(no subject)
Lucille gets pregnant again. DONE
Sometime in November - birth of a daughter named Dominique. Goes badly, leaves Lucille severely weakened.
Early to mid December - Sharpe's family is taken hostage by French ex-soldiers in search of treasure. Get hold of Sharpe's Ransom to see how this ends. This makes Lucille's condition a lot worse, due to the stress.
Late December, Lucille contracts something or other and develops a high fever. For some reason yet to be determined, Sharpe can't get her to the bar and a healer, and she dies. Possibly on Christmas Day, if I feel like being really evil.
Sharpe then has two young children to raise alone, while mourning. He will need help, but he has friends - and family - at the bar who can supply that.
February/March/April next year, probably - Sharpe is summoned back to London and sent off to India to rescue Patrick. It is not yet clear if Patrick will come back from this alive, because his writers are evil bastards. Outcome of this contingent on what happens in the second episode of new canon.
It does, however, involve an attempt being made to force Sharpe to kill Patrick. Whether he actually goes through with it or not - and I sincerely hope and believe he won't - this will break him to some degree.
....okay, that was a way for evil-guy to test him and the powder didn't actually work. But the fact remains that Patrick didn't know that and Sharpe let him believe he was going to die, when in fact there was a chance he'd be wrong and he'd end up actually killing him.
And then there is the fact that Sharpe points a loaded rifle at his best friend, the one person left in his world who is unshakably loyal to him, and pulls the trigger. Even if he was 99% sure that it would be okay - and there's no way in the circumstances he could be 100% sure - that has to leave a mark. I think he should come in immediately after that incident, for time with his friends at the bar.
There are lines in this episode about neither of them really having what it takes to fight any more, on which score they are liars.
And Patrick lives. This is good, because his death would shatter Sharpe. Seriously. He lives, and they ride off into the sunset, and I really really really want a Patrick Harper in the bar. Maybe I should do a recruitment drive and hold off on this plot until I have one.