Don't want to give anything away in this chapter, so all I'll say is thanks for being here and happy reading Xx So So SOOO grateful for you readers.


Chapter 56

"Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away."

― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby


Tom wants to go to her. He wants to close the chest and press Florence against it, to bury himself in her until they beat as one complete entity, to press his lips against the corner of her mouth, to run his tongue along the tendons in her neck and mark her with his hands and his teeth and his words. But he restrains himself, clutching the edges of the chair and watching as Florence pulls – piece-by-piece – memories incarnate from his hidden trove.

Her eyes swim at once as he watches bronzed fingers wrap around a silver picture frame, and though he cannot see the photo, Tom knows it holds the swirling visage of his past self holding a white clad Florence Allman tight against him. How many hours had he lost himself staring at her smile? At the grainy portrayal of the woman who'd set a fire within him that he'd never quelled? Florence runs a finger over the glass and he bites the inside of his mouth when he sees a stray tear fall upon the frame.

"I burned all of these," she whispers, and her voice is a croak, a moan, and Tom feels like he is being torn to shreds, his soul threatening to break again because he wants to fucking hold her and why, why has he never been able to control himself when it comes to Florence Allman? "I'm glad you saved them."

Florence looks at him then, and it is a physical agony to be across the room from her, the smile that graces her lips the only lifeline he has left.

"Will you look through them with me?" She asks and Tom nods before he understands what he has agreed too. Who was he to deny her? Getting to his feet, he seats himself on her right, extending his legs away from her form. Without a word Florence passes him the frame, and Tom admires the fingerprints she left upon the silver for a moment before he allows his gaze to move to the beaming figure of seventeen year old Florence Allman – swathed in white, flower petals collecting in her hair. For the thousand time, he wonders how he could have walked away from this.

"Oh my god," Florence whispers, pulling out the neatly folded, moss green hunting jacket she'd once given to him on his birthday. Her smile is abounding as she runs a hand across the waxed fabric, her finger flipping up the corduroy collar.

"You never did rip it off me," Tom points out with what he knows is a sinful smirk. Florence's mouth falls open, her golden skin turning cherry red as she passes him the jacket, but whether she shakes her head at his audacity or at the memory that they are both reliving, he does not know. Tom has a desperate moment in which he considers letting his fingers brush against hers, but no – she must break that wall first he knows, and so he takes the jacket without another word.

Florence lifts each item from the chest as if she is holding the crown jewels of the muggle queen, her hands trembling around his water stained copy of the Iliad, her face illuminating like a torch when she finds a stack of neatly tied letters – her own handwriting familiar to her. Florence reads them aloud, Tom peering over her shoulder as she ridicules her own writing, laughing at her fumbling declarations of love, almost but not quiet poetry.

"I mean who did I think I was? Byron?" Florence laughs, passing Tom yet another yellowed piece of parchment over her shoulder. He is thankful her attention is otherwise occupied – she does not see the way his gaze hovers over those words she now picks apart, detailing the way her "v" melted into her "e" when her letters ended with all my love, and she does not see the way he carefully folds each one, rebuilding the stack that she is pulling apart.

Florence tears into her own Latin phrasing – native magic she had given him – correcting her past mistakes and reigniting the debate between them over possession of magic. Tom argues because it feels good too, because her eyes gleam like struck flint and her words sing through the air and it is the closet yet she has come to the Florence he remembers of old – her grief only a passing shadow – and he'll do anything to keep her there.

There are books he begrudgingly admits he'd purchased only because Florence had expressed her interest in them, and several folded dresses that she'd left hanging in his wardrobe as spares. She bursts into fully fledged tears when the ticket to the symphony at Carnegie Hall falls from between the pages of a novel, and Tom grips the edge of the trunk when she pulls forth a small silver box, lifting the lid off it slowly.

"Are these…" Florence trails off, her voice hollow and breathless, and Tom releases a jet of air through his nose.

"The pins in your hair from Samhain."

"That feels like another life," Florence whispers, taking one and holding the diamond studded beret up to the light so that it casts rainbows of light across her face.

"It was, for me at least," Tom reminds her, and Florence's gaze finds his, her eyes like warm coffee that he wants to inhale.

Florence coos at the empty bottles of ink that Tom grudgingly tells her that she had shared with him when he'd run out in ancient runes, a gift of generosity simply because she could, and he'd sequestered away the empty bottle unable to part with the symbol of her kindness. There were eagle feather quills from birthdays past, pressed Dittany leaves, and the invitation to her debut alongside the leather gloves she had worn that Tom had vanished away to his trunk. It is like a cavern into the past, and the two of them pick through the items, talking amicably about those things they had once shared, that they shared now again.

"Can we bring this back to America?" Florence asks after the last item has been reviewed. Outside the window, the sun is beginning to set, nearly the entire afternoon spent on the floor of Tom's bedroom perusing trinkets.

"If you'd like."

"I would," Florence whispers, running a final hand over the packet of letters before she reaches for the lid and closes it with a snap. She gets to her feet, dusting off her backside and stretching above her head.

"I didn't think about dinner – would you like me to go pick something up from a Muggle grocery – you can cook."

"No," Tom says too quickly, infuriated by the lurching in his chest at the idea of being parted from her now. "No," he says more slowly this time. "We can get owl delivery from the Leaky Cauldron."

"Alright," Florence agrees, but her smile is knowing and Tom has to lead the way into the kitchen to escape the burning heat that is growing in his groin.

They share a pan of Shepard's pie, the meal delicious if somewhat more bland than the dish had been at Hogwarts once upon a time. Florence tells him about Forsythe when he asks, and Tom notes that her eyes do not swim with tears, the corners of her mouth flickering up in a half smile as she admits that Forsythe had been the slowest reader, her face burning bright red when Tom asked how good he'd been in bed, nearly choking on her mouthful of pie.

"I'm not answering that."

"I've answered all of your questions, regardless of my own opinions on the matter," Tom points out. If looks could kill, the stare Florence lobbies at him would sever him in two.

"My marriage was extremely satisfying on every level, Tom," Florence finally hisses, and Tom's smirk widens at the rosiness of her cheeks, the gleam in her eye that is different than before that sends heat to pool in his gut.

"And," Florence adds, getting to her feet to clear their dishes. Tom watches as she charms the musty old kitchen rag to clean the plates itself, thrilled as always by her casual use of magic, that she had grown into her capabilities in the end. "Should you be feeling competitive-" Florence's smile grows wicked, her wand twirling between her fingers. "He was rather well endowed, so I wouldn't get any ideas of Slytherin supremacy."

Tom's mouth falls open, his pride burning hotter every moment, his magic flaring inside of him at her words. Florence laughs, her head falling back to reveal the curvature of her neck, and his anger is forgotten at once, transfixed by the ringing of her voice off the kitchen tiles.

"I'm going to head to bed," Florence says, wiping a stray tear from the corner of her eye with the back of her hand. "Remember that the portkey leaves at the same time we arrived today, so don't sleep in."

She bids him goodnight and he watches her caramel hair disappear down the hall, the door to the guest bedroom thudding closed a moment later. Tom remains in his seat well after she is gone, staring at the space where she had disappeared, unable to name the heaviness in his chest that they had not upheld their nightly tradition of reading. It is some time before he can move again.

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Tom wakes to darkness, the sliver of sky visible through the crack in his curtains deepest blue, flickering with the light of only the strongest stars, capable of defying even the lights of London. Blinking twice, Tom turns onto his back, seeking out the sound that had shifted him from restless sleep into wakefulness, and rolling onto the other his other side, he finds the door to his bedroom halfway open – Florence standing in the archway observing him. Tom's mouth goes dry, the creaking of the door sliding further open still the only sound as his gaze traces down her figure. She is dressed only in a t-shirt, perhaps one of his old ones, the bottom hem barely reaching her thighs. In her hand she is holding something, and her hair is slightly mussed, as if from tossing and turning.

"We didn't read," she murmurs at last, but in the silence her voice is overwhelming, like the first call of a siren. Tom sits up in bed slightly, a thickness moving to press upon his ribs like an anvil. "May I?" she asks, jerking her head toward his bed with the slightest motion possible.

Tom can only nod, blinking twice to confirm that she is real, not a specter or mere figment of his imagination. Her footsteps are silent upon the floor as she draws closer, her gaze nearly black in the darkness. She passes him the book, Tom taking it without comment as Florence peels back the corner of the quilt and slides into the bed alongside him. He shivers as a blast of cold air brushes across his skin, still unable to believe his eyes, terrified that he will awake at any moment – that Florence has not truly sought him out. She rests on her elbow, and for the first time he notices that she is shaking slightly, her breathing shallow.

"May I?" She asks again, and this time Tom ceases to breathe at all, her voice the only sound that has followed him through the years, a beacon and a dream and a cry in the dark. Again he nods, and for the briefest moment their gazes form a bridge, and then she folds herself into him, her arm wrapping around his waist, leg tangling with his beneath the quilt, the side of her face pressing into his chest where he knows she can hear the thundering of his heart, the ways that she illuminates him.

For one moment after she touches him there is nothing, and then every nerve in his body sings, his eyes fluttering shut as pleasure tears up and down his system, levity threatening each corner of his mind until tears – actual tears– prick at the edges of his eyes. His magic feels uncaged, frantic and frenzied as it rushes to meet the magic that now leaps from Florence's skin to his own, enchantment that is older than time, deeper than anything he ever learned in his years of power. I do not deserve this he knows, but Tom does not care. He has never been a good man, but he'll move mountains for this, for the weight of her head upon his shoulder, for the physical pain of her nails digging into his side.

Tom wraps one arm around her, his hand resting upon the curve of her waist and drawing her in until she is flush against him. As one they both let out a deep sigh, Tom's head falling back upon the headboard with a slight thud, his magic exhausted as if he'd just run a marathon.

"Please read," Florence whispers after a moment, and Tom knows because he can fucking feel her, he is touching her and her pulse is racing beneath his fingers and her breath is warm against his neck and every plane of his body has been elevated, every curve of his figure custom fitted for hers, that she is as terrified by the magic that binds them still as he is. That they could both be so helpless to the things that pass between them. Tom's fingers sink into the softness of her waist, but he nods, reaching with his other hand for the lamp.

He has hardly read two pages when her breathing changes, her grip on his torso loosens slightly, and he looks down to find her mouth parted in sleep. At once he marks the page and sends the book to rest itself upon the dresser, flicking of the lamp with a twitch of his finger so as not to disturb her. Tom stares at her, dumbfounded by the rising and falling of each breath, amazed that he can feel the magic that pulses through her with each exhale. She is beautiful he knows, and there has never been anything more remarkable than the moment when she adjusts in her sleep, the leg wrapped around his moving further between his thighs, her face seeking the curve where his neck meets his shoulder.

As gently as possible, Tom folds his other arm around Florence, resting his head atop hers before allowing himself to drift off into dreams. It is still many hours before he manages to drop away into slumber.

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Tom barely registers he is awake, vaguely aware of a set of fingers intertwining with the hair at the base of his neck and the serious gaze of umber eyes before he feels something brush against his lips. Featherlight and slightly rough from a night of sleeping with her mouth open, Florence's mouth slots against his, hardly moving before pulling back just slightly.

He is awake at once, aware of the hardness between his legs that his pressed against her hip, how his entire body nearly aches with need for her, his lungs incapable of bringing in enough air to breathe. He sits up slightly, his grip on her waist must be bruising as he rolls the two of them over, his chest pressing Florence into the mattress. She smiles at him and Tom nearly groans, his teeth longing to sink into her flesh, to claim her in every way a man can.

"Florence," he thinks he says as a question, but it is hard to judge, his mind faltering as she smiles up at him, the hand tangled in his hair tightening slightly until she is pulling his face closer to hers.

"It's alright," she whispers against his lips, one leg already curling around his back. "You can have this too."

It is magic, he thinks, that their mouths move together in such a way, that the moan she releases when he sinks his teeth into her bottom lip makes him near frantic with need. Florence latches onto him, her hands everywhere at once – his hair, his back, digging into his shoulders- and yet he is not satisfied, the monster inside of him that lives only to consume her screaming for him to take her. Tom groans into Florence's mouth when he slides a hand under her knickers to find her warm and wet and waiting, his entire body shaking at this point, fifty years of loss singing in his veins.

He wishes he was a patient man as he pulls down her underwear, that he was good enough to cherish this moment, but he has only ever needed one thing – Florence Allman – and after so long he thinks he might truly die without the feeling of being buried inside her.

With a snarl he pushes down his boxers just enough to grip himself, his other hand lifting Florence's thigh as he slides into her with a thrust. Stars flicker before his eyes and he nearly collapses onto her, Florence's own gaze dancing closed as she lets out a breathy sigh. He freezes for just a moment, and then moves with a pace that will leave her sore and aching for days to come. Tom presses his face into her neck, reaching a hand between their bodies to press his thumb to the center of her heat, his every moment rough and unpracticed, and yet he thinks he could melt into her, that somewhere amongst the heavens they were crafted for this.

He comes buried inside of her, Florence following soon after as he rides her through his pleasure, his hand ceaseless upon her skin. Her voice is dry as she lets out a whimper, and desperate to claim every part of her, Tom moves his lips back to hers, swallowing the noise, possessive of everything she will give him.

"Tom," she whispers.

"Florence," he replies, and he lifts his head away to smile at her, at this conversation in only two words, a language the two of them alone could share.

The second time is slower than the first, Florence rolling him onto his back where she sits astride him, moving at such a leisurely pace he thinks he may go mad. His hands fist in the shirt she wears, a garment he'd ordered her to keep on because she was his– fucking his and he would cloth her in jewels and silks and everything fine enough to grace her skin so that the world could see she was his own. But for now it was enough to adorn her in his simple cotton shirt, to watch through hooded eyelids as she uses him for her own pleasure, her face slack and open and beautiful.

They run naked through the apartment like children, and Tom takes her against the wall in the guest bedroom, his fingers sinking into her hips, and he buries his face between her thighs in the shower until she begs him to stop, overstimulated and flushed and fucking everything Tom has ever needed.

"Remember the first time we came here?" Florence asks, scrubbing fifty year old shampoo into his hair that he is sure won't help, but content to have her nails raking across his scalp. "We're like kids again."

"Do that mean I can fuck you during breakfast?" Tom whispers against her lips, and Florence screams when he lifts her from the ground, rubbing his suds covered hair across her skin. Her laughter rings across the bathroom, and Tom must bury his face in her neck to prevent her from seeing his own expression. He has never done anything to deserve this, of that he is certain, and he holds onto her all the tighter for it.

They nearly miss their portkey, Tom hovering in a hazy state of gratification as Florence busies herself on her knees. Laughing and flushing like students caught with their hands beneath the desk, Tom only manages to zip up his pants, Florence summoning the chest of memories from the bedroom before they both press their fingers to the portkey, Tom's free hand wrapping around Florence's waist before they are pulled through time and space.

The land in the dining room and he is upon her again, a parasite devouring her body and soul and magic itself, burning her, leaving Florence writhing beneath his ministrations. Tom feels powerful in a new way as she lays on the table panting beneath him, legs still wrapped around his waist, Tom still buried inside her despite having grown soft. She smiles up at him, easy and content, and Tom feels again the strange thickness in his throat, the thrumming in his chest telling him that this was authority, that Florence Allman had been the world he'd been searching for all along.

Words spring forth into his mind then, three of them specifically, and Tom feels himself pale at the thought, the horrifying realization that is churning through him, a name for the burning that has been tearing through his nerves, for the ache in his chest that Florence has created as far back as their first lesson in the Charms classroom. He wants to tell her, but some part of his mind finds the thought of sharing something so orbit shifting while still sheathed inside her insidious, and so he bends forward to press his lips to hers before lifting Florence from the table and taking her up the stairs and once more to the bathroom. This time to soak in the tub and learn over again the lines of her body, to worship every cell that she was composed of.

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That night Florence sleeps deeply, a stray arm thrown across him as he watches the rise and fall of her shoulders.

Tom thinks of Forsythe, who'd made his love for Florence into a living thing, crafting flowers like a summer bonfire that had continued on despite his departure from this world. He thinks of Illini, who'd sacrificed her soul for his, who'd given him a second chance at life because she cared for Florence Allman, because she would give herself over for the last person she loved.

He thinks of himself, who has never deserved Florence even if his magic is made for hers, and he curses again the choices he'd made. He thinks of the final secret he still holds from her, and something akin to fear runs through him, because after so many mountains and valleys, he was still, in the end, hurting her.

Tom pulls her close then, pressing his face to her neck and giving himself over to her embrace, the warmth he will never tire of, the faint scent of coffee that sends a smile to tickle at his face.

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"I am going to work on something," Tom tells her a month later. Florence is curled with her head upon his lap reading a book, Tom's fingers moving through her hair as he picks through a textbook that floats before him.

"Okay," Florence mutters, her hand clenching around his thigh for a moment before returning to her book.

"It will require vast swathes of magic," he continues, his finger tracing the delicate skin behind her ear.

"Do you need my wand?"

Tom smirks at her head, Florence's voice a shade off annoyance, as if perturbed that he is interrupting her reading.

"Perhaps for some of it," he agrees, his hand tracing down her side. Florence shivers beneath his touch, and Tom revels in the breath of air she releases.

"That's fine, just take it when you need."

"It is a surprise, Florence. I am only informing you on the off chance your wards are activated as a result of my activities," Tom explains. "I will be very angry if you try and pry before I am ready to show you."

"Mmmkay," Florence murmurs, and he can hear the exhaustion in her voice, the book in her hand drooping slightly. Tom smirks, remember exactly how exerting their morning had been. "But I took down the wards. You don't need to worry."

Florence slips into sleep a few moments later, and Tom is left with his hand tangled in her hair, the same aching feeling that only Florence Allman has ever arisen in him surfacing until he cannot breathe.

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Tom sets up in one of the spare bedrooms, transfiguring the bed into a desk, the side table into a bookshelf. He sets up repellant charms against Florence on the doorway, determined that she should not know of his plans until he was ready to share them, but whether she has forgotten their conversation or she truly respects his request, Tom never feels the magic activate.

Florence does notice when books start to go missing from the main library, Tom moving them onto the shelf in his operational headquarters, riffling through their pages into the early hours of the morning and taking notes on every menial detail. Soon he's filled enough notebooks to line one entire shelf, and yet he has to send Cash back to Florence's home, to the main Allman home, and even to the Blount estate to collect further texts. He knows technically it is stealing, but he rationalizes that Florence is still an Allman and a Blount, even if she has sequestered herself away for his sake. Happily the elf agrees to return the titles when he is finished with his work.

He sends out eagles every morning, using the bank statements he'd taken from his apartment in London that were still tied to the Lestrange vault to finance his plans. It was convenient that the Goblins of Gringotts were not in the habit of questioning the humans that stored their gold beneath their floors, convenient also that the Lestrange line was extinct – they would never notice their missing gold. But, in an abundance of caution, Tom signs each missive under Leonidas' name, casting a minor confundus charm upon the parchment before sending it on its way across the ocean.

It is a few weeks later that the first shipments begin to arrive, and on days that he must direct deliveries, Tom spends his morning pushing Florence to the brink, sating his need for her until she collapses upon their now shared bed, determined to nap the afternoon away. The workmen never know why he looks so smug, but then again, he has to confund them as well in order to prevent them from remembering his face, and so he's not sure if they can tell he's smirking at all.

The work is exhausting, pushing his magic to the limits of his abilities as he toils in the field. Tom sets up secrecy wards and invisibility glamours so that even from the highest point of the house, Florence would not be able to see, to pry into his creation. She does not ask questions, not even on nights when he returns drenched in sweat, staggering with exhaustion well past midnight. On many of this occasions, she is waiting for him on the back step, clutching a mug of steaming hot coco, her gaze fixated upon the stars. Tom would sit with her, pulled down between her knees so that his head would rest upon her stomach.

"Those white flashes are satellites," she told him one night, pointing to the sky. "They're some kind of NoMaj contraption."

"What do they do?" Tom asked, his hands settling on her thighs as if he was sitting in a chair, her legs the armrests.

"No idea," Florence whispered into his ear, tilting his head back so that she could press her lips to his forehead.

Other nights she points out constellations, naming them. Orion, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Draco, Cepheus, and Cassiopeia. Tom nods along as she speaks, unsure what she is pointing at, but lulled into a sense of security by the rise and fall of her voice, the warmth of her body pressing against his.

And still other nights she takes his hands and pulls him back out onto the grass, seating him upon a quilt and pulling off her shoes to dance with the spirits of her people where he can watch. Tom likes these nights best, when the Earth itself rings with the cacophony of her magic, when Florence's feet lift off the ground because she can fly and the thought makes her head fall back with laughter and wonder at her own abilities. Tom never tires of it, the way her eyes seek his for approval, the rush of her magic that calls to him on some deeper level.

"You're beautiful," he tells her when she touches back down, and then he pulls her to the quilt with him and they share magic of a different kind together.

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Weeks turn to months and with it Spring turns to Summer. Their patterns have shifted, waking in the same bed, often taking their morning coffee and tea while still wrapped around each other like spools of yarn. Florence is talkative in the morning, telling Tom about the book she is reading or a spell she has come across that she wants to learn. He lets her speak, his hands wandering the trails of her body simply because he can, because she will never be near enough, and sometimes he succeeds in distracting her.

Their breakfast remains unchanged, but their days are often apart while Tom works and Florence wiles her days away riding or reading or baking him all sorts of cakes. She'd noticed, much to his pleasure, how fond he'd been of the first, and without fail he'd found new confectionaries waiting for him at the end of each week in the kitchen.

At night they sit in the drawing room – now in the same chair – Florence wrapped around Tom as he reads to her aloud. The Iliad is soon finished, but Florence supplies him with the Odyssey which Tom finds he likes even more because there is a woman waiting for nefarious Odysseus at the end of his journey despite all of the ways in which he'd wronged her. Florence's fingers move through his hair as he reads, and her look is knowing, but if she thinks she understands his mind, she does not tell him. And then after the Odyssey is the Aeneid, and then there are what feels like a hundred more. Florence has an endless supply of books for him, but Tom does not complain even on nights when his throat is sore or he is weary to the bone because Florence rests her head on his chest and wraps her limbs around him and falls asleep in his arms nearly every night. It is a tradition he would not give up for the elixir of life – he's always been selfish where Florence is concerned.

It is on a day in late May that Tom rises to find himself alone in bed. At once he is awake, disgruntled by the lack of a caramel-haired, umber-eyed woman to wish him good morning. He throws off the blankets and pulls on his robe before making his way downstairs, the tracking charm he'd placed upon her leading him to the sitting room.

Florence is curled in the armchair by the shrine to her late husband, her bronzed face damp with tears as she surveys each picture in an endless cycle. Tom can feel the heaviness in her magic, how it does not even sing in his presence, and he moves to sit behind her on the chair, his hands snaking around her waist and chin resting on her shoulder where he too can see the photos.

"It's his birthday," Florence finally murmurs, and her body shudders in his grasp. Tom waits for the surge of anger that once accompanied statements such as these, reminders that no amount of magic between them could erase the part of her heart that she had given to Forsythe Blount. Tom waits, but the anger does not come. Instead is only a strange ache in his chest, an echo of his own pain because Florence was hurting, and he'd spend the rest of his life trying to prevent it from ever happening again if she'd let him.

"Tell me about his birthdays," Tom whispers, leaning back in the chair so that she was cocooned in his arms. A blanket zooms across the room toward them at his beckoning, and Tom carefully wraps it around her, pressing her still tighter against him.

"He hated them," Florence says, and her eyes never leave the photos, a thin smile dusting her cheeks. "He hated being the center of attention, and he never wanted presents."

"I'm sure you gave him some despite his wishes," Tom murmurs, his hand not holding her to him stroking the back of her neck.

"For the first few years, but I just wanted to make him happy in the end. I'd get the elves to cook us his favorite dinner and we'd sit on the back porch and eat and talk about the farm," Florence tells him, and Tom thinks of their mutual love for the land. It is something he will never understand, but he is glad they had held it together, for Florence's sake at least.

"Would you like to have the same dinner tonight?" He asks, his fingers never ceasing in their steady up-down motion along her neck. "I believe you told me chicken and dumplings was his favorite?"

Florence looks at him then, her eyes wide and red-rimmed, her lips chapped from crying.

"Why are you doing this?" She asks. Tom nearly tells her then – murmurs the three words that have been ringing in his mind for months, but he manages to hold onto his sanity.

"Because you are mine, Florence," he whispers. "And I wish for you to be happy."

They eat Forsythe's favorite dinner that night, and Tom pretends not to see her wiping tears on her napkin. He has extended one olive branch, but he is unsure if he could truly muster the strength to spend an entire meal discussing Forsythe Blount. And after dinner she tugs him back to the sitting room, stopping briefly to point to the collection of picture frames before they sink into their usual places on the couch.

There, nestled amongst the bronze and gold frames is one silver, his own face gleaming back up at him. Florence spins in his arms, her dress fluttering around her, smile as transfixing then as it is now. It is the frame from his apartment, their mingled fingerprints still pressed into the silver where Florence had not wiped them away, and Tom's throat clenches.

"We'll have to take more photos together at some point," she murmurs, and Tom nods his head absentmindedly. He didn't need photos, only her. It had always been her.


hahahah WOW smut is so hard to write and mine is so PG-13 and yet I still blush like a 2 year old writing it.

So just wanted to let you all know - There are two more installments to Limited. The next chapter will be the last, and then I will post an epilogue of sorts. I didn't really realize that the end was so close to being upon me. Please, if you are the lovely type of person to say goodbyes, don't do so until the epilogue. I don't think I could handle it now. This story and the community around it has been the best part of 2020 and I'm not quite ready to let go!

So - until the next chapter my lovely reader friends! Stay safe please:)