***I wondered if you all felt like I hadn't had enough focus on Remus and too much focus on Emmeline for the last several chapters. I'm sorry to rob you of him. I was afraid I'd give it away.

From the playlist:

End Of Love - Florence + the Machine

Already Gone - Sleeping At Last

I Couldn't Say It To Your Face - The Twilight Sad

Ch 62 - Carton's Guillotine

Silence never felt so near.

Her heart fell through the floor.

The walls of the flat seemed to expand around her; vast, cold, empty.

Empty.

She forgot the trial. She forgot Lucius. She forgot Selwyn.

With the exception of a strange ringing in her ears, her battered mind went blank.

"Remus?" she whispered in disbelief.

On their bed, her copy of A Tale of Two Cities lay deliberately open next to a small leather pouch.

Emmeline lurched forward and picked up the book with trembling hands, holding her breath.

He'd underlined a passage:

"To none. No, Miss Manette, to none. If you will hear me through a very little more, all you can ever do for me is done. I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul. In my degradation I have not been so degraded but that the sight of you with your father, and of this home made such a home by you, has stirred old shadows that I thought had died out of me. Since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse that I thought would never reproach me again, and have heard whispers from old voices impelling me upward, that I thought were silent forever."

"No," she protested under her breath, dropping the book. When it landed on the mattress, a few pieces of folded paper were dislodged from its back cover. Emmeline seized it again at once, snatching the papers and practically tearing them as she unfolded them. A letter.

To my Emmeline,

I know exactly how you're going to feel.

"No, no, no, no, no, no-!" she clamored frantically, letting the parchment fall from her grasp. She refused to read any further. She wasn't interested in anything else he had to say, she just wanted him back. Surely he must've forgotten something, and would return for it. When he did, she would embrace him with all the strength she had left. She'd beg him on her knees if she had to.

She staggered towards the closet, digging frantically for something he left. When nothing turned up, she checked the bathroom. The nightstand. Under the bed. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Even after the catastrophe of the trial, hysteria began to grip her in a new way. She ran back to check the front room again, and the kitchen.

The pouch. She remembered the leather pouch next to the book. Rushing back to the bedroom, she ripped it off the bed and pulled it open.

It was full of gold.

He wasn't coming back for it. He was leaving it to her.

Maybe she'd just missed him. Maybe he was down the block. She darted to the front room and barreled out the door.

When she reached the street, she looked frantically left; no, right…

Which way did he go?

She was running out of time.

Each minute, he was getting farther away.

She pivoted right and broke into a sprint, checking each face she passed.

The barrier around him in her mind burst open like a floodgate.

…

"How could you think, even for a moment, that I would not still want you?"

…

"You're not replaceable, Emmeline. Not to me."

…

"I love you...I just had to be sure you knew...I haven't stopped."

…

"You're an absolute wonder, Emmeline Vance."

…

"I signed up for us a long time ago. So I'll still be right here whenever we make it out on the other end of this, no matter what happens."

…

Her lungs stung.

…

"I think holding you is the closest I will ever come to touching the dawn."

…

Her pace slowed.

…

"When everything crumbled, you remained."

…

She wandered into the middle of the street where she finally came to a stop, her chest heaving. The world seemed to expand around her; vast, cold, empty.

Empty.

It was too big. He could be anywhere.

He was gone.

He'd left.

Acid rose in her throat.

She staggered around the corner of a nearby building and hunched over, vomiting.

…

When she trudged back through the front door of the flat, it wasn't home anymore.

She'd walked back. She didn't know how far. She wasn't even sure how she found her way.

The sweat that covered her body had quickly chilled against her skin and left her shivering. Tears streamed ceaselessly down her cheeks, but she was too spent to really cry. Both her body and mind had reached their breaking point.

Her socks had ripped. Her feet were bleeding. She'd neglected her shoes.

She dragged herself only a little further, back into the bedroom. Sinking towards the floor, she tried to sit up against the side of the bed, but collapsed onto her hands before she made it all the way to the ground. Her legs felt as though they were made of rubber, and she didn't have enough control over her muscles to hold herself up any longer. Her exhales came out in small, vocal whimpers.

His voice reverberated in her mind while she ran.

She tried to pinpoint the moment she should have seen it coming.

How long had he been planning to abandon her here?

Had she done something wrong?

She needed to know why.

She felt behind her on the bed for the letter and brought it to her face. It was too dark now to see his scribblings.

"Lumos." Her voice ground out of her.

To my Emmeline,

I know exactly how you're going to feel. I must seem terribly callous to leave you with this letter rather than a proper goodbye, and for that I am unbelievably sorry. There will never be enough words, but I would not have found the strength to do the right thing if I had to face you.

I will not be coming back, so please, I beg of you not to waste any more of your time waiting for me to do so. More than anything, I want you to live a full life without having to wonder if I'll turn up unexpectedly. I know you promised you'd always wait, but I must ask you to break that promise.

I promised myself once that I'd never be the reason you got hurt ever again. It is because of that promise that I must leave you, not in spite of it.

I have spent the last month tormented by this decision. Having to relinquish my dream of living a life by your side has been pure agony. I should have left as soon as I realized the Wolfsbane was running out. I told you to forget about me, but I knew you would never leave for your own benefit. Your constant devotion tugged at my heart, and I understood then that I could not leave yet, not with the way things were between us. You would have come to the conclusion that I had stopped caring for you, and though it may have made things easier in the long run, it would not have been right.

So I had to make things right. I knew I needed to spend the night with you properly, one last time. I had wasted so many days shutting you out, trying to shield you from my miserable mind, and I could not part with you until I made you see how much I wish I could hold you in my arms forever. I thought, if I could only be with you once more like we used to before everything came crashing down around us, then you would understand, and I could find the will to let you go.

But after New Years Eve, I kept delaying. Each time I caught a glimpse of you smiling, or noticed the multitude of colors in your eyes, or felt how exquisitely you fit into my embrace, my resolve would weaken. We've both had to contend with so much loss, and I just could not loosen my grip around the last good thing to grace my life. I was selfish. I was a coward. I am a coward. I craved more nights with you, more time. Each time thinking, "Just a little longer, then I'll let go." I cannot adequately express to you the guilt I will carry for letting you believe that this meant I would stay.

I took, and I took, and I took; so covetous of your generous warmth and affection, the likes of which I never thought I'd encounter on this side of heaven.

Today, I'm giving it back. Today, my love, I set you free.

I will not subject you to a life of less than you deserve, Emmeline. I cannot permit my greed to deprive you of a proper future, nor can I let you squander your days trying to deliver me from my suffering. I know you too well, I'm afraid, and you've read too much Dickens. I know you would have sacrificed everything in vain to rescue me from myself. When you set your stubborn heart on something, you see it through to the end. So remove me from your heart, Emmeline. Tear me from it if you must.

I know this is not what you want; but it is what you need, even if you can't see it now. One day, you'll wake up in a beautiful house, next to someone who's worthy of all that you are, you'll hear your children stirring down the hallway, and you'll thank me for what I did. I desperately want all of those wonderful things for you, and deep down, I think we both know that I cannot be the one to provide them. You need somebody who is whole to help mend the broken parts of you that I cannot. Like Carton, let me make this sacrifice, so that you may find your Darnay.

The hypocrisy of all this is not lost on me. All the pain you must feel in this moment is not lost on me either, for it is a deep, aching pain that we both share. In the grand scheme of things, I feel fortunate to endure such a heartbreak. It has been such a privilege to know and to love you, my Emmeline, that, in a way, even the sting of losing you is a great honor that I never thought I would get to experience. Never question if I left because my love for you dwindled in the wake of the war's end, though there may have been times that my grief and my own shortcomings overshadowed my ability to show it. Everything within me has loved you since I was fifteen years old, and has never stopped - not for a moment. I don't believe it ever will. I love you far more than you could ever know, and you've shown me far more love than I ever could have hoped for. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for letting a wretch like me into your beautiful world.

You will always be my curious girl from the bridge. My kiss in the hospital cot. My best winters. My sleepless nights. My sunrise after the full moon.

Thank you for six years of sunlight. Rise now, and leave my darkness behind you.

Forever, Your Remus

The paper fell from her gasp again, and she hugged her arms tightly around her abdomen to stop herself from screaming. Her chest spasmed.

No.

No.

No.

He was wrong.

He'd made a mistake.

This was all a terrible mistake.

Emmeline could not allow herself to believe that he would've gone if he knew she'd be here on the floor about to completely unravel. If he truly understood how she would feel, he wouldn't have left; he couldn't've.

She could recall something had happened that morning; something out of the ordinary that tipped her off. But the memory got displaced in Selwyn's attack. The details were lost to her now. She couldn't really remember her morning at all.

She could remember how he kissed her in the bathroom when she was bruised.

He held her so tightly that night.

And nearly every night since then.

She thought they were turning a corner.

No; not because he was returning to her.

Because he was bidding her farewell.

A long, slow, poisonous farewell.

She'd spend the rest of her life retracing her steps, rethinking everything.

This wasn't mercy, it was misery.

She promised she'd always wait for him.

Did her promises mean nothing?

Were his own promises more important?

This letter did not make any of it better.

If anything, it only twisted the knife.

She felt as though she had failed some kind of test.

She felt as though she'd taught him to leave.

This betrayal was greater than heartbreak; that word didn't adequately capture the breadth of the agony that felt as though it would cleave her open.

She needed help, she needed one of her friends to help her find him.

It wasn't until she lifted her wand again that her memory caught up to her:

She didn't have any friends left.

She was completely, and utterly alone.

Silence never felt so near.