Elsie slowed to a walk, taking a swig from her water bottle. Her warm breath puffed out in front of her, as she began her post-run cool down. Just a few slow miles, along the canal footpath, helped clear her head and get her day started, and she really needed it today, especially. It also added balance to her life, to the demands of her job: she knew she stayed up too late, drank a bit more than she should and probably – no, definitely – didn't get enough sleep. The running helped her feel less guilty about her other, er, more questionable habits.

Her phone buzzed in its holder around her upper arm. Isobel.

"Iz! What's up? You'll be proud of me, doctor, I'm braving the elements, just finished a run," she smiled.

"Hey Lizzy. That's great," her friend replied. She got the impression Iz hadn't heard a word of what she said.

"Isobel?"

"Listen, Liz. You know…that thing…that got lost? Last night?"

"What?" She took another sip of water, another deep breath, trying to catch up to what her friend was saying. "What do you mean?"

"That thing that you gave to John Bates," Iz's voice was unnaturally light, and tight. Elsie could hear commotion behind her, people talking, a door closing.

My god. Pete. Elsie stopped walking abruptly. "You found him? Is he okay? Is he at the clinic?" She was worried she was going to faint. She hadn't realized until this very moment how responsible she felt for Pete's disappearance. That, if something terrible had happened to him, she would have added it to the long list of grievous mistakes she'd made in her life.

"Yes! When I found it, I knew you'd want to know it was okay, just slightly a little worse for the wear," Iz finished up. Elsie knew she wouldn't say much more. There were laws, confidentiality and patient rights and all sorts of things she didn't completely understand. What she did understand was that her friend had bent the rules to call her, let her know about a man Elsie had spent the morning thinking was seriously injured, possibly dead.

"Thanks, Iz. I mean it. I know you can't tell me anymore, but if he's there, he's in good hands," Elsie leaned against the fence along the tow path. "Are you around tonight? Can we talk? Or do you have another date with Doctor Mustache?"

"I do, in fact," she responded, in her own voice, not the faux-casual one she'd just been using, and Elsie could hear that she was smiling. "I'm not sure exactly where the evening will take us, but perhaps we can stop by Donk's again, for a nightcap? And listen, I'm going to try and hold on to that thing you lost for a few days, if I can. No promises, but let's have lunch Monday morning, for sure, okay?"

"Yeah, sounds good. And…thanks again, Iz. Pete makes me think of Becky, which makes me think of Joe…and you know, round and round it goes, until I can't keep track of all the things I feel guilty about," Elsie sighed, hugged her elbows against her chest. Now that she'd stopped moving, she was getting cold.

"While I do believe in the power of personal responsibility, Lizzy, it can be overdone – not everything is on you. And certainly, not everything is your fault," her friend paused on the other end of the line. "You know my evening ended nicely last night; how about yours?"

Elsie sighed, but couldn't keep the smile from her lips, in spite of herself. "I suppose I could say about the same – though maybe not as excitingly as yours did, I would guess. I'm not the one with a second date, after all, or even a first one."

"I won't lecture, but that is very easily remedied."

"You're probably right. Not probably, definitely. And who knows? Maybe I'll do something to remedy it myself," she blurted out, her heart speeding up. She thought of the feeling of Charles' hand at the small of her back, the smell of his shirt, as they danced in the closed bar last night.

"Good," Iz stated. She could tell her friend wanted to say more. Much more. "And on that rather hopeful note, I best be running. Lots to do, and loads of distractions over here!"

After their call ended, Elsie stood there for a few more minutes, the chill air settling on her. She nodded and smiled at other runners, walkers and cyclists as they passed her. What did she mean, exactly? Maybe…maybe, it was time to do something. To take action. She could still berate herself, blame herself for everything, she supposed, but couldn't she do that and go on a date, a real date, with Charlie Carson?

You're loony, you're not making any sense, she thought, and shook her head. And then, her heart caught in her throat. Not twenty yards away was the man himself, jogging slowly but steadily towards her. He hadn't spotted her yet, and she took a moment to observe him unawares: his large yet graceful form moving dexterously, his dark hair, curling slightly from perspiration, pushed away from his face by a fleece ear-warmer, his forehead creased with exertion and concentration. She could see he was mouthing whatever song was currently blasting through his earbuds.

She waved at him before she could stop herself. The sight of him just made her feel so good, so happy, right to her toes. He refocused, his faraway, concentrated look dissolving into an easy grin as he spotted her flagging him down.

"Elspeth! Are you just starting, or already finished?" He was breathing steadily but deeply, tiny beads of sweat gathered in his thick eyebrows.

"Finished, but I don't want you to stop on my account. Can I join you?" She smiled up at him. "How much farther are you going?"

"To the footbridge, by Donk's and the market," he replied, as she paced herself with him. She was faster than he was, but he had the advantage of stride; he was almost a foot taller than she, his legs far longer, so it worked out almost perfectly. She was running at the exact speed she had been earlier.

"I didn't know you ran," she spoke once they had gone about a quarter of a mile.

"Well, this isn't quite fast enough to be called a 'run', really, but yeah, I like it. I prefer cycling, but sometimes this is just the right thing. All you really need is a good pair of sneaks, no fancy gear" he grinned down at her. "Besides, I need to do something to offset my nights at Donk's."

"Here, here!" She replied, laughing.

"The Crawley entourage are coming tonight, early, right? For Bee's dinner?"

"Yeah, they are. I hope that's the only excitement for the evening, please!"

"How's John, speaking of?" He glanced over at her.

"Anna texted me this morning – he's fine. No concussion symptoms, he went to work, no problem. She'll be in this evening, same as always," she paused for a long moment, listening to their breathing in the still December afternoon. "They found Pete."

Charles suddenly stopped, turned to her. "What do you mean?" He looked shocked.

"Isobel called me right before I saw you. She couldn't say outright, but he's at the clinic, somehow. Not in great shape, but then, he never is," she shrugged up at him. "You alright?" She was puzzled by his reaction.

"I thought you meant…well…shit, sorry, I thought you meant, they found him…that he…"

"Oh god," she whispered. Realizing what he meant. Exactly what she had been worried about for the past twelve hours: that Pete was dead.

"Yeah, sorry. Pete's grasp on life seems, well…tenuous," he shrugged self-consciously. "We can walk the last bit, that's fine." The started moving again, and she saw he was thinking hard about something.

"What is it?" She finally asked.

"Pete knew your sister?" Her heart leapt to her throat with his question. It wasn't a secret, not at all, but he wouldn't have any reason to know, particularly, about Becky's connection to the man.

"Yes, he knew her," now it was her turn to stop. "That was a long time ago, though."

"Elspeth…Elsie," he started. "I try very hard to mind my own business, but…I'm not sure you should let Pete back into Donk's. I appreciate the connection he may have had with your sister, but…"

She nodded, fighting the anger that rose up in her. She wasn't mad at him, not really, but she was mad that he was telling her something she already knew, something she should have done a long time ago: sever ties with certain things in her past, in Becky's past.

"Yeah, you're right," her voice came out brittle with regret. He looked like he wanted to say something else. "Don't think I didn't see Daisy's reaction last night. I know it was about Pete, and it's not too hard to connect the dots: Pete, Becky, Daisy's bio parents – all addicts, all hooked on the same shitty stuff, all scraping by to scrape the drugs together, doing whatever they needed to do."

"Becky…that's your sister?"

"Yeah. Younger by eight years. She was always a little…she has paranoid schizophrenia. Diagnosed when she was nineteen. She was always here, there, gone, and back again. She'd disappeared for a month, half a year. Sometimes, she'd come back clean, or nearly so, with the right prescriptions from a pharmacy two hundred miles away. Sometimes, she'd show up, three in the morning or one in the afternoon, skin and bones, so jittery and high her teeth practically cracked from chattering together so hard. Always with these disjointed stories, tales of road trips to Florida, New York, New Orleans," she shook her head, tried to staunch the flow of words coming out of her mouth, but they wouldn't be stopped.

"After my mother died, and I moved up here, she came with me. I couldn't leave her, I knew it. But I…I had so little control over her, really. She just did what she wanted. That's what addicts do. What they want, or really, what they need - anything to get the drugs," she realized suddenly that there were tears streaming down her face, and Charlie was digging tissues out of a pocket in his running gear, handing them to her.

She blew her nose. "Right before I met Joe, I mean, like a few weeks before, she stole my car. Took off. The first six years we were together, she wasn't really around. Oh, she called me, a few times, from god knows where. Or she'd beg me to meet her for coffee at some gas station. She wasn't even at our wedding, such as it was. Then she came back, and we figured out a place for her to…to stay. Nearby. Things seemed to be on the upswing for a bit, but then…well you know," she finished, completely spent.

"Alice and Joe," he replied, nodding.

"Well, when we found out about them, I guess. Alice and Joe were clearly happening way before that, were clearly official, as we both know," she said the words, expected to feel bitter, but somehow, she didn't. She didn't even feel guilty, for once.

"Yeah," he shrugged, and then stepped slightly closer to her. She could smell the sweat of him, felt a tug in her lower gut at the scent of him, of this man she'd wanted for a very long time. Her head spun a little. "Lots of things feel official, before they're ever talked about, I think. Or acknowledged."

"Yes," she answered, stupidly. She'd run out of words, out of clear thoughts.

"Elsie, I'm sorry." And now he was very close, too close, no, no, no, exactly the right distance, really, from her, which was no distance at all.

"What do you have to be sorry for?" A voice that didn't sound like her own. That she could barely hear over her pounding heart, the roaring in her ears.

"For what happened with your sister. With Joe and Alice. With all of it happening nearly at once. That I didn't know, didn't ask," he paused, and then he put his hand on her cheek. My god, it felt good. "But mostly, because I didn't do this, that I waited so long, maybe put it on you, and I shouldn't have. You've got enough on you plate already."

And then he wrapped his other arm around her waist, leaned over and kissed her, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, twining her fingers in his sweaty hair, their mouths and arms and bodies warm and sweaty, in sharp contrast to the crisp, cold air blowing off the choppy Delaware. She kissed him deeply, tasting the salt from his sweat, relishing in the musky, masculine scent of him after his run, feeling like she was trying to cram all of the kisses she'd wanted to give him over the past few years into one moment, as if there would never be enough time for them, not possibly.

They broke apart and just stared at each other. Every part of her was humming pleasantly, from her sore lips to her tired legs. He was looking at her in a way she wasn't quite used to, a way that was dangerous and lovely and highly inappropriate on a public towpath on a Friday afternoon.

The air was thick and rich with what had just happened, what could happen, between the two of them.

"Apology accepted," she finally said in a rusty voice. They both laughed a little nervously.

Then she kissed him again.