A/N Thank you for the reviews. They make my day and they make the writing and editing much easier. I am, once again, as ever, worried I'm going to let you all down.

Anthony doubted he had moved with such speed in the course of his whole life. He could not let her leave the room. Before he knew it his hand was on top of hers and he was slamming the heavy door closed. Her soft skin was warm but, as comforting as the contact was, he had no permission to touch her, so he pulled away.

He begged, the verbal equivalent of falling at her feet, "Wait, please, wait. Let me talk, just – please – don't go. Let me talk."

She stepped away from the door, as if to show her ascent to his suggestion.

There was a particular cruelty in the fact that even when distraught she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. The tears which threatened in her eyes caught the light and reflected their various shades of brilliant golden brown. Her cheeks pinked to a delicious shade. Her soft curls, gently tousled, framed her lovely face. He could hardly stand to look at her, she stung like the sun, but not enough that he craved darkness.

"Are you crying?"

"No." His hand shot to his cheek, but she was right, there was moisture beneath his fingertips. Embarrassed, he brushed it away, "That's unexpected. I haven't cried since I was a small boy." A lie. He'd decided there were to be no more of those, "actually, I've cried quite a few times in the past few weeks."

"I hope you're not asking for sympathy?"

"Not at all. I'm just trying - trying to explain, to convey, really, just what - that is to say -" He exhaled a frustrated breath, "Edith, it's been - no, it is - that's -"

The words pushed up against one another, clogging in his brain, all vying for his attention. He slammed his fist into the makeshift bar, the glasses rattled, "goddamn it!"

She folded her arms across her stomach.

"I'm sorry. I cannot make speeches."

She arched an eyebrow, "you're a barrister, a Judge in fact."

"I cannot make speeches which matter."

"You've defended in over a dozen murder trials, you're claiming those speeches didn't matter?!"

"They did, but this is different. This matters to me, this is personal to me. I want you to understand."

Therein was the problem. These words couldn't come from the same place as a closing speech or submissions or a judgment. His busy brain, usually so reliable, was at a loss.

She whispered, "What is there to understand? We're happy aren't we? Or, we were when we were together. We have a chance to be so terribly, terribly happy."

"But you are going to be happy. I pray that you are, but only if you don't waste yourself on me."

"How can it be a waste to be with someone that – someone - I – I -" The sentence got lost in the space between them, the words faded to nothing. Edith flushed and scuffed her shoe across the wooden floorboards, "do you even want Maud?" Her voice cracked, agony fracturing through the tone of her voice.

No.

"It's not as simple as that."

"Isn't it?"

"I made promises to her. I married her, for better or worse."

"But if you don't want her?!"

He shook his head, "That's not the point. I made a commitment to Maud, but that's not the only reason I cannot do this, it's just part of the problem between you and I." He drew a finger through the air, an invisible line from him to her; the one that must be severed, "You shouldn't want me, Edith."

"But I do!"

"But you shouldn't, I cannot let you throw away your life like that."

"I'd be building a life with you, not throwing one away."

"I'm a quarter of a century older than you. My life is an endless parade of horrid cases and boring barristers. I work all the time, I need to because I'm going to the High Court and then I must move to the Court of Appeal, that's the next step for me. The work will be unrelenting. The person you've known in the last few months, that's not me, not really. Maud knew precisely what she was getting when she married me, hell, that's partially, if not wholly, why she did it – she wanted to be the wife of a successful silk, a future judge."

"Have I ever given you the impression I have any difficulty with your ambitions?"

He pulled his hand through his hair, trying desperately to find the words to make her understand that he was saving her, "You told me once that you didn't see me as a judicial clone, but that's all I am Edith, that's all I've ever been. I don't know how to do anything but that and you deserve something more, someone more."

She sank into a chair at the side of the room, staring intently at her knees, "if you don't want to be with me, I'd rather you just said it. These excuses –"

"No. No." He knelt before her, unconcerned with the optics of the scene, "God, Edith, they're not excuses. You have to believe that. You are –" Language abandoned him again, there was no adequate description, "you are everything to me – lovely, kind, witty, clever, beautiful, creative – you're not so creative in the kitchen, of course –" He wiggled his eyebrows, "except when you're figuring how to position yourself on the counter so I can –"

He cleared his throat, wondering at whatever had possessed him to lead the conversation down a sexual avenue. Perhaps the sight of her slender legs and tiny ankles, in jewelled flat shoes. Or her knees, which shouldn't be remotely erotic, except that he remembered her moans of arousal when he kissed behind them.

Luckily for him she saw the funny side, her sobs transmuted into a strained laugh, garbling through her throat. He smiled slightly, wishing for all the world that he was a different man on his knees with a ring.

He ploughed on, voice hoarse, "You're the best person I've ever known. It's just –" He swallowed back the tears, "I didn't know when I was making the choices I've long since made that I was creating a life which would keep us apart. I didn't know – I didn't know –"He stood up and took a deep breath, "I didn't know something like this could happen to me. I didn't know there would be you."

Brown eyes stared up at him, "and if you had?"

"I would have spent my whole life striving to deserve you Edith Crawley."

It was a relief, an enormous one, to finally find the words to convey some of what he felt, it was still inadequate. The weight of his lifelong obligations, set against the weight of his unexpected affection. They waged a war like no other, but he was set on a path, it was too late to deviate, he must give her up. She'd be better off, he had nothing to offer.

"I don't know what to say. That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me." Her bottom lip quivered and she pushed her hand across her chin, as if smoothing out the muscles, "The saddest too. How odd."

"I'm so very sorry. I've nothing to say that's adequate to explain myself." He shrugged, hating the implication of indifference in the gesture when he was as far from indifferent as possible, "You're the north on my compass Edith, but I find I have already set sail and I must go south."

"Do you –" She trailed off.

"Do I?"

She stood abruptly, "nothing. It doesn't matter. You've always felt this way?"

There was the impulse to lie again, to make it seem better than it was, but, in reality, he'd always known and she deserved the truth and that was all he was able to give, "Yes. There was no future for us. I knew that and I pursued you anyway. For that disgraceful behaviour I am sorry."

"You did rather more than pursue me. I was well and truly caught."

He bowed his head, "Yes. I satisfied my own desires, my own lusts when I should have told you how marvelous you were and let you go. I hurt you, just like you said I would, and I knew I was doing it. It's the most awful thing I've done in my whole life."

"Don't say that. I don't want to be some pathetic creature of regret in the back of your mind."

"I didn't say I regretted it, I can't regret it, it was too wonderful." He shook his head gently and touched her cheek. When had the distance between them closed? Had she made the move, or was it him? He whispered, "Awfully, utterly wonderful." He pulled his hand away abruptly, guilty for taking liberties, again, with her affections, "sorry."

"No, don't." She grabbed it in mid-air and held it there seemingly unsure of what to do next. Ever so tentatively she traced the pale blue lines snaking under his skin. He could feel his heartbeat in his throat.

"Are you back together with Maud?"

"Not yet."

"Take me back to your flat?"

She can't have said - "I'm sorry?"

"Take me back to your flat." Her eyes left his hand and went to his face. Wide and shining with emotion.

All the voices which got them into this mess clamoured to be heard - yes. Let's go. Right now. This second.

"Edith, I don't think that's a good idea."

"Why? I want to. Not because I think there's any changing your mind. I don't want to change your mind, I don't want to be a grudging choice. But the last time we - " She turned pink and Anthony was reminded afresh of how much he'd missed her.

He flushed too, thinking of the night in the hall, taking her against the wall. Quick and frantic because he'd simply had to have her, delay had not been an option in his arousal-addled mind.

He finished her thought, "the last time we had sex?"

She nodded frantically, "I didn't know it would be the last time. If I had, I would've savoured it." She squeezed her eyes shut with a sigh, her grip on his hand tightening, "I'd have put a description to the tastes, mapped the movement of the touches, the flexes of muscle, the shivers of anticipation. Even the smells, those moments afterwards, the air is full of them - you and I mingled together with the exertion of it - but I don't remember what they were like. I didn't know I needed to try and hold onto it all. I let it slip through my fingers like water, not seeing that the well had run dry. There's a picture to be painted and I can't paint it and I want to Anthony, I'm an artist, I need to."

"Edith - "

He tried to frame the argument in opposition. He hadn't known that the hallway would be the last time either. It wouldn't have been his choice for a final night with her, although he could barely comprehend the idea of a Final Night. Not because he couldn't imagine having sex with her again, quite the opposite in fact; he wanted her - he would always want her. For that very reason the prospect of a last encounter - the desolate finality of such an idea - made him sick with nerves.

His uncertainty lost out easily in the end. Not only to his desire, but also because he wanted what she described: an evening to build a thousand tiny memories to lock away in the recesses of his mind and keep forever.

Her frustrated plea tore through his contemplation, "You've already hurt me, so stop trying to protect me and just give me what I want."

Gently he twinned his fingers with hers and lowered her hand to his hip. He brushed her hair off her face, cradled her jaw, scuffed her nose with his thumb – he didn't know why, precisely, it was there and it was perfect and the impulse called so he followed it. He trailed his hand down her spine and coaxed her towards him.

"If you want me to stop tell me and I will." He lowered his lips to hers, they fluttered apart and she was in his mouth, her hand in his hair and her arm around his back. She was in his soul. He pulled away, afraid of everything he would lose and everything he had already lost, "Tell me to stop."

"Don't stop."