London, England - Reality

"I can't believe you got yourself kicked out of four museums. Four!"

"It's not like it really matters. They'll never remember our faces." Anna waved off Mary's comments had John flinching as he stood next to Gwen in the sitting room. "And I was the one who asked John to-"

"I…" Mary stopped herself, "What am I doing? I don't care and you're both adults. Do what you like. Get kicked out of however many places you want. Just don't bring my name with you or I'll never be invited to a black-tie dinner again."

She left the room and John sighed as Gwen snorted a laugh. "Four? I've only ever managed three in a single day."

"It's not a competition, Gwen." Anna clicked her tongue and Bernie came to her side as she used her cane to stand up from her chair. "But if it were, I'd say John here caught on to the game quicker than you did."

"I'm sure he's not got my flair for it yet."

"No. But that's something I can train into him." Anna grinned, "And I'll enjoy it."

"Careful there," Gwen pushed at John's shoulder. "She's dangerous when she gets all mischievous and daring like this."

"I've noticed." John allowed himself a smile Anna could not see. "I've never been kicked out of a museum before so that was an experience for me."

"It's okay." Gwen shrugged it off, "After the ninth you get a little… bored?"

"I'm literally sitting right here." Anna shook her head and pouted at Bernie. "I'm blind and invisible now Bernie."

Bernie only snuffled and settled to lay on the floor at Anna's feet. John snorted and cleared his throat before standing. "Speaking of Bernie, doesn't he need a walk before bed?"

"I'm sure he'd love that." Anna smiled, "It would definitely do him more good than just taking a trip to Lady Rosamund's garden where he might leave undesirable gifts for her lovely gardeners."

"If you're not too tired then we could take him on a walk." John turned to Gwen. "Unless you want to go with her."

"I've got a phone call to make with a very lovely man and then some studying to do so no thank you." Gwen winked at John. "Besides, I've a feeling you'll enjoy it more."

"If you're making any facial expressions that I can't see, I'll call foul on that." Anna wrapped both of her hands around the top of her cane before resting her chin on it. "It's cheating and you're using your advantage against me."

"Not sure it's cheating if you're just handicapped to begin with." Gwen shrugged. "It'd be the same if I were colorblind and you debated shades of red and green."

"I don't want to say it but she's right." John grabbed his jacket, "But the point is, she's not coming to walk Bernie."

"I do hope Mr. Talbot's remembered to walk Carl." Gwen sighed as she pulled out her phone. "He gets antsy trapped in that house alone."

"Mary's calling him about it but I think she's doing it to make sure Henry gets out of the house while he's finishing up his project." Anna's head tilted in John's general direction. "Ready for a little walk?"

"Very." John checked his pockets. "Do we need keys for the house or something to make sure we're not locked out?"

"I'll keep an eye." Gwen motioned toward the door. "Like I said, I've got studying to do and I'll be here when you come back."

"Good." Anna spoke in Italian and Bernie immediate got to his feet, perking up, and put his head under one of her hanging hands. "Let's get going then."

John led them to the door, Bernie holding still as Anna clipped his leash to his vest, and then guided them out of the house. They were quiet as they moved in the chill evening wind, and John hunched up his shoulders to try and block some of it. With the wind keeping the streets tunnels, and clearing the other occupants out of the way, John guided them until they reached a park.

The trees helped deflect the wind and the cool night air kept them private and alone despite being in public. John took a breath and spoke as his hand settled over Anna's on her cane. "How do you want to let Bernie know he can-"

"Go whenever he wants?" Anna's hand shifted down the leash and released it. Bernie stayed by her side for a second and only moved when Anna spoke to him in Italian. He snuffed forward and John tracked him as Anna dug into her pocket to produce a plastic bag. "You'll need this when he goes."

"Thanks." John took the plastic bag and waited as Anna put her hand through the crook in his arm. "How do you manage this by yourself?"

"I don't usually." Anna's cane moved in an arc in front of her, worked by her loose wrist. "If you've noticed, Mary's property has a large pasture in the back. So when Bernie needs to go out I let him out there and walk the path in the back of the house until he finishes his business."

"Must make trips like this even more of a strain on him." John paused, tapping Anna's hand. "I think he's finished."

"Find a bin before you come back, if you would."

John managed the undesirable gift Bernie left for him and found a bin to take it before returning to Anna's side. "I never had a dog before."

"Never?"

"It was just me and my mum growing up and since we lived in the city, she had two jobs, and I was in school there was no time for one." John shrugged, digging himself into his coat as a snake of wind slithered past to leave him shivering slightly. "Not that we would've had money for one but my mum always said there was no time for one."

"It's responsible but a little sad."

"Maybe." John took a breath, "But even if I had one he would never have been as intelligent or well-behaved as Bernie."

"It's true." Anna smiled, "Mr. Carson runs an impressive operation."

"How'd you find him?"

"A woman in my original support group. Her stepson volunteered there and I met her dog and he was…" Anna gave a little laugh, "He was better behaved than some children. At least better behaved than George and Caroline can be when they're in a state."

"I remember being a child in a 'state' when I was younger." John snorted, "My poor mother and her curse of my upbringing."

"I think she loved you anyway."

"Really?"

"The way you talk about her is as someone who's experienced great love." Anna's voice grew quiet, "It's the way I hope I still talk about my father."

"You mentioned that you've lost memories of him?"

Anna nodded, "It's what sometimes happens with head trauma. Memories aren't quite stored like files in a cabinet so when you lose some it's not just the ones closest to when the trauma occurs." She tapped the fingers of her other hand, the one not holding onto his arm, to her temple. "So the memories jumble and you lose whichever ones the mind can grab to lose the fastest."

"Like a B&E?"

"I guess." She shrugged up her shoulder, "So I remember what happened when the accident occurred, in almost excruciating detail, and yet I can't recall some of the memories I wanted more than anything to keep from the last year of my father's life."

"I'm sorry." John chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment. "As painful as the last year of my mother's life was, I wouldn't want to lose those memories."

"How'd she go?"

"Age but also Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease." John shuddered, "It was… More horrific than any nightmare I've ever had but it was real, which made it worse."

"I can't imagine."

"In a macabre way you can." John halted them for a moment, as Bernie sniffed around a tree before returning to Anna's side. "The way you're losing memories… It's not entirely divorced from what I watched happen faster than I could manage."

"I'm sorry." Anna's hand slipped down his arm to hold at his hand. She squeezed for a moment before releasing. But she did not move her hand out of his grip. "For all that I do and don't understand about your pain, I'm sorry all the same."

"That means more than you think."

"Oh I think I know what it means." Anna motioned to herself with the handle of her cane. "You're talking to someone very used to the sorrow and pity of those about her."

"At least you can't see it."

"True." Anna shook her head, "It's interesting, when you hear it, and you imagine how they're all trying not to look at you because you can't look back and the second-hand embarrassment grows even more uncomfortable."

"Having being someone who put their foot in it more than once, I can sympathize a bit with those who have to adjust their world views to adapt to new experiences."

"Like telling outrageous stories while describing paintings?"

John smiled and tightened his grip on Anna's hand a little. "It's all about the experience, as they say."

"It's true." Anna was quiet a moment, keeping pace as they continued walking. "But they also say that you should keep your promises."

"Do they?"

"They do." Anna tugged slightly on his hand to pull them to a stop. "And I promised a kiss for every museum we were told to leave."

"I vaguely remember something like that." John risked stepping slightly closer to Anna, ignoring the press of Bernie's nose against his leg. "But it's up to the rewarder to deign when to hand out the spoils."

"It's true." Anna tipped her head up, her hand tightly wrapped around his, and smiled at him. "But the victor does get them."

"Do I have to take them all now?"

"It'll make it a bit more convenient for you."

"But not as much fun." John lowered his lips to hers, brushed them briefly, and moved along her jaw to whisper in her ear as a shiver ran through her. "If I only take one now, then I've got two to use whenever I like."

"Like a surprise?"

"If you like that kind of surprise." John's lips drew back over her cheek. "It's up to you and what you'd like."

"I think I'd like that very much." Anna's other hand left the head of her cane and pressed to John's chest before tracing up to find the line of his jaw. "But I'd like you to take at least one of them now."

"With pleasure."

Their lips met and John purposefully kept the kiss light. Anna's fingers tightened around his hand as she tried to maneuver into the kiss but John drew back just enough to keep the kiss almost tantalizingly out of reach. At least until the fingers of her hand along his jaw firmed and pulled him closer. It took him by surprise but not as much by surprise as the stroke of her tongue against his lips. A movement that opened his lips and allowed her to enter unhindered.

The dig of her fingers just under the line of his jaw allowed Anna all the control of their kiss and John found himself surrendering to the sensation. There was nothing else to do but enjoy the depth of her kiss and fall prey to her urging. The urge that almost left him tripping over Bernie and only stopped them when he yipped at them.

Anna laughed into the finish of their kiss, her hand slipping down to hold John's jacket so her head could rest against his chest. Finding his feet, and ensuring they would not tumble onto the pavement, John held Anna to him. His lips brushed over her head before he parted them.

"I think we'd best leave any other kisses for later."

"That's too bad." Anna's hand found her cane while the other skimmed the bottom of John's jaw. "I rather enjoyed it. I rather enjoyed both kisses, actually."

"I did too." John managed Bernie's leash and put it back in Anna's free hand to walk beside her with Bernie leading them back to Lady Rosamund's house. "Although you had control of the last one."

"You seemed a little too hesitant."

"I didn't want to press." John buried his hands in his pockets. "Or assume."

"There's no assumption when I'm the one who wanted you to kiss me in the first place." Anna laughed a little, "And the one who offered."

"Still…" John shrugged, "I'm not as brave as I make out to be."

"No?" Anna hummed her surprise. "Not sure I believe that."

"And why not?"

"Because the man who claims to not be brave risked making a rather large spectacle of himself in a public setting just because I asked him to."

"Maybe that's the ticket to it." John edged closer to Anna. He kept clear of Bernie and her cane but noted the way she twitched slightly, as if conscious of the distance he closed between them. "I'm only brave when you encourage it."

"That's a rather tall order for me to fill."

"Afraid you can't?"

"Not hardly." Anna smiled but said nothing more until they reached the house. There she let Bernie off his leash and removed his vest. At the signal of his day's work done, Bernie padded up the stairs to Anna's room ahead of them. John waited as Anna folded up her cane and tucked it into her back pocket before offering her hand to John. "Escort the lady to her room?"

"I would've been a little sore if you'd taken the stairs without me." John took her hand and kept to Anna's pace up the stairs. "Although you handle them well enough on your own."

"Were you worried about me?"

"I think it goes with the job." John let his thumb stroke over her fingers as they reached the second floor. "But I do find myself worrying about you a bit more than I usually worry about my other charges."

"That is very flattering." Anna took a breath when they reached her door, Bernie's snuffling urging her to enter the room. "And thank you, kind sir, for escorting me to my room so late at night."

"I wouldn't want to risk you falling afoul of anyone who might mean you harm." John brought Anna's hand to his lips and pressed a kiss there.

"That doesn't count."

"I'm sorry?"

Anna grinned at him, her hand still in his grip, and tugged him forward so her back rested against the wall. "I said, that doesn't count."

"As?"

"As one of the kisses." Her other hand held up two fingers. "You still owe me two."

"I do." John nodded and carefully maneuvered to get closer to Anna without alerting her to his motions. "But I thought there were to be used at my discretion."

"That's true." Anna smiled but the coyness in her motion vanished the second John swept in for a kiss.

The hand still holding up the kisses he owed her went to the side of his face, almost slapping against him but holding fast into his hair when John slanted his mouth over hers. Unlike the kiss in the park, John took the lead. He followed the urgings she gave as he let his tongue follow the line of her lips until she opened to him. Then it was about moving into her grip when her fingers clenched into his shirt to yank him closer, delving deeper into her mouth when her tongue teased his, and finally breaking the kiss only when the barest hint of a whimper signaled a need for air.

John almost moved away but the hint of Anna's nails dug into the skin behind his ear and brought their mouths together again. His height proved an advantage for the speed and direction of the kiss but John broke the kiss sooner than the last when Anna's leg rose almost to his hip and she tried to slot him between her hips. One of his hands pressed against the wall behind her, trapped between her body and her arm, and John fought for breath as Anna's fingers played in his hair.

"Did that one-"

"It doesn't count if I'm the one who initiates." Anna let her lips run along his jaw before she rested back against the wall. "I wasn't ready for your kiss to finish."

"If I didn't know better," John's other hand moved, using just his fingertips, along Anna's leg to settle near her knee as it pressed into his hip. "I'd say you wanted more than a kiss from me."

"Mr. Bates," Anna clicked her tongue against her teeth at him. "I want quite a bit more than a kiss from you."

"I'm pretty sure that's not entirely ethical."

"Neither is kissing your patients." John snorted a laugh, "Much to the disappointment of former patients of yours if your story about the Viagra orgy is true."

"It is true and I wasn't invited to that." John shifted away from Anna's leg but kept his hand on her thigh so it ran back to her hip when he guided her foot back to the floor. "It was the woman from the nursing home's direct invitation I had to refuse."

"I'm sure she wished you'd said yes."

"She did but she was old enough to be my mother and I'm sure sex with me might've killed her… Which is worse than losing my license would've been."

"That confident about your abilities?"

"It'd be a lie to say 'no." John licked his lips and left his hand at Anna's hip. "And if you had eyes, you'd see how much I like the thought of you finding out for yourself."

"Do I need my eyes?" Anna's hand left his shirt crinkled and John's hips bucked when she skated down to his trousers. "Because I can feel something rather impressive that I'd like to sample."

"I…" John forced his eyes closed to take deep breaths. "So would I but…"

"Time and place." Anna removed her hand and took breath of her own as her fingers left his hair. "But maybe when we're back North."

"Maybe I'll take you on a proper date." John chewed the inside of his cheek, trying to ignore the heat rising in his cheeks. "It's…"

"Traditional?" Anna nodded, "I'd like that, if you're asking."

"I am."

"Then, when we're back North, we'll go on a date." Anna's hand rested on his at her hip, pulling it away to kiss at his palm before releasing him. "Good night John."

"Goodnight Anna."

She almost entered her room but paused at the door, her head turning back toward him but her eyes focused on a vague distance. "You still owe me a kiss."

"That I do." John waited until she closed the door to her room. "That I do."

London, England – Caustically Beautiful

He craned his neck back, lolling it to try and work out the kinks. Rolling his shoulders, and pulling a bit to try and stretch the muscles, John gave a full body shrug to put himself back at attention. A snort brought his attention to where Anna leaned over a drafting table, a pencil in her hand and two more crossed into the messy bun perched precariously atop her head. He noted the arch of disbelief in her eyebrow before she returned to her work.

"Is there something you'd like to say, Ms. Smith?"

"I was curious," She made a note, barely flicking her eyes toward him again over the top of her glasses, "Exactly how effective you can be at your job when you've worked as long as you have."

"Do you mean how long I've had a job or how long I've been on my feet?"

"I would've thought it was 'foot' but yes, the second one."

John shrugged, "Three eight-hour shifts tends to lead to less exhaustion. Four six hours shifts would be preferrable but I've only got five others on the pay roll."

"Funny," She rested her forearms on the desk to lean toward him, "I've only seen you the last few days."

"I thought it best that you not antagonize anyone who works for me so I've taken lead on being in your immediate eye-line."

"Was little William so ruined by what I said and did that he can't stand the sight of me?" Anna shook her head and returned to her work, "Or is that you don't want to share the view with anyone else?"

"I'd prefer they not be worried about stepping on your toes."

"So it's a denial of my privileges?" Anna stepped back from the table, pursing her lips and frowning at something before making another note. "I thought I was too old to be punished… At least, not the kind of punishment that doesn't have a safe word."

"It's not punishment." John risked a step toward her drafting table and Anna looked up at him, sliding her glasses down her nose. "Although I thought you'd prefer to have me around to torment."

"Do you think I torment you?" Anna removed her glasses, crossing one of her arms over her chest to hold the other so the tip of her glasses frame could tap her teeth. "I didn't realize I'd made your job Hell."

"You haven't but we'd both be lying if you said you hadn't been trying." John chewed the inside of his cheek a moment before speaking. "And we both know why."

"Do we?" Anna put her glasses on the table and her hands on her hips, shrugging her shoulders at him. "Tell, Doctor, exactly why do I try to make your job Hell?"

"Because you're in pain and you want others to feel a fraction of what you feel." John rested his hand on top of the drafting table, smoothing his thumb along the side for a moment before dropping his arm to his side again. "Or to push people away so they stop trying to solve your pain for you."

"How astute of you." Anna rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest, "What makes you think all that anyway?"

"You're not the only one who's experienced trauma." John curled his fingers into his palm to rap his knuckles against the carbon-fiber miracle of his leg. "It wasn't the same as what you endured but it did change my life and altered how people saw me."

Anna pursed her lips at him, her eyes narrowing a moment, and then dropped her arms to hold at her hips again. "You're not wrong."

John blinked, "No?"

"What, surprised I can tell you the truth?"

"I'm surprised you didn't coat it in something caustic when you said it."

"We all have our defense mechanisms." Anna paced in the area between her drafting table, another covered in sketches and swatches of fabric, and a third with a computer. "Yours was buying into a dying bar."

John cleared his throat, "Not the best decision I ever made with the money I was paid in compensation for the injury."

"Better than what I did with the 'recovery time' I had." Anna crossed her arms over her chest again, but less tightly than before. "And the… And while you're not wrong about they why I act like I do, you don't know the whole story."

"I don't?"

Anna shook her head, "And… What I'm about to say you can't tell anyone else because not even my friends really know what happened and…" She took a deep breath, "And I don't want this getting out to anyone. The last thing I need is pity."

"I don't think I could ever pity you."

"Good. Because I've no idea what to do with pity and it's useless anyway." Anna waved a hand, to bat away the idea. "Anger I can manage, despise I can handle, and I even prefer to deal with people who detest me but I don't appreciate pity."

"No one wants to be pitied." John noted that Anna stopped pacing and her arms loosened from her waist but now she tugged at her fingers. "Are you alright?"

"Please don't ask me that question." Anna shook her head, her eyes closing a moment. "I hate that question."

"Then I'll assume you're not exactly well."

"No, Mr. Bates, I'm not well and I haven't been for a long time." Anna retreated to her stool at her drafting table. "Longer even than anyone really realized."

John sucked the insides of his cheeks before taking a free chair. He rolled it over to where she sat and put himself almost close enough to touch her but left the last distance for her to cross if she wanted to. "Why are you in pain, Anna?"

Her eyes met his and she took a deep breath, "Because I'm scared, John."

He could not stop his blink of surprise, "I'm sorry?"

"Surprising, isn't it?" Anna twisted slightly on her seat, turning just barely at the hips. "Someone like me being scared of anything."

"It does strain the mind."

"Because I orchestrated it that way." Anna flicked her wrist up as if tossing confetti into the air. "I'm Anna Smith. I'm untouchable. I was the Ice Queen before I became the Frigid Bitch and then the Psychotic Bitch and now the Comeback Queen."

"But you don't like it that way?"

"No, I do." Anna scoffed at herself, "It's a very clear delineation, at least it was, between what I do and who I am. One façade for the masses and one version for me."

"Which one of those did a nude photoshoot?"

"A little of both." Anna gave John a little smile, "I'd be disingenuous if I said I didn't like the idea of getting your blood up… And getting other things up as well."

"And this you?" John pointed at her with his open hand. "Which 'you' is this?"

"Probably the most 'me' I've been in awhile." Anna let out a breath. "You remember, after that nutter tried to get at him outside your club, how I told you about the visiting designer and the studio I burned to the ground?"

"It'd be hard to forget." John frowned, "I don't remember if you ever said what happened to the other designer."

"He went back to his country and I haven't seen him since." Anna shook her head, "Sometimes we don't get the justice we want."

John could only nod as Anna continued. "But when I told you that story, it was…" She winced, "Not a lie but not the whole truth."

"You didn't owe me any kind of explanation."

"Not then, no, but now…" Anna took a deep breath. "Now I want to tell you."

"Why?" She frowned and John hurried to clarify, "At the risk of losing the moment we have, Ms. Smith, you and I didn't exactly…"

He cleared his throat, "We've been back and forth like a pendulum."

"You think I'm shifting between moods with you."

"Aren't you?"

Anna sucked the inside of her cheek and nodded, "In a way I am. Going from one extreme to the other as I try to find a balance with you that I'd struggling to resolve in myself I think."

"And now you've found a balance?"

"No." Anna shook her head, "But I want to find that balance and this feels like the first of many steps to getting there."

"Okay." John shifted in his chair as Anna moved off her stool and went back to pacing the space she allotted herself between the three desks. "Then how can I help?"

"You can tell me if you ever read about me being married in any of your mother's magazines from when you were younger." Anna allowed a hint of a smile to come over her face, "On the pages with actual words and not just images."

"Very funny." John wracked his brain a moment before shaking his head. "I don't remember anything about it. There was always rumor about who you were dating and who you'd been seen with at parties but those were the magazines you read in the racks at the shops and they were mostly lies anyway."

"Then the bigger crime was that I never corrected the suppositions." John raised an eyebrow as Anna continued. "I got into modeling when I was studying fashion at University. Just a side job to pay the bills for the flat and cover groceries, you know. But to do it I needed to get some good pictures and I happened to have a friend who knew a guy getting his degree in photography."

Anna took a breath, "We hit it off right away. Devin and I…" Her eyes took on the haze of someone remembering a fond memory for a moment before the luster faded. "We were absolutely perfect together. He always got my good side and he knew just how to the work the lighting in my favor. So when I made it big I insisted he be the one to do my sessions as often as I could manage it."

"Is that what he wanted?"

"Yes and no. After awhile he helped me find some other photographers I could trust about as much and he moved on to the work he wanted to do but…" Anna's lips quirked toward a smile. "We stayed close. And about the time I was off my first big show we met up at an after party and…"

John noted the way her hands shook slightly as she continued. "And we decided we didn't want to see where things went. We were going to take control of it so we did. And within a week we'd been to the Registrar's office and I was, in my private life, Mrs. Anna Sarolia." Her voice wavered a moment, "And no one was ever the wiser."

"You didn't tell anyone?"

"We told our families and a few friends but we wanted to keep it to ourselves and let the world get stuffed as far as speculation on our relationship."

"And you managed to keep that information from everyone?"

Anna nodded, "The time before internet was a big thing was an absolute boon to our relationship." Her face fell, "Especially since it didn't last."

John bit at his lip. "I'm sorry that it-"

"If you're offering condolences then you're about to offer them for the wrong reasons." Anna nodded at the confusion on John's face. "You're about to apologize that I got a divorce or our relationship ended."

"Yes." John's brow furrowed, "Should I not?"

"He died, Mr. Bates." Anna retook her seat on the stool, not shifting this time. Instead she sat straighter than John did on his chair. "It was our anniversary, we'd had three years without anyone knowing the depth of our relationship, and we were taking about risking a child amidst all the gossip."

She reached into her shirt and removed a chain, showing him the three rings dangling from it. One, the thicker of the three, appeared to be a man's platinum ring, and the other two were far more feminine. The same metal, one with a diamond on it and the other as three interlocking hoops, but obviously not bought as a set. "They're all I allowed myself to keep."

"From your marriage?"

"Of what we had." Anna tucked the chain away, patting it once through her shirt. "He was killed, right in front of me. A mugging gone wrong when he reached too quickly for his wallet and the kid with a gun shot him as a reflex."

She shook her head, "He was a kid. I still remember him sitting in the accused box, shaking and looking absolutely terrified to be there. And the Silk who put him away made a big speech about stopping street crime or hate crimes or something ridiculously trite when what happened had nothing to do with that." Anna's body shuddered. "It was random and dispassionate and horrible. It was painful and tore me in two for almost two years…"

"I remember that." John bit back the rest of his response as Anna looked at him, almost as if she forgot he was there. "Everyone thought you went on holiday or had some kind of prima donna fit."

"It was made to look like that." Anna shook her head, "It made my attitude afterward seem to fit the 'Frigid Bitch' persona better. Like a rebranding."

"Doesn't make it better."

"No, it didn't make it better or less painful." Anna took a shaky breath, "Especially since the stress of it all lost me our baby."

John did not try to speak as Anna used the cuff of her sleeve to wipe at her eyes. "I didn't know until I lost the baby but there we'd been, walking home after a romantic dinner of fish and chips, talking about a baby and we were…" She stared at her hands, trying to breathe evenly. "And we were already going to have one. But we didn't and I… I lost them both within a month of each other."

All John could do in that moment was reach out and rest his hand on Anna's. They stopped twisting and tugging to pause under the weight of his. After a moment she continued, "So I kept to myself, mostly. Dated a string of increasingly horrible and sketchy men until I temporarily retired from the game to try and get myself right."

"Did it help?"

"For awhile. I finished my degree and got a job working at Mr. Crawley's fashion house while I made the transition from stage to designer. And it was…" Anna laughed a little in her throat. "It was going well until…"

"Until the other designer?"

Anna nodded, "It was just another failure. Another reason to not get close to anyone because all getting close to anyone does is hurt you. It's just a way for more pain to pour into your life until you're drowning in it."

John stayed silent a moment before he shifted his hand to hold hers still. It forced Anna to meet his eyes and he shook his head. "I don't believe that."

"No?"

"No." John held her gaze. "We're going to get hurt and suffer and it might feel as if we're the unfair recipients of more pain than we can ever possibly bear but we're not. We're… We're not suffering without purpose."

"Are you religious?"

"My mother was more than me but…" John swallowed, "I don't believe life is all suffering. I don't believe you're meant to be pitied for what you've endured. I also don't believe that you've any reason to hide this part of yourself away. At least not if you're afraid of what people will think of you."

"I don't want people talking about my shame."

"What shame?" John squeezed Anna's hands briefly. "What's shameful about what's happened to you? Beyond the scales tipped against you there's nothing you've endured or anything you've done about which you need to feel ashamed."

"But it ruined me." Anna slipped her hands free of his grip as if gesturing to herself. "I'm entirely spoiled for anyone and I made myself that way."

"I don't believe that." John found one of her hands again, taking it in both of his as Anna met his expression. "I don't believe you've any reason to be shamed about anything that you've endured because you're still here. You're still fighting. I…"

He took a breath, noting the slight quiver in Anna's hand as he held it carefully between his. "I think you're refined by the suffering you've been put through. And it definitely wasn't what you would've wanted for yourself or anything you would've chosen to endure but you did and you're still here." John gave her a small smile. "And I think Devin, for the amazing bloke he must've been to catch your eye, would think so too."

"Truly?"

"Without a doubt." John risked it and kiss the back of Anna's hand before releasing it to stand. "You're better than you think you are Ms. Smith. And if you can't see it right now then I'll see it for you."

"You would?"

"Of course."

John barely had a second to think about what happened next. Using the extra inches her position on the stool offered, Anna stood on the edge of it and reached out her free hand to grab the lapel of John's suit jacket. Tugging him forward, she brought their lips together and John stepped into the kiss to prevent Anna toppling off the stool.

After a second she broke the kiss and John could only stare back at her. But a moment later one of his hands was at her hip and the other at the back of her neck to keep her steady as his mouth found hers again. And the moment her fingers speared into his hair John was sure there was no other way for their evening to end.