Evangeline could hardly comprehend her husband’s leniency as of late. He had allowed her to go to Scrivenshaft’s to buy a new quill, and now he was letting her go to High Street to window shop. Could it be possible? Edward was usually a very careful man when it came to her; he didn’t trust her and Evangeline knew it. However, perhaps she had finally proven herself to be trustworthy to be allowed a little freedom.

Edward’s house was quite grand, but it got rather boring when cooped up there day after day. She had read so many books that she had become tired of reading. She had (whether anyone would believe her or not) taken up practicing the piano again, but she had began to practice after she became tired of book-reading and now that had become rather dull. She had become restless and fidgety after both of those amusements became tiresome—and she never was a girl who could sit still for very long. Even after everything, it was the one aspect of herself she couldn’t shake. The desire to do something, to be productive. Lounging about the house was something she was never capable of for long. So this slight sense of freedom – slight, as she still was escorted by two chaperones – was exhilarating for the young wife.

Once Evangeline and her two chaperones (her lady’s maid and one of the under-butlers) could see High Street from the carriage, Evangeline asked the carriage driver to stop. The three clambered out of the carriage – Evangeline more gracefully than the servants – and began to meander down the sidewalk. Evangeline, after all, was in no rush to return to Edward’s house.

As they walked, the Quidditch Supply Store caught her eye. Typically, one to never heed to her old desires, Evangeline ignored her inner cautionary conscience and urged her entourage to cross the street. They reluctantly complied, but she had no intention of going into the store. She knew better. She simply wished to look and admire the brooms displayed in the window. The sight of them made her yearn for the life she once had. How she had loved flying in school. It was a shame to her that she had only been allowed to play Quidditch for just one year…

One broom caught her eye, in particular. It was a model that looked like it had Elias’s handiwork in it. The thought of Elias brought forth a pain that she was all too familiar with. She thought of him often, though she would deny it to anyone she was acquainted with now. No one ever understood her love for Elias. Her family thought she had gone mad and society had thought so, too. Why would a daughter of a perfectly respectable pureblood family fall in love with a middle class halfblood broom-maker anyway?

Today's outing to Quality Quidditch Supplies had been strictly broomstick business, though Elias always had the temptation to dawdle. He'd lingered in the shop just a little, even stopped to chat with the manager, catch up on the latest events of the quidditch season. He was in a remarkably good mood. The new broomstick might make the market by November and he was keeping up with his orders as well. He'd actually stopped to go to bed in bed and not just slumped over the worktop with woodshavings and resin stuck to his cheek. And while he didn't have much of what one considered a 'social life', he was starting to think perhaps he could actually remedy this somehow. You know, one day.

Or he could stop into the Three Broomsticks today before he went home and rolled up his sleeves, back to work. Or maybe he ought to drop by and see Quin in Honeydukes; in fact, he hadn't been in Honeydukes, excuse or not, in far too long. He pondered this as he left the shop, letting the door swing wide as he glanced left and right -

In some other universe he might have escaped unscathed, might not have noticed her at all. She looked different, somehow, different in a way he couldn't explain. But it was her, and there she was, and his heart felt like it had shot out of his chest, jagged shards of an explosion preventing him from breathing, slicing through his gut. In that moment his body could have crumpled to the floor, finally reminded of the truth what an empty shell it had become.

What he should have done was walk away, move on before she noticed him, avoid the whole situation. If he'd happened to see her through the window, Elias wasn't sure he would have had the bravery to step out of the store at all. But his feet were leaden and he didn't want to leave. His mouth had opened, every fibre of him ready to say her name, but no sound had come out as he took stock of the situation. She was there - accompanied by a man and a woman, though not her husband, it seemed - and he hadn't the faintest idea what he would even say to her after catching her attention. He wondered if she would want to see him, and doubted it. Whatever Elias still felt - and what he did, he had nearly truly believed he'd actually buried, once and for all - he had become certain she must hate him now. But maybe she was happy, and she'd forgotten him. Elias supposed, if there was one thing he wanted to learn from her, it was that. (And how he'd wished to pass her by for months after her marriage, just to catch a glimpse of her in her new life, just to see her smiling instead of crying as she had been the last time they'd been together.)

Still standing there, utterly frozen, Elias was certain she had sensed his presence, his dumbfounded eyes on her, by now. At a loss of words, his eyes dared to try and meet hers, offering her the barest hint of a smile. He wouldn't talk to her, he resolved in case she was forbidden to acknowledge him in any way. In case she didn't want him to.

Part of him prayed Evangeline would be braver than he.

Evangeline had noticed Elias Grimstone through the window. His figure had caught her eye as he shook hands with one of the shop folk. Her breath caught for a moment and her heart began to pound beneath her breast. The feeling scared her because she knew she still loved him, but it had been so long since she had seen him. She wanted to nothing more than to be closer to him, to touch his face, and to feel his lips on hers. Oh, how she missed him! She felt her heart begin to ache as it beat against her ribs, almost like it was trying to get out and give itself away to him. To give itself away because she couldn’t. She had tried, but her family had denied her whatever joy she could have had in this life.

She couldn’t take her eyes off of him, but she knew she shouldn’t linger. It would make things difficult for her, seeing him again. It would bring up the feelings she obviously still felt, even after a year of being separated from him. But he was her hope, her joy—she had given her heart and soul to him. He was everything to her; he kept her breathing. She wished she could tell him that, but instead she had to collect herself. She couldn’t betray her feelings to her escorts; if she did, no doubt they would go and tell their master.

Merlin’s beard! Would they know him? Would they recognize who he was? Panic began to rise within her. What if they knew his face? What if they knew very well who he was?

No emotion. Don’t show anything! her mind screamed. It took her a moment, but she managed to gather her wits before she lost it all entirely. She didn’t know if her servants had noticed anything, but if they had, they didn’t say anything.

Her eyes refocused on the window and she saw that Elias was no longer inside. She wanted to cry, but her face remained placid for her audience. It was then that she realized he was standing just a few feet away from her. Mouth gaping and pain blatant in his eyes. She wished she could reciprocate, to reveal all that she was feeling, but she couldn’t. Instead she buried her own pain, despite the moistness of her eyes, and smiled the best she could. She couldn’t allow herself to cry, but she wanted—she prayed that she could somehow secretly convey how much she still loved him.

“Hello, Mr. Grimstone,” she greeted. “What a lovely surprise! I was just admiring this broom here. It’s one of yours, isn’t it?”

What a lovely surprise. What a lovely surprise. He didn't know what he'd been expecting her to say - if anything at all - but this was so surreal it was painful. His gaze jerked away from her at those words, and even though he thought he'd seen something welling up in them, tears, emotion, something -

He gritted his teeth, despite himself. He couldn't imagine any universe in which Evangeline could possibly mean those words, because there was no way she could be happy to see him, and even if he was glad, in a way, to see her, the circumstances were far from lovely. What could she mean, then? Everything had changed, and perhaps she had changed with it; she had a new life, a new husband, a new start, and perhaps, with that, a new adherence to social customs. She had done her duty as a daughter, and was now the model wife Elias was sure she had never wanted to be. Her face was blank, but for that smile. Pleasant, but impersonal. A pretty bird in a cage, leading a soulless life.

The guilt flooded in. He inclined his head.

"Mrs. -" Oh, god, he wanted to choke. He'd never had to say it out loud before. "Mrs. Rowle."

But perhaps that was not the truth. There was an alternative, an alternative he tried to search for in the scene, in her, without quite being able to meet her eyes again. It had been a long time. Long enough, by a mile, to have seen her moved on. She had forgotten everything of him - save his name, and his profession - and had found her well-deserved happiness where she had always been meant to find it. That was better. If she was happy, then she might bear him no ill will, and this was perhaps an attempt to be kind.

Hope battled with that guilt, that he would see proof of her contentment. "How do you do?"

There was one more thought, and that was the idea that she might have felt every acute sense he had upon seeing her again. As precise as needles pricking skin, every remembrance had returned at once, all too real. If she felt just a fraction of what he did, even now... She wouldn't have been able to show it, anyway. Maybe Evangeline was simply better at disguising it than he.

But that notion was unlikely. A year should have dampened, deadened, numbed the feeling, if nothing else. (Elias didn't know how the longing had managed to burst back in him, more potent than ever, but somehow it had.)

And, whichever theory was true, the fact remained that he had to do more than stand there and nod. He forced himself to glance at the window display. "Yes - yes, it is." And before he could help himself, halt his tongue in its tracks, he had asked, trying to be equally cool and casual and conversational, "What do you think of it?" She had been admiring it, she said, but who knew if that were mere politeness. And she wouldn't have anything to say anymore, not about brooms, would she? Surely she didn't fly much anymore? He had been under that assumption; perhaps that was why he was all the more astounded to see her here, of all places.

Mrs. Rowle. The words coming from his lips was like an arrow penetrating her very core. It caused her expression to falter, the mask falling. Her eyes began to water and shameful blush rose in her cheeks. Those words were a defilement of his lips; he should never have to say them. Suddenly Evangeline felt guilty for lingering, for wanting to see him, for conversing with him. She had wanted to feel close to him again—just for a moment, but reality came crashing through, showing that she was further away from him than she could be: entirely out of reach.

She resisted a sniff and batted the tears away. Her face still felt warm, but she tried to not let it bother her. She needed to be selfish; she needed this pained happiness and hoped that Elias could forgive her for it.

She didn’t—couldn’t answer his question. How are you? Terrible. Miserable. Awful. Dead. The question was just a pleasantry after all and Evangeline didn’t feel pleasant. Instead she averted her eyes, blush coming deeper into her cheeks.

When he confirmed that the broom was of his design, Evangeline looked at the broom in the window. She lifted her gloved hand and touched the glass. Her eyes softened, her brow slightly wrinkled.

“I think it’s beautiful,” she said, almost in a whisper. “Beautifully crafted; beautifully designed…”

She braved a look at him, her brow unwrinkled, her overall expression placid, except her eyes. Something to show that the feelings were still there; they hadn’t changed. She didn’t blame him or hate him. She wished she could blame herself for not being stronger, but she couldn’t. Her family had poked and prodded and all but ripped her heart from her chest to get her to succumb to their wishes. She hated them.

The thought of her family and the thought of her situation (her marriage) caused whatever life in her eyes to die, to retreat back to its cage.

“I’m sure many of the Quidditch players, professional and otherwise, would be quite successful in their game if they owned one. It looks fast,” she said, her voice pleasant but empty again.

He had been waiting to recoil once more at whatever she said next, at however she answered his question of how she was. It was why Elias was avoiding her gaze, too much dreading any answer she might give. If she were happy, he didn't want to hear it. If she wasn't, it might be worse.

But she didn't answer at all. So, despite himself, he caught it out of the corner of his eye, that moment her face changed... the way she looked crestfallen, almost, as if she were about to cry.

Elias stared blankly at the broomstick display, almost as if he didn't recognise it. He watched her gloved hand on the glass instead, feeling as though the real glass was between them, looking through windows into other lives. She was faraway, a little distorted, out of focus round the edges. He tried to do more than skirt around the edges, see her properly.

And it hit him. She was still there. She was still Evangeline. And he felt the same way about her as he always had. That dazzling clarity deafened him; he nearly missed her words. "Thank you," he croaked, his voice not much louder than hers. They were simple, meaningless words, that thank you, but they as well have been forbidden, for all he meant with them.

There was an itch in him that longed to take her hands in his and be more obvious about this reunion - this reunion he'd been past expecting, this reunion that wouldn't really change anything, let alone make anything better - but he restrained himself utterly. He nodded again at her further comments on the broom, for once in his life wishing every broomstick be damned to hell and forgotten about. "Well, one would hope so," Elias replied, drifting into the sort of cheerful, absent-minded, mixed-up rambling that came naturally enough when he was fixated on other matters. "This one was originally exclusive to the Skyrockets, you see -" no, that wasn't right, the Skyrocket was the broom, idiot, " - the Cannons, I mean, so with any luck it did help them along in the last league." Right this moment, all of the Chudley Cannons' match results had flown from his mind, and he didn't care a jot. "But yes, it was intended to be speedy," Elias agreed, and he might have shrugged a little if his body hadn't still been frozen, taking cues from his emotions rather than his reason. "I don't suppose you attend many quidditch matches, though," he remarked, showing only as much interest as was polite in his tone. His eyes were conveying something else entirely, and he hoped she knew how much he had truly missed her. How much he hoped she was still alright.

Evangeline attempted to hide a smile when Elias fumbled with his words. It reminded her of better days: days she had spent with him, unrestricted and free. She was thankful for those days. Although they didn’t give a reason for her to keep going, to keep hoping that someday things would be better, they were memories she could get lost in to ignore her current life. Could it really even be called that? she wondered momentarily, but it was a thought best saved for another time. Right now, she wanted to be where she was, not off in her head. This bittersweet meeting, this fleeting moment was today’s life sustenance.

She listened intently as he rambled, memorizing his voice and face all over again—not that she really needed to; his voice was like a favorite song in her head, constantly playing over and over again. But she soaked him in as much as she could. She studied his face, making note of any minor change in his features from what she remembered. If she hadn’t been so enraptured in her current task, she might have wondered if this is how it was going to be for the rest of her life. Was she going to continue gazing at him from afar, wishing that she could be with him until her last breath passed from her lips? She didn’t care about her future days of wishing. They didn’t matter right now.

When he commented on her not likely seeing any Quidditch games, Evangeline nodded in confirmation. “I don’t get to see very many Quidditch games these days,” she added to her silent confirmation. “I would love to see the Skyrocket in action, but…” She couldn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t want Elias to know just how unhappy she was. It wouldn’t be fair to him. “... life’s just been a bit too busy for me lately,” she decided to say, a strained but gentle smile on her face.

“It’s amazing how busy one can become when certain events take place,” she mumbled, the phrase coming out more contemptuous than she had originally planned. Her eyes widened at the sound of it, but maybe Elias wouldn’t notice.

He could almost lie to himself, that things were suddenly normal again, as natural as they had used to be, that air of boldness and ignorance that had come too well coupled with careless happiness. He was sure she had nearly smiled.

But - now that he had stopped talking, before he could get carried away again - Elias would not lie to himself. That had been a hard enough lesson learnt the first time round, that self-deception would get him nowhere in the end.

Still, the temptation of talking to Evangeline was still too strong to resist. He chanced a smile back, something to be taken publicly as sympathy for not seeing quidditch much, but intended internally as evidence of how glad he was that he had gotten to see her.

There was an unspoken lull of all the impossibilities they faced in Evangeline's pause mid-sentence, but Elias just looked at her, trying bravely not to be dragged down by the starkness of that awful notion. His brow furrowed at her 'certain events' and her tone, but he did not say anything aloud, and how could he?

"That's quite understandable. I'm sure you have plenty of better things to do," he said, neutrally, the continuation a softer admission. "I have found that the one advantage of always keeping busy is how consuming it can be... keeps your mind off things." There, of course, he was only speaking for himself - and how successful a technique it had proven was an issue to contested - but Elias was sure she would understand. That that had been the way he had coped, the only way he was able. He had always been involved in his work, but in the past year, he had thrown himself into so relentlessly that he might have never surfaced and simply drowned instead. And as much as anyone could complain, at least it was productive moping.

Elias could not imagine - did not want to imagine - how Evangeline was kept busy these days. What did upper class wives do to while away their days, exactly? How much did her husband let her do, at all? Despite the merry band of followers she had scrutinising her every step - he refused to look at them, to see any of them look at him - at least it appeared that Rowle was not keeping Evangeline wholly under lock and key. Please be happy. Elias' prompting words were slow and stilted and a far cry from his usual rambling, trying to analyse her expression for the answers to her current state of being. "In any case, I hope your daily occupations are... to your taste."

sorry for the wait <3

His chanced smile in return of hers warmed her to her very core. She hoped that her entourage wouldn’t see the emotions, the unspeakable words swimming in their eyes. They lingered close by, but not too close. Still, it was best for her not to gaze into his eyes for too long; they would certainly become suspicious then, if they weren’t already. Evangeline didn’t brave to look behind her to learn their expressions. No doubt, they would be unhappy with their mistress lingering on High Street. After all, they were as eager to walk High Street as she had been. But she couldn’t allow herself to depart from Elias’s company just yet. No, just a little longer! her soul screamed.

As Elias spoke, telling her that busyness was a good way to keep one’s self distracted from the things that truly pained them, Evangeline felt envy stir in her. Ah, to be busy! to have an occupation and not be idle! Evangeline wished that she could say her life was full of things to do, but the life of an upper class wife was hardly one that demanded occupation. Evangeline didn’t understand how her sisters—or how any upper class woman, for that matter—could manage it. It was enough to drive her insane! Of course, she wasn’t trusted like most upper class wives were. Other wives, she reasoned, probably had greater freedoms than she. They had the ability to go to High Street as often as they chose and occupy themselves with some senseless purpose of busyness.

Evangeline didn’t know how to respond to her beloved’s well-wishes. Her daily occupations were nowhere near to her tastes. Every morning she put on a mask of serenity, peace, and contentment. She played her part of the Good Wife. But secretly, she wandered the house and the small grounds of her husband’s Wellingtonshire home and drowned in her thoughts. The what could have beens and if onlys, dreaming of the life that she wanted – a life with Elias – rather than existing into the life she had.

“Thank you” was all she could think to say. “It’s as best to be expected, though I wish I had more daily occupations. There’s so little for me to do sometimes,” she confessed.

So little for her to do. "Well, I'm sure you'll find something," Elias reassured her, though lightly, as distant as he could keep himself. Idleness certainly didn't seem like her. Neither did giving up. She could be resourceful, if she wanted. Of course, Elias' notions of 'what seemed like Evangeline' were redundant now; he had no right to them, and they were horribly out-of-date. She was in a different situation now, different even to her life before. These things didn't stand. Subversion was no longer an option.

Even so. He had to hope she would find a way to make the best of her situation, if she had not come to like it in itself yet. The way he consoled himself, when he had to, with the feebly repeated 'it was all for the best', was to convince himself again that Evangeline would not have been happy in the life he could have offered her, either. It would not have ended well. She had grown up knowing so much more, deserved so much more than a little Bartonburg house and a modest income. He would be working all the time still, she'd have been bored. She'd have lost out on her friends, her family, her reputation would have been damaged so much more. But even that life would have been impossible: her family would never have allowed it to happen.

Elias let those shimmering reflections sink back down to rest. Better to leave the bed of imagined alternate universes murky and deep.

But without it, and eliminating all thought of memory, too, what was there left to be said to her? Past and future aside, she was a mere acquaintance now. He oughtn't keep her. "I hope you're well, though," he added intently, willing it to be true as he peered at her, despite what her general demeanour seemed to be saying on her account. 'And your husband', he didn't add.