A/N So, so, so overwhelmed by the reviews. Thank you all very much. M for language.

Maud sniffed again, "well, that's that then." Turning, she retrieved her champagne flute off the table and took a hearty glug, "I'll do the paperwork on Monday." She leant against the table and chewed her bottom lip.

"You'll have the place in Sevenoaks, of course."

Her head bobbed animatedly in agreement, her gaze shifted from middle distance and she looked at him, "and you should have Notting Hill, obviously."

"That makes us about square?"

"Yes. Anything you want of the furniture?" She smoothed the hair around her face and expressed her preference, "I rather love the dining room set, I'd like to keep it, if you wouldn't mind?"

"Not at all. The nest of tables in the living room?"

A smile played on her lips, she hated them- as well he knew, "Loathed to part with them but – all yours. Just come by and take what you want."

Maud heaved a great sigh, seemingly of relief, and levered herself to sit on the desk. Anthony sat beside her; his hand covered hers, "no need for lawyers."

She grimaced, "Heavens no. Vultures." They laughed like old friends, which is precisely what they were - no more, no less.

They sat in silence for a while. Maud looking up at the portrait, Anthony looking a Maud, a rare pink tinge in her cheeks. He set his glass on the floor and wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

He mumbled an apology through a kiss to the top of her head, "I'm sorry."

She pulled away, "don't be. I knew it was coming, perhaps not consciously, I'll accept. I certainly didn't expect you to fall in love with someone else. But I suspected the end of the marriage was coming." She gripped his hand, "I mean, it was me that kept leaving you, for heaven's sake! I knew it wasn't right. We're a fantastic team." She smiled, "You're my best friend. I've always loved you, but not in the way a wife should, I suspect. I hoped it would be enough, but it's not."

If Anthony hadn't met Edith he wouldn't have known how much was truly amiss in their marriage. The flaws were obvious now. The love he had for Maud could not even be categorised with what he felt for Edith. He deserved that love and Maud deserved to try and find it too.

"We're still friends?"

"Oh, I don't know about that." Then she wiggled her head from side to side, "But I suppose I can't afford to alienate a High Court Judge if I plan on taking silk next year."

"What if I promise to write you a glowing reference?"

The corner of her lips flexed, "I have no use for a reference from my ex-husband, glowing or otherwise. You're going to corral other judges into doing references for me." She nodded, as if satisfied with such a solution, and gave him a brilliant smile.

"Is that really all it will take?"

"What did you think? That I was going to stomp around, scream and shout. Beg and plead with you? Honestly Anthony, I'm a barrister. A damned good one. I know when an endeavour is a waste of energy and when it is not."

"You are a damned good barrister."

"Yes."

The library clock chimed insistently. Anthony dropped his head to his hands, "oh, God, the dinner. They're expecting The Honourable Mr Justice Strallan and Lady Strallan. I have some explaining to do."

Maud's manicured hand appeared in front of him, he looked up her pale arm, she tilted her head towards the exit, "come on, I think I can manage to be Lady Strallan for one more night."

The rest of the evening was a lesson in what Dickens meant when he wrote, 'it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.' To be fifty-one and in love for the first time in one's life was a marvel, a miracle, really. He floated about John's magnificent dining hall, an ethereal cloud of a man, filled with warmth and joy. He wore a goofy smile and glistening eyes. It wasn't a new sensation, it was how he felt whenever he was with Edith, what a fool he'd been not to recognize it. From there, however, came the worst of times. For every moment of wonder, he was blindsided by his own stupidity. To have something so marvellous and throw it away. Careless fool.

The dinner ended, the hoards cooed over the portrait and drunk the remnants of the College wine. He packed Maud back to Kent with a kiss on the cheek and went in search of some guidance from the one man who always had some to offer.

"I'm an absolute ass."

Len grunted as Anthony shoved a bottle of whiskey into his chest and pushed past him into his rooms. Len kicked the door shut with his foot and admired the label, "Johnnie Walker, excellent."

He poured two generous glasses and sat next to Anthony on the chez.

"The last time you came to my rooms at two in the morning it was the day before your last final. You were pissed as a fart and convinced you'd failed every exam. You said, 'Len, I'm an absolute idiot. I'm not the man you think I am.'"

The memory was muddy to him now, but the emotions weren't. He looked up at his Professor, "Len, I'm an absolute idiot. I'm exactly the man you think I am." Anthony snatched at the glass and gulped his down in one, "I'm a coward."

"Have a care Strallan! That's the finest whiskey for miles."

"I've fucked up my entire life Len." He stood and pushed his hands through his hair.

"I doubt that very much."

"I love her. She's the only woman I've ever loved and I didn't tell her. I didn't even know - how could I have not known?! I just walked away as if it was nothing. How could I be so stupid?! You knew. Mrs Hughes obviously bloody knew. Charlie too in all likelihood. I think even Maud, Maud, for God's sake, even she knew before I did." He poured another measure and knocked it back.

"You've just taken a little longer to come to emotional maturity than the rest of us."

"That's rich coming from you - remind me how many times you've been married?"

"Three. I have absolutely no difficulty recognising that I'm in love and committing myself wholeheartedly to a woman. It's staying in that state where I experience my problems. Besides which, we are talking about you, dear boy." He pointed accusingly across his study.

"You were absolutely right about me. I've been so set in my ways for so long. Then Edith turned up, it was so unexpected. I was terrified. How can a person be terrified and incandescently happy at the same time?"

Len laughed, "When that person is in love."

"Shit."

"Such eloquence." He put his hand over his heart, "and from my most successful student."

"What am I going to do?"

"I'd have thought that was bloody obvious: you're going to fix it."

"I don't even know where to start."

"Right –" Len plucked the glass from Anthony's hand.

"I haven't finished that!"

Len swallowed the remainder of the contents in one go, "Now you have."

"Excuse me!"

He put the empty tumbler besides the kettle and flicked the switch. Setting out cups and heaping instant coffee into place he talked with a command known only to the generations-old Cambridge lecturer, "you're a smart man Anthony Strallan, if you can't think straight the booze won't be helping. We need a plan and for that, you need to sober up."

"I need Edith."

The smell of coffee filled the room, "right, yes, we've established that, but imagine if you turned up on her doorstep at this very moment." Len handed him a steaming mug, "you're a bloody mess."

Anthony looked down ruefully at his crinkled tux and ran his hands across the ridiculous blonde beard he was sporting because shaving seemed like too much hard work. He took the mug, "alright, job one: get a shave."

"And a haircut."

"Yes."

"Run an iron over your clothes once in a while."

"Yes."

Len sat beside him and pursed his lips, "Look, I'm not much of one for male grooming –"

"Obviously –"

Len silenced him with a sardonic eye, "But the bags under your eyes –"

"Alright, alright. Job one: improve appearance."

"I think really it comes down to taking better care of yourself." He went to the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet and rifled around, "Biscuit?"

Anthony frowned, "I thought I was supposed to be taking care of myself?"

"You need to fatten up." He wafted the packet underneath his nose. Spraying crumbs on the floor Len continued, "Job two: Maud."

"It's done. She's sorting the paperwork. I'm keeping the flat. She's having the house in Sevenoaks."

"How long to sort the divorce?"

"With a word in the right ear? Four weeks at most."

"Maud's happy with that?"

"Maud is pragmatic."

"That she is." Len stared into his cup of coffee, "Do you think it's possible to make her act any other way?" He waved the thought away into the ether of the office. "Job three –" He went to his desk drawer, dumped a pile of business cards onto the desk and shuffled through them. Reaching over he held out a small sheet of cream cardboard.

"Crawley & Barrow

Gallery, Printing, Café

Liverpool"

Running his fingers over the undulations of the silver foil he was filled with pride. Then he reached the bottom line, 'L-i-v-e-r-p-o-o-l'. His thumb bounced up and down over the vowels and consonants of the distance Edith had put between them.

"Strallan?" Len leant back on his desk and crossed his arms.

"Liverpool."

"Seems that way. Not much call for High Court Judges up there. What are you going to do?"

Anthony looked back down at the card. Tracing his finger over the letters of her name, he smiled, "Job three: tell the Lord Chief of England and Wales that I'm divorcing my barrister wife because I've fallen in love with a twenty-six year old artist and I intend to dedicate myself to wooing her back into my life."

"Did you just use the word 'wooing'?" He ducked the pillow Anthony threw at his head with a smirk.

"Perhaps there's some way to be a High Court Judge and still do that. If there's not –" He shrugged, "I want to be with Edith."

"Well, that's that then." Len raised his coffee cup, "to the three point plan."

Anthony raised his aloft, "the next time I see Edith I am going to make sure I am exactly the man she deserves."