Thank you! This was all about Athos finally opening up and coming to terms with things, and I enjoyed bringing book canon into the series. It was also very useful in other ways. *g*

It was fun writing sex scenes again. I've not done that for ages.

Edited to add, I seem to have replied to this comment twice! Oopps.

Posting second comment in here for completeness:

I could just see Athos totally ignoring Bragellone. It was never quite clear in the books whether it was always part of the estate or whether it was a later purchase, so I decided to go with the former.

I think this interlude has given the pair of them the space they needed to open up. They both have things in the past they've buried deep.