Chapter 5: Redeposition in Fieldwork

Autumn arrives earlier in Cambridge than in London, the chill showing itself sooner, with mist from the River Cam often shrouding the Gothic spires in the early morning. Linus’s new life gradually settled into rhythm. The GIS research group he led attracted visiting scholars from across Europe, and the weekly train journeys between Cambridge and London became his moving study. Our relationship found a balance between academic collaboration and private feeling, a balance grounded in rational planning and deep mutual understanding.

However, the body has its own memory.

In early December, a sudden cold snap in London caused the college’s ageing heating system to fail completely. Repairs would take three days, and my accommodation was like an icebox. Linus had an important review meeting in Cambridge, and his voice on the phone was full of apology, “Go and stay in a hotel,” he said, “I will cover the cost. Or, if you don’t mind, I still have that old flat in Bloomsbury. The key is under the doormat.”

I knew that flat. Ten minutes from the college, a place he used to crash when working late before the divorce. He had intended to give it up afterwards, but the contract kept it temporarily in his life.

I went to neither the hotel nor the flat.

That Wednesday afternoon, I met Theo in the specimen room. He was guiding students through the cleaning of a newly excavated batch of medieval pottery, his fingers deft with a fine brush, sweeping away soil, his profile focused and calm under the fluorescent light. Since our last conversation in the pub, we had maintained a cordial professional relationship, occasional lunches together, talking about work and archaeological news, with clear boundaries.

“The heating’s out?” he asked, noticing my heavy coat and gloves.

“The whole building. Three days.”

He paused briefly, without looking at me, then continued cleaning a shard. “I’ve got a sofa bed in my flat,” he said casually, as if discussing the weather. “In the living room, separate space. It’s five minutes from here. Better than freezing.”

Reason screamed for refusal. But my body remembered the cold, and it also remembered the heat of another body that once drove all cold away. Beneath that lay an unspoken impulse, to test the boundaries I believed to be solid.

“Would it be all right?” I heard myself ask.

“Lily’s staying with her mum this week,” he said, finally looking up, his gaze clear, without probing. “Just putting up a colleague who’s frozen.”

Theo’s flat was not what I had imagined. There was none of the mess of a field archaeologist, instead it was almost austere in its tidiness. The bookshelves were organised by theme, the kitchen surfaces spotless, the living room held only a grey sofa bed, a desk, and two chairs. The only personal trace was a large photograph on the wall, a campfire under the Northumberland stars. We had both been there, yet each alone, on that night.

“The spare room is Lily’s,” he explained, taking clean sheets from the cupboard, “so there’s only the sofa bed. I hope that’s okay.”

“It’s more than fine.” I watched him make the bed with practised ease, tucking the corners neatly. The scene was so domestic, so calm, yet it stirred a silent undercurrent between us. The air carried the crisp cedar scent of his usual aftershave, and the fine dust of a shared past we both tried to avoid.

That night passed without incident. I slept on the sofa, he went to his bedroom. Late at night I got up for water and saw light spilling from beneath his door, the faint sound of typing. He was working too, maintaining a safe distance in his own way.

The next evening, something shifted. Winter rain hammered against the windows, we shared the pasta he cooked, drank half a bottle of red wine, and debated a controversial paper on Roman frontier defence systems. Halfway through the argument, he stopped and laughed, shaking his head.

“This feels strange,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Like before Dorset. Just archaeology, nothing else.”

“Is that bad?”

“No.” He paused, his eyes growing distant. “But it also makes you realise what was lost.”

The sound of rain filled the silence. Alcohol, the enclosed space, the familiar rhythm of debate, and that starry photograph on the wall all eroded the boundaries we had so carefully rebuilt.

“I remember that night,” I said quietly, looking at the photograph. “You pointed at Orion and said Roman soldiers would have seen the same stars.”

“And they would have been thinking of home, of lovers they might never see again.” Theo’s voice dropped. He looked at me, no longer with a colleague’s courtesy, but with the undisguised ache and longing of that night in the tent. “Some things don’t weather away completely with time, do they?”

I did not answer. The answer resonated silently between us.

He stood and walked to the window, his back to me. “Susan and I, we’re trying. But some cracks still show even after you glue them. We don’t fight anymore, but we’ve lost the kind of passion that makes you reckless. Maybe that’s middle age rebuilding itself, stable, safe, but without flame.”

“Flames burn everything,” I said, not knowing whether I was warning him or myself.

“But they also light up the deepest dark.” He turned, a dangerous light in his eyes. “Like now. I know I should send you back to the sofa, say good night, lock my bedroom door, but I don’t want to.”

The last thread of reason snapped. There were no words, only the distance he crossed in a single step, and the familiar, searing heat of his mouth on mine. This time there was no excuse of a field camp, no alibi of too much drink, only two adults, clear-headed, actively choosing what they knew was wrong.

The sofa bed became our site. Here, passion was not exploration but confirmation. Confirming that chemistry untouched by time still existed, that bodily memory was stubborn, that beneath the deep calm Linus offered, some part of me still craved the almost destructive fire Theo brought. We reached our peak amid the tearing pull of guilt and pleasure, then collapsed onto the tangled sheets, swallowed by a vast silence.

Outside, the rain had stopped. Pale moonlight spilled in, illuminating an old scar on his shoulder, a souvenir of fieldwork long past. I reached out to touch it, and he shuddered.

“Linus will be back this weekend?” he asked, but his voice was rough.

“Yes.”

“He’ll know.”

“Maybe.”

“Will you tell him?”

This time I was silent. Honesty was the foundation of my relationship with Linus, but some truths are themselves a cruel weapon.

“I don’t know,” I said at last.

Theo propped himself up, looking at me, with no triumph on his face, only deep sorrow. “We’re terrible archaeologists,” he said. “Always destroying the sites we’re trying to protect.”

On Friday afternoon, the heating was fixed. I moved back to my accommodation, like fleeing a crime scene. Before I left, Theo stood in the doorway, no hug, no kiss.

“This won’t change anything,” he said. “Susan and I carry on. You and Linus carry on. This was just an accidental disturbance.”

“An earthquake,” I corrected.

He gave a bitter smile. “Yes. An emotional earthquake. Let’s hope it hasn’t caused an irreversible fault.”

But the fault had already formed, inside me, while Linus knew nothing.

On Saturday, Linus returned from Cambridge. He came to my room with a roll of the latest laser scanning data from the Cambridge archaeological lab. “Look at this,” he said enthusiastically, spreading out the plans. “A Roman villa mosaic floor, the detail is extraordinary.”

I watched his focused profile, his fingers pointing at the diagrams as he explained the technical details. So upright, so trusting. My stomach churned.

“Linus,” I interrupted.

He looked up, instantly catching the change in my voice. “What is it?”

I needed honesty, but I could not bear the full consequences of total honesty. I chose a selective truth. “Wednesday and Thursday night, when the heating was out, I didn’t go to a hotel or your flat. I stayed at Theo’s flat for two nights. On the sofa bed.” I stressed the last three words.

Linus’s expression froze. He set down the plans, his movements slow and precise. The room was so quiet I could hear faint street noise outside.

“I see,” he said finally, his voice terrifyingly calm. “Just staying over.”

“Yes.”

“He slept in the bedroom, you on the sofa.”

“Yes.”

Linus nodded, his gaze returning to the plans, though I knew he was seeing nothing. His fingers unconsciously rubbed the edge of the paper, a habit when he was exerting extreme restraint.

“You know,” he said slowly, his voice low, “one of the cruellest lessons in archaeology is that context determines everything. An object found in a hoard, or in a rubbish pit, carries completely different meaning.” He looked up, his grey eyes fixed on me. “Those two nights with Theo, what was the context? Collegial help, or a continuation of an unfinished story?”

I could not answer.

Linus stood and walked to the window, his back to me. “I divorced my ex-wife because what we had left was an empty context, sharing a space without substance. I chose you because I believed we were building a context with substance and clarity, trust, respect, a shared direction.” He paused. “But if an unrecorded disturbance layer appears in that context, the entire interpretation of the site has to be overturned.”

“Nothing happened,” I insisted again, my voice weak.

Linus turned, his face holding no anger, only deep exhaustion. “Physically, perhaps nothing happened. But emotionally?” He stepped closer, stopping a pace away, his gaze as precise as a scalpel. “Do you still love him? Or does your body still desire him?”

The question hung in the air, razor-sharp. I could lie, but with Linus, a lie itself would be betrayal.

“Desire isn’t the same as love,” I struggled to find words. “It’s more like a physiological memory. Something that needs to be acknowledged, then set aside.”

“Have you set it aside? After those two nights?”

My silence was the answer.

Linus closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, there was a resolve I had never seen before. “I need time. Not to punish you, but to process the impact of this disturbance layer on me. I need to know whether I can accept that my partner carries an unresolved site in her heart or body.”

“Are you leaving?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I just need to pause. Pause our excavation, reassess the site’s stability, and whether I am willing to take the risk of continuing.”

That weekend, Linus returned to Cambridge earlier than planned. There were no arguments, no tears, only a cold, professional distance. He handled emotional crisis the way he handled conflicting data, setting it aside temporarily, waiting for a new analytical angle.

I was left in my London room, submerged by the complex stratigraphy of my own making.

The following weeks were a difficult balancing act. Linus and I maintained minimal email contact, speaking only of work. But Linus eventually learned the truth about those two nights, more than just staying over. An archaeologist’s eye can read the smallest disturbance in a layer.

He did not explode. Instead, in his Cambridge flat, surrounded by walls covered in data charts, he sat in silence for an entire night. Then he sent me an email, titled “Analytical Memorandum on the Emotional Disturbance Layer”. It was cold, professional, meticulously structured, but every line cut deep.

Observation: Between the subject (you), and Theo, there exists a persistent and active physical and chemical attraction layer, not integrated into or replaced by the current relationship, you and me.

Problem: Will this disturbance layer recur, undermining the stability and interpretive coherence of the primary site (our relationship)?

Hypothesis: Forcible removal or denial of the disturbance layer, demanding total severance, may lead to the accumulation of latent structural stress within the primary site, resulting in irreversible damage.

Provisional Proposal: Acknowledge the objective existence of the disturbance layer and attempt to define clear trench boundaries for it. That is, under strict temporal, spatial, and emotional rules, allow it limited existence while ensuring the core structure of the primary site remains unaffected.

Core Risk: Difficulty of rule enforcement, and the uncontrollability of emotion.

He was not talking about breaking up. He was using the only method he knew to draft an archaeological excavation protocol for the three of us. He was in pain, but what he could not bear more was living inside a lie or a coerced calm. He preferred a painful but honest form of coexistence.

When I called him, trembling, to ask what this meant, the man on the screen looked exhausted, dark circles beneath his eyes.

“It means,” his voice came through the connection, slightly distorted but heavy, “that I accept a part of you, perhaps a large part, remains connected to Theo. I cannot defeat him, and I do not see this as a war. What I require is absolute truth between you and me. Any contact with him beyond normal professional interaction must occur within rules I know.”

The rules were cold, but the man setting them was suffering and deeply in love. He did not stay out of weakness, but because his love contained an almost cruel acceptance of my full complexity.

Linus’s memorandum was like a precise probe, piercing all our self-deception. It carried no accusation, no threat, only observations and inferences of chilling calm. On the London morning I received it, rain blurred the city outside the window. Reading those icy academic terms on the screen, I understood for the first time that the depth and intensity of Linus’s love far exceeded what I had imagined. It was not possession, but a near-compassionate insight that combined scrutiny with acceptance.

I did not reply at once. I needed to absorb the dizzying possibilities the email opened, and the silent tsunami Linus was enduring beneath it.

Three days later, I went to Cambridge. His flat still had the data charts on the walls, but beside them stood a blank whiteboard. He stood before it, marker in hand, as if preparing for a viva, except the subject was our emotional future.

“You’re here,” he said evenly, though the dark circles beneath his eyes told the truth. “We need detailed provisions. Vague ideas of understanding or trust will collapse quickly under this structure. We need rules, as clear as an archaeological excavation protocol.”

He turned and wrote the first point on the board.

“First, right to know and veto. Any contact beyond standard professional interaction, definition to be set out in an appendix, must be communicated to me in advance. I retain veto power based on specific circumstances.”

“What’s in the appendix?” I asked, my voice dry.

“In draft.”

He wrote the second point, pressing hard with the pen. “Second, spatial and temporal boundaries. Such contact must not occur within our shared core living spaces, the Cambridge flat, places we regularly go in London. Frequency and duration must have explicit upper limits, for example once per quarter, no more than twenty-four hours.”

He paused, without turning. “This sounds inhumane, doesn’t it, like managing radioactive material.”

“Like managing something we both know cannot be dismantled, and fear might explode,” I said quietly.

His back stiffened slightly, then he continued with the third point. “Third emotional isolation. The nature of such contact must be clearly defined as addressing specific physiological or nostalgic needs. It must not involve complaints about existing relationships, future promises, or deep emotional entanglement. In short, it must be a closed circuit.”

At that point, the marker snapped. He stared at the broken pen for two seconds, threw it in the bin, and picked up another. His movements remained steady, but the slight tremor betrayed him.

“The hardest part, number four,” he said with his back to me, his voice lower. “Fourth, return and communication. After each contact, we need dedicated, honest communication time. You need to share necessary details to ensure this does not become a secret tumour between us. And I need to learn how to prevent the images I know from eroding our daily life.”

He finally turned, his face drained, without tears. “This is the best solution I can propose given the situation. It cannot guarantee happiness, only that we are not slowly killed by lies. You have the right to refuse, and accept the consequences of refusal, a reversion to a traditional exclusive model with a high risk of collapse. You also have the right to propose amendments.”

I looked at the board, at those brutal, rational clauses, and at the man designing an emotional sharing agreement for me. A huge ache rose in my throat. He did not force me to choose. He carved out a dangerous zone of coexistence, where we might all be wounded, and placed himself in the most painful position, knower, regulator, and ultimate bearer.

“Why?” I asked, choking. “Why not make me choose, or leave? Why design something that hurts you like this?”

Linus walked to the window, staring at the grey Cambridge sky. “Because archaeology taught me that true preservation is not sealing a site away, but designing an excavation strategy that preserves as much information as possible after understanding its fragility. You are like that to me, a complex, fragile, multi-layered site. Theo is one of those layers. I cannot strip it away without damaging the whole site. And I…”

He paused for a long time.

“And I love you. I love you enough to endure the torture of knowing, rather than live inside an illusion wrapped in perfect lies. Enough to try to understand that desire for another can coexist with love for me, however counterintuitive that feels.”

What he offered was not indulgence, but rational generosity born of extreme pain. I walked to him and hugged him from behind. His body stiffened at first, then slowly, bit by bit, relaxed, as if finally allowing itself a moment of fatigue.

“I accept the agreement,” I said into his back, my voice muffled. “I will follow the rules. I will bear my share of the pain.” I knew that every exercise of the rights the agreement granted would mean inflicting pain on him. Those rights were heavy as shackles, yet, in a strange way, they took effect.

At the same time, the reconstruction between Theo and Susan unfolded as expected, revealing its unstable foundations. Without a child as binding force, the old cracks——differing life priorities, different modes of emotional expression, divergent needs for passion and calm—— grew sharper as they tried to draw close again. Their separation was quiet, like two exhausted travellers finally admitting they wanted to go in different directions. Susan moved to another city for a new job. Lily stayed mainly with Theo, often visiting her mother.

Theo was single again, but this time he did not run towards me. Linus’s agreement formed an invisible field around us. Theo knew the rules existed. For the first time, the three of us held an almost surreal three-way call. Linus, with the calm tone of a meeting chair, outlined the framework to Theo. On the other end of the line, Theo was silent for a full minute.

“I understand,” Theo said at last, with no anger, only complexity. “Linus, this is cruel. Especially to you.”

“This is our choice,” Linus replied evenly. “Your choice is whether you are willing to participate in a limited way within this framework, or withdraw.”

Theo gave a bitter laugh. “Withdraw? Emotionally, I lost the right to withdraw long ago. I agree. I will follow the rules.”

Thus an unprecedented dynamic formed. Linus and I built our public partnership between Cambridge and London, sharing work, ideas, daily warmth and support. And Theo and I, under the agreement’s constraints, began another form of contact.

The first sanctioned meeting took place in a London hotel we had never visited, on a Saturday afternoon, lasting six hours. I informed Linus a week in advance. He was marking papers at the time, his pen pausing briefly before he said, “All right. I’ll go to the library that day.”

The meeting itself carried a strange sense of ritual and distance. There was no rekindled blaze of old love, more like a formal visit to the ghost of the past. The passion was still there, but framed by the knowledge that it was permitted and time-limited, it became sharp and sorrowful.

“How is he?” Theo asked afterwards, handing me a glass of water, leaning against the headboard. He did not name Linus, but we both knew.

“In pain, but enduring,” I answered honestly.

Theo covered his eyes with his hand. “I feel like an authorised thief, stealing something another man knowingly leaves unguarded.”

“You’re not a thief. This is our shared choice,” I said, though the words felt thin.

That evening, I returned to the London flat I shared temporarily with Linus. He was sitting on the sofa, a book open on his knees, but not reading. Only a floor lamp was on, the room feeling empty.

I sat down and, as required, began the difficult ‘return and communication’. I did not share details, but I shared feelings. The physiological connection based on old attraction was still strong, but weakened by guilt.

Linus listened quietly, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the edge of the page. When I finished, he was silent.

“I have images in my head,” he said at last, his voice hoarse. “They appear without control. I need time to adapt.” He looked at me, pain naked in his eyes. “But thank you for telling me. It’s slightly better than imagining in silence. Only slightly.”

He reached out, not to embrace me, but to grip my hand, tightly, forcefully, as if confirming my physical presence, confirming that I had returned to the space he maintained through pain.

This pattern continued for months. It was like walking a tightrope. Each meeting tested the balance, each return and communication examined the wound together. Linus maintained rational with extraordinary willpower. But at times he would wake suddenly in the middle of the night, or drift for long stretches while working. I was torn repeatedly between two very different loves and a double burden of guilt.

The turning point came through an accident.

While chairing an important conference in Cambridge, Linus, exhausted and under pressure, suffered a recurrence of his old gastric condition and was taken to hospital in severe pain. I received the call in London, on the same day as a short sanctioned lunch with Theo. I needed to get to Cambridge immediately, and in my panic, instinctively called Theo, because he had a car.

Theo did not hesitate. He drove me at once. We were silent on the road. At the hospital, I saw Linus lying pale on the bed. When he saw Theo and me arrive together, many things flickered through his grey eyes, surprise, bitterness, then understanding.

Theo stopped at the door, not entering. “I’ll wait outside,” he said quietly, leaving us space.

I went to the bedside and took Linus’s hand. It was cold.

“I’m sorry,” I babbled. “I shouldn’t have let him drive me, I just panicked…”

Linus shook his head, interrupting me, his voice weak but clear. “The agreement does not exclude emergencies. Your response was logical.” He paused, his gaze shifting to Theo’s silhouette outside. “He came quickly.”

“Yes.”

Linus closed his eyes, then said, “When you’re in pain, you understand some things. I was thinking that this agreement might not only be to accommodate him, but also to reassure myself that even in the worst case, you would ultimately choose to return to my side. I need this extreme method to test what I believe rationally but fear emotionally.”

He opened his eyes and looked at me, exhausted yet lucid. “I just saw it. You looked at him in panic, but you looked at me in pain. That’s different.”

In that moment, I broke down in tears. This agreement, this structure that seemed rationally designed by him, was founded on his profound insecurity and a near self-punishing need to verify love.

After Theo drove me back to London, we said goodbye at the station, night already deep.

“He’s stronger than all of us,” Theo said suddenly, leaning against the car, lighting a cigarette, smoke dispersing quickly in the cold air. “And he loves you more than I realised. Enough to design a system that puts himself on the rack.”

“This isn’t fair to you,” I said.

“There is no fairness,” Theo said with a crooked smile. “In this triangle, I lost the right to demand fairness from the start. What I have is permission, and that’s already more than I deserve.” He stubbed out the cigarette. “Take care of him, and take care of yourself. This is a game none of us can afford to lose.”

He drove off, tail lights vanishing into the London streets. I realised with painful clarity that this fragile balance held not because of me, but because of Linus’s immense and painful love, and Theo’s eventual maturity and restraint. I was both the core and the weakest link.

At the coldest point of winter, the three of us appeared together at a college dinner, a rare occurrence. Linus had just recovered, still pale. Theo came alone. Linus and I sat together, Theo at another table.

Midway through the dinner, I stepped out onto the terrace for air. Theo followed. We stood side by side, looking into the winter night.

“I’ve applied for a long-term project in the Middle East,” Theo said suddenly, his tone calm. “I leave next spring, at least a year.”

I froze and turned to him.

“It’s not running away,” he met my gaze. “This triangle needs some geographical attenuation to stabilise. With me in London, the structural tension is too high. Leaving for a while might be a buffer for Linus, for you, for me. I need to return to truly vast sites, to reclaim some sense of myself, rather than exist forever as a variable in someone else’s agreement.”

I could not argue. He was right. Distance might allow this twisted coexistence to breathe.

“Will you come back?”

“Of course. Lily is here. And,” he paused, “there are unfinished stories here too. But when I return, perhaps we’ll all know more clearly what ending they should have.”

He raised his glass to me, drained it, and turned back into the warmth.

I returned to Linus and told him quietly of Theo’s decision. Linus was listening to an elderly professor speak. Hearing this, the hand resting on his knee moved slightly, then, beneath the tablecloth, he reached for my hand and held it. His grip was warm and steady.

“A wise choice,” he murmured near my ear, his breath brushing my skin. “For everyone.”

We left together after the dinner. Beneath the college’s ancient archway, Linus stopped and adjusted my scarf, his movements careful and gentle.

“It’s snowing again,” he said.

Fine flakes began to fall, spinning in the halo of the streetlights.

“Cold?” he asked, as he had once before by the fire.

This time, I shook my head and tightened my grip on his hand. “With you here, I’m not cold.”

Snow settled silently on our shoulders. New sediment was already beginning to form.