A/N: Wow. I can't believe I'm finally finishing this story. It's thanks to you, dear readers, I have managed to get this far. So truly, I thank you for sticking around, reading, reviewing, and generally being darlings. (I hope this finishing long neglected multichapters thing will become a trend for me, so stay tuned.)

This was the third Andith fic I ever wrote, and so I want to fondly dedicate this final chapter to Queenlovett, who first encouraged me to write Andith; LadyStrallan, who gave me one of my first prompts to get me started; and Baron Munchausen, who not only approved this somewhat crazy premise but has also been a stalwart supporter of this particular story all these years and who wouldn't let me give up on it. A secondary dedication goes out into the ether to my son, B, who was in the womb when this story started, and who will be four in November.

Long live Andith!


Chapter 7

Edith slept, and Anthony paced. Her color had returned, her breathing and pulse were both normal. But the memory of her dead weight in his arms, and the hazy, disoriented look in her eyes as she went under made his stomach contort with sickening dread.

He told himself he should have known. Should have foreseen. He'd been ignoring the signs, basking in the sheer joy of her nearness, selfishly taking the intimacy she offered with no thought of the consequences. But now those consequences were painfully clear. The sleepiness, her weakness and loss of consciousness… The more she attempted to reach him across the divide between life and death, the more she joined him on the other side. It didn't matter how much he cared for her, how much he wanted her, how much he'd miss her. If his selfish heart demanded her love, he wouldn't just keep her from living a normal life. It was worse than that. He would kill her. Oh God. He choked on a sob. He would kill her.

The long hours of the night passed. Anthony soundlessly walked the floors, keeping his tormented vigil by Edith's bedside. To and fro and fro and to Anthony argued with himself, battling his conscience, his desires, his very honor. But it was no use. He knew the answer; knew the agonizing path he must take.

He would give himself until dawn, he decided. Then he must leave her.

Forever.

All too soon, the first rays of sunlight slid above the horizon, glinting against the brass telescope. With the reluctance of a man mounting his scaffold, Anthony stood from the chair where he had been watching her sleep. He bowed low over her sleeping form, and whispered.

"It is time for me to go, my sweet one." She stirred as if in protest. "No, you must sleep. Dream the dream we have been spinning since you first arrived here. The dream I foolishly allowed myself to fall into when you returned to me. To hold you in my arms, to treasure the gift of your affection, these were all I could have hoped for in any life. My dearest Edith…" his voice broke and a few tears slid from his eyes. "But it is only a dream, and dreams cannot endure. You belong with the living. I belong with the dead. I cannot give you what you deserve; I cannot give you life. Neither can I keep you here to waste away with me. As much as I might wish to." He paused again, choked with emotion. "But never think that I have not loved you. I have loved you more than any soul I have encountered in this life or my last. And whether I am with you or not, that shall not change. I love you, Edith Crawley. I love you beyond today, beyond this sunrise, and its sunset, and for all the sunrises and sunsets to come I shall love you, Edith."

He straightened and strode to the window, every step an effort. He couldn't resist turning for one last look. Then, as if letting sorrow dissolve him like a burning acid, he willed himself away.

XXX

Edith shifted beneath the quilt, her limbs searching fitfully for comfort.

Seconds later, she moved again.

Anxiety clawed at her consciousness, like a chill when one has kicked off the blankets, too weary to rise and restore them, not comfortable enough to rest. Edith shifted again, fighting the edge of wrongness that drew her further and further from sleeping and into-

A dark room. Hollow, barren.

She sat up. Anthony was gone. Snippets of a dream drifted over her, thunking against her groggy brain like driftwood in the tide. He'd left.

She sat there in silence for some time, grappling with the finality, the rejection, the ache of Anthony's departure. She cried, quietly, slowly. Her demons manifested in the dark, vicious corrosive terrors that told her she wasn't good enough, that he'd been repulsed by her kiss, that he'd realized she wasn't worth eternity, that maybe while she was gone there'd been someone else…

At length, wan sunlight breached the windows. Dry of tears, she stood and went to the widow's walk, facing the gently rolling sea. She stood in the frosty dawn, watching the sun rise and the tide gradually strengthen, the day coming on by increments, a slow, noble advance as if vanquishing oppressive night. She felt comforted by the sight, the intrepid little waves refusing to be daunted, returning inland again and again. It was as though the spray whispered, Don't give up hope.

"Anthony," she murmured to the breeze, feeling anguish tighten her throat, "if you're out there, come back to me. Don't give up."

The next few days passed in a blur. Edith examined and re-examined all the precious moments she'd had with Anthony, including that last soul-blending kiss. She came to understand why he had left, the sacrifice he had made. But it didn't change the fact that he was gone. And she didn't know how to tell him, how to set him straight, how to bring him back to the love they had found together. She was powerless. If he didn't come back, she'd never have the chance to reclaim him.

So she stayed at Gull Cottage, waiting. Every evening as she watched the sun set by herself, her hopes sank with it; and every morning she rekindled her faith. If she was patient just one more day, Anthony would return. To fill the days, she wrote. Wrote about a compassionate, intelligent, unassumingly handsome major who protected his men, honored his duty, and sacrificed for others. But as days passed, she grew more and more concerned. Soon she would have to return to London, and then how would she ever find Anthony?

Then, on one of her last nights at the cottage, she had a dream. It was one of the many she'd had about Anthony since his disappearance, but this one was more vivid, more real than all the rest. Anthony stood at the window, watching her sleep, his eyes dark with despair and longing. Currents of awareness raced through her body and jolted her awake.

She lay still for several moments, breathing heavily as her heart thudded in her chest. Filtered moonlight just illuminated the room, showing it to be empty. But she knew better. Her senses clamored with his silent presence.

"I know you're here," she said boldy.

Stillness was her only reply.

"Anthony," she said, this time her voice pleading, frightened. She couldn't let him leave. She had to keep him here, had to make him understand.

But he didn't speak, didn't appear.

"Fine," she said, slightly piqued, "if you don't want to talk to me, then just listen."

She took a moment to pull back the covers and stand, her movements slow as if she he might bolt like a startled animal. She faced towards the window where he'd been in her dream and took a deep breath.

"Now I come to it, I don't know what to say. I've thought out a dozen speeches since you left, but none of them seem sufficient now. You must know. How much I've missed you," a cord of emotion closed around her throat and her voice thickened, "how much it hurts not having you around."

She began to cry, tears streaming one after the other down her face. She swiped at them with her hands, mumbling through her sobs.

"Please Anthony, please please don't go. Please stay," she begged.

She blinked hard on another batch of tears and when her eyes opened again, there he was, his face pinched in misery while quiet tears rolled down his cheeks.

"Anthony! I d-" Edith began to rush towards him, but he held out a hand to ward her off.

"Don't," he commanded weakly. Then, with all the self-loathing of the universe, he added, "I don't want to hurt you."

Edith halted, but held his gaze. "Then don't leave me like that again. Don't take what I feel for you—what we feel for each other—and stomp all over it. You of all people should know how rare this is."

He inhaled a watery sniff and exhaled a short sigh. "Edith, I can't." The words choked from his throat, as if he was speaking with a heavy weight on his chest. "I can't be what you want me to be."

"I don't want you to be anything other than what you are!" Edith protested, "And I want you to be with me."

"But I can't touch you!" the words wrenched from him. He waved his good arm in front of him as if it were poisonous. "I can only steal from you. And I can't give you the things you deserve—passion, children. I won't destroy your life Edith—I—

She stepped forward and seized his wrist, willingly taking on his touch, making him face her resolute gaze.

"This doesn't have to be life or death. Yes or no." She released his wrist, moving instead to tenderly smooth a lock of his windblown hair into place. "I'll have both—like you."

"Edith, I don't have both—I don't have life. I only have—"

"Half, then. I'll have half. Anthony, don't you see? I want you, whatever of you I can get. I don't even know right now what that means, but I refuse to give it up."

"Oh my darling," he nearly sobbed the words. "If you know how much I want to believe in you. But I can't let you throw away your life on me. Living with death, you will become death."

"No," she stared hard at him. "No, Anthony. I won't accept that. Living with you I will become what I am meant to be. Living without you…that's where I feel like a spirit, a shadow of myself."

"Edith, I sim—"

She placed her fingers on his lips in a shushing motion, which blended into a slow caress of his lips, jaw, face, eyelids, temples. He released a tremulous sigh, bending towards her fingertips. As if her touch had reopened a spring, a few tears rolled slowly down his cheeks. But he didn't look away. He stared, riveted on the hope shining in her deep brown eyes.

"Anthony. I love you. And I'm not going anywhere. Please, stay. At least until tomorrow."

"And tomorrow?" he rasped.

"Tomorrow you'll have to promise me again."

As small smile curved his lips.

"Alright. Until tomorrow."

The tomorrows came and went. Edith quit her job at Royall Publishing and did freelance jobs while she worked on the first installment of The Adventures of Major Strother, Anthony's fictional counterpart. With Anthony's help, she managed to weave the pathos of the war, messages of pacifism and humanity into the adventure so that it didn't negate the legacy of what he and his thousands of comrades had suffered. He refrained from reading her drafts, as he had no wish to relive the episodes therein, but he blessed and supported her endeavors.

The first novel sold well, and led to a whole series, following the major through the war, and back home where he had a tragic love affair due to the loss of his arm, only for him and his lady love to reunite two books later. On the homefront Mr. and Mrs. Strother solved mysteries-cooked up by Edith and her ghostwriter, of course. As Anthony could only visit places he had been in life, Edith spent her time between Gull Cottage and a flat she purchased near Anthony's old offices. Her literary career was the perfect excuse to spend hours "alone" in her rooms, though it was several years before her mother ceased matrimonial attempts. She and Anthony took their unconventional relationship in peaceful stride, and shared many happy, and though restrained by no means chaste, years together.

Until at last, Edith grew old, and tired. She wrote a beautiful ending for Major and Lady Strothers, and then travelled to Gull Cottage one last time.

Anthony awaited her there, guiding her upstairs to the bedchamber as if she were bride on her wedding night. Once through the door, he caught her up and kissed her, lavishing her with years of ardent devotion…

…Edith woke in the large bed, cradled in Anthony's arms. His eyes shone down upon her and she no longer felt tired or old. She remembered that first day years ago, when she'd looked up from the floorboards into the same blue eyes of a handsome stranger. She reached a hand to his cheek and traced his jaw, gasping at the living heat of him beneath her palm. Her eyes questioned.

He gave a small nod. "That," he said, "was terribly unpleasant to witness."

He leaned down to kiss her. And his mouth was warm and powerful and delicious. She whimpered with the sheer goodness of it. After all these years… They kissed for some time, a reverent physical introduction for kindred hearts.

"However," he continued at last, letting his lips explore her jaw and neck and earlobe. "This is certainly recompense."

She grinned.

"Oh, by all means, recompense away—ah" the end of her sentence ended in a gasp as Anthony's mouth did something rather marvelous around her ear.

"Now, as you know," he said as his lips made forays into each divot and shadow, "it has been a considerably long time since I've done this. However," he murmured against her lips, dipping in slow sensual passes, "I've got an eternity to get it right."

Edith laughed, a bright rejoicing sound. Then his mouth began to move lower, and she arced her head back to savor her beloved's kisses. Just before she closed her eyes, she glimpsed the last rays of golden sunlight, dipping below the horizon…

I love you beyond today, beyond this sunrise and its sunset, and for all the sunrises and sunsets to come I shall love you…

XXX