A/N It's nice to be home! Thank you for all the reviews. M for language.

A man from Ede and Ravenscroft dressed him, a personal valet. The clothes were so complicated they came with a man to guide the new judges through the process of putting them on. He asked Anthony to put out his arms, lift one leg, then the other, move his neck this way, then that. Scolded him when he slouched. Knocked away a clumsy hand which tried to manage the complex fastenings all on its own. Pleaded, frustrated, no doubt, with a morning of too clever men and women who assumed they knew best, "please, Your Honour, allow me."

Finally the dressing was complete.

"Your Honour I can walk you down to the court?"

Anthony's heart hammered in his chest, "can you give me a minute?"

"Certainly." He didn't mean it, the word was brittle. Nine other judges were to be sworn in and they all needed to be correctly attired, "just a minute though."

Anthony considered his reflection in the mirror. The wig reached below his shoulders. Two lengths of off-white, horsehair curls emerging from a bulbous crown of the same material. Nothing at all like the old one, the familiar one, the friend, which fit so neatly into his wig tin.

Red robes, with a red cloak for good measure, edged in crisp, white fur. The ever-present bands stuck out of the neckline. Around his waist there was a swath of dark black fabric with scalloped edging. Underneath, a cotton t-shirt and silk breeches.

The quick glimpse he'd caught of the breeches whilst his valet speeded him into the outfit actually caused him to smile. The men of the nineteenth century must have had greater sartorial panache than those of the early twenty-first because there was absolutely no earthly way he could feel anything other than ridiculous in them. This was not assisted by the addition of shoes with oversized silver buckles.

It all put him in mind of Father Christmas. A strange, formal, perhaps early twentieth century Father Christmas. All he needed was a big white beard and a sack of presents.

Edith would laugh at him. She'd ask what role these archaic outfits could possibly play in the modern British legal system. He squeezed his eyes shut. Stop that. Her opinion is irrelevant. She is irrelevant. She is gone.

The robes certainly didn't make him feel judicial. But then, it had been months since he'd felt much of anything at all. That didn't change when he stepped out of his dressing room. Or during the somber walk down the corridor. Or when he stepped into the Lord Chief's courtroom.

Then he was in front of the man himself and he realized: this was the moment. The one his Father had talked about, the scene he'd described on numerous evenings when he should've been reading his son a bedtime story. The illustrious court, filled with illustrious people. Overjoyed friends and family. And Anthony at the centre of it all. The man in red, Mr Justice Strallan; the man his Father tried and failed to become.

This moment had been Anthony's definition of success for as long as he could remember and he was finally living it.

So, it should mean something. The oath, the gilt letters, the Bible. He should feel something.

But the oath was just words, syllables, collections of vowels and consonants strung together. The gilt was dull and the Bible was heavy.

When it was all over it was as if it hadn't happened at all. He was just outside, in a silly outfit with a letter of appointment written in precise calligraphy shading his eyes from the Fleet Street sunlight. The perfect white fur was blindingly bright.

People milled around him, clasped his shoulder, banged on his back. He shook some hands, said some words, contracted the muscles of his face to curve his lips upwards and reveal some teeth. There were three cheers, called from some far away place close by.

Only Mrs Hughes bought him back. Concerned eyes and tilted head reminding him that this wasn't some awful dream, this was his life, happening.

"My Lord, are you alright?"

His lips were dry, stuck together as he forced them to shape words, "Don't do the Milord business. I don't think I can bear it." That was the truth, he almost hated the title, wanted to cast it back.

"Well, first thing Monday then. I can't very well keep calling you Your Honour, what will all the other Clerks think?"

"Monday then. Not before, please."

"Are you going to answer my question?"

Another hand, he shook, created a smile, a nod, a wave, "what question?"

"Are you alright?"

"I don't feel much of anything at all." She frowned, he placated, "I'm hot. This is a lot of gear you know." He threw up a cloaked arm, "They shouldn't be allowed to do this in twenty-eight degree heat, it's not civilized."

"I'm proud to know you, proud to Clerk you. I want you to be happy, you understand that?"

"I do."

She sighed and frowned, waging some internal battle, before rising to her tip toes and kissing his cheek, "good." She stuck her thumb into her mouth and rubbed vigorously at the spot she'd just kissed.

"What the devil are you doing?"

Taking a step back to examine her work before returning back to the same spot, she shrugged, "lipstick." She tilted her head, "now the wig's off centre." She tugged on the left side of his horsehair, "that's better."

Being mothered was more than he deserved. He didn't deserve Mrs Hughes. He was so grateful for her affection he had to blink away the tears.

"I'll see you on Monday?"

"Yes, thank you for coming."

"Hush now, I wouldn't have missed it, neither would His Honour Judge Carson."

Carson appeared behind her, as if summoned by the mere fact she'd said his name. He looped his arm and Mrs Hughes took the invitation, leaning into her intended. Anthony ignored his pang of regret.

"She's right about that Strallan." He took his hand in a warm embrace, "congratulations."

"Thank you."

Mrs Hughes nodded to the space behind his shoulder, "Leonard Griffin is here. He's been waiting to speak with you."

"Len's here?!" He spun around and searched for the face of his old friend. The crowd had dwindled significantly and he wasn't difficult to find: a cloud of tell-tale smoke enveloped him. Perhaps he was just a mirage in a nicotine fog. He leant against the discoloured stone of the RCJ wearing his ubiquitous battered old jumper and faded chinos. He raised his hand in a disinterested wave and then bowed with an ironic smile. Definitely not a mirage.

Anthony was mystified, Len hated the pomp and circumstance of the British legal system, the whole Establishment, actually. It's why he remained an academic. There were countless offers from barristers' chambers and law firms. He'd probably even been offered a seat on the High Court. But he had no interest in that kind of advancement, he spent entire lectures railing against it. Yet here he was.

Snuffing out the cigarette with his heel Len pulled him into a bear hug, "nice of you to get to me."

"I didn't even know you were here! Did you come to the ceremony?"

"Of course."

Anthony's eyes narrowed, "you hate this sort of business."

"I made an exception." Len arched an eyebrow, "nice frock."

"Len –"

"Jesus, Strallan! Can't one friend come and see another be appointed to the High Court of England and Wales? Stop overanalyzing."

"Right."

Behind them there was the unmistakeable wheeze of a bus and then squeals and clicks, excited murmurs, raised voices. Len laughed, "turn around, you're needed for a show."

Behind him stood a large red tourist bus. He'd unintentionally become a sight, an attraction. Sheepishly he waved and gave a small bow. Phones and cameras snapped away.

A small child's excitement carried above the rest, "Mummy, Mummy, is he a king?"

The flat answer came as the vehicle pulled away, "no darling, he's just a judge."

The blasted robes were hot, sweat gathered under his arms, presumably his hair was sodden at this point.

Len twirled a second cigarette between his fingers, "What time is it?"

Anthony groped at his sleeves, unearthed a wrist, "Just gone noon."

"Pub's open. Fancy getting rat arsed?"

That was precisely his plan for the afternoon, albeit at home and alone. It made sense to have a little company, "Yes."

Twenty minutes later he was at the gnarled bar of the Cittie of Yorke tracing the spiraling lines of cut crystal in his tumbler. The whiskey rose up beneath his finger and Len's voice cut through his malaise, "leave the bottle."

The whiskey warmed his throat and down into his stomach. It numbed his faculties, his thoughts. The endless, constant train of goddamned thoughts. Hazel eyes, blonde waves, almond croissants, bright brush strokes, pencil smudges and crisp cream paper. He took another gulp. Soft skin, determined lips, downy thighs, the swell of a perfect pert – he finished the glass.

Len eyed him wearily, "we're dispensing with the toasts then?"

"You wanted to get rat arsed."

"Always." He filled up the empty glass, not a full measure, "Part of the joy is in the journey though. Delinquent drinking should be savoured."

"Poetic."

"I try." Len dipped his finger into the whiskey and trailed the moisture around the lip of his glass, "So, how do you feel - " He snorted, "My Lord?"

The magnitude of that question expanded around him and then deflated with the meagerness of the answer, "much the same, I suppose."

"Careful, you'll give yourself a coronary with that level of enthusiasm."

"What do you want from me?"

He raised a disinterested shoulder, "I saw Maud at the ceremony. She said hello to me and we had a civil conversation which lasted in excess of five minutes."

"Surely a record for the two of you."

Len raised his tumbler in mock celebration, "She said you were back together." The professor's eyes bored into the side of his head, he let the silence extend. It was as if he was eighteen again, in a supervision, and being asked a probing question for which he had no intelligent answer.

"Did she?"

"Are you?"

"Officially, I suppose. Just the logistics to manage." Three days before the official announcement of Anthony's appointment the Ministry of Justice press department had contacted him to put together an official bio. They'd asked about his wife and he'd told them.

"What does that mean?"

"I have to move out of Notting Hill and back to Sevenoaks."

"Right." He elongated the word, "so you're still living apart?"

"Moving house is not a small endeavour."

"Mrs Hughes said you'd had two weeks off work before your appointment?"

"Len, why am I being cross-examined?"

"I'm asking open questions, not closed ones."

"You're asking questions to which you already know the answers. I am a barrister Len, I know what a cross-examination is and I know they generally have a destination." He paused for a moment, his mind skipping over his early clumsy attempts: no destinations within those. He looked back to his friend, "why don't you arrive at it?"

He raised his hands, poured two more drinks, "you give me too much credit. No destination, just curious."

The attractive waitress slinked around the bar and started clearing glasses off the table behind them and Len's interest in Anthony was lost for a moment. He leered a little at her low cut top and attempted some clumsy flirtation. Anthony had seen Len employ several pick up styles, but he'd drunk too much to attempt anything other than the bumbling professor.

Anthony returned his attention to the liquor. There was a firm reprimand in the space behind him, "I'm not interested."

Len returned to the stool besides him, muttering to no one in particular, "I'm sure this used to be easier."

"No luck?"

He rubbed his face furiously, raked his hand through his hair, "No. I cant get so much as a Twitter handle off a woman nowadays let alone a phone number. I might have to try one of those Godawful dating sites. Likes: shagging. Dislikes: not shagging."

Anthony managed a weak titter. He should probably ask a few questions, find out all the depressing details of his friend's love life, perhaps buoy him up, tell him it'll all work out, venture some insights. There was a time he'd have done just that, but somehow it was lost to him now. A conversation was entirely too much to ask. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had one. An art lost along with his artist.

Len cleared his throat, "did you get the invite to the unveiling?"

"Yes."

"You haven't RSVP'd."

"You're unveiling a portrait of me. I think it's safe to assume I'll be there."

"I invited Edith Crawley."

Just like that the carefully erected walls he'd built in his mind were torn down. The fragile control he'd established and maintained was gone. Her scent was at his nose and her taste was in his mouth and even the whiskey couldn't burn it away.

He jerked away from the hand on his shoulder. He saw Edith's face for a brief, eternal moment before he blinked it away, faced with Len's deep frown instead.

"Did you hear me?"

"What?"

"I said she's not coming."

"Right. Yes. Okay then." His fingers pulsed around the tumbler. Was he relieved or disappointed? He drunk some more. The idea was to feel nothing.

"Jesus Strallan, what the hell happened?"

"She painted my portrait. She finished. She left." So many lies in so few words.

"Come off it. You have to be honest with someone."

"I don't have to do anything."

"You do. You have to talk to someone."

He could feel the rage building, the bile in his stomach, cracks in the veneer of his calm, "Why?!"

"Look at yourself! You were appointed to the High Court today and you have three-day-old whiskers, you haven't had a haircut, the circles under your eyes are as deep as I've ever seen them. You're a bloody mess!"

"I'm fine. I took Red today. I am absolutely fine."

"Oh, no, no, no." Len dropped his head onto the bar and banged the wood melodramatically, "please tell me you don't believe that. Please tell me you don't think all your problems are cured by donning some ancient legal shroud and preaching law to the masses because – headline – your career is not your life and it certainly isn't your soul."

"For me, it is those things."

It is. It was. It was enough. It will be again.

"Then why are you on your sixth glass of whiskey I under an hour? Why haven't you smiled, even once, this entire day? Are you even aware that you stood in complete silence in that court for the better part of two minutes before you finally whispered the oath?"

"That's not true."

"Yes, Strallan, it is. You looked like a man going to the gallows. And just now, when I said Edith Crawley's name, you looked like a man who was already dead."

He shook his head, tried to force himself off the stool and out of the pub, but he couldn't move, paralysed by the truth, or his fear of it.

Len pleaded, "Talk to me."

"I – We –" He forced the words out, shoved them past the lump in his throat, "We had an affair. I lied about Maud. Edith found out, but she wanted to be with me anyway. I couldn't do that to her. She's young and lovely and she deserves more than some past it, middle-aged careerist. I've got Maud and, yes, my Red robes. I can't have Edith too. She's not for me, she never was."

Len shook his head, "You really are full of shit."

"Excuse me?"

"She wanted you and you wanted her, you figure the rest out."

"I have a job and a wife. A whole life that cannot simply be swept aside."

"It's not simple Strallan, that much is true, but it can be done. And if you're unhappy – it should be done."

He flinched, "I'm not unhappy." He schooled his emotions, grappled for the man he'd been before the letter of appointment, before the portrait: I feel nothing. I am a Judge. It is enough.

He grabbed for the whiskey bottle, Len dragged it away. The base grinding against the grain of the wood, a line drawn between them.

"No, you're not unhappy. You're lost. Did you even try? Did you fight for her? For yourself?"

"There was nothing to fight for – I - I -" His voice cracked and he hated himself, hated Len, he hated all of it. He stood and paced, hand on head, stomach roiling, the whiskey threatened a revolt, "I had to give her up!"

"You haven't even gone back to Maud! All you've done is hurt yourself and Edith too I'd wager and for what?!"

"I had no choice!"

"Of course you did! You always have a choice Anthony." He huffed his frustration and rose to his feet, "how can you be so stupid?"

"I gave her up to protect her!"

"That's absolute rot Strallan and you know it!" The other patrons were looking now. Eyes peered over the top of half empty pint glasses and packets of crisps, enjoying the mid-afternoon show they hadn't known to expect. Len squared up to him, almost nose to nose, his whisper had bite, "you gave her up because you're a coward."

Anthony shoved him hard in the chest, he staggered back a couple of steps, "you don't know anything."

"You're in love with her and you're to cowardly to admit it."

Love. He blinked. Love.

"That's not – That's – I don't -"

"You're too afraid to disrupt your life even one iota to accommodate the possibility of something better. A little risk and you run a bloody mile."

"Len –"

What was there to say? He couldn't push out the denial: I don't love Edith. In truth the word hadn't crossed his mind, let alone the concept.

Now he was staring down the barrel of a gun. Facing a new horror he hadn't even noticed before. Was this love? Surely not. It had been a perfect interlude, a break from reality. Soon, very soon, he would force his life back into the mould Edith had broken it from and she would be a memory.

Yes, she was the best person he'd ever known. He'd been happy when they were together. And he liked the man he became in her company. But love? Love was for other people. Younger, less jaded men.

"Strallan?!"

"You have it wrong Len. I don't – I have never – This is not – I don't –" Still, the denial would not come.

"You're a coward."

"Len! Just – just - fuck off!"