Author's Note: Fair warning - this is the last chapter of the story!

Two weeks later, Bellatrix was well enough to sit up. She was still seriously achy. Moving from her left to her right or back the other way would send a shooting pain up her belly, even with the low doses of Anodyne Draught she was still taking. But her incision was healing very well and would likely only leave a thin, sheer scar. Her organs were all functioning properly. The ache would fade with time, and that time was passing.

The only real problem was that with healing had come boredom. Bellatrix had become so ridiculously bored inside The Reverie that she often thought it would bring her to tears. She could only stare out the window for so long. She could only read so many books, or sketch the flowers in the vase beside her bed so many times. Even playing with Maelstrom grew tiresome after long enough.

One day, Bellatrix asked Voldemort whether he would help her move downstairs to the parlour so that she could get a change of scenery and sketch out the basis of her next painting, which she was itching to complete. Voldemort gamely carried Bellatrix down the stairs after helping her change into real clothes - she was quite tired of wearing a nightgown all the time - and got her settled in a side chair in the parlour. He set up her easel for her and fetched her a small canvas and pencils. Then he stood before her and asked plainly,

"Will you sketch me?"

Bellatrix stared up at him with very wide eyes. She shook her head a little and whispered,

"I wouldn't do you justice, My Lord."

His lips curled up just a little, and he shrugged. "I should like to see you make an attempt, at least. If you despise the results, we'll Vanish them. Please. I'd be honoured."

She blinked. To hear him speak like that to her… Bellatrix's mouth fell open. She swallowed hard and finally nodded, gesturing for Voldemort to sit in the armchair before her. He looked quite content as he sank down into the chair, putting a hand on either arm. He reclined back against the cushion of the chair and kept his face steady and straight, his expression neutral. Bellatrix picked up a pencil, her hand shaking like mad as she neatened her canvas. She put the pencil to it, touching the sharp tip to the material as she studied Voldemort's face, and then she froze.

He really was very scarred and affected by the Dark Magic he'd referenced, she thought now. She was blinded to his flaws by the way that she loved him, but she could see now that he was not actually handsome. There were the effects of whatever awful Dark Magic he'd conducted, and there were the effects of age, rendering him what many might even consider ugly. How was she to draw him without offending him? His hairline had receded far up the sides of his forehead, and his actual hair was thinning and greying. His left eye and left cheek both drooped as if they were made of slightly melted wax. His nose looked like he'd taken a few bad punches and the bridge had healed badly from some breaks. His lips appeared to have been cut open and scabbed back shut a few times. His scruff grew in unevenly over scales of scar tissue on his chin and right cheek. And the whites of his eyes were a bit bloodshot. So how was Bellatrix to sketch him without making him cross? How had she never noticed before how deeply flawed he was? She cleared her throat and began to sketch in silence.

She got started by roughing out the basic shapes of the head - two overlapping ovals. The primary oval gave her the shape of his face, whilst the secondary oval described the back of the head. Bellatrix took her time making these just right, or else she risked his face looking too plump or too long. It was important that the shape of him be just so. Next she added construction lines for the eyes, nose, and mouth to demarcate precisely where his features fell along the plane of his face. She added the ears next, paying very close attention to where they were in relation to the eyes and nose. Badly placed ears could ruin a portrait, she knew. She took note of the way Voldemort's ears appeared to have been burned by acid or otherwise maimed along the edges, and she tried to accurately capture the wrinkling without being offensive.

The lighting was perfect, Bellatrix thought. Beautifully diffuse light was streaming in through the window. It was a cloudy day, and a light rain had begun to fall. It cast just the right amount of light over Voldemort's face with minimal shadowing, which made Bellatrix's job far easier. She began to sculpt his face now with the pencil, and she realised as she moulded his jaw and cheekbones that he must have been quite handsome in his youth. The planes and lines and angles of him were sharp and clean.

"I was well-liked at Hogwarts," Voldemort murmured, and Bellatrix smiled to herself as she realised he was in her head. She raised her eyes to him and nodded.

"I'm quite certain you were, Master. Please sit still."

"Yes, Miss Black," he whispered, and suddenly she couldn't breathe. It took everything she had to spend the next few minutes shading and contouring the face, noting where the minimal shadowing fell. At last the sketch was finished, and Bellatrix looked at it for a moment, thinking it was actually quite a good representation of Lord Voldemort's likeness. She shut her eyes for a second, gathered her courage, and passed the canvas over to him. He took it in his hand and just stared for so long that Bellatrix began to panic. Then at last he said softly,

"How very hideous I am, and you have captured it expertly."

Bellatrix gasped, feeling afraid. Was he going to punish her? Was he very angry with the drawing? He looked up at her and turned up half his mouth.

"Magnificent work, Bellatrix. You are… very good at this."

"Oh." She breathed a long sigh of relief, setting her pencil down and fluttering her eyes a few times. She reached for the canvas, taking it back, and mumbled, "It'll look better painted. I'll paint it."

"Mmm." Voldemort smiled a little and nodded. Bellatrix couldn't seem to find anything to say him after that. She stared at his eyes and just wanted to kiss him. He seemed to sense that, and his lips parted a little. The rain outside the window began to fall far more insistently, and a rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. Voldemort blinked a few times, looked remarkably peaceful all of a sudden, and whispered,

"I love you."

Bellatrix felt a jolt of shock. She just stared. For some reason, her ears tuned to the rain, to the sound of the pattering, and her eyes seared like fire. She finally nodded and said back in a soft voice,

"I love you more than life itself."

He shook his head a little and reminded her, "But you must live for me. With me."

"I will, Master. Always," she promised. Voldemort let out a long, trembling sigh and pinched his lips. He eyed the kitten who had come prancing into the parlour, and he nodded.

"Good. Why don't you draw Maelstrom?"

The next week, Bellatrix was able to walk down to the sea shore and put her feet into the water. She was stronger now than she'd been at any point since the day of her Gran Irma's funeral. Her wound barely hurt now; she could throw pebbles into the sea and it barely ached to do so. She could cast all manner of spells with her wand without feeling any effects. She was strong, and she was bored.

She gazed out at the setting sun on the sea and wondered how long she would have to stay in this house. She missed fighting so badly that it took her breath away to think about it. She'd heard there had been a battle where Rodolphus had nearly gotten himself killed. He'd been taking on three Aurors at once until Yaxley and Avery had rushed in to help him. Bellatrix knew that if she'd been there, she would have been an asset to the battle. Voldemort knew this, too. Of that she was certain. The war raged on without her; the Ministry continued to seek ways to destroy Lord Voldemort whilst Bellatrix Black wasted away at a holiday home.

She was prophesied, she knew, and she was in love. But if she stayed here forever painting and playing with a kitten, she would go utterly mad.

"Cornish sunsets are almost criminally beautiful, aren't they?"

Bellatrix smiled a little as Voldemort walked up beside her on the sand. She turned her face and stared up at him, nodding.

"It's magnificent here, Master."

"But you are losing your patience for this place, despite its beauty."

How had he known precisely what had been troubling her? Legilimency, obviously. He'd talked about teaching her Occlumency, but perhaps he didn't want her to be able to shut him out. Bellatrix gazed up at Voldemort and nodded.

"I worry about my mind, staying here forever."

"It won't be forever," he promised her. "Someday you'll be somewhere else, but I will find a way to involve you in the war, even from here."

Bellatrix furrowed her brows in confusion. "How?"

She was pressing him, she knew, but he didn't seem to mind. He shrugged and admitted,

"I haven't got it quite figured yet, but I am determined not to see you sit out this war. You are my finest warrior and my most loyal servant, and I have no intention of sidelining you because of prophecies."

Bellatrix felt a wash of relief come over her, and she reached for his hand, slipping her fingers through his rather boldly as she informed him, "I am grateful for the intention, Master."

The two of them stared out at the ever-dipping sunset over the sea, and after some time, Voldemort said almost gently,

"Someday I shall take you to Galicia, in Spain. They have the most marvelous sunsets."

"Galicia? Is there something very special about Galicia?" Bellatrix asked, and Voldemort answered delicately,

"It is where I became the wizard I am now."

There was silence then, and Bellatrix realised she had so much to learn about him. She wondered how much he would ever share with her.

The sun slipped at last below the horizon, and the moment its orange glow vanished, Voldemort tightened his hold on Bellatrix's hand. His voice was like silk on the the air then.

"You are near, and you are mine, and I do crave you more than anything."

Bellatrix shut her eyes, feeling profoundly emotional all of a sudden. Her eyes were still shut when she heard Voldemort say,

"I'm famished. Let us go into the house and have Ronky make us some dinner."

"And what do you desire to eat, Master?" Bellatrix asked, staring up at him in the purple-blue light of the evening. He smirked.

"Steak. And lemonade to drink."

"Oh," Bellatrix whispered, nodding. It was what she'd told him she liked to eat and drink when they'd been lying in bed together, when they'd first come here, and he'd been trying to get to know her better. For some reason, the notion of sitting down now and eating steak and lemonade with him made tears rush to her eyes, and she found herself whispering,

"I'll fight again, won't I?"

"Yes." He nodded firmly, taking her face in his hands. "My very best warrior."

Her breath shook through clenched teeth as she nodded. "I do love you more than life itself, My Lord."

In response, he just bent and kissed her as the last shades of orange and yellow sunlight slipped into the ocean.

THE END

Author's Note: Well, this one was super fun to write! It just had reached its natural conclusion. I hope you enjoyed it and I'm so grateful for you reading and for all the feedback I've received.

Now, as for what comes next. I'm going to do something I haven't done before and open the floor for reader suggestions. I'd love to get prompts/requests from people who have read my previous works and would like to see something specific. Have a story idea in mind that you'd like to see as my next work? Tell me in a review of this fic or a PM! Thanks so very much!