I am actually sweating a bit before publishing this I'm so nervous about how this chapter and the next will go over. We've reached a point in the story I have been picturing since I began writing this summer, and I'm so excited and simultaneously terrified to share it with you I feel slightly dizzy. This chapter is Florence's POV, and the next will be Tom's if you are curious. Also, I think this is the longest chapter I have ever written, a clear sign that I have agonized over this chapter for too long. I decided it was better to just go ahead and publish instead of over thinking things lol.
Thank you endlessly to the people who took time to comment on the last chapter and who are still reading and checking in on me! I cannot express how much it means to me that you are still here even though I took off 3/4 of a month from writing. I hope this and the next chapter live up to your expectations!
Chapter 45
"His descent was like nightfall."
― Homer, The Iliad
"Liam is coming over for drinks this week," Tallulah says with a sly smile during dinner on Saturday evening, spooning a heaping serving of mashed potatoes onto her plate before allowing the house elf to move on to serve Florence.
"Oh? And is this the first time he's come over for dinner?" Florence chuckles, noting the gleam in her friend's eye across the table. Beside Tallulah, Forsythe rolls his eyes before giving Florence an easy smile, as if sharing in a joke with her on his younger sister's behalf.
"The sixth," Tallulah clarifies with obvious delight.
"Dallas Parker is probably crying himself to sleep somewhere."
"He's old news," Tallulah says, waving her hand before following this comment with a bite of her pork chop.
"Didn't realize men were like newspapers, arriving and then getting thrown out the next morning," Forsythe accuses.
"Nervous Mary Helen is going to throw you out?" Tallulah asks. Florence feels the alcohol burn in her throat as she coughs, her face reddening as the words sink in.
"Mary Helen," she splutters, laughing in surprise. "The same Mary Helen who's been hunting for you for years?" Across the table, Forsythe's tanned skin reddens as his eyes trace the intricate silver candelabra in the middle of the table like he has never before seen something so beautiful.
"The very same," Tallulah cries with obvious delight. "Forsythe's been seeing her for two months."
Florence feels herself break into the widest grin of the evening. Forsythe, the notorious recluse, with a girlfriend? It is a pleasant surprise, and one that softens the place he held with her heart. She who woke most mornings longing for the embrace of her significant other would not with that pain upon anyone, let alone a friend.
"That's wonderful news, Forsythe! What started it all?" Florence asks, hoping that her smile will encourage him to speak.
"Ah, well," Forsythe says, smiling at his glass of wine as he takes a sip. Compared to his large hands, the glass seems to be made for a child it was so small within his grasp. "Didn't want my mom to have a heart attack if I stayed single much longer, and Mary Helen isn't so bad once you get to know her."
"And he couldn't wait on you forever," Tallulah smirks, ducking as her brother attempts to hit her across the back of her head.
"Speaking of, how's Tom?" Forsythe asks, attempting to move past his sisters comment with a modicum of dignity. Florence feels her stomach roil and then harden at the sound of the name, the ache that follows her constantly these days reemerging. To hide her pause, she takes a bite of potato before speaking.
"He's well. His work has increased so it's been harder for him to get away and visit, but I'm glad he has more to do since I have been so busy with work as well," Florence explains with a small shrug as if it would lighten the weight upon her shoulders. "Distance is a bear."
"When was the last time you saw him?" Tallulah asks, and her previously cheerful tone is somewhat subdued. Her fork settles on her plate with a loud clink.
"Two months," Florence replies, and her voice is so tight it is a wonder that any sound came out at all. "But we have written, and we do the best we can."
"All the same," Forsythe interjects, and his eyes are soft. "I'm sorry for the distance. Y'all don't deserve that hardship."
"Well, we can't all marry hometown sweethearts," Florence says, attempting a smile to lighten the mood. Tallulah's responding snort tells her she has succeeded, at least a little bit. Silence falls for a moment as all three of them dive into their dinners, and Florence lets her mind stray to where it always does – Tom. They had seen each other with a relatively constant schedule, every two to three weeks over the course of the summer and into the fall after Lizzie's wedding, but as the weather had turned colder Borgin had finally begun to entrust Tom with some of his most prized clients, and their trips had slowed to a trickle, and around the start of November they had stopped entirely. It was neither his fault nor her own, a regrettable fact of a life spent on other sides of the globe which she came to detest more and more each day. She spent her waking hours alongside Albion and her father, teaching him every facet of life upon the farm, and Tom was sent to the finest manor homes in England and abroad, haggling for antiques and priceless valuables, sometimes for weeks on end. There was not time for either of them to visit, at least not at the same time, and no matter how many dreams she awoke from sweating and panting his name, it did not change the fact that Tom was not in the bed beside Florence.
Their last few weekend visits had been pure agony, the meager days they'd had together almost worse than their time apart. How could they live off of stolen days together, how could they share every moment with the other that they had missed? At least when they were apart they understood the other's suffering, but when they were together, both Florence and Tom became sharp and resentful, faced with the reality of their situation, of the hours and minutes they had lost to time. Ten thousand lifetimes with him would not be enough Florence thinks, staring down at her half eaten dinner, appetite long gone.
"Well, maybe you should just surprise him. I know you both have crazy schedules, but if you just show up he'll have no choice but to make time for you," Tallulah suggests. Florence laughs upon hearing the words, but considers it may not be the worst suggestion she has ever received. Tom's need for control meant that unless he could dedicate the entire weekend together, he insisted that Florence not come to England or him travel to Georgia. What good does only an afternoon with you do me he'd asked her over the last weekend they had spent together back in October. It only makes me feel ill when you're gone, as if it has been some fevered dream from which I've awoken. Florence had held no response to this. What was there to say?
"Hmm, maybe I will," Florence replies, but as she sits, the words seem to burrow further into her being, forming into a half-considered idea, and then a fully-fledged hope. What is to stop me from going there now, after dinner? I have the money, and I have yet to take vacation days except for Lizzie's wedding. I could visit for the week…When Florence returns to the conversation, both Forsythe and Tallulah are giving her knowing looks.
"Get out of here, we both know what you're thinking, and if you're about to go buy an international portkey at six in the evening you'll at least need to pack first," Forsythe jests, but his face is gentle with the absence of judgement.
"When you two are tangled in the sheets, remind Tom that it was my idea for you to surprise him," Tallulah snickers, dabbing at the corner of her mouth with her napkin. Florence's face turns red as a beet, but with a knowing smile, she gets to her feet and scampers around the table to wrap Tallulah in a hug.
"You're dreadful."
"Yes, mother reminds me of that every day," Tallulah agrees evenly.
"Be safe," Forsythe calls out as Florence dashes down the hall and into the parlor where the fireplace and accompanying Floo powder wait for her.
Stumbling out of the flames and into her own home seconds later, Florence moves with near blinding speed, calling out for June and Cash as she takes the stairs two at a time. They appear with an echoing crack at the top of the stairs, skittering out of the way as Florence dashes between the two of them.
"Missy Florence," June calls, pattering across the carpet after her. "Whys is you running around at such an hour? We's did not expect you home so early!"
"I'm going to visit Tom!" Florence shouts over her shoulder, skidding to a halt within her room and throwing open her wardrobe. "Help me pack please? I need enough clothes for a week, evening and casual wear."
Both June and Cash bow low before scurrying across the hardwood floors in determined, practiced movements. Florence's lungs burn, adrenaline pumping through her veins. Two months apart, but that ends tonight. The thought made her so giddy that Florence broke into spontaneous laughter on several occasions, both house elves casting her worried looks. His ring on her finger was like ice upon burning flesh, and with a fond smile, she packed away the blue velvet box which contained the necklace Tom had given her before her debut. In record time she is packed, standing before the fireplace once more with two suitcases and wrapped in a traveling cloak.
"Cash, if you'd be an angel and tell my father in the morning that I've decided to surprise Tom this week in England I'll let you pick the menu for an entire month of our dinners," Florence asks, getting to her knees before them to pull both into a deep hug.
"Of course, Missy Florence," Cash agrees.
"And if my mother comes by," Florence adds before stepping into the flames. "She's welcome to come in, but don't let her rearrange anything. I know she's dying to get her hands on the living room layout." Her last sight before the world disappears in a whirl of green is the two house elves waving her away, their faces bright with shared happiness on Florence's behalf. Closing her eyes, Florence whispers the address for the Allman's home in Savannah, and allows herself to be whisked away, thoughts of midnight eyes and black curls chasing her into nothingness.
The Surveillance Wizarding Resource Department staff member who handles her money exchange and portkey purchase laughs at the way Florence bounces from foot to foot, her gray hair pulled into tight bun and her severely lined face at odds with the smile that graces her features. She hands Florence her portkey – which is a water stained, leather bound journal – with a knowing smile, chuckling at the way Florence snatches it from her outstretched fingers.
"Got somewhere to be, or someone to meet?" The older woman croaks as Florence stuffs the portkey under her arm and glances over at the landing circle.
"Both," Florence admits, smiling broadly at the woman.
"Well get going then," she cheers, waving Florence towards the painted red circle just past the barrier. "I'm sure whoever it is your meeting is just as eager to see you."
Yes he is Florence thinks with smug confidence, setting her luggage in its own transport circle before crossing into the last unoccupied red ring and waiting impatiently for the familiar jerking sensation in her navel. With a slight sense of shock she realizes it's been less than an hour since she left the Blount's, and in only a few minutes more she would be on English soil. In a few minutes you'll be in Tom's arms. Florence closes her eyes, picturing how she will rouse him from sleep, the way her fingers will glide across his forehead and smooth his curls before pressing her lips to his cheek, whispering his name in his ear. She almost sobs in relief when at last the journal glows blue, and her body begins to revolve on the spot, thoughts of long, delicate fingers dancing in her mind as she is lifted up and away across the sea.
She hardly notices as the Ministry of Magic wizard takes and weighs her wand, nor the strange look the luggage boy gives her when he points out that it is odd for a woman her age to be traveling alone at this time in the morning. Florence gives him a vague smile and presses a few knuts into his hand before making her way out into the street and down a side alley where no one can see her. Breathing deeply the frigid air, Florence takes one final breath and turns on the spot into apparition, her mind focused upon the foyer of Tom's apartment.
It is dark when she arrives – hardly a surprise considering it is past midnight here in Britain. For one glorious moment she is filled with energy to be once more in the familiar space, and then her mind stills and several things become apparent to her at once.
Setting down her suitcases and drawing her wand from her pocket, Florence casts the charm Tom taught her years ago, lighting each of the sconces with small, flickering flames. Upon the table in the center of the room are stacks of mail scattered about is if sorted through in a hurry. Tom had clearly been searching for specific correspondences and left the rest here to collect the layer of dust that currently lay upon them. Frowning slightly, Florence moved down the hall before her, aware now of the smell of disuse, of must, and was that mold? Her nose wrinkles, uncomfortably aware of how loud her heels are upon the stone floors as she moves down the never-ending corridor.
Florence knows her way around Tom's apartment as if it is hers, and she moves without hesitation, peering into rooms for signs that anyone has lived here over the past few months at the least. The last time she had been in the suite was near the end of the Summer, Tom opting to visit her in America over September and October, and each open door makes her unease grow, her chest constrict further. Dust is everywhere, the curtains drawn against the lights of London, and in the living room, she finds one of the Dittany saplings she sent him brown and withered, a shell of a once living being. Florence has to force herself to walk away after one of the leaves flutters to the floor, her eyes watering at the sight of something so lovely now dead.
Tom's bedroom is of course empty, yet Florence had held out hope in some misbegotten part of her mind that he might still be there when she pushed the door open. Pointing her wand at the two lamps on his bedside table, warm light fills the room, highlighting the dust upon the quilt, the cobwebs in the far corners of the room.
Her tears spill over then, and without thinking Florence clambers onto the bed and falls face first into the pillow. A sob spills from her lips when she realizes that the linens have been washed since the last time Tom slept here, that even his scent is gone from this space. You fool she thinks over and over until her entire body is shuddering with heaving gasps, her lungs no longer capable of drawing the needed oxygen into her body.
Self-loathing wells within her, for her own frantic need for him, for her foolish head-first dive into an unthought out and ill-considered surprise for a young man who would most likely pity her for the first, who would despise her for the second. Anger too stirs in her gut as she presses her tear stained face into his pillow. Where is he? And why has he not told me where he is staying, if not here? True enough there were things she did not tell Tom, it was just part of life on separate continents, but she also knew that if she'd moved or purchased another residence, it would have registered within her to inform Tom. He'd told her he was going to carve her name into time itself, but he'd let her Dittany trees die, he'd been living elsewhere for months without telling her. Has he forgotten me? Does he no longer need me the way he once did? The ache that has followed Florence since their last visit overwhelms her at last, and another wave of anguished sobs spill from her lips.
It is several minutes later that Florence sits up upon the bed, attempting to master her tears with several rounds of deep breath.
"You can't stay here," she whispers to herself, her eyes tracing over the familiar framed picture of herself and Tom spinning in blissful unawareness on the bedside table. Something inside of her seems unhinged, her mind grappling with the evidence of his departure, with her mounting anxiety. Where is he, where is he, where is he her mind screams over and over again, but there is no one there to answer her thoughts. Wherever Tom is, he cannot hear her, and this thought more than her two months without him makes Florence feel more alone than ever in her life.
Getting to her feet, she picks up the framed photo and makes her way back into the living room, her eyes settling once more upon the wilted sapling, a fresh wave of tears springing to her eyes. Seeing the dead tree, a being that had once thrummed with her magic, akin in Florence's mind to her own child, felt like losing a limb or perhaps sinking inward into the pit within her stomach which had opened since her arrival in Tom's apartment. The round leaves are no more than brown discs, parched and limp, and one brush from her hand would send them fluttering to the floor to decay. Florence stands before the Dittany tree for some time, tears running freely down her face as her mind wanders darker and darker trails.
It is as she rouses herself to return to her luggage and leave to find a place to stay that Florence notices the shift in the air. It takes no great skill too, as if someone had suddenly turned on a heating system and the air hums and crackles with swirling energy. Turning away from the tree to face the doorway, she has one breath and then a dark figure bursts through the door, wand outstretched before him, face taught and eyes red with strain as he enters the space. For one horrible second Tom's gaze lands upon her – distant and seething, his wand still pointed at her chest – and then he seems to remember himself, in a blink his pupils returning to deep midnight, his hand falling just slightly so that the weapon points to the left of her body. Neither of them move to cover the distance between each other, Tom surely taking in the tears on her face, the hunch in her figure, Florence noting the length of his hair which stretched below his ears, the pallor of his skin. At last he speaks.
"What are you doing here?" He asks, and Florence wraps her arms around her stomach as if warding off his cool tone, protecting herself from the sharpness of his words.
"I came to surprise you," she mutters, looking away from him, suddenly unable to bear the beauty of his visage when she is so unsettled by the emptiness of his home, the lack of concern he seems to show for her now. Florence's eyes find the portrait of Salazar Slytherin, and with welling nausea, she looks away from this too to settle upon the coffee table before the fireplace.
"You have not been living here," she adds bluntly, her eyes still fixed on anything but him, determined to have answers now that the reality of the reunion had already failed to live up the childish daydreams she'd formed on the way across the ocean.
"No," he agrees, and anger spikes with her when Tom does not elaborate.
"Where have you been living, then?"
"Does it matter?" Tom asks, and Florence looks up at this, noting that he has lowered his wand arm completely.
"It matters that you did not tell me," she accuses, and his mouth tightens. "It matters that you let my trees die."
"Lestrange's house elf was supposed to water them. He will be punished for the oversight." Florence's mouth gapes in horror.
"If you'd been here, you would have seen that they were not being cared for."
"What does it matter where I stay?" Tom demands, the swirl of his magic stirring once more as his voice deepens in fury. "You are not here with me, and this place haunts me, Florence. It reeks with the memory of you, and I cannot bear it!" He practically spits her name, as if she is a curse upon him and his existence. Something inside her crumbles further. She wants to rush to him, and yet something holds her back, betrayed by the very sight of him cold and unflinching, accusing her of abandoning him.
"Do you think every inch of my own home does not remind me of you? Do you honestly believe I don't suffer every time I see your face looking back from a picture frame or I see a place where you have held me, where we read together, where we lay? Are you honestly so selfish to think that this ocean between us only bothers you?" Florence is shouting, her throat tearing as the words slither from her lungs like long withheld bullets intended to maim. With a scream she launches the picture frame in her grasp across the room at him, tears blinding her to the point that she misses Tom's wandless flick of his hand, the photo halting in midair where he can take it and set it gently upon the table beside him unharmed.
"You are overreacting," he grinds between his teeth, and his hands form into fists that open and close so quickly she cannot decide if he wants to strike her or fill his grasp with the solid shape of her. "I did not tell you of my residence because I did not think it mattered."
"Of course it matters," Florence whispers, her fire at once gone as she sinks into grief, that his life could continue on without informing her of its pieces and intricacies. "At any time, should the whim have taken you, you have always known where you can find me. If you ever appeared at my house and I was not there, you would know to check the greenhouses or my parents or even Tallulah's, but you would never have wandered into my home to find it empty as if I no longer resided there." Florence's eyes return once more to the withered Dittany tree. "I walked in to find your apartment abandoned, realizing the same level of trust had not been afforded to me."
"Florence," Tom murmurs, and his voice is quieter this time, a return to the familiar tone that she had longed to hear for months but which now brings no peace to her racing mind. "What do you want me to say? No, I didn't tell you I have been staying elsewhere. It never occurred to me you might drop in unexpected, and I could not spend another night in this apartment without you. Are these the weak, foolish pieces of information you want to hear from me? Are you relieved to know?" His anger mounts at the end of his tirade, at the idea that Florence is forcing him to bear emotions, to showcase any form of humanity.
"Where were you just now?" Florence demands, her eyes watching his face for any flinch. His mask is impassive, only his dilating pupils and the magic that emanates from his body any sign that he is ruffled.
"The Black's Apartment."
"Is that were you stay these days?"
"Sometimes," he replies curtly.
"How did you know to return when I entered here?" This question Florence asks out of curiosity, unsure how he could have realized that she was in his quarters mere minutes after arriving.
"You are the only other person who has access to apparate in and out of the wards surrounding this apartment. I felt you arrive, and came as quickly as I could." Tom's tone is stiff, but she knows he is being honest from the way his voice rings, as close to pleading as someone like him will ever come. It is these facts – that she alone was privy to the space, that he had flown to her the moment he knew of her arrival – which at last still Florence's mind, and pressing her face into her palms, she lets out a dry sob, releasing the last of her misery.
With near inhuman speed Tom is before her, enveloping her in his arms, his touch like a drug she has been craving to the point of near maddening withdrawals. Without hesitation she returns the hold, her arms snaking around his waist and nails digging into his back if only to prove that he is real, truly before her.
"I was scared when I walked in to find you gone," she chokes into his chest, her words like bile upon her tongue. One of Tom's hands sneaks up to cup the back of Florence's head and tilt her face upward. Without pretense his lips find hers, hard and demanding and nothing like her dream of waking him from slumber, but all the better because this was real and that fantasy was not.
"I am here now," he murmurs when they break apart, slightly more breathless that before. It is not an apology, but Florence does not expect to receive one. Tom is not one to admit wrong, and the hardness of his jaw suggests this time will be no different than any before.
"Thank you for coming so quickly," she says at last, having searched his face for any remaining anger and finding only cool detachment.
"How long are you staying for?"
"The week," Florence says with a shrug. "I took off from work, but if you are busy I can go stay with Lizzie and Pyrrhus."
"No," he says, and she shivers at the harshness that appears in his tone, but a moment later he regains his control. "No - stay here. I will adjust my schedule. As you have pointed out, I like to know where you are at all times."
"You are a hypocrite."
"Yes," he agrees with the easy confidence that takes her back to lessons between the two of them in the Charms classroom, leaning in to press his lips to her cheek before taking her hand and pulling her towards his bedroom. Florence follows after him, somewhat unbalanced by his change of mood when she can still feel the tracks of her tears upon her skin, the salt on her tongue. She had not forgiven him, but his explanations had eased enough of her fury to allow her to intertwine her fingers with his and follow without question. We will talk in the morning she decides, a wave of exhaustion running through her.
Upon entering the room, Tom replaces the frame she had thrown at him, but Florence feels no guilt. He'd abandoned their shared space, and she felt entitled to wrecking it if that was what it took for him to remember her.
"Tom," Florence murmurs when at last their fingers slide from each-others grasp. He draws his wand, flicking it without a sound so that in seconds, the dust and cobwebs which had horrified Florence so disappear. He does not turn at the sound of her voice, instead pulling off his robes and laying them across the back of a chair and tugging at the top button of his shirt, bearing his skin to the room. Florence feels her mouth go dry, disheartened by his ability to just move past what has occurred, at the sight of him undressing which is both so familiar and foreign now that he is changed – narrower, paler, his hair longer.
"Tom," she calls again, and this time her voice is firmer, and his gaze connects with Florence's through the mirror, brow raised just slightly in question. "Do not lie to me again."
"I have not lied to you, Florence," he hisses, his face like thunder, his words like knives as his fingers undo the last of his buttons and his shirt slides from his shoulders, leaving his chest bare to her examination. Florence can see the slightest hint of his ribs.
"Omission is the same as dishonesty if it is done with intention," she spits back in return, and in the mirror she can see that her face is warped with fury, eyes rimmed red from crying. Tom looks away from her then, his jaw flexing as his hands move to his trousers and he steps out of his pants. Florence wants to laugh at the sight of him in his briefs and socks, bared to her bodily despite his mind being a cage of thoughts, mysteries revealed slowly if at all. Somehow, standing across the room from him still wrapped in her traveling cloak, Florence feels she is the more vulnerable, despite her layers.
"You have no right to demand anything of me, Florence. Not when you have repeatedly chosen to remain on the other side of the globe, when you have at every turn chosen your plants and your family over me."
His words feel like being punched repeatedly.
"How can you say that when you promised me patience? I have always been honest with you that I intended to work upon leaving Hogwarts. What changed that makes you think so little of my decisions now?" Florence can feel yet another wave of tears surface within her, and she brushes at her eyes, looking away from him in frustration at her barely contained emotions. She does not see Tom move, but she feels his hand close around her jaw, turning her face to his. How can someone be beautiful even in anger she wonders, but only the beating of her heart answers her, slow and mournful at this thing between them that threatens to break.
"I learned that I am not patient, not when it comes to you," he whispers, and his other hand tangles in the hair at the base of her scalp, his nose drawing a line from the corner of her lip to her ear. Florence shivers in his grasp, exhausted by his mercurial emotions this evening, the way he flits from anger to sensuality like flipping a galleon. Her body feels as if it is betraying her now, leaning against his frame, her magic relishing in the brushing and melding of their spirits as it has since the day they first touched. Yet Florence's mind feels sluggish, fractured, saddened by what has transpired, by the changes in Tom that she can see but not name which make him more distant, his masks more defined.
"Then learn it," Florence begs, blinking back tears as she searches his gaze. "If not for me, then for you. I can't bear seeing you like this, so angry and cold."
For a moment the pads of his fingers sink into Florence's jaw to the point of pain, and then he releases a breath of air, remaining silent. When he presses his lips to Florence's, his skin is cold, the family ring he'd placed upon her finger is like a weight threatening to pull her beneath the earth and into an early grave.
.
.
.
Florence wakes in the middle of the night to the roar of thunder, the purple flash of heat lightning so potent that for a moment every plane of her room is illuminated in a ghostly light before her vision is thrown back into darkness. Sitting upright, she throws off the covers, at once aware of the rain that is pelting the roof of her home and the slamming sound that can only come from the shutters which have come loose in the wind.
"June! Cash!" Florence cries out into the night, scrambling out of bed and tugging on a pair of work boots as she hops towards the door. "Help me with the shutters!"
This is the third storm this week, but from the shuddering in the very foundations of her house, Florence knows without question that this one is the most powerful. How she has managed to sleep through the sound Florence cannot fathom. Curse summer thunderstormsshe thinks, leaping down the stairs and pulling a raincoat on over her nightgown as she makes her way towards the front door. As a child, the gales that would rattle her windows at night in May and June had petrified her – now she worried only for the safety of her home and the creatures that resided within it. Christ, I hope the greenhouses make it out alright she thinks as she throws open the front door.
Rain streams off the roof in torrents, forming rivers and pooling in muddy puddles that ripple with the fury of the pattering rain. For a moment she stands transfixed as lightning once more illuminates her front drive, but Florence is urged once more into action when she hears the snap of a shutter slamming against the side of her house. Drawing her wand, she one by one freezes the wooden panels, fumbling with wet metal bolts to lock them into place and protect her windows from the brunt of the wind and rain. Within seconds her entire body is soaked, her coat useless against the ferocity of the storm, and every curse word known to man pours from her lips as she attempts to wrestle with mother nature herself.
It is as she rounds the house to start on the side that she glances up to find a drenched figure standing in the circle before her home, lighting highlighting a black cloak and dark hair, rain having no affect upon them as they stand beneath the downpour. Fear seizes Florence as she lifts her wand, her mind racing to understand how someone could have penetrated the estate wards, or who would want to attack her on this of all nights. Yet when the figure at last moves, gliding across the ground with unnatural grace, a key slips into the lock, and a door within her mind flies open. Tom.
"What on God's green Earth are you doing here?" Florence yells over the storm, abandoning the swinging shutters to run to him, grabbing his arm and pulling him inside where the sounds of the storm are somewhat muffled. Tom is drenched, hair plastered to his face, lips nearly blue with cold, and he only stares at her in response. In the darkness, his eyes are pits.
"Tom?" Florence asks again, running her hands up and down his arms to warm him, her mind running through any number of reasons why he would show up unannounced in the middle of the night, but coming up blank. He was supposed to be visiting her this weekend, but it was unlike him to show up early. And with this weather…
Taking his hand, Florence pulls him into the first parlor, casting her wand at the fireplace so that flames spring to life. She strips his cloak from his shoulders, pushing him into a seat by the fire, uncaring that his soaked form will most likely ruin the cushions.
"Tom, please speak to me, is everything ok? Are you alright?" She begs, kneeling before him so that her elbows rest on his knees and her hands press against his stomach, knotting in the wet fabric there. His jaw flexes once, then twice, and after what feels like an eternity, he speaks.
"I finished it," he murmurs, his voice strained. Before Florence can ask for clarification, he reaches into his pocket, pulling out the now soaking copy of the Iliad Florence had given him long ago. Florence stares at the blue cover, some of the gold-leaf worn away from use, and she feels her mouth fall open.
"Okay," Florence nods, still staring at the book, her heart hamming between her ribs as she tries to parse the blank expression on his face. "But why are you here?" In all of their sometimes strange interactions, Florence feels that this one is chief in her mind, the strangest of all of them.
"You said I was like him, but I looked up what happens afterward. He dies." Tom's voice is shaking now, and without warning he gets to his feet, knocking Florence back onto the floor as he moves to pace across the carpet, leaving a dripping trail of rainwater with each step.
"He dies, Florence," Tom says, and his eyes are wide and his hands fist in his hair like he might rip it from his scalp at any second. "The fool chose death."
"Only bodily death," Florence contends, sitting up upon the floor, participating in the discussion because she cannot follow his logic, why Achilles' decision based upon the Fates offerings has offset Tom so. "He chose a name that would live on through eternity."
"Glory," Tom scoffs, and when he looks at her there is a crimson sheen to his gaze, his skin like milk and ash in the darkness. "What good is glory if you are dead. You said I was like him, but he is a fool and a weakling to succumb to death like any mere mortal."
"Tom what are you talking about? I don't understand why this has upset you," Florence shouts, raising her voice in an attempt to pierce the madness that swirls around him, his magic crackling with a frightening energy so potent that he is a source of more heat than the fire beside her. Tom's gaze hardens as it meets Florence's once more, and in a flash he is kneeling before her, his hands cupping her face so that their breath mingles between them. Up close she can see the bags under his eyes, the way his gaze jerks and shakes as he scans her face, the wrinkle in his brow.
"I am not so human as to succumb to death, Florence. Do you truly think so little of me that you would compare me to that mortal?" He demands, his grip upon her face so painful that she tries to pull away, scrambling back upon the carpet and leaving him backlit by the flames like some arcane demon of old.
"You are mortal, Tom. I am mortal. We are all mortal. I don't know what you are talking about, and I don't like it," she whispers firmly. Her words have the opposite effect upon Tom, and instead of frowning, he smiles – sinful and lilting, his eyes gleaming with a red as deep as the embers at the base of the flames behind him. When he laughs, Florence closes her eyes, looking away. Things had been better between the two of them since her surprise trip to England, but this Tom is entirely new to her – terrifying and foreign and nothing like the man she had come to love. She hated him for it, for his ability to change into such unrecognizable shapes.
"Look at me, Florence," he commands, and taking one deep breath and then another, she at last returns her gaze to his. Despite the unnatural flush that colors his cheeks, Tom's eyes have returned to normal, his pupils no longer frothing black pools which threaten to drown her. The tension, however, does not leave her body. "I can assure you that I am not so average as your Achilles."
"He was the greatest warrior in all of Achaea. He was faced with an impossible decision and chose between the two," Florence counters. It feels wrong, somehow, to insult the story that they have shared for so many years now just as it feels wrong that he finished it without her, reading ahead while they were apart despite having only a few chapters remaining. It was ours, together, but what is it now she wonders, her eyes tracing the hollow at the base of his throat without truly seeing him.
"I would have paved a third path, I would never have been held back by the gods, let alone the Fates," Tom counters, and he crawls across the carpet to her until she is sprawled across her back and he crouches over her.
"It is a shame, then, that you were not posed with the question of immortality versus happiness. I would have liked to see your choice," Florence comments dryly as he moves to brush a lock of wet hair out of her face. For some reason, this comment brings a broad smirk to his face, his hand stilling upon her skin as he drags his finger down the bridge of her nose. Florence shivers as his mask melts into one of wanton desire, and when he drops to his elbows – his lower half pressing her into the carpet – she can feel his desire elsewhere as well.
"Who knows, Florence," he murmurs, his voice dark and sinful as he presses his lips to the pulse in her throat, his teeth scraping across her skin until she whimpers. Outside, thunder claps once more and the house rattles around them. "Perhaps you will."
.
.
.
It is two weeks later the letter arrives, winging its way upon a magnificent red-tailed hawk that screeches and cries into the early morning sunrise. Florence steps out into her backyard to meet it, raising her arm for the predator to alight upon before untying the familiar rolled parchment with a few deft movements. Smiling at the creature, she runs her fingers over its head a few times, praising it's strength and magnificence in the language of Adsila before thrusting her arm upwards and sending the hawk back to the sky. Florence watches until the bird disappears behind the tree line, and then returns to take a seat upon the back steps and tackle the letter.
Florence,
I am writing this to you on a Friday morning, but I'm in such a hurry that I must leave the actually mailing of this correspondence to Lestrange. If it arrives later than Sunday, please inform me in your response, and I will see to it that he knows my displeasure.
You know of my general distaste for written communication, and so what I have to say to you I will endeavor to explain as clearly as I may.
Impressed with my work as he is securing priceless artifacts for the store, Borgin has decided to send me on an eight month journey across the continent to barter with some of the most notable magical families from Spain to Albania. While there, I will have the opportunity to study in local libraries, and have access to magic I never before considered within reach. As I write to you now, I have less than an hour before my portkey departs for France, and then in a month, on to Belgium, and then the next and the next. I am certain you who value magical knowledge similarly to myself can understand that this is an opportunity I cannot walk away from.
There is some regret within me that I cannot approach your father for your hand as I intended this Summer, but rest assured that you are the final treasure I will look to secure at the end of my travels. You are mine Florence Allman, no matter the time or distance. I have not forgotten – see to it that you do not either.
Because I will not be available to travel to Georgia, the second blank piece of parchment in this letter has been enchanted as part of a set. Anything you write upon yours will fade and reappear on mine – the paper's matching pair. It has been warded against spell or elemental damage so that you may keep it with you at all times. Write to me often.
You have left marks upon me that to this day I cannot comprehend, and it seems as time stretches on they burn all the hotter. Know that they will follow me wherever I travel, as will the memories of you I can never escape.
Tom
The letter falls from Florence's grasp to reveal the thicker, more yellowed piece of parchment Tom had referenced in his letter. The sight of it makes real the words she has just read, and without thought tears spring in the corner of her eyes. Eight months. It had been pain of one kind during those times when they had momentarily lost touch, but another all together to know she was facing down over half a year without the magic of his presence.
And yet another, smaller part of her surged with relief – that she would have more time upon her land, that she would not be engaged in a few short months. That she might actually reach twenty years old before she made a life-altering decision to leave behind everything she had ever known.
But this relief was not strong enough to drown out the overwhelming grief that made her mind reel and spin at a thousand revolutions a minute. He'd been desperate for her, demanding her move to England, bemoaning the absence of her in his life – and yet the opportunity for education and power had arisen and without question he'd set her aside. Nausea wells in Florence's throat, and determined not to lose her mind, she gets to her feet and steps back into the house.
In her study she reaches for her swan feather quill, setting the tip to parchment, writing the only word that can summarize the turmoil that seems to rule her in that moment.
Tom she scrawls across the top of the page, watching as after a moment the ink seeps into the paper and disappears completely from view as if it never existed in the first place. Florence blinks once, then twice, and then she feels her brows shoot up her forehead, her cheeks redden with the understanding only this word can bring.
Florence in the neat, tight script that is wholly Tom. A conversation in only two words.
absolute madness all around haha
