Word Count: 530
Fleur steps outside, a laundry basket resting against her hip. She breathes in the salty sea air, and she smiles.
It is such a beautiful day. It isn't beautiful in the way her home in France was. There are no tall, elegant buildings or tiny, adorable pastry shops on the corner. No, this is a different kind of beautiful, a beautiful she would have never thought she would enjoy.
Her bare feet dig into the warm, white sand. In the distance, below the cliffs, she can hear the roar of the sea as the waves crash against the shore. How many times have she and Bill walked along that shore? Even as the world fell apart around them, they would walk along, letting the water lap at their feet and ankles as they collected shells.
And it is truly beautiful. Beautiful in a way she has never known.
There is a simplicity to it. Fleur has always found comfort in the complex and in the intricate. Isn't that what life is all about? Isn't life supposed to be full of twists and turns and all the little details?
But Bill has shown her something different. He had been the only one to ever look at her and see a different kind of beautiful, a beautiful that had nothing to do with her Veela heritage.
Smiling to herself, she sets the basket down near the clothesline. She should hate this, really. Domestic life has never been all that appealing to her. It isn't as though anything has really changed. She still has her job, and she plans to work even when they have children.
And yet domesticity comes so naturally now. It feels like this is the balance she has needed. There is no more stress and worry. She comes home, and she can breathe and feel like maybe everything is okay.
It is tranquil here. This is her life, and she knows it could have been anything she wanted. But this is what she chose, and she will keep choosing it again and again.
"You look like you're in a good mood," Bill says, carrying an armful of grocery bags. "I just know doing laundry has never made me smile like that."
Fleur looks up as she pulls their bedsheets from the basket. "I have had an epiphany," she says.
Bill raises his brows curiously, a grin playing at his lips. "Oh? Do tell," he urges.
"I love my life." She throws the sheet over the line, carefully adjusting it so that it doesn't wrinkle, just the way Molly showed her before. "It is different and so unlike anything I have ever known before, and I love it."
Bill's grin broadens. He sets the groceries down on a grassy patch and closes the distance between them, wrapping her in a warm hug. She rests her head on his chest, breathing in his familiar scent of sweat and sea salt and cinnamon.
It is a beautiful day. Not the beautiful day that Paris holds. Not the beautiful day that any other big city offers. It is their own type of beautiful, and Fleur can't imagine any other life but this one.