Disclaimer: I own none of Forever.
Author's Note: I got this idea watching episode 16 'Memories of Murder'. It turned out way more wistful than I originally planned. Hope you enjoy. Please feel free to comment your thoughts or opinions.
Chill
1983
Henry was in the half-sleeping state between waking and dreaming when he became aware of a chill, an emptiness, which he had grown unaccustomed to over the last forty years. He rolled slightly in bed to reach for reassurance in... the empty space beside him. Starting up in panic he scanned the room in vain search of his wife. His sight landed on the paper on her vanity. Picking it up he read it.
My Dearest Henry,
First, I want you to know that I love you with all my heart. That is why I must leave. We both know we can't live like this any longer. Its not fair to you to watch me grow older and wither. You don't need the added tragedy in your life. I'm sorry it had to be like this, but you wouldn't have let me go. You have such a wonderful heart, I would hate to see that broken or be the cause of it. There are far better uses for it than caring for an old nurse.
Yours truly,
Abigail
Desperately hoping he had caught the situation in time he ran out of the apartment, not pausing even to grab his coat. Flying down the staircase and hurrying out into the street. Looking frantically to each side, over the crowd he spotted a familiar hat at the far end of the block. He wove and ducked through the crowd, shoving indiscriminately and without any sense of manners, his barefeet hitting against the freezing cement sidewalk.
Catching up to the wearer of the hat, he seized her arm. The response to the action was a rather violent and practiced swing of a purse to his face. "Oww!" He exclaimed, raising a hand to his face while not letting go of the woman.
"Henry!" Abigail cried, recognising the man. "Are you hurt?"
He paused a moment, allowing time for their gazes to lock. "Less by the purse than by the note." She looked away from the pain of betrayal in his eyes. "A note, Abigail? You couldn't tell me to my face?"
"You wouldn't have let me, if I had."
"Of course, I wouldn't. One wife leaving me is enough, wouldn't you say? You wrote about tragedy in my life, and not wanting to add to it. Where's the tragedy in spending all the time possible with the woman I love? 'Til death do us part', we both promised that."
"Henry..." She began, close to tears. "Will you feel the same when the time comes?"
"I cared for a friend as he was slowly consumed by tuberculousis, he succombed to the illness. Would I have missed those last few months with james to spare myself the grief of his passing? Absolutely not. I told you that I would love you forever, and I stand by that."
"Have the last ten or twenty years shown you nothing, Henry? This can't work any longer. I'm not twenty-five any more. Look at me, what do you see?"
"I see a wonderful woman who is just as beautiful as the day I first met her, and whom I love even more than I did then."
"That's sweet of you, Darling." She said sadly, bringing a hand up to touch his cheek. "But that's not what the world sees when they look at me, at us. A man with his mother, or worst of all, a young opportunist with his elderly victim. People's faces when we pass, the suspicion, the whispers.'
"Who gives a damn what other people think? Through all the centuries of humanity love has weathered all sorts of adversity. Can't ours weather this, as well?"
"Oh, Henry. I-" Her words were stopped by his mouth upon her own. The words she'd about to speak were wiped from her mind. The heavy pedestrian traffic of New York flowed around the unusual pair, the man with messy hair and wearing pajamas and the much older woman in a coat her bags at her feet. "You came after me." She said once they had parted.
"Did you really expect I wouldn't? Or perhaps you thought I'd sleep long enough for you to vanish. Italy, Abigail. Remember Italy? I assure you, the chill of an empty bed only grows more noticeable after forty years." His next breath was shaky, while his entire body shivered under the thin layer of cotton against the wintry air.
"You're cold." She stated, concern filling her voice.
"I'll live. The only question is whether I will do so alone." His words were not in themselves a question, but his eyes conveyed one. He held his breath awaiting his wife's response.
"Come On, let's go home, before you catch a death of cold." At the word 'home' he expelled the breath in relief. She took his arm with one hand and picked up her bags with the other, and began leading her shivering husband to their home. "Yes, Henry, I remember Italy."
In front of the apartment building Henry stopped and turned to face Abigail. "I love you, Abigail, and I will always."
"I know. And I just hope it doesn't break your wonderful heart."