crawleyfan prompted me with "I don't know what scares me more, the fact that one day you might ask me to leave, or that I love you so much that I would leave immediately to keep you happy." Or I was scared to admit that I had started loving you because it would mean admitting that I would never stop." for Cobert

So this is a continuation of my last drabble (turn to the previous page, read that for context, come back here). And did anyone ask for this? No, absolutely nobody did. But this verse has me hooked and I had an idea, a plot bunny, and you know what? I'm running away with it. This is for you people who are not also tumblerinos, so that you may also read it even if it's absolute trash.

on with the story.

Prompt me. Anything, whatever, whichever, but there's also a promptlist on my tumblr /breakingunbreaking if you like.

"I was scared to admit that I had started loving you because it would mean admitting that I would never stop."

The admission comes as a surprise, and she hadn't really seen that coming. It's been years since the divorce, months since Mary's wedding, and they had been back to their normal lives, or at least what constitutes as normal these days, with the ghost of his lips pressed against her skin haunts her at night and brought back memories she's tried so much to bury because she knows they're nothing more than that – bittersweet memories of yesteryear that serve no purpose other than hurt her and make her pine for what she can no longer ever have.

It's hard, such as the life of a woman scorned but still secretly in love with the same man whose cruel hand held her heart and crushed it until it was nothing but ashes. She tries to forget, tries to tell herself that she's nothing but a mere idiot to feel this way, but it's fine because familiarity is on tricky motherfucker, and sure feelings resurface, but that's just because she's had them for so long. It's impossible to stop loving someone you have loved for so long, although the longing does fade in time. Settling comes next, and then acceptance comes in second, and it all becomes better – somehow, anyhow.

And she has pretty much accepted her fate, that knowledge that had come with loving him for so long had equipped her with a heart of acceptance, and she's settled with the life of loneliness and the bitterness of an ex wife who had once given her husband her all, only for him to turn around when the next bimbo in town came on to him.

So she had caved in when she'd been in her daughter's wedding, had let him have his way with her, and had let herself have her way with him. Nostalgia and melancholy are ever the bitches that sucked her in, but that's okay. Yes, that okay turns into nothing but desperation when faced with such situation – she surmises.

"What are you talking about?" she says back when she finally regains control of her bearings, and she looks up at him with disbelief and scepticism she had, unknowingly, reserved for this very moment.

She thought their moment had been over, very much over.

True, he'd tried to contact her multiple times since their little tryst, but she – unlike him – understood what it means to go back to our normal lives and live as though nothing happened. She doesn't, didn't, want to entangle herself further into him. Time for nostalgia and melancholy is over.

"I wanted to tell you before you left," he says without missing a beat, and he enters into her office without invitation, not that he needed anymore when he had come bursting in, despite the protestations of Cora's trusty assistant - Phyllis – and he'd had some sort of awkward declaration that had sent poor Baxter hiding behind her desk, jumping to do something else to make it less awkward for Cora

Not that it's possible, with the way Robert is awkwardly hunched over her door, looking wild and rugged in his white shirt and black trousers. His hair is tousled and he looks like he might not have slept for a while, the bags under his eyes are as purple as they can be.

"Robert," she sighs, placing the documents she's been holding down on her desk so she can assume a position of woman with patience though she is supremely lacking – whatever. "What on earth are you on about? And what on earth are you doing here?"

He shakes his head wildly as he makes large steps towards her desk. He is frightening her, but she doesn't let him know that, doesn't let it show in the way she sits and looks at him directly – bright blue eyes staring at him directly and willing him to bow down.

"I can't forget it, I can't go back to the way it was before Mary's wedding, I have tried…" he trails off and he looks manic, looks like he's desperate and there's a space in Cora's heart that throbs for him, but her ears and her mind hear what he wants, and nope, no.

"Well you have to," she tells him in no uncertain terms. "It was…nice and familiar and I don't regret it happening, but it isn't going to happen again. We agreed, Robert. You and I agreed that it was a – one time thing? – dalliance, for a lack of better word and we agreed that it was not going to continue once we move back to our normal lives."

He looks at her and there's something about his blue eyes, something wild and something desperate, and she isn't sure what to make of it. It is a side of him that she doesn't know or understand, and she remains quiet as she tries to gauge him. She purses her lips and stands her ground. She doesn't want to make the same mistake again.

"I want to, I want to go back and…The only thing that kept me from saying I love you, that I had started loving you again…hell that I have never stopped loving you, was the knowledge that I wouldn't know what to stop." He paused, his eyes turn imploring. "Can you look me in the eye and say that it didn't change anything for you – that our time together didn't change the last few years of anonymity and…it was pure hell, Cora, living without you. Don't tell me that the time we had together is not our second chance at this thing."

My life was hell without you, too, but I don't know if I can trust you again.

She wants to say the words, wants to tell him she wants to come back to him too, but she can't trust him, and telling him that would give him ammunition to talk her out of something and into another thing.

"Nothing can change the last few years, Robert," she says without emotion, trying very hard not to cry or tremble or show him how much she wants to stop being bitter and just start living the life they once promised each other.

But a few nights of pleasure could never take away the pain of what he had done to her.

"You can't waltz in here and talk me into…Nothing can undo the pain you've caused me when you decided to throw our vows out the window and screwed your secretary!" she bellows and the carefully placed mask she had slips completely off her face. She is trembling and her fists are clenched and she is looking at him, somewhat dangerously.

"I –" he starts but she doesn't let him.

"Don't you dare you're sorry," she tells him angrily. She doesn't want to hear it. She doesn't want to hear him say he's sorry because it doesn't change anything to her, doesn't erase the last few months of their marriage when she had suffered from the pain of knowing her husband no longer wanted her, or the last few years when she had to live with the aftermath of their divorce. "You shouldn't say what you don't mean. You're not sorry, Robert. At least not for what I need you to be sorry for. You're only sorry because you now want what you're not allowed to have!"

She is truly angry now, the words she'd longed to say to him for so long now brimming. She's frothing at the mouth to lash out, to hurt him even just a tiny fraction of how he'd hurt her, all the times they'd been together at Mary's wedding be damned.

"You can't change what has happened before and you cannot undo the hurt you've caused." She stands up and walks to the door, her steps are heavy and angry and her posture could not possibly mean anything but. She shakes her head at him. "Once upon a long time ago, I didn't know what scared me more, the fact that one day you might ask me to leave, or that I love you so much that I would leave immediately to keep you happy."

She opens the door and gestures for him to go out. He's speechless, even as he walks slowly towards the door, his head hung low. Maybe, words are no longer needed after all.

"I guess I had been too focused on loving you that I forgot to be scared of the moment I no longer do." She turns her head away from him. "Goodbye, Robert."

She's proud of herself, proud of how well she managed to stand her ground. But when the door closes and she's left alone, she sinks into the floor and cries.

She never really ever wanted to say goodbye.

Fin – 05/05/2019

Should I continue? Probably not. Will I continue? Idek. Let me know whatcha think!