A/N: Might as well warn you now. I am "Team Ambrose." Always will be.

LONDON

Niamh passed by what had been Emma's room before she left for university. Strange, she thought, how everyone was abandoning Sean at once. Down to the young boy waiting downstairs in the car, down to the good-sized dog sleeping on that boy's lap. An exodus.

It had all been such a whirlwind, such fun in the beginning. They'd had a couple good years, once the dust settled from losing Ambrose. Emma welcomed her young stepmother more like a confidante, and Niamh had found good (if casual) friends in the church choir, and meaningful work as a teaching aide in London.

Still, she couldn't call it "home." Some things had simply never gelled. Sean suddenly wanted Kieran to call him "da'," and Kieran wouldn't. And a year out, Niamh had realised she didn't really want him to. Two years out, she'd found a host of other things she didn't want.

After Emma's departure, Sean seemed, really, to want to parent the whole family - including Niamh. The gap between their ages wasn't what she would've considered scandalous, but he came to wield it like a trump card, came to lord it over her. It wasn't abuse, just a constant stream of patronising, condescension, let me explain the way things are. The way they had to be.

She ultimately tabled their talk of another baby. She bristled at the thought of being told how to carry it, birth it, nurse it. No.

When the word of her father's "suicide" reached her, she knew almost right away what had really happened. Still, it began to eat away at her: she had missed her last chance to see him, at least without leaving the hemisphere (and anyway Sean's travel preferences always took priority because she knew he'd sulk if he didn't get his way). She had missed her father's last days in the country of his birth, in the house where she grew up, in the town where her mother was buried. She didn't begrudge her father faking his death, couldn't imagine begrudging it of anyone who so clearly felt he had no choice.

But Sean's emotional welfare had become her own burden exclusively, and that she could begrudge indeed. She began to resent his goading her into leaving Ballykea. It hadn't troubled her in the moment, giving herself over, thinking of nothing but his happiness. Now, though, she wondered what it would be like to be the centre of her own universe, and her son's. In London, she had become a selfless satellite to a gas giant.

So she had found a good solicitor and served Sean with the papers - an act she wouldn't have dreamt of in her early twenties, yet so obviously her only option now. She remembered telling Father Clifford plainly that she didn't agree with divorce. What would he think of all this? If he couldn't sympathise, sure Assumpta could've.

The urge to confess to him, to confide in her, even to cling to Ambrose, still caught Niamh off-guard from time to time. In idle wishes. In dreams. Sometimes she awoke to the slow-dawning memory that those days were gone.

She shut the hatch of the car over the Samsonites, and clambered into the driver's seat.

"Ready to get back to Ireland?" she asked, glancing in the rearview. Kieran had already nodded off.

Niamh turned on a radio station Sean had never liked, and allowed herself a few stupid tears. Shifting into drive, she heard her mobile go off. Shifting back into park, she fished it out, expecting yet another guilt trip. I'm way ahead of you, Sean, she thought.

The prefix on the ID nearly stopped her heart.

Kieran awoke. "Who is it, Mummy?" he yawned.

"Our reputation precedes us," she whispered, hitting the TALK button.

BALLYKISSANGEL

Doc Ryan came down to the pub on his lunch. He'd intended to stay close to his desk - it seemed he'd been unable to get off the phone all morning - but something in him needed an hour of escape. He disliked asking favours, and gracious as Niamh had been, the call had worn him out. Too much he had to ask; too little he could explain.

Anyway, surely anyone else would be having their lunch now as well.

Father Mac waved him over to a table, and soon Oonagh Dooley brought two heaving pints before them. Then she departed in silence, seeming to sense that they'd chosen a shadowy corner for a reason.

The parish priest clutched his cane at chin level, rocking it with two overlapping hands. "I hear Gard Sullivan's letting you off with a scold?"

Michael tilted his head toward his shoulder - the marriage of a nod and a shrug. "Can't guarantee access to the same palliative herbal remedies, now," he said softly.

Frank gave a withering look. "The thought hadn't crossed my mind."

"Of course not, Father. Only I was thinking of your arthritis..."

"Join the club."

"Bishop's still riding you?"

"Father Sheahan gave a brave ultimatum, but..." Frank shook his head.

Michael nodded, knowing just how little good the Australian curate's threats would do. "Costello really was better."

"Softer touch."

"Bigger ears as well. Whatever became of him?"

"He retired." The parish priest finally lay his cane against the table and hoisted his glass - still possessed of far too much head, a shortcoming that had never happened when the Fitzgerald family ran the place. "Michael, is the bishop right? Has my time come?"

"I should say none of us ever knows. Wondered enough lately how much longer I can keep up."

"Legal troubles and all?"

You don't know the half of it, thought Michael, thinking of Ambrose's guilt-ridden warning letter a week ago. "Every doctor walks a line. Legal, moral, ethical, scientific."

"Don't we all of us walk a line?" drawled Frank.

Michael tilted his head once more. "A few decades on it can get a bit dizzying."

"You've always done what you thought best."

The foam had settled. Michael sipped his stout.

They noticed now that Oonagh was back at their table. She looked apologetic, wringing her hands. "Sorry to interrupt. Doc, telephone for you."

"Here?" Michael asked.

She nodded. "Said she already tried your dispensary. One 'Maire Mellon'?"

That was quick.

Michael permitted himself one large swig, and rose to take the call.

"Patient confidentiality," he said to Oonagh. "May I take it in the lounge?"