A/N Thank you all for the reviews. They're very, very appreciated. I'm off on holiday for three weeks and will be without laptop and internet access, so, this is the last update until mid-June.

M rated, scenes of a sexual nature below.

It would have been easier if she didn't feel safe. She hated herself for that, for taking such comfort in his body being wrapped around hers. The plains of his chest pressed into her back, his groin, complete with burgeoning erection, pressed into her backside. Their legs entwined. One arm trapped under her neck, other around her waist, the flat of his big hand on her stomach.

He'd pulled a t-shirt over her head in the post-orgasm haze, remembering her disposition to be chilly in bed. It smelt of him, her whole body smelt of him. She'd take a shower and he'd be gone. Tears clawed at the back of her throat and she willed herself back to sleep, a few more hours, as if they were normal again. As if this wouldn't be the last time he held her.

He shifted. Pressed himself closer, bought his arms around tighter. She was breathless.

He kissed behind her ear and whispered, "did you know you have two freckles just here?" His lips went to her skin again, and he mumbled "two delicious, tempting freckles."

Desire curled in her stomach, crashing squarely into the sadness.

Tentatively he drew her ear lobe between his teeth. Her groan was quite involuntary, as was the shift of her hips pushing her backwards, the length of his erection caught firmly between her legs.

Her name on his lips was a question as well as an endearment, "Edith?"

He was uncertain, and why shouldn't he be? Their relationship was over. But this was physical and Anthony would never do anything unless he was absolutely sure she wanted it.

She wanted this. Once more. One last time.

A quick motion and she pulled his t-shirt over her head. They were naked against one another again and his question was answered.

His hand went to her breast, caressed and cupped, brushing his thumb to and fro, across one nipple and then the other. He kissed her throat, her ears, the nape of her neck. She craned around to try and catch his lips but he could only reach the corner of her mouth, his tongue darting out for a quick taste. All the while she writhed against him.

He twinned his fingers with hers and lifted her hand to tend her own breast. He positioned her thumb and forefinger. Her nipples were sensitive creatures but, she'd discovered, or rather, he'd discovered and she'd learnt, not adverse to some gentle pain. A squeeze at the right moment could send her into the blinding white light. But in this position one of his arms was trapped beneath her body. This left only one hand to do the work of driving her out of her mind, he obviously wanted her to pick up the slack.

Now he was free to see to the ache of frustration and desire between her legs. She already knew she was wet; it sluiced between her thighs

He dipped his finger between her folds and found her clitoris with staggering ease. A virtuoso at his favourite instrument. She arched back into him, "oh – Ant-". Words were lost then, incoherent. When she was close he stopped, as he so often did. She groaned and panted and took her hand off her breast to grab at him, to draw him back, to make him finish his work.

"Patience."

She'd long thought the tone of his voice would be enough to bring her off if the moment was right, and this time, it very nearly did. That single word hummed across the back of her neck and brushed over her shoulder, rushing down to her centre triggering several heady pulses.

Anthony put her hand back on her breast. The unmistakeable rumble of the bedside drawer was further stimulation, soon there would be a condom and then he would be inside her again. He returned, agonizingly, to between her legs but only to part them, lifting her thigh up over his. She whimpered in anticipation, opened herself further and shifted forwards.

He held himself at her entrance and his voice quaked, "Edith?"

He was asking and she begged breathlessly in response, she hardly knew what for - sex, love - probably both, "please, Anthony, please, please, please."

He entered her swiftly, right up to the hilt. There was a beat, an eternity, before he moved. He kissed her shoulder. It was all too much, and not enough. The position didn't allow for much manoeuvre, shallow thrusts only. She was grateful for that. Grateful not to have to face the loss of him with each movement of his hips, to be so full of him one final time. His hand was between her legs again, she whimpered with anticipation.

"Edith, I –" He was hoarse, petting his lips randomly across her shoulders, "I'm close."

She clenched, shifted and the orgasm finally gripped her. Then she had another reason to be grateful she was facing away from him because she couldn't stem the tears. They streamed down her face as her body shook and convulsed. Her passion, her love, her despair emerged from her throat in croaked sobs of pleasure.

Anthony's movements grew erratic and his hand came up to her stomach, pulled her close. He buried his face into the side of her neck. His cheeks were wet too, tears as he came apart deep within her. He garbled an apology, muffled by her flesh, "I'm sorry Edith, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry."

They lay there in silence for an eternity. Pressed together and still joined. He went from hard to soft inside her, shrinking away and, finally out.

Edith took a deep breath and prised his hand away.

"Edith –" He meant to launch into something, to make some point or offer some platitude, perhaps more apologies. She couldn't have that.

"I need to shower." The interruption came out as one word, cutting him off.

Ineedtoshower. Icannottalktoyou.

She swung her legs out of the bed and dove into the en suite bathroom. The door lock was loud, she didn't appreciate how it would announce itself because she'd never used it before, never felt the need to keep him out, on the other side.

The water washed him away. She watched it stream about her feet and down the plughole. She scrubbed away the mascara tears and dried off. The towel was abrasive on her skin, Anthony never did follow her advice about fabric softener.

Bracing herself on the cool ceramic sink she stared blankly at her clean reflection beneath the florescent lights. It was a strange feeling, to know she would let him go and to know she could. The pain daggered through her abdomen but she couldn't hold on to the pointless, corrosive hope any more. Her battered heart could be patched up, but only if she got out now.

The bedroom was blessedly empty when she emerged.

Anthony shouted from the kitchen, "I'm just making coffee, be with you in a minute."

She pulled on last night's clothes and perched on the edge of the dressing table. Part of her wanted to flee, but she wouldn't be a coward. That was not how she wanted to be remembered.

He started slightly when he caught sight of her, hair dripping into an expanding patch of moisture at the back of her dress. He handed her a steaming cup of coffee. She rested it on the wooden surface, she wasn't thirsty and there wouldn't be time to drink it.

He sat on the edge of the bed, leaning forwards, elbows on his knees, as close as he could get to her but not skin to skin, as if he knew she didn't want to be touched again.

He croaked, "Stay for breakfast, I'll run out and get almond croissants."

The smile was weak and the lump in the back of her throat grew larger. The end: it loomed, big and black, an unwelcome guest in their bedroom. His bedroom.

"No, thank you." Her cardigan gaped and she did up a few of the buttons to heighten her protection.

"Please, Edith, last night and this morning –"

She interrupted, "Was the end of it."

"The end of it?"

"The end of us, I mean." She crossed her arms across her stomach and blinked back tears, "I'm leaving London. Thomas is expanding the factory and he found a big space and he asked me to be his partner. There's room for a gallery, maybe a coffee shop."

He ran his hand through his hair and opened his mouth to speak but said nothing; he just looked with his wide, blue, sad eyes.

"It's a new start for me Anthony, it's a good opportunity and I want to do it."

He parroted her words, "The end." He nodded and then shook his head, "This was goodbye."

She wiped away the tear on her cheek, "y-yes."

"I hoped –"

Hope is the thief of all good sense. Edith appreciated that now. Anthony was as big an idiot as she was, bigger, probably. She'd given him a chance last night and he refused. It had been wonderful, romantic, even, but it was a refusal nonetheless. There was nothing left for them. Certainly nothing hopeful.

She shook her head, "What is there to hope for? You're married, you're staying married. You're a Judge, you don't think I can understand that or contribute to it."

"That's not fair."

"No, it's not. It's not fair to me, but it's what you said yesterday. I will not try and change your mind. You either want me, or you don't. It seems you don't."

"I do, but –"

She stood with a huff, needing the movement, the frustrating pooling in her feet, "don't you see? That's precisely the problem – that constant, continual, everlasting bloody 'but'. '

He shifted in his seat, poised for interruption. She held up her hand to stop the words which hadn't come.

"You don't really know what you want, Anthony. You act only out of a sense of obligation to achieve a future to which you were told to aspire. I am not in that future. I am a smudge on the picture of your life, a picture already planned and already painted."

His lips were thin and his voice quivered, "That is not true."

"Yes, it is. A smudge can be beautiful. It can be a whole artwork in of itself. Or it can be made to fit, a mistake built into the wider vision of the artist. But you don't even want to try. You're afraid of outcomes if you cannot precisely predict them. Even if you left Maud -" She shrugged, "you'd never have been sure you wanted me. You'd always have wondered if you should be with her, or some other high flying barrister, or a woman nearer your own age and you'd carry on thinking I would be better off with someone younger, or more artistic. Right at the outset our relationship would have battled with your perfect future, the one I was not meant to be a part of - a series of unknown and ideal hypotheticals." She exhaled an uneven breath and swallowed in several gulps of refreshing air, "And I'd always have known it - always known that you weren't certain."

His doubt and her hope crashing full force into one another and shattering the relationship into tiny pieces; shattering her into tiny pieces. She had to get out.

Standing, she walked to the door. Her hand grasped the cool metal of the handle and begun to turn.

His voice cracked behind her, "where is the new factory?"

Edith scrunched up her eyes and wished the question away, as though she might avoid the topic for the rest of their lives.

"It doesn't matter where it is. You won't be visiting. This is a new start and I mean it to be one in every respect."

He held his head in his hand, back curved into a sorry question mark, like Rodin's Thinker in grief.

She wanted to comfort him. Would it help to tell him that she loved him? That she wouldn't take any of it back even though there had been as much pain as pleasure. That this was the hardest thing she'd ever done in her life. Would it make it better to let him know he wasn't alone?

But he was. So was she. Not in the feelings of hurt and abandonment, they shared those. But in all the ways that mattered, they were both completely and utterly alone. So she offered no comfort, no caresses or words or looks. She just left.

Then she was outside his fine Victorian building, on the tube, walking through the factory door and back on her own bed, staring at his finished portrait, inordinately glad that she'd painted the blue eyes not to look at the viewer, but rather into the distance.

That was that. Their last words, their last touches, all finished. Lying back on the bed, Edith's chin began to quiver and her knees lifted to press into her chest. Curving her neck she rested her forehead atop her kneecaps. She nestled like a dot, a full stop, into the centre of the duvet. The sobs wracked through her body, like the aftershocks of some massive emotional earthquake.

The next morning she awoke, fully clothed, with Thomas beside her, his head resting on her shoulder. He pushed her hair off her face, "morning sunshine."

She whispered, "I saw him."

He brushed a kiss to her temple, "ok."

"I slept with him."

"I figured."

She looked at the ceiling, "let's go to Liverpool."