begun what was obviously an impersonation, " 'if Your Honour would just re-consider the hearsay issue'. I've been a Judge for seven years and it's the first time I've wanted to literally throw the book at someone."

From the wardrobe he replaced a hanging jumper with the robes. He pulled the thick grey jumper over his head and smiled, "right, tea."

It wasn't a question and she told herself it would have been rude to refuse, even though she was taking up more of his time, for what would amount to no benefit to either of them.

He stooped, somewhat ungainly, over the small table and flicked the kettle, busying himself with the tea bags, he looked at her again, "I rather unloaded on you with all that, I apologise."

"You needed to vent, I understand. I've been there. I mean - not exactly there – not in charge of a court or anything, obviously." Edith shook her head in an effort to toss away the embarrassment gathering in her cheeks. She looked down at the mug of tea he handed to her. Fifteen years at public school, three years at Cambridge, two years curating at the Fitz and a year in London. All that, and basic conversational back and forth continued to elude her; all compounded exponentially by this man's sheer magnetism. It was terribly early in the week to feel such a level of mortification.

"I feel much better for it, so thank you for that." He sat behind the desk and his blue eyes searched her face.

Desperate to appear somewhat coherent Edith enquired about his unstated first impression, "what were you going to say earlier?"

Anthony took a sip of his drink and recoiled at the heat, "when?"

"You said when you shook my hand that 'you're not quite what-' but you never finished the thought. What am I not quite?" She smiled, more from relief than anything else, she'd proved she could speak a complete, sensible sentence and she that she had a memory for the things said to her. She was not that much of an idiot.

"Goodness, I didn't finish that thought did I? I am unaccustomed to not finishing thoughts." Edith furrowed her forehead; she left things unsaid at least ten times a day. He noticed her disbelief, he spoke with a shrug, "I'm a Judge, Ms Crawley and, before that I was a barrister, we finish thoughts: it's part of the job description." He took a gulp of tea and drew his finger up the side to catch a drip, "I suppose I was taken aback by you."

Edith felt the flapping of a butterfly in the depths of her stomach, "Oh?" There was a beat before he spoke again and suddenly there was a flight of them, beating their wings, generating a maelstrom of anticipation in their wake.

He cleared his throat, "You're not quite what I was expecting. That's what I was going to say."

The question came unbidden as though her mouth moved without permission, "What were you expecting?"

The quirk of an eyebrow was accompanied by a small, crooked smile, which even in the short time they had spent together she was coming to recognise as conspicuously his, "I'll disappoint you with my stereotyping."

The butterflies were back, in the depths of her stomach, why should disappointing her be any kind of concern for a man such as this? She heard the echo of Sybil's pleading voice, 'stop overthinking everything'.

He ploughed on, "I expected you to be old, ancient actually, perhaps in some sort of kaftan –"

Edith choked on a gulp of tea, "a kaftan?"

"Oh, yes –" he gestured to his chest, "with lots of beads." He pursed his lips and grimaced, "and I thought you'd be about twenty stone." Edith could manage no admonishment at his terrible stereotyping, in fact, she laughed. She looked down at her pale pink shirt (unadorned with beads, of any kind), covered with a lilac cardigan and plain jeans, arched an eyebrow and laughed again. Anthony responded in kind, "as I say, you are not what I expected."

He reached under his desk and Edith heard a draw spring open. Anthony offered her an open packet of biscuits, "that's the thing about being a lawyer. You end up trading in stereotypes, making assumptions about people before you've even met. Thinking you know everything meaningful before a person has even opened their mouth. It's why Judges don't decide on innocence and guilt – we're too jaded." If Matthew and Mary were anything to go by he would be jaded after a career like the one he must have had, but at least he knew it.

"So come on, Ms Crawley, what did you expect of me?"

His eyes flashed at her. She smiled but she would not be drawn, trying to offer an answer to that enquiry would only provide further verbal humiliation. Quite deliberately she took her time chewing a Rich Tea. The truth was she'd expected him to be terrifying. And he was, but in a completely different way to how she imagined. She had not expected him to be so – well – beautiful. She had not expected to have a physical, mental and emotional reaction to his very presence. She gently shook her head, "I am not foolish enough to play that game." She lied, and he would know it, "I had no expectations, I am completely open minded."

He did know it, and he accused warmly, "Liar."

"Oh, ok - I thought you'd be skinny - skeletal, happy? Then I met Judge Carson and realised that not all Judges are skinny. So I revised my expectations and thought perhaps you wouldn't be either."

"You met Charlie? When?"

In her imagination Edith raised her hand and smacked it to her forehead. He might never have found out about her trip to Narnia and then she'd revealed it all by herself. She sidestepped, waving a dismissive hand, "long story. Why did you want to meet with me Judge Strallan?"

"I'd have hoped that was pretty obvious -" He twirled his chair around with somewhat of a flourish and lifted her portfolio where it leaned against the wall. She had noticed so much about the office, but not that. He put it on the desk between them, "I'd like you to paint my portrait."

If the proverbial feather had been available Edith was sure he could have knocked her down with it. She thought this meeting was to reprimand her for wasting his time. Although, she supposed, his demeanour had not indicated as much, quite the opposite. At the very least she'd expected some sort of interview, which in some ways would have been worse than a reprimand. But to simply be offered the job was nothing short of laughable. She hadn't sent a single portrait. And her pictures – she didn't know what to make of her own pictures. She knew she was not devoid of talent and she wanted to be a professional artist. She knew she could be, she could make money. The tortured artist persona had never appealed to Edith; she didn't look at her creations and weep in despair at their inadequacies, whilst at the same time trying to sell them via private galleries. Quite the contrary, she was proud of what she could do, but her pictures were not easily categorised and would probably never find their way into the annals of art history.

More important than all of that though - it had deserted her, whatever talent she had, it was gone. She couldn't paint any more. The curve of a hill, the bend of a river, the light at a window – they were there, in her mind's eye, but her hand could not bring them to life. The brush hung there, limp, dripping paint. He couldn't know any of this; she'd sent a portfolio. It was a tremendously silly thing to do now that she thought about it, she would have to tell him and then he really would reprimand her and she would leave and their time together would be at an end. Frustration pushed at her lungs.

"Why?" her voice was laced with scepticism.

He blinked and shook his head, "I'll be honest, I thought the response would be effusive acceptance. But if I am required to justify it – you were the best artist I looked at."

"But I didn't send any portraits."

"You sent the dog."

Edith spoke seriously, because the topic was terribly serious for her, "you are not a dog." She heard the pitiful excuse for a sentence as it emerged and was powerless to stop it.

The crooked smile returned in earnest, "no - no I am not."

"You know what I mean. There's a world of difference between that and painting a person. I have never painted a person. Not once. I paint places and things, Judge Strallan. You must have had hundreds of pictures from proper artists."

He exhaled and leant back in his chair, "You are not a barrister or a prospective barrister, you are not a solicitor and - thank heavens - you have not appeared in my Court as a Defendant – call me Anthony."

He begun to take her pictures out of the file and set them out on the desk's surface, pushing a pile of files to one side and causing another landslide of papers. He appeared not to notice, "There were lots of pictures of people. I could see that they were good likenesses in nearly every case. I cannot speak about 'proper artists'." He raised two fingers on each hand and air quoted her phrase, "I do not know what that means, if you put paint to paper you are an artist, in my mind at least. But then my knowledge of art is –" he cast an eye to his Vettriano, "limited."

He fanned his hand across her painting of the Eiffel Tower, his fingers caressing the criss-crossing struts. Edith could feel her pulse dancing in her throat. He looked straight at her, "but when I looked at your paintings, I wasn't just seeing – I was feeling. And the first made me want to see the second and the third and the fourth. They took me somewhere else. They arrested my senses. They're vibrant and warm and interesting. And from the very moment I saw the first one, I knew it would have to be you."

Her jaw dropped and she flushed with pleasure. She squeezed her fingers into a fist and forced all of her delight into her hands because otherwise she might have to get up out of the seat and jump around. He liked her art, very much, it would seem. She allowed herself a disbelieving exclamation of laughter and a full smile. He shrugged and smiled back.

Reality, as it was wont to do, struck Edith very squarely in the chest. Her fists unravelled and the smile melted away. It was all for nothing. His disappointment would be all the more acute now. Her head bowed down and she ran a finger around the edge of the watch that had been Sybil's. She swallowed the rising lump in her throat and blinked back the threat of tears.

He seemed to notice the change in her, "Ms Crawley?"

The idea of explaining was an exhausting one, but explain she must. Her fingers lifted and played with the edge of a pink ribbon, unravelling from the ball of them at the edge of the desk.

She couldn't look at him, it was too difficult.

Her voice cracked, "my sister died." That wasn't the right place to start. There was no need to tell him that at all, but it poured from her like a tap she could not turn off, "she was a lawyer – a barrister, as it happens – she worked in the City when she was called to the Bar, but she wanted to help people, to do something more than make money. She went to Syria, Iran, Afghanistan - all over the Middle East. A bomb fell on her hostel once, but she got out with just a two inch cut to her shoulder. Indestructible, really. I never worried about her, not even for a moment." Absentmindedly Edith wondered what the moisture on her face was, at first she thought it might be raining, but then she remembered they were indoors. She was crying, she had never cried about Sybil. "Then she met someone. A photo journalist." It came quickly now – the anger and sadness made it impossible to speak slowly, "She was in love and happy and engaged and then back here and married and pregnant and –" Her voice gave way as she spoke the truth of the last year to a complete stranger, "and dead."

His hand covered hers. Warmth and comfort crept up her arm. She looked intently at the blue veins winding up into the knuckles and disappearing beneath the pale skin. Her voice was a whisper, "women aren't supposed to die in childbirth any more."

Gingerly his fingers lifted her palm off the desk and dipped underneath, he held her hand as though it was the most normal action in the world. Swallowing heavily she looked at him. He was leaning across the desk, frown lines canyoning across his face, eyes filled with sympathy. Edith could have sat there for the rest of the day, certainly the rest of the week, if not the whole month, and absorbed the solace he offered. She rolled her tongue in her cheek and shook her head trying to stop her tears. She had coped with the feelings on her own for so long. She told no one, talked to no one about any of it. But here she was, allowing it all out. A sensible voice announced itself at the back of her mind - what are you doing? This Judge – lovely as he was being – was not a solution to the problem, he was just being nice. In a moment he'd tell her to pull herself together and she would have to struggle on in solitude once again.

Removing her hand from within his, she tried to ignore the sense of loss. Roughly she brushed away her tears and allowed herself a rueful laugh as she continued, "I haven't been able to paint – draw – sketch – I haven't been able to so much as doodle since she died." Edith stood and his eyes followed her up, "so you see, Anthony -" she took a brief pause, enjoying the shape of his name on her tongue, "I've wasted your time. I can't paint your portrait. I can't paint anything. I'm sorry. I should go."

Standing, she reached around to get her coat from the back of the chair. His voice cut through her, a level deeper than it had been before, "Edith." The use of her first name shocked her somehow, particularly from his lips, in the deep cadence of his changed voice. She turned back to him; he remained sitting, unsmiling and gestured to the chair, "sit." It was not a question. She was not one to simply do as commanded. She had announced her intention to leave; ordinarily she would balk at someone asking her to do the opposite. Not him, with that tone of voice and those eyes and the memory of his fingers wrapped around her hand, pressing into the flesh beneath her thumb. Without even a second thought, she sat.

"Grief –" he shook his head, "there's nothing quite like it. Utterly consuming – and yet - dull and tedious and insipid."

She nodded slowly, amazed at his articulation of something so true, "yes, that's right – it's boring. It's so, so boring, to feel like this, to be unable to push it away. It's just there – always there."

"Had you lost anyone close before your sister?"

"No - aunts, uncles, a grandfather – but nothing like losing Sybil."

"It gets easier – I can't promise when it will start to settle, but it will. It will always be there, but it'll find a notch in your mind and cease to invade every aspect of your life." He inclined his head towards her, "do you believe me?"

She did, absolutely, "yes."

"Good. Your skills aren't gone Edith. They're just buried temporarily under all that dull, tedious, insipid pain. A talent of your magnitude cannot be destroyed by it. You can still paint, draw, sketch. And you will. Do you believe that?"

She was a little less sure, but trusted his words, "yes."

"Good." He shuffled her pictures together, "so, here is what I propose. I have a very long and boring trial commencing tomorrow. A fraud, likely to last many months." He pushed the pictures back into her folder, "Come to court this week and next, have a go at drawing me, sketching me - however you say it –"

She cut him off, "I've just – I've tried. I've tried, so many times. I don't think I can."

"Try again, please. Just for two weeks – nine days, actually, of trying. If at the end of it you don't feel up to it, we'll go our separate ways and I'll ask one of the others to do the picture."

He looked imploringly at her, chin dipped slightly. His fingers played nervously with the corner of her portfolio.

She wanted to paint him, too look upon his features and map them in her mind. She wanted to be the one to capture his likeness for posterity, to try and capture his essence. All her other attempts since Sybil had begun out of habit, painting was what she did and thus she tried to do it. For him, for his picture, she wanted to find a way, perhaps that would make the difference.

Her voice was quiet, "Alright then."