Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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Penelope is the one to take him to the airport. Always.

It had become a ritual of sorts years before. Colin had been so excited for that very first trip, but also so insanely scared of the unknown, and she was the only one to see through the façade, to know that keeping a brave face for his mum and Anthony was becoming too much of a burden. So, Penelope offered to drive him to the airport, knowing that another goodbye with one of the others would likely be too painful, and while he initially hesitated, he eventually said yes.

That first initial goodbye was a bit awkward and drawn out, a clumsy hug and kiss to the cheek outside of Ticketing at Heathrow. They were friends, the way two people thrust together by mutual relationships and circumstances are destined to be, but not much more. Penelope had loved him then, quietly and confidently and without remorse, and was already learning how to exist under the burden of unrequited love. Colin had thrown a promise to write over his shoulder as he made his way towards security, and she had smiled and waved and did not believe he truly meant it.

But he did.

With time, and despite the physical distance that always lingered between them, friends became something more, something undefinable, something crucial to their very existence.

And now, here they are, a decade later, outside of Ticketing at Heathrow, facing yet another goodbye.

“I am going to miss you,” Colin whispers into her hair as he envelops her in a hug.

The warmth of him is familiar, comforting, and she holds him against her. Sighs a little when she moves to let go, but he pulls her into him once more.

When he does finally pull back, there is a moment where he still does not let go. His hands loosen but fall to her hips, holding her. She tilts her head back to look at him and watches as his gaze drops to her mouth. The energy shifts as tension builds, and she has spent a lifetime loving Colin Bridgerton, so she knows every single one of his secrets, every single one of his tells, and there is something different and dangerous in the way he looks at her then.

Her breath hitches, then releases.

Colin inhales her exhale, his gaze still on her mouth.

Penelope feels herself leaning forward, tilting her chin just a fraction of a centimetre. She has always been tethered to him in some inexplicable way, but throughout the years, she has become adept at teaching herself to ignore and forget, to never expect more, to stop wanting more.

Now, her fingers tangle in the fabric of his jacket, pulling him closer just as someone passes by and bumps into him slightly, pressing him fully into her. By his feet is his suitcase, a reminder of the fleeting nature of the moment, of his presence, of the mere idea of possibility.

“Penelope, I…” he trails off, gaze flicking from hers to her mouth and back again. He reaches for her, palm tender and warm against her cheek. “May I?”

“Yes.”

Her body is stretching forward, leaning into his on its own volition before the word has even left her mouth. It is a bad idea, with terrible timing, but it also feels inexplicably right. He has been home for a month this time, in between assignments, and every glance, every touch, every moment shared has felt like more. They have flirted with each other and with the line drawn between them for the entirety of his visit, for years really, and she is so very tired of wondering what he tastes like, what his mouth would feel like against hers.

So, Penelope kisses Colin, and Colin kisses her back—harder and deeper and more desperately than she could have ever conceived in even her wildest of fantasies. He tastes like coffee and mint, and something she can only assume is wholly him. The kiss is wonderful, and leaves her breathless, and she pulls away after a moment to simply breathe, but he chases her mouth for more, his hands tangling in her hair and digging in as their bodies mould and move together.

“Oi?! You two lovebirds are blocking the walkway. Move it along already.”

The voice breaks them apart immediately, but both are too preoccupied to feel a hint of shame. He presses a chaste kiss to the corner of her mouth. Rests his forehead against hers. His palms are still cupping her face, the pads of his thumbs drawing the faint line of her cheekbones.

“I—”

“—Have to go. I know.”

There is a moment, both brief and torturous, when he searches her face intently. It is hard, always, to remain neutral under the intensity of his gaze, and she looks away first. Then, she starts to untangle herself from him. Again, his touch lingers, holding her to him. When he finally lets go, she feels the loss of him immediately.

“Text me when you land?” she asks.

He nods. Just once. His eyes flicker over her face, searching. He must not find what he is looking for because he simply presses his mouth into a thin line.

“Always.”

*

Panic kicks in the moment she is safe in the confines of her car.

Pulling out her phone, she types out a text. Deletes it. Re-types it. Deletes that too.

They had stood in those types of moments together before, that brief span of time that comes before every kiss, where time slows and tension rises, but the mind is still able to think clearly. They’ve stood on that precipice before, side by side, but Penelope’s brain had always spun this is a bad idea on a continuous reel, the words too loud to ignore.

It does the same now, albeit a bit too late.

Penelope drives back to her flat with the windows down and the volume on the aux turned up high, trying to drown out the mess inside her head.

When she knows his flight is in the air, she does what she does best and acts out of self-preservation.

Penelope to Colin Bridgerton
1 May 2025
[08:25]

Penelope: Poor timing, yeah?
Penelope: Just a kiss between friends who were caught up in the moment
Penelope: Let’s not make it weird

Colin’s response comes half a day later, in the middle of the night for her:

Colin Bridgerton to Penelope
2 May 2025
[03:45]

Colin Bridgerton: If that’s what you want

She doesn’t see it until the next morning. Colin has already sent several subsequent memes and texts about his itinerary and photos of the view from his hotel room.

Penelope takes it as a cue to forget, to keep moving forward.

One of those things is far easier than the other.

*

Things continue on as she supposes they were always meant to: Colin leaves, and Penelope stays.

It is a cycle they started years before, during that very first trip abroad. At times, their physical distance felt insurmountable but was eased with texts and phone calls, then FaceTimes when those became a thing. There were emails when stories were particularly too long-winded to be contained to a minimum amount of characters, or the time difference stood in their way.

After their kiss, they find ease once more in the predictability of their routines and, perhaps, for the very first time, comfort in the physical distance between them. He is on assignment this time in the jungles of Asia, half a world away, and while the time difference makes actual phone calls few and far between, their correspondence never falters. She wakes most mornings to his inane musings and goes to sleep just after texting him her own. Conversations are ongoing and interspersed with the exchange of memes and gifs and reels in between (never tiktoks because Penelope refuses to add another app, doesn’t want to feel the need to follow him in yet another medium).

The frequency of their correspondence sometimes slows, but it never stops.

Sometimes, during lonely nights after even lonelier days, Penelope wonders how they manage to spend all this time talking without saying anything at all.

*

They do not talk about the kiss.

Until they do.

On a Wednesday, three weeks later, Penelope wakes up to a series of texts sent the night before.

Colin Bridgerton to Penelope
20 May 2025
[21:57]

Colin Bridgerton: I shouldn’t have left, Pen
Colin Bridgerton: Fuck
Colin Bridgerton: That kiss
Colin Bridgerton: I wish I had stayed
Colin Bridgerton: I need you to know that
Colin Bridgerton: [This message was deleted]
Colin Bridgerton: [This message was deleted]

Outside, it is raining, the steady downpour hitting her window in a cadence that would typically soothe her but does little to quell the way her heart stops and restarts inside her chest. The force with which it begins to pound against her ribcage overwhelms her. She reads and rereads the texts, her hands shaking as she holds her phone, her thumbs pausing over the keyboard. Her mind is blank, filled with static and memories of him replaying on a continuous loop. There is no answer Penelope can think of that doesn’t give herself away, that doesn’t give what little she has left that has not already been given to him, so she simply responds with nothing.

Closes the app. Tosses her phone to the side. Tries to go back to sleep but can only think of that kiss, the way he had tasted, the perfect fit of him against her.

She cannot help but wonder if he is somewhere thinking of her, too.

*

He must feel regret and overwhelm at some point, because hours later, there is another series of texts:

Colin Bridgerton to Penelope
21 May 2025
[13:57]

Colin Bridgerton: I drank too much last night.
Colin Bridgerton: My travelmate had some lao-Lao which is delicious but wicked strong and
Colin Bridgerton: That’s not the point
Colin Bridgerton: Sorry I made it weird
Colin Bridgerton: When we specifically agreed not to make it weird

Dread starts to fill a pit deep in her gut. It is not unfamiliar, but it weighs her down, makes the panic stick in her throat. She should have responded that morning, she knows, but the part of her that avoids confrontation at all costs with everyone and never wants to disrupt their equilibrium hoped he would simply move on.

Because she needs to. She wants to.

The thing about existing with the burden of unrequited love etched into your skin and bones is that you grow accustomed to its weight, at times even managing to forget it is there. It becomes a part of you, intrinsic to your very being, but then, when something happens to make it known once more, the weight is suddenly unbearable again.

They have not talked about the kiss, and she does not think about it, as a rule, but she dreams of him, and only him. She wakes most mornings wanting for things she has long since believed she can never have. Would never have.

She has always worked best when she deals in facts, in absolutes. When she maintains consistency. She relies on that habit now.

Penelope: You didn't make it weird
Penelope: It is what it is
Colin Bridgerton: What do you mean?
Penelope: I mean you had to leave. I don't fault you for that
Penelope: And we were just caught up in the moment

She can see the dots appear, disappear, and appear again.

Colin Bridgerton: That was some moment, Pen.

She hesitates.

Then:

Penelope: It was

*

The following weekend, after a few days of being off the grid for travel, Colin FaceTimes her from Dubai.

It’s late afternoon for him, nearly lunchtime for her. She is still in her bed, covers to her chin and trash television filling her mindless Saturday afternoon. Still, she answers by the second ring, bleary-eyed from zoning out for far too long but also suddenly wide awake. His grin is wide and infectious when the video connects. He greets her with his customary Hiya, Pen then pans the camera around. He’s on the observation deck of the Burj Khalifa, so high up that she can see the crystal blue waters in the distance. It is a view she knows he has seen countless times before, one he returns to due to its sheer magnitude and engineering marvel, but also because it never fails to make him feel like the world is somehow both endless and insignificant.

As the sun begins to set along the horizon, the surface of the Arabian Gulf is just beginning to be painted with brilliant hues of orange and blue.

“It reminded me of you,” he says, still off-screen.

The view, combined with the subtle amount of wistfulness and sheer contentment in his voice, makes her chest hurt.

*

Penelope does not wait for him. Not before and certainly not now.

This is important for her to note.

She falls in and out of lust and in and out of love. She builds a life that she is entirely content and mostly happy with.

Her love for Colin is something that simply is.

Early on, when she was young and horribly naive, she felt consumed by her love for him and burdened by the feeling of failure that encompassed her when she realised he did not, would not, could not love her back. She learned this was a fallacy created in her own mind, that her feelings for him were as uncontrolled as his lack of feelings for her. Penelope chose to stay his friend, knowing her life was better and far richer with him in it, but with time, she is comforted by the realisation that she does not need Colin in her life.

It is vital, this distinction, because it provides her with control.

When he is away, her life does not devolve into chaos. She does not wither, and she does not wait. She has a life that is completely separate from him. She has routines and friendships, relationships with his siblings and his mum that are entirely independent of him.

When he is away, she moves and keeps moving.

She adjusts. She endures. She thrives.

She misses him, but the act of missing him becomes as intrinsic as the act of loving him, and yet another thing she carries with her.

But after—

Everything is different.

*

Penelope wakes up to three redacted texts on a Saturday, a month into him being gone.

He is in Cairo now—she thinks. It has been hard to keep up during this assignment. Colin is a well-sought-after photographer, and his publisher has paired him with a prolific journalist who is doing a series of articles that has them in eleven locations in as many weeks. He is at the start of a one-year contract, something he has earned through hard work and is a pretty big deal—even though he would never remark on it. The last time they had talked, he was at an airport, and his flight was delayed by an entire day. He had sounded exhausted, and without the usual enthusiasm for adventure he typically carries despite any and all inconveniences that come along with the job. She had stayed up with him for as long as she could, keeping him company. She fell asleep with the phone tucked between her pillow and face. He had hung up and sent her a text about how cute her snoring was. She had flushed, embarrassed, but also a bit delighted that he knew that about her now.

Her response to his redacted texts and lack of even a greeting is a single question mark. She doesn’t expect a response, but his is instant, even despite the time difference that separates them.

Colin Bridgerton to Penelope
7 June 2025
[07:23]

Colin Bridgerton: I was being weird
Colin Bridgerton: After we promised we wouldn’t make it weird
Colin Bridgerton: Sorry

Something catches in her throat. Without thought, she starts to scroll up, back hundreds of messages to the ones he sent a week before about their kiss. She’s thought about it a million times since—what he felt bold enough to say and what he did not. She stops herself immediately.

Penelope: You’re always weird
Penelope: Probably wasn’t a fair ask

Colin Bridgerton: Rude

After a few minutes of silence, Colin sends her a reel that has her giggling. They exchange a few back-and-forth, and they do what they always do—keep moving forward.

*

Later that evening, she has a date. A third one with a friend of Kate and Anthony’s, not a lawyer, but someone in their circle. His name is Aiden. He is handsome. Smart and dependable, and knows nothing about photography, and likes to travel, but only so far, and is very interested in learning everything about her. They go to a nice restaurant, and he holds her hand and listens to her ramble on about her day. Tells her she looks beautiful, in a tone that is filled with both awe and affection. Things with Aiden are simple and easy, and every look, every touch is purposeful, filled with the promise of more, and Penelope welcomes the consistency. Welcomes the reprieve from having to read between the lines in an effort to decipher any hidden meanings.

After dinner and drinks, in the back of the taxi, he puts his hand on her knee, and she shifts into him. He murmurs, come back to mine with the perfect amount of apprehension and want. She feels herself nod and shudders at the way his fingers graze higher on her thigh.

Instantly, Penelope wonders if Colin likes it in the car.

The thought pops into her mind, completely unbidden, and she becomes angry with the way the arousal coils deftly in her stomach at the mere thought.

She does not allow herself to think about Colin again until later, after she has feigned a headache with the promise of another date soon and is tucked away in her flat. A wine glass dangles between her fingers, nearly empty, and she reaches forward for the bottle of Pinot on the coffee table to refill it. A text from Aiden comes through, but she swipes it away without reading it. Alcohol makes her both clumsy and brave, and she allows herself a moment to do what she could not before: she scrolls up, through hundreds of messages and pictures and gifs, and settles on the texts from over a week ago.

I shouldn’t have left, he had said.

That kiss, he had written.

Her curiosity piques with her tipsiness and overtakes her.

Penelope to Colin Bridgerton
7 June 2025
[22:05]

Penelope: Did you think about it before?

The blue dots appear instantly. She sits up straighter on the sofa. Places her wine carefully to the side. Waits. Wonders, briefly, if she should have clarified what she meant, but—

Colin Bridgerton: Kissing you?

Penelope: Yes

Colin’s replies are immediate:

Colin Bridgerton: Then yes
Colin Bridgerton: Have you?

Her belly clenches.

Penelope: Yes

The feel of her phone vibrating in her hand startles her. Their picture, one from years before at Daphne’s wedding, blinks up at her in the dim light of her living room. Her throat dries instantly. Her fingers are shaking as she presses the button to connect the call.

“I can’t stop thinking about that kiss, Pen,” he says in a rush, not even bothering with a greeting. His voice is dark and thick, heavy with something she doesn’t quite recognise.

The debate wars within her mind for half a beat before she gives in and takes a leap. “Me either.”

“Yeah?”

The bit of hope laced in the word causes something to swell within her chest.

“Yes,” she breathes, resolute and bold, and he sighs something heavy and relieved in response.

There is rustling, the sounds of him making himself comfortable, and she does the same, falling back into the cushions of her sofa. She closes her eyes. Imagines him in bed, in her bed. Forces them back open immediately.

“I wanted to hear your voice,” he says. “I miss your voice. I miss you, Pen.”

It does something to her, always, to hear him say that, but he says it now with a note of desperation that makes her ache. She wonders, briefly, if he’s drunk. Almost asks him. But she’s known him for years, knows him better than anybody, and the pitch and sharpness of his tone are too serious, too deep for that to be true.

“I miss you too,” she says, almost in a whisper.

“Penelope.”

His voice is low, strangled almost, and she is able to finally recognise the heaviness behind it as desire. As want. She thinks back days and weeks, to text messages sent and unsent, to the way he had looked at her as they said goodbye, the way he had kissed her, the way he had kept kissing her. She thinks back further, months and a year, perhaps even two, and is able to see in his actions and inactions what she taught herself to stop looking for a lifetime ago.

“I wish you were here.”

It’s honest and safe, something she has said to him a million times over throughout their friendship, but it rips something guttural from him, a moan and whine rolled into one.

“I wish…” Colin starts and stops. Hisses an inhale.

The silence that follows gives them space to mind their boundaries, that line boldly drawn and redrawn between them. Both remain quiet, nothing but their breaths echoing over the line.

Their mutual inaction reads as permission.

Penelope closes her eyes again, bites at her lip, reaches a hand between her legs, and into her knickers because his voice has her aching. She’s soaked, has been since she thought of him in the taxi, and a delicious thrill runs along her spine. This isn’t the first time she’s touched herself to thoughts of him, but it is the first time she has done so with the sound of his breathing in her ear. With him knowing. With him wanting her to. She feels the pressure spark and build, take over, and she has barely even touched herself.

The phone is cradled between her shoulder and neck, one hand pressing fully against her cunt, the other slipping under the cotton of her shirt, grazing the curve of her breast just before squeezing. She realises, suddenly, that it is his shirt she’s wearing, an old sports tee she nicked from him over a decade before.

She flicks her thumb against her clit as the sound of his breaths quicken. She thinks about his hands in his boxers, palming his cock, thinking about this, about her. Wants to ask him if he’s jerked himself off to thoughts of her before, but is too afraid of what his answer may be.

Tells him instead, “I’m wearing your shirt.”

Colin’s breathing becomes rough in her ear, panting almost. “Fuck,” he gasps, like the word is wrenched from his lungs. “Are you—”

“—Yes.”

The next words fall out of his mouth, jumbled and in a rush, so quickly she wonders how long he has been trying to contain them. “I wish I were there. Wish I could see you—Taste you. Can’t stop thinking about what you taste like. I want to make you come, Pen. Will you let me make you come?”

The sound of him begging causes her knees to spread more, her hips jerking to chase the pressure of her hand. It’s usually hard for her to do this, to get herself off with nothing but her fingers—even if he is typically the only thought on her mind at the time. It has to be a whole thing, an event almost, because she is never able to get out of her head long enough to relax. But he is with her now, his voice is in her ear, and the desperate sounds he’s making have Penelope so keyed up and on edge that she actually arches her back from the pleasure of her own hands as she slips two fingers inside of her just to temper the ache.

“I think about you all the time, Pen. Think about putting my mouth all over you. Tasting every inch of you.”

The noises she makes quickly turn obscene, and his breathing turns shaky in response.

“I bet you’d feel so fucking good. I want to make you feel so good. Tell me you want that too.” He breathes and waits. Takes in a gulp of air before continuing when she does not answer. “Tell me you want me, Penelope. Please.”

His voice is pleading, utterly wrecked, and her mind goes blank, completely brain dead. Pleasure overrides all of her senses as her fingers recklessly switch between sliding over her clit and inside of her.

“I want you, Colin. So fucking much.”

He comes then, suddenly and with a grunt on the other end of the line, and the sound of him lost to pleasure, lost to her, is enough to tip her right over the edge.

They’re quiet as they both come down, and she falls asleep to the sound of him in her ear and her heart in her throat.

Chapter Text

_________________________________________

Penelope worries things will be weird after.

Turns out, however, that she and Colin coaxing each other to orgasm over the phone changes absolutely nothing. She isn’t sure why she thought it would.

The next morning, she wakes to a good morning text and a snapshot of his current view, and things just keep on moving forward as they usually do. Penelope isn’t sure whether to be affronted or relieved, but settles on the latter because it’s just easier that way.

A lifetime of living under Portia’s reign has made compartmentalisation a means of survival—it is all she knows.

They do not talk about it, and, as a rule, she actively does not think about it, but things between them do feel charged in a way they never have before.

Three days later, their conversations have been kept to text only, which is fine and not unusual, but she misses the sound of his voice in a way she never has before. Penelope does not allow herself to explore why, but her mind does grow weary of all the effort it is putting into not thinking about the fact that she knows exactly what he sounds like when he comes, and she very quickly starts gaslighting herself into wondering if it even happened at all. And if it did happen, if they did hook up (and does phone sex even count as a hookup? Penelope doesn’t even know how to begin researching this), will it ever happen again? And if it does happen again, will things between them then turn weird and awkward? Are things between them already weird and awkward, and she has tricked herself into believing otherwise? Does she want it to happen again? Does he want it to happen again? If it does happen again, will their friendship slowly start to degrade and decompensate as a result? Will she slowly degrade and decompensate as a result—

She is mid-spiral, pulling up her incognito tab to ask some very important questions about the current state of hookup culture and proper etiquette when he texts her.

Colin Bridgerton to Penelope
10 June 2025
[22:33]

Colin Bridgerton: Can I call?

It’s unusual for him to ask, and it is late. She doesn’t click on the text right away. Doesn’t want him to be notified of her presence in the chat with those three dumb little dots.

Colin Bridgerton: I miss the sound of your voice

The notification pops up on the top of her screen. She watches as it disappears, and her heart clenches. She hates the fact that she loves that they are, even now, on the same page.

Penelope doesn’t reply but does call him after a very, very brief deliberation.

He picks up before the first ring has even been completed.

“Thank fuck,” he greets, with a chuckle and a sigh all at once, and she closes her eyes at the sound. Allows it to sink into her skin and settle her. “Hi.”

She bites the inside of her cheek at how eager and happy he sounds. She doesn’t know why she has resisted calling him because the conversation immediately starts to flow effortlessly as they catch each other up on their work weeks and the stupid, mundane stuff nobody else in their lives cares to listen to.

It isn’t clear how the segue occurs, for it happens so naturally that she almost misses it, but she does know that she is the one to ask what he’s wearing.

It is said offhandedly, intended mostly as a joke, as a way to acknowledge and move on officially. But he inhales sharply in response, murmurs yeah? in that gravelly, husky way that she only allows herself to think about just as she’s about to fall asleep. And before she can think, before she can even begin to talk herself out of it, yeah and already has one hand under her shirt and is positioning the phone just right so her other hand is free to slip underneath her knickers.

*

And just like that, it becomes another part of their routine.

They text each other every morning and every night, and various times throughout the day in between. And some nights (most nights) he whispers all the filthy things he wants to do to her in her ear, all the things he would do to her if he were there, and she gets herself off from just a bit of pressure to her clit and the ridiculous sound of his voice.

And, also just like that, she starts to allow herself to miss him in a far more visceral way than she ever thought possible.

There is not a day that passes without contact with him, and while it wasn’t wildly uncommon before, she knows he is taking it far more seriously now. Making a calculated effort. She never asks him why or allows herself to contemplate the answer, either. The passing of time is marked by exchanges of memes and gifs and reels with the sole purpose of making the other laugh. They FaceTime and talk on the phone about anything and everything, no matter how menial or insignificant. Some days, it's just tidbits of his day, a picture of spilt coffee or a view that is just for her. On others, he uses their messages as a journal entry of sorts, sharing with her his innermost thoughts and wildest musings, the longing he feels to belong, and, one time, the way a random stranger reminded him of his father, and how the resemblance almost drove him to tears.

The postcards start arriving soon after this—whatever this is—starts.

One from every location with the familiar messy loops and smears of his handwriting scrawled across the back, the content always some variation of wish you were here..

It is ridiculous how happy receiving them makes her, and a bit pathetic, she thinks, as she starts to eagerly check her mail when he arrives at a new location. They provide herself with something tangible, something she can physically hold on to, and she doesn’t allow herself to think about why that fills her with such joy. In fact, she does not allow her to think too much about it at all.

Every one of them is kept on her fridge, and she cannot help but smile every time she sees them.

*

He tells her once, in the midst of whispering to her, in explicit detail, just how he dreams of eating her out, that he longs to be able to see her, to taste her.

Penelope comes to those words, recklessly and embarrassingly fast. She is breathless as she comes down from the force of her orgasm, but also from the faintest swirl of fear lingering in her gut over the sheer power his mere words have over her.

The next time, Colin is more direct when he asks to see her.

His voice is desperate, near begging, and she almost gives in. Instead, she deflects and distracts. Whispers the filthiest things she's ever said over the line. Listens as the cadence of his breathing sharpens, as the pitch of his moans intensifies, and he loses himself to her. It is laughable, she knows, that seeing each other is where she draws the line, but the idea of baring herself completely for him feels like too much and entirely too vulnerable.

Colin knows, of course. In sync with her in almost every way.

He does not ask again, but he does continue to push.

Quietly and somehow always in the most non-invasive way, when she least expects it.

“What are we doing, Pen?” he sometimes asks. He is always laughing a little, the sound a bit breathless and light in that post-orgasmic haze as he floats down from his high.

Years before, when she was a far different version of herself, Penelope wrote the textbook on living her life quietly, never asking for too much, never daring to dream of wanting too much. Old habits are the hardest to break, beaten paths the hardest not to follow, and she has years of therapy and self-work that have taught her that it is okay to be present, to be loud, to ask for what she wants.

But in this, she feels unable.

He waits, and waits, and waits for her response, always so very patient with her.

It is an opening. An opportunity to have an honest conversation about the potential redrawing of those necessary boundaries.

When she opens her mouth, the words always die in her throat.

“It’s okay,” he always says, so soft, so calm, so resigned. “It’s okay.”

*

A few weeks into whatever this thing is between them, she is greeted with a series of texts, rapid-fire like he does when he is really excited about something, in the middle of her workday.

Colin Bridgerton to Penelope
17 July 2025
[13:18]

Colin Bridgerton: GUESS WHAT

The second and the third are a series of question marks.

The fourth is a screenshot of a flight itinerary dated three days from now.

It catches her by surprise, so much so that she has to do a double-take. She sends back obligatory exclamation points in response and checks her calendar, confirming that his assignment isn’t supposed to be over for another two weeks. It hits her then, out of nowhere, that he has been gone for two and a half months and for half of that time, they have been doing… whatever this is. She should call him, she knows, and would have… before. But now, the bit of excitement she always feels at the prospect of seeing her friend in person again is replaced by a heavy sense of dread.

Her thumbs pause over the keyboard. The dread spreads and grows into a tinge of panic that catches in her throat. She swallows it down.

Penelope: You’re coming home early?

Those dots appear and disappear very quickly. She reads back her text and cringes, noting how it sounds…not very nice, rude almost. She quickly adds a few subsequent texts of ?!?!?! and emojis to soften the tone.

Colin Bridgerton: Yes
Colin Bridgerton: The last stop of the itinerary was scrapped. I decided to take some leave instead of another assignment
Colin Bridgerton: I wanted to spend some more time at home
Penelope: Exciting!
Penelope: !!!!!!!!!!!!!

He is uncharacteristically slow to reply.

Colin Bridgerton: You don’t sound very excited, Pen
Penelope: Don’t be daft. Of course I’m excited!!! I haven’t seen you in almost three months.
Penelope: Busy day at work
Colin Bridgerton: You sure?
Penelope: Of course
Penelope: I have to run to a meeting. Let's talk specifics soon, ok?

He hearts the message and goes quiet.

*

The panic lingers with his silence for most of her day and well into her evening.

It’s Thursday, which means dinner and drinks with Eloise, and by the time she strolls into their favourite pub, the sight of her best friend and the familiarity of this routine are both welcomed and a relief. Eloise surprised everyone by following Anthony’s lead and going to law school, and surprised no one by turning down a job at his firm and the private sector altogether in favour of activism work. She is overworked and underpaid, but the work brings Eloise to life more than anything else has before.

Growing up, Penelope used to envy this part of Eloise—how she is who she is, in any space and at any time, without reservation. Then she realised Eloise carries the same insecurities, the same self-doubt; she was just taught how to persevere in light of them, while Penelope was taught how to shrink herself into whatever other people felt she needed to be. Eloise was the first person to understand Penelope’s insecurities regarding what other people thought of her, and was also the first person to say so what? Be who you want to be, and fuck those who don’t like it. Penelope had a life before Eloise, of course, but it is hard to decipher the details amongst the haze of sadness and loneliness. They spent much of the last decade growing separately, venturing down two very different paths, but always managed to come back to each other.

There are no secrets between them—except for all things pertaining to Colin. Eloise knew of her crush, of course. Would tease her mercilessly about it when they were thirteen, and Penelope had hearts in her eyes every time she looked at him. But as Penelope grew up, she tried to convince herself and Eloise that it was just a crush. That it would not last. That it did not last. Eloise is the only one who ever believed it.

As Eloise drones on and on about the drama unfolding between two of her interns, Penelope wonders how she would react if she knew that Penelope was… doing whatever it is she is doing with Colin on the regular.

And then Eloise changes the topic to Colin so swiftly, with that mischievous Bridgerton glint in her eye, and Penelope thinks she knows.

“Colin’s coming home early. Did he tell you?” she asks nonchalantly, fingers tapping against her wine glass in a move that is meant to portray boredom, but is calculated. Penelope can feel the scrutiny of her friend’s gaze as it pores over her.

Penelope nods. “He did.”

“My mother is pleased, of course.”

“Naturally,” Penelope tuts. “He is the favourite.”

“Yeah, and the fucker never allows us to forget it, either.” They both laugh, but the lilt to Eloise’s is a pitch higher than normal, so Penelope is already bracing herself when Eloise asks, “So you are keeping regular contact with him then?”

“No more than usual,” Penelope shrugs. She is satisfied with the not-quite lie, but reaches for her glass and takes a long sip of her wine to cover any inconsistencies in her tone. “Why?”

There is a long moment where Eliose appraises her in a way she probably learned from Daphne once upon a time. Eventually, she just shrugs and says, “No reason.”

The subject changes easily, and they move on, but a sense of foreboding settles over Penelope and drives the panic that has been lingering since the morning to start to increase again. She feels like everything around her starts moving in slow motion as her thoughts race, and her heart begins to pound against her rib cage. She finishes her wine and quickly pours another glass just to have something to do with her hands.

Very suddenly, Penelope feels like an absolute idiot for starting this without a proper exit strategy. For starting this at all, really. They had managed to have a conversation about it once or twice, always at his insistence. Penelope feigned nonchalance to match what she perceived to be Colin’s, and they had been unified in their decision not to overthink things and to keep it simple (her suggestion) and to be in the moment (his suggestion). There had been no discussion on what would happen when they shared the same physical space with one another again, as that would have gone against parts one and two of the aforementioned agreement, and at the time, that felt very far away. A part of her always thought it would have ended well before that impromptu deadline came to pass, becoming something they didn't talk about it, but just moved on from when things met their natural end.

Penelope can see now, with the absolute blinding clarity of hindsight, how fucking stupid that was and also that it was likely by design on both their parts.

Because if they had thought that far ahead, they would have had enough sense to have never done this at all. Right?

Hours later, when she is finally home, exhausted from the wine and the anxious mess of her thoughts, she texts him.

Penelope to Colin Bridgerton
17 July 2025
[23:05]

Penelope: When you’re home we probably shouldn’t, right?

It doesn't matter what his answer is, because Penelope has already decided. They shouldn't. They can't. This mess they've created is one thing. They've crossed some lines, but she does firmly believe those lines can be redrawn. They are adults. They overindulged. It's fine. Everthing is fine. They can move past this. They can survive this.

If they were to continue now, in person, she knows that would not be true. Things would be messy. And painful.

It’s after midnight in Johannesburg, but there is barely a delay in his reply.

Colin Bridgerton: Shouldn’t what?

She rolls her eyes, but can barely contain her smirk as she imagines him grinning stupidly to himself with that same Bridgerton glint in his eyes that Eloise’s held earlier.

Penelope: You know exactly what I am referring to
Penelope: Don’t be an arse

Those blue dots appear and then disappear for longer than usual.

Colin Bridgerton: We aren’t going to do anything you don’t want to

Penelope scowls at her phone. What kind of fucking non-answer is that, she thinks, and types out exactly that as a response, but then deletes it.

Penelope: It’s a bad idea
Colin Bridgerton: Is it?
Penelope: Isn’t it?
Colin Bridgerton: If you say so
Colin Bridgerton: Probably
Colin Bridgerton: Yeah
Penelope: Let’s not make it weird then?
Penelope: Keep it simple

Wincing at her pathetic attempt at levity, she quickly fires off an obligatory ‘lol’ text to follow. He doesn’t answer right away, the seconds it typically takes him to respond stretching into minutes, then an hour as she readies herself for bed. She should call him, probably, to get a read on his tone of voice to fully assess the situation, to fully assess him, but she is too much of a coward. She doubts she will like what she finds.

His reply comes when she is already asleep.

Colin Bridgerton: Sounds like a plan, Pen

Chapter Text

_________________________________________

Growing up, it felt surreal that in a house full of people, Colin always felt alone.

Until he met Penelope.

*

When he drops out of school, he does the influencer thing for a while, much to Anthony’s chagrin. It is nothing he really sets out to do, but rather something that just falls into his lap. Colin isn’t an idiot. He knows his name and his good looks get him farther in life than most. Typically, this truth is horrifying, but Anthony gives him so much shit about wasting money that it becomes a point of pride NOT to borrow against his trust and instead earn his own way. Posting pictures and sharing selected insights into his carefully curated online persona helps him earn enough to fund his wanderlust and keep Anthony off his back.

Colin doesn’t love it, but it pays the bills (and, yes, he fully realises the irony of a Bridgerton saying such things). Besides, strangers liked him. Wanted to know him. Always laughed at his jokes and were genuinely interested in what he had to say. He cannot lie and say this didn’t feel good after growing up in a house surrounded by his siblings who were always leading, always excelling, always the best at something, while he was just… there. Skating by.

Growing up, his mum used to tell him that his charm was endless, and his ability to relate so easily to people was something his father passed down to him and him alone. Colin took this as a point of pride, thrived on it, and, for a while, was happy to make a career out of it. It felt like, in some twisted sort of way, it made him feel closer to his father, and even a decade and more after he left them, that was still something Colin very much yearned for.

Then the pandemic happens. The world changes, and the whole influencer platform inevitably changes along with it. His counterparts start getting personal, showing their real, unfiltered lives in an effort to scrape together some engagement, and Colin is faced with the decision to do the same or to move on. He has always been so careful with the parts of himself he allows others to see, always determined to be precisely what is necessary in the moment and not an ounce more. Ultimately, he moves on simply because the idea of breaking that facade is too much for him to handle. The harsh truth is that this time of his life—grounded on British soil for the first time in years, forced to reconcile some undeniable truths he had been trying to outrun—is pretty fucking miserable.

Colin had left uni years before in search of his purpose, and over half a decade later, he is no closer to finding the answers he needed. Those first few weeks at home are a lesson in humility and despair. He spends so much time wallowing in his old childhood bedroom that his mum begins instituting mandatory family activity hours to draw him out. One day, she actually locks his door to force him to join, as if he were still a child, and somehow manages to maintain her composure when he reacts like one.

It isn’t long after this incident that Penelope and Eloise start coming around more often. During those first few weeks, when the world was completely shut down, his family mainly existed in their individual silos scattered across the UK, but Penelope and Eloise were holed up in their too-small flat just across town. Given their proximity, their careful habits and limited interactions, it made sense for them to be able to come and go to Number Five for everyone’s sanity, but especially his own.

It isn’t until Penelope is there, alongside him and not just a grainy image on his phone, that he feels like he can actually breathe.

Colin has always been aware of the sheer privilege of his mere existence, but it becomes even more evident in this instance. He would never admit it, even if pressed, but the pandemic is not unkind to him. It grounds him, yes, but it does so at a time in his life when it was probably more than a little necessary. What initially began as a few weeks at home stretches into months, then an entire year, and he emerges on the other side closer to his siblings, closer to his mum, and closer than ever with Penelope.

He has always been a creature of habit and routine, and has relied on them heavily throughout the years, regardless of his location, because consistency makes him feel calm, makes him feel normal. It is a gift to be able to spend so much time at home and become incorporated into everyone else’s routines. Suddenly, he feels youthful again, carefree in a way he hasn’t been since his father left them. He stays up late drinking with his brothers, bonding with his sisters, taking the time to learn more about his mum and even his father, too, when he realised asking questions and learning the answers isn’t as painful as it used to be.

It is not surprising to anyone that every spare moment he has is spent with Penelope. Colin has always excelled at making friends, but keeping them has always been difficult. It isn’t that he didn’t want to put in the work; it is more so that once they are out of his field of vision, just out of reach, other things and people become the focus. Except with Penelope. The two-and-a-half years in age that separate them seemed like nothing when they first met. It became almost insurmountable as time passed and the awkwardness of adolescence set in. Years before, Colin figured they would grow apart when he to uni. They didn’t, and when he decided to take up travelling, he thought perhaps that would signify a natural growing apart. It didn’t.

While she may not always be in his direct field of vision, she is always in his periphery.

While the instability of the world seems to drive his family impossibly closer, it does nothing but drive Penelope’s further apart. For the most part, she does not seem phased by this, but he sees the truth in the brief snippets of time she allows her guard to fall, when she hugs his mum close and holds on, or watches the antics among his siblings with a sad wistfulness. Colin realises that, for perhaps the first time, she has spent so much time caring for him, and now it's time for him to do the same for her. So he keeps her close, and anticipates her needs, and gives her the space to process and compartmentalise as she sees fit, but does not allow her to retreat into herself when she feels like she is becoming too much, or worse, not enough.

It is Hyacinth who suggests transforming his online accounts to something photography-based (People always need pretty things to look at, Colin), but it is Penelope who is the first one to make him feel like it is something he is actually good at. It is also Penelope (it is always Penelope) who pushes him not to settle, who encourages him endlessly to keep developing his skills, sending him links to online courses until he agrees to take one simply because he has nothing but time and absolutely nothing better to do with it. His first job is with a local online website with a small readership and no ability to pay him. The exposure is decent, and the human-interest story of perseverance and growing a small business amidst a global pandemic sparks inspiration in readers when little else in the world can.

The website hires him a few more times, and then the world starts to slowly reopen. The slog of trying to make a name for himself in something he actually cares about begins quickly thereafter. He takes his coursework in photography very seriously, choosing some projects for exposure, but most simply for the experience. He takes Anthony’s advice and networks. He takes Benedict’s advice on what is worthy of a spot on his feed and what isn’t. He takes Penelope’s advice and starts to believe in himself.

When his travelling starts up again, it is harder to leave than ever before.

He stands with Penelope outside of Ticketing at Heathrow, masks securely in place on their faces, but hugging regardless. When she moves to pull back, he does not let go right away, emotion flooding his chest and rising in his throat.

“I am so proud of you, Colin,” she whispers, pulling back just enough to look him in the eye.

Colin doesn’t realise he is crying until her thumbs are wiping the tears away.

*

Those first few months abroad after being home for so long are the hardest he has ever encountered. The homesickness starts as a roll of nausea in the morning, a quiet dread that threatens to overtake him if he does not stay busy. He overbooks himself as a distraction, unable to remain still for any fraction of time before his mind starts to unravel. Years before, when he was younger and must have been much more carefree (or much better at putting on the act), travelling was accompanied by a thrill, a rush of adrenaline he couldn’t help but enjoy chasing. He always missed home and missed his family, but it was something more akin to an annoyance from an old injury that would flare up now and then when triggered just so.

Now, missing home feels like an abject longing, a visceral pain that is chronic in nature, one that is worse in the mornings and never fully subsides, just dulls into a more manageable ache.

Colin makes more of an effort to remain in contact with his family than he ever did previously. Keeps the group chat unmuted and participates fully. Schedules video chats with his nieces and nephews so they don’t forget what he looks like, and does not allow more than a few days to pass between phone calls to his mum.

But life moves on, and his siblings do too. He is forever reminded that, despite being the one in constant motion, he is the stagnant one among all of his siblings.

Contact with Penelope while he is abroad has always been a part of the routine. Even when he actively avoided everyone else, the medium in which they spoke would constantly change, but the frequency remained the same. Now, nothing has changed, except that he realises the depth to which he comes to depend on these routines. The depth to which he comes to depend on her.

In the background, things shift and change and quietly fall into place.

He pretends not to notice until he simply cannot any longer.

*

Franny is the one to say it first.

To his face, at least.

It is sometime in the aftermath of John’s death, but before Michaela. All of Violet Bridgerton’s children are in the same place at the same time for the first time in far too long, and she throws a lavish party to celebrate. Franny and Colin find themselves on the outskirts of the gathering; Franny because that is where she feels most comfortable, and Colin because that is where he feels relegated to after spending a bit too much time away. Those first few days at home are always a mindfuck as he tries to find his place amongst his family again, and he finds comfort in the silence Franny offers while his mind contemplates too many things at once.

From across the yard, Penelope laughs loudly, with her head tilted back and shoulders shaking. He’s too far away to see the flush on her cheeks, but he knows it is there. The smile that stretches across his mouth is instantaneous. He’s been home for less than twelve hours after a 36-hour travel day; he wants to join in on the fun, to be the one to make her laugh, but the exhaustion has settled deep in his bones. He fights against it and is about to move to get up when Franny speaks.

“You’re in love with her.”

It is spoken as a statement, not a question, and when Colin glances over at his sister, it is the first time he has seen a genuine smile on her face in far too long. The sight of it does much to soften the pointed look he throws in her direction.

Still, he does not ask what or who, and it is only after he takes a long swallow of his drink that he realises his lack of response completely gives him away.

Franny murmurs something teasingly, almost in a sing-song-like voice, but Colin ignores her. Opens his mouth to explain his silence, but the denial dies in his throat. He takes a long swig of his whisky, welcoming the slight burn in his throat as a distraction. Some sort of competition begins to unfold across the way. Penelope catches his gaze and tilts her head in an invitation. He finds his body moving to stand before his brain has even registered it.

Beside him, Franny laughs. “Don’t worry, Brother,” she says. “Your secret is safe with me.”

It isn’t so much of a secret by this point, but rather something that just is, and, he now readily admits, always has been in some capacity.

The realisation had not been abrupt, but instead gradual. The evolution of it had been so painstakingly slow that Colin simply woke up one day and realised she had not only seeped into every last crevice of his life, but also into every last crevice of his entire being. Everything about who they were to each other was so intertwined that it was difficult to discern where he ended and she began. Colin had always been aware that the depth to which they knew each other, the depth to which he depended on her, was far too immense to be regarded as something as simple as friendship. He always knew it was more, but he was always careful not to apply any labels.

In the most cliche of cliches, Colin figured it out while Penelope was with someone else. It took her pulling away, attempting to separate all that bound them together in an effort to make space for another to make Colin realise why the idea of losing her hurt so much. Why any bit of separation felt like he was missing half of his brain, his lungs, his heart, his entire fucking being.

The recognition of this broke his entire world wide open. He had always seen Penelope everywhere, always found himself writing down little tidbits of inane knowledge when he travelled just so that he could tell her. Always took pictures of things he knew she would appreciate and sent them as soon as he was able. Always marked the passing of his days by their exchanges of good morning texts. But, after, it was as if he had given himself permission to finally see her. All of her. Colin had always found her beautiful, and had always felt an undeniable but hastily ignored attraction to her (and really, this should have been his first fucking clue to begin with because attraction is something that happens so rarely for him) but now, sometimes he looks at her and the force of the longing that overtakes him absolutely stuns him.

Colin likes to think it was the gentlemanly thing to do: waiting patiently until the relationship ended to make his move. The guy Penelope was with at the time was completely wrong for her, and, while serious about Penelope, not serious enough about anything else, so Colin knew it wouldn’t last. And it didn’t. Of course, it didn’t. They never did. That guy came and went, and then another one after that, and then there was the following summer where she swore off dating to focus on her novel, and then…

Fast forward a year, then another, and Colin realises his perpetual inaction has nothing to do with being a gentleman, and everything to do with the fact that the idea of upsetting their equilibrium, of placing pressure on the very foundation of the most vital relationship in his life for the idea of a maybe causes a pit of fear to break open within him and threaten to swallow him whole. He isn’t an idiot. He knows Penelope harboured a crush for him in their younger years, but that was a decade and a change before—a lifetime, really—and nothing about how she treats him, or talks to him, or regards him now indicates that her feelings are anything more than platonic.

While everything about the way he thinks, feels, and treats her has changed, the weight of her touches and gazes, the strength of her embraces, and the lilt of her laughter when it is just the two of them have not changed in all the years he has known her.

So he sits idly by, wasting time as he watches from afar and wishes for things that feel so impossible.

*

Everything about how it starts is wrong.

Colin knows this.

But it starts, and he cannot find it in himself to be ashamed of it.

And that kiss.

Fuck, that kiss.

On a surface level, most believe him to be one of the most impulsive of his siblings. All chaos and lack of forethought. It is rare that people take the time to look deeper and realise that much of what he allows others to see is, in fact, so carefully constructed. Nearly every action he takes and every decision he makes is considered carefully, with contingency plans and exit strategies carefully devised. The effortless nature of it all is a farce and always has been.

Few see through the facade, and even fewer have ever been able to see him as he truly is.

Penelope has always done both.

It is a ridiculous form of poetic injustice that he accepts the year-long contract, and finally, finally, something starts to shift between them. Colin does not know how or why, despite hours and days and endless sleepless nights replaying every touch, every glance, and every moment shared, deciphering hidden meanings and potential subtext. Those weeks leading up to his departure are filled with moments of more between the two in a way that felt undeniable. His last night at home was a going-away party at his mum’s, and they spent much of the late night wrapped up in each other after the others went off to bed. Colin does not want to let her go, never does when he is fortunate to share the same space with her, and there is a moment that seems to stretch on and on, a spark in her eyes as she gazes up at him and he gazes down at her. It would be so easy to lean forward and brush his mouth against hers. He even tilts his head just a fraction of an inch, and then a bit farther to test the theory...

But because he is a coward, nothing but a prisoner to his fear of the unknown, he does nothing.

After they part for bed, he does not sleep. Cannot think of anything but wasted opportunities and what she would taste like and feel like beneath his hands.

And then they stand at the airport together for another goodbye. Leaving home and leaving her have always been difficult, but this time, it makes him feel bereft before he even walks away. When she moves to release him from their hug, he cannot bring himself to pull away, and when he is forced to, when he realises it has gone on far too long, he still cannot let go of her. She gazes up at him, that same spark and unshed tears in her eyes, and for the first time in so very long, he does not think, does not worry about contingency plans or exit strategies. He merely acts.

When she kisses him, it feels like his entire world ends just so he can be born anew with her.

*

Like an idiot, he leaves. The adrenaline wears off the moment he makes it through security, replaced with a wave of nausea that leaves a bitter taste on his tongue. Colin knows he should have stayed. Knows he could have taken a later flight so they would have had a chance to talk, because they kissed—they kissed!—and there is no scenario he can spin where it means less than everything to either of them. But instead, he leaves. He is an idiot, and he leaves, placing trust in both of them and their connection with one another, saying that it didn’t matter where they were and that they would talk when they had the space to do so. He spends his flight consumed by a delirious amount of delight and dread. Delight over the idea of a future, their future, and dread of the following year of long distance until he can figure out the next steps of his career with her.

Her texts absolutely gut him.

Penelope💛 to Colin
1 May 2025
[12:25]

Penelope💛: Poor timing, yeah?
Penelope💛: Just a kiss between friends who were caught up in the moment
Penelope💛: Let’s not make it weird

They come through as the plane begins to make its descent into his first layover, and he honestly thinks he might throw up when he reads them. He cannot discern what is more unsettling—her insistence that it was just a kiss or the lackadaisical way she throws the word friends out there. His insides twist and turn themselves inside out, and he doesn’t know how to respond in a way that isn’t begging, or hysterical, or even remotely embarrassing, so for a while, he says nothing. Keeps airplane mode on and pockets his phone. Holds it together as he waits for his bags and during the taxi ride to the hotel, too, and even well after he makes his way to his hotel room.

Once inside, he loses it a bit. Cries in the shower. Pretends like he didn’t. Retrieves his dinner from the minibar and crawls into bed a shell of the person he was less than a day before, when sheer, unbridled joy had dared to consume him.

Finally, he texts her back: If that’s what you want

It is not a lie, but it isn’t anything he actually wants to say. He flew too close to the sun, and he has his answer now, doesn’t he? All that wasted time dwelling over interactions and whispered words and the subtlest of touches, and maybe it was all in his head. It had to be, because if she felt even a fraction of what he did from that kiss, how could she ignore it? If she wants to move forward and pretend it did not happen, who is he to say otherwise? He cannot force her to want him. He cannot force her to love him back. He cannot force her to see past all of his inadequacies, all the things he only ever dared to show her and her alone, and believe him worthy of her.

It pains him, but he keeps moving. Takes comfort in the aching familiarity of their routines. Texts her in the morning, in the evening and at various times in between. Smiles when her replies buzz through. He is thankful that his location does not allow for reliable service, so calls are non-existent because he doesn’t think he could handle hearing her voice right now. There has always been something about its softness, the particular lilt that makes him think of home, and it is a comfort to him, something he would seek out whenever needed, but now he thinks it would be too painful. So, he’s thankful for his assignment in the jungle that first week, and then when his location changes, the time difference is impossible.

Then, suddenly, three weeks have passed, and he’s been moving, moving, moving, always in constant motion, keeping his eyes and mind facing forward and not to the past. Everything he seems to be doing is working to keep him distracted.

Until it doesn’t anymore.

In Laos, he gets shitfaced and almost sends her an intense, chaotic voicenote, but luckily his travel mate makes him delete it before he sends Colin off to bed. When he wakes a few hours later, mouth dry and head pounding, he sees the texts he’s sent and feels the bile rise in his throat as he reads back his ridiculous ramblings.

Colin to Penelope💛
21 May 2025
[03:57]

Colin: I shouldn’t have left, Pen
Colin: Fuck
Colin: That kiss
Colin: I wish I had stayed
Colin: I need you to know that
Colin: I need you tknow how in love with you I am
Colin: even if you dont ever feel the same you should know how loved you are

It is still the middle of the night in London, and luckily, there is no read receipt. But seven redacted texts are a bit unhinged, even for him, so he only deletes the last two and hopes for the best before exhaustion and the alcohol that has yet to fade takes over once more.

When he wakes again, he sends off an apology, and Penelope is gracious as always in her forgiveness of him. They keep on keeping on. They text and exchange memes and reels and gifs, and when the FaceTimes start again, it is painful to see her, to hear her voice, but it is better than nothing at all, so he swallows down his pride and follows her lead because he would always follow her anywhere. There is the briefest span of time where things feel some semblance of okay, wherein he starts to feel like he can do this, like he can keep being her friend, just her friend. But then she will do something or say something or laugh just the right way at one of his dumb jokes, and the hope sparks in his chest and catches all over again.

It burns him from the inside out, the hope, but he isn’t ready to let go of it yet.

*

In Cairo, he meets an elderly couple at a small, hole-in-the-wall restaurant celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Colin’s Arabic is barely passable, but their English is exceptional. Despite it being their night out, they spend the evening regaling him with tales of yesteryear and answering his numerous questions. Their love is evident, but their camaraderie reminds him of his parents and, subsequently, him and Penelope.

It makes him feel more wistful than sad, for a bit anyway.

He isn’t even drunk this time when he texts her some nonsense.

Colin to Penelope💛
7 June 2025
[01:07]

Colin: Do you ever think about where you will be in fifty years?
Colin: I do. I think about it all the time. The details change depending on my mood, except you being by my side. You’re my constant, Pen.

It’s too maudlin, even for him.

He deletes them immediately.

He wishes he could be embarrassed, but does not have the energy to make the effort. He is too busy torturing himself by replaying their kiss on a continuous loop in vivid technicolour.

He sleeps fitfully, dreaming of her, and is unsurprised that he wakes hard and wanting. It’s pathetic, the way he whines as he palms himself, and how easily he gets himself off with memories of her mouth against his, his mind filling in the details of how she would taste, and feel, and sound if she were with him.

Colin spent years in denial of his feelings, burying them in the far recesses of his subconscious, but once he acknowledged them, once he stopped running from the truth, it was as if the levee broke wide open. Early on, the fantasies may have been vague and faceless (or, perhaps, that is simply what he chose to believe in the harsh light of morning), but there were always just enough details to spell the truth if he wasn’t too afraid to look hard enough.

When Colin allows himself to reflect with the clarity of hindsight, he fully acknowledges how fucking stupid he always was because she has always been the only person he ever fantasised about. He spent his early twenties fucking around, chasing that high from carnal indulgence that Ben and Ant always talked about, and he has felt attracted to others, certainly, but for him even to begin to foster an attraction there must be something more than the superficial, something resembling a deep emotional connection present. Only once that has been established can infatuation and lust be born for him. It happens so infrequently for him, and, really, Penelope has always been one of the very few people he has ever wanted to know like that.

His orgasm isn't as satisfying as he needs it to be, but instead of spending more time in bed pathetically jerking himself off to thoughts of his best friend, he forces himself out of bed. It is rare for him to have a free day in the middle of an assignment, and typically, he would be excited to explore without time constraints; however, the lack of sleep is catching up to him, and the exhaustion is wearing him thin. It is his first time in Cairo, so he makes sure to see the mandatory sights—the pyramids, the citadel, and the Nile—but he skips the riverboat tour and all but one of the museums. He’s crawling into bed, contemplating room service for dinner and an early night, when his phone rings. It’s Benedict, because it is Saturday, and he always checks in on Saturdays. Colin almost clicks ignore, content with isolation, but he remembers that Benedict once let it slip that he needs these check-ins too, especially since his youngest was born, so he doesn’t.

They talk about nothing important, and it is easy.

Mostly.

Then:

“Jesus, Colin,” Benedict breathes over the line. “You sound like shit.”

Colin’s mouth presses into a thin line. “Yeah, well.”

“Yeah, well,” Benedict mocks. He is silent for a moment, and when he begins to talk again, his voice is softer, brotherly. “Did something happen while you were home? You’ve been…distant. Even Eloise—”

“No.”

“Did something happen with you and Pen? You guys were awfully cutesy and close at Mum’s the night before you left.”

“No, Ben. Jesus. Not everything has to do with Penelope.”

Colin can hear his brother’s eye roll over the line as he replies, “Doesn’t it, though?”

“Stop.”

“Stop what?”

“You know what. Just stop.”

“So it is about Penelope—”

“—Isn’t it always about Penelope?”

Colin feels like pulling his hair out just as Benedict hums something triumphant.

“Admitting is the first step, you know.”

“Admitting it has never been my problem.”

“That’s fair.” Benedict sighs and pauses, and Colin knows he is contemplating the right thing to say. Benedict is impulsive and brash in many aspects of his life. Still, with his siblings, with Colin especially, he is both selective and careful about the moments he chooses to enact his role of big brother. “Eventually, Colin, you are going to have to do something. You are wasting time. And you are going to run out of it.”

The faint sounds of crying can be heard in the distance, and Sophie’s soft voice breaks through the background noise. Benedict jumps off the phone with a quick goodbye.

The conversation about Penelope is perpetually ongoing between him and Benedict, and sometimes even he and Franny. The others surely know (he cannot remember the last secret his siblings successfully kept from each other), but choose to say nothing. To his face anyway. It is nothing Colin hasn’t heard before, but Benedict’s words still rattle around his brain, a sort of forewarning to them that Colin typically does not allow himself to dwell on. A swift panic starts to build in his chest, and very suddenly, he feels like he is running out of time. That thought becomes stuck in his consciousness, causing the panic to rise and catch in his throat.

Colin spends most of the next few hours attempting to distract himself with shitty television, and even shittier room service, and then, finally, a few overpriced miniatures from the minibar.

Which may be why, when she texts him later, he does not hesitate to reply.

Penelope💛 to Colin
8 June 2025
[00:05]

Penelope💛: Did you think about it before?
Colin: Kissing you?
Penelope💛: Yes

His fingers hover over the keyboard. Contemplating. Second-guessing. It is the first opening she has given him in a month, the first reference to their kiss that didn’t come from him. Fuck it, he thinks, typing out his responses and clicking send before he can think better of it.

Colin: Then yes
Colin: Have you?

His heart hammers against his ribcage as he watches the blue dots appear in the chat.

Penelope💛: Yes

The call is connecting before he even realises he has initiated it. She picks up on the second ring, and suddenly all sense has left him as he breathes, “I can’t stop thinking about that kiss, Pen.”

Penelope inhales sharply, and he holds his breath.

“Me either,” she says. Finally.

The grin that spreads across his face makes his cheeks ache. “Yeah?”

“Yes,” she replies immediately and without hesitation.

Colin finds himself closing his eyes, picturing her there with him. Wishes she were there with him, wishes they were having this conversation in person so he could discern her tells and categorise the emotions as they flicker across her face. For a long moment, neither say a thing, simply breathing and existing together, despite the continents dividing them.

“I wanted to hear your voice,” he finds himself saying. “I miss your voice. I miss you, Pen.”

“I miss you too,” she replies, almost in a whisper. “I—I wish you were here.”

She has said it before—she says it a lot, actually—but right now it stirs something primal in him, something he does not have the willpower to suppress or ignore. He swallows down a noise he doesn’t even recognise.

“I wish…” he starts and stops. Hisses an inhale as his thought goes unfinished aloud. For so many things, his mind supplies for him. For you, he wishes he were bold and brave enough to tell her.

There is a palpable silence that follows, and he is counting her breaths in an effort to ease the racing of his thoughts, which is why he hears the rustling, the shimmying of fabric, the hitch in her breathing quickly followed by an acceleration in its cadence. There is a breathiness to it, a rasp, and he swears he hears the faintest sounds of a swallowed whimper, but he must be completely unhinged and completely depraved because surely not—

But then she says, “I’m wearing your shirt.”

And suddenly his entire brain, his entire body, melts for her.

“Fuck,” he gasps, the word is wrenched from his lungs. “Are you—”

“—Yes.”

He wastes absolutely no time slipping a hand into his pants, applying pressure to his aching cock. He is impossibly hard already, her breathy little noises spurring him on and, now, just the thought of her touching herself while he listens driving him to the edge.

The following words fall out of his mouth nonsensically, but he cannot even find it in himself to care. “I wish I was there. Wish I could see you—Taste you. Can’t stop thinking about what you taste like. I want to make you come, Pen. Will you let me make you come?”

She moans and doesn’t try to hide it, doesn’t try to swallow it down, and it is, perhaps, the most incredible sound he has ever heard. Colin starts to stroke himself in earnest. Slowly, but with a decent amount of pressure. He wants to enjoy this, wants this to last, wants it to be different from every other time he has ever jerked himself off to thoughts of her. But then her moans turn desperate, and then devolve into whines, and she breathes his name over and over, and suddenly the pressure of his hand is all wrong and not nearly enough. His stroking quickens, turns greedy, turns frantic. Colin presses his eyes shut and imagines her there and with him, every detail he had ever dared conjure flashing before him: the swell of her hips that he longs to sink his teeth into, the muscles of her thighs that he wants wrapped around his waist, the nails he wants digging into his skin, the mouth he wants to feel on every part of him, and the tits… fuck, those tits…

“I think about you all the time, Pen. Think about putting my mouth all over you. Tasting every inch of you.”

The noises she makes quickly turn obscene, and he cannot catch his breath, but continues speaking anyway.

“I bet you’d feel so fucking good. I want to make you feel so good. Tell me you want that too.” He takes in a gulp of air and waits. Loosens his grip and slows his movements to stave off his orgasm because he needs to hear her say it, needs to know he isn’t completely alone in this. She remains quiet, too quiet, and he is ridiculous and unashamed as he pleads, “Tell me you want me, Penelope. Please.”

“Hearing you beg really does it for me, Colin,” she says. Her breath sharpens and quickens when she continues, “I want you, Colin. So fucking much.”

His mind splutters and stops.

Goes blank.

It is embarrassing, really, how easily he comes to the mere thought of her wanting him. Then she comes too, with a hiss of a sigh and his name on her lips, and he really cannot be bothered to care.

Chapter Text

_________________________________________

The next postcard arrives late, two days after Colin has returned to London.

One of the edges is torn a bit from the travel, cutting across the skyline on display. She turns it over in her hands, the tips of her fingers following along the edges of his handwriting, the tiny xnext to his name.

Cannot wait to see you, the inscription reads.

Her heart is in her throat as she places it with the others.

*

It isn't planned that she's so busy while he is back in London, although she can imagine it may look that way.

One of her authors produces several chapters that are absolute trash, and their deadline is tight, which equates to many late nights trying to salvage something readable. Penelope has served as an editor for countless high-maintenance authors over the years, and is no stranger to working with people she doesn’t particularly like, but trying to decipher the unintelligible ramblings of the Influencer-turned-actress who has convinced everyone she has a life story worth telling (she doesn't, to be clear, but Penelope is doing her best not to make that too obvious) is probably her worst experience to date. She ends up working on Saturday and misses Bridgerton Brunch on Sunday due to exhaustion.

Not because Colin is there.

Which is absolutely true.

Mostly.

By the time Sunday evening rolls around, he sends her a text that reads: I’m starting to get a complex, Pen.

He has been back for a week, and they have texted daily, but it is the longest they've gone without a phone call or a FaceTime, no matter how short, in years. This text makes her feel caught, and slightly ashamed, and also a tad bit irritated.

The irritation is far easier to deal with and to make sense of, so she lets that take over.

Sends a few passive-aggressive texts about having to work. Which is the absolute truth. She has worked hard over the years to have a life independent of him—independent of most people—and it does not stop just because he is back in London. Penelope made a vow of this very early on. Their friendship has been defined by years of him working abroad, flitting in and out whenever his mum called him home or the homesickness became too much of a burden for him to endure any longer. He is most consistent in his inconsistent presence, and she does make time for him, always, when he is home, but she promised herself very early on that she would not, could not allow her life to revolve around his comings and goings.

And that shouldn't change because nothing else really has, right?

Right?

Infuriatingly, Colin does not engage with her passive-aggressive behaviour. He sees right through it and instead merely informs her that the siblings are meeting at Mondrich’s on Friday night, a revival of sorts in honour of old times, and her presence is expected. She is non-committal in her response, and Colin does not press, merely changes the subject. But on Monday, Daphne texts her and requests her presence because she and Simon will have a rare night out sans kids. On Tuesday, it’s Sophie. On Wednesday, it’s Kate. And finally, Friday afternoon, it’s Eloise, informing her that she will pick Penelope up at her office after their work days have concluded, leaving no room for dispute.

Penelope grumbles the entire taxi ride to the pub about her hellish week, and Eloise listens half-heartedly with hums and nods of commiseration but does not give her permission to skip altogether, which is clearly the only response Penelope seeks. When it becomes clear she will be making an appearance regardless of any pending commitments or the swift surge of both excitement and fear that starts to rise in her throat, she discreetly goes about making herself presentable. Cleans up the smudges of mascara at the corners of her eyes. Checks her teeth. Fishes out her tinted lip balm from the bottom of her bag and applies it carefully.

Eloise watches her closely, eyebrow raised. “Who are you trying to impress?”

“Myself,” Penelope states matter-of-factly. Still, she ducks her head to hide the hint of crimson rising on her cheeks. Anticipation has been building all day at the thought of seeing him again, at the idea of sharing the same space with him. “It’s been a long day. I feel like shit, but I don’t need to look like it, do I?”

“As if you ever could,” Eloise scoffs, rolling her eyes.

The whole week has felt like something similar to a coordinated attack from Colin to ensure her presence tonight, and when she arrives, the first thing she notices is his distinct lack of presence. It should ease that brutal mix of excitement and fear that continues to dwell in her throat and chest, but instead, it only causes it to swiftly grow and intensify, taking over. Penelope feels uncharacteristically guarded as she greets the others, as they envelop her in hugs and lament about how long it has been since they’ve seen her (two weeks, in reality, but the Bridgertons are nothing if not dramatic). Typically, their presence alone would set her at ease. But now, tonight, with the last several weeks playing on a live-action loop in her mind's eye, it only sets her further on edge.

Throughout the last several days, every moment not spent formulating the perfect excuse not to attend tonight’s activities was spent actively trying NOT to imagine what it would be like to see Colin again after, well, everything.

When Benedict offers her a shot of something brown and overflowing, she takes it greedily. Downs it in a single gulp. Then grabs his own glass out of his hand and downs that one too.

“One of those weeks, eh?” he asks, eyes wide but also slightly impressed.

Penelope nods sharply, wincing as the cheap liquor burns her throat. “Indeed.”

“Barkeep!” he calls, laughing at the way she continues to swallow harshly to rid herself of the taste. “Two more!”

A mere thirty minutes later, Penelope is much more relaxed and teetering right on the edge of inebriation when he arrives. She doesn’t need to look up to know he is there—she never has. When Colin enters the room, attention and energy just seem to gravitate towards him. Everything about him is electric, always has been, and she feels the way something shifts in the air around her the moment he walks through the door. She doesn’t turn to face him, choosing instead to take a moment to steel herself a little, watching as Anthony rolls his eyes at his brother’s lack of punctuality and the others erupt in a chorus of excited hellos.

It doesn’t matter, though, because he rushes through his greetings with the others and is before her in an instant.

“Pen.”

His palm rests on her back first, near the small of it, then grazes along her spine, dancing over the divots of bone until he draws the pads of his fingertips along her shoulders. He applies a bit of pressure there as if guiding her closer to him, and she follows without thought. Penelope shivers under his touch, forces herself to sit up a bit straighter to distract from the way her whole body has started to vibrate in his presence. She is on a high top barstool but still aeons shorter than him and has to tilt her chin just right to meet his gaze.

Colin is grinning—wide, full of teeth, happy—but there is something different there, too, something darker, something almost dangerous. Arousal coils deftly in her belly, and Penelope can say nothing, can barely breathe as he draws her into a hug, pulling her towards him until she is flush against him. He smells woodsy with a hint of spice, and she breathes in the familiarity. And he looks good. He always looks good - handsome, effortlessly put together - but somehow even more so tonight.

She is the first to pull away, and he loosens his hold but does not let her go. His hands fall to her waist, holding her. He gazes down, eyes flickering so quickly to her mouth that she almost misses it, and everything about this is too familiar. Her lungs seize, breath catching in her throat, and she cannot help but think back to the last time they shared the same space as one another. Cannot help but recall the pressure of his lips against hers, the taste of his mouth. The memories tumble through her mind rapidly, his sounds, his whispered declarations, his filthy praises. She feels heat rise on her neck and on her cheeks, and moves away from him completely.

“Hi.” Her grin stretches too tightly across her mouth. Her cheeks ache from the tension. He notes it instantly, his brows furrowing just so as he scans her face. It is an effort to remain neutral under the scrutiny of his gaze, but somehow, she manages. She has, after all, had a lifetime of perfecting her neutrality in the face of Colin Bridgerton.

“Hi,” he says. Then: “You’re here.” Colin says it with a bit of a teasing flair, but she knows him too well. Hears the accusation disguised as a playful statement.

“I am,” she deadpans, and then whatever he is about to say, whatever quip he is about to make, is cut off by the argument unfolding between Daphne and Anthony across the table.

There are no seats available at the high top, so Colin makes room for himself, standing right between her and Eloise. Already, it feels like too much, and immediately, she starts to feel as though she exists outside of herself. There are conversations going on around her, stories being told, and she nods and laughs a beat after everyone else just to join in, just to uphold the illusion that she is paying attention, but she has no fucking clue what anyone is really saying. All she can think about, all she can focus on, is the heat of him against her side, the brush of his body every single time he moves, the way his touch is somehow both fleeting and heavy at her back every so often.

There is nothing new about this closeness. Colin has always been a physical person, someone who thrives on connection in any form. But now, after everything, every one of his touches feels both intentional and loaded.

In the past, in all the years she has known him, there has been something familiar and calming about Colin’s presence. Often, she would seek it out whenever she needed the comfort of his presence to drown out the mess in her head or the mess of her life.

Now, he stands beside her, far too close, and laughs easily at whatever is being said, but there is a raspy quality to it that she recognises as similar to how he sounds when he is moaning her name as he comes. Now, the beer bottle sweats all over his fingers as it dangles between them, and she watches the way those fingers tighten when she accidentally brushes his side, and all she can think about is how they would feel inside her.

Now, his presence does not comfort, and it does not calm.

It sets her aflame.

*

Every time she attempts to move her seat at the table, to place some distance between them, Colin just seems to follow. Wherever she goes, he is there, sliding into the spot next to her as if he belongs. His proximity, the scent of him, the way he continues to brush up against her with every damn movement slowly begins to make her feel unhinged. Typically, being amongst these people, her chosen family, makes her feel at home, but tonight, everything feels as though it is moving too fast. She cannot keep up. She engages in conversation, even with Colin, but she keeps it superficial and light and does not allow her gaze to linger on him. Penelope looks at him, makes eye contact, holds it for one second, two seconds, and then transitions her attention elsewhere. It is pointless because his gaze is fixated on her; she can feel the heat of it as it rakes over her constantly, even when he is in the midst of conversation with someone else.

Everything about this night makes her feel sixteen again, hopelessly infatuated and naively in love with her best friend’s older brother. The overwhelming sense of regression leaves a bitter taste in her mouth.

Penelope only lasts an hour.

There is a natural lull in conversation, and she takes it to hastily say her goodbyes, claiming exhaustion and deadlines as her reasoning. Everybody gives her shit for begging off early (The Penelope Anne of yesteryear would never, Benedict gasps dramatically) but she does not engage, slipping out as fast as she can manage.

The humidity in the air makes her feel sticky and uncomfortable, but once she is outside, it is like she can finally breathe. Hastily, she clicks on the app on her phone and orders a ride, relieved to see it will be there in less than ten minutes to take her home. It’s too hot to be standing outside, but the silence of the night does much to ease the racing thoughts in her head. She pulls up her socials, starts scrolling mindlessly, and is relieved when the nervous fluttering in her chest and stomach starts to subside.

And then the door opens and closes, and the sound of footsteps falter, then begin again in earnest, and she knows it’s him.

“Pen.”

Colin says her name softly, his hand coming to graze at her elbow lightly to alert her of his presence. As if she weren’t already aware. As if she wasn’t always aware of where he is in any room and at any time. She swallows thickly, and that fluttering starts again deep in her chest. It makes her dizzy.

“I thought we could maybe talk while you wait? We didn’t get a chance—”

“—We talked inside.”

His fingers drop from her elbow to his side, brows knitted as he regards her carefully. She is careful not to look at him, and it must irritate him because when he speaks, there is a lilt of agitation simmering in his tone.

“You talked around me inside. We did not talk.”

“OK.” She smiles tightly, meeting his gaze for one second, two seconds before allowing it to fall back on her phone. Her ride is still ten minutes away. “What do you want to talk about?” she asks coolly, carefully.

“Anything. Everything.” He drags a hand through his hair, and she wonders what it would feel like beneath her fingers. “I don’t care.” His fingertips grasp her elbow again, tugging gently until she is looking at him. “You’ve been avoiding me, and I—I miss you, Pen.”

She has the denial ready to go, right on the tip of her tongue, but the desperation in his tone and the intensity in the way he is looking at her leave her at a loss. His grasp tightens ever so slightly at her elbow, his fingertips digging in, and his touch sears her skin. Instinctively, her eyes drop to his mouth, just for a split second, but he catches it—of course, he catches it—and she watches as his pupils dilate and darken, as he takes a step towards her. He smells so fucking good, that woodsy scent now mixed with whisky and a bit of sweat, and she wants to bury her face into his neck, breathe it in, memorise it.

Her pulse quickens, the rapid pounding of it echoing in her ears. They stand together on the kerb, breathing, waiting, assessing. Colin gazes down at her, and Penelope gazes up at him, and she has always felt as though she was the one to exist within his orbit, the one to be fooled by gravity time and time again, but Colin cannot stop looking at her, cannot stop moving closer to her, cannot stop looking at her like he wants to kiss her.

And there is no fooling her own mind any longer—she wants him to.

She has always wanted him to.

And this is the problem, isn’t it?

For all her efforts in compartmentalisation, for all the time that has passed, the pull she has towards him, the pull they have on each other, is not just as inexplicable and undeniable as it always has been—it has intensified.

This is why she has avoided him.

This is why she has allowed him to know her intimately, but only at a distance.

She wants him, all of him. Always has. And having him near, seeing every bit of want and desire and need she has ever felt for him reflected back on to her, makes her feel both emboldened and stupid.

Instinctively, she presses her fingertips to her lips to hold back everything that wants to spill out.

The worries that have plagued her, that have eaten away at her subconscious for weeks and months and most of her life speed through her brain like a gunshot: How she has loved him in some way since she was nine years old; how she has tried desperately not to; how she is deathly afraid she always will; how she recognises he is attracted to her, that he wants her, that he may even love her in return, but she is afraid she may not be enough for him; how afraid she is that eventually he, just like almost every other person who was supposed to love her unconditionally and indefinitely, will grow weary of her.

Colin opens his mouth to speak but stops himself immediately. His mouth opens and closes into a thin line, and the soft snap of it breaks her spiral. Penelope cannot help but follow the movement of his throat as he swallows, as his tongue darts out to lick his lips. He has always been impossibly handsome, his good looks only intensified by his genuine nature, and the way he is looking at her cuts through her so intensely that she feels herself start to ache from the force of it.

The air around them thickens with tension, with all the things left unsaid between them.

In the end, she kisses him because she wants to, because he wants her to, because she can. Because she simply cannot stand not doing so any longer.

The kiss is intense and bruising and full of grasping hands. Colin sighs on contact, and she recognises the relief in it as she swallows it down and makes it a part of her. He reaches for her face first, palms cupping her cheeks before one moves to the back of her head, tangling in her hair. With just a touch of pressure, he tilts her chin, switching the angle of his mouth to allow for something deeper. She cannot think, thoughts racing and spinning, her entire world tilting on its axis, and he nips at her bottom lip, seeking permission, which she grants readily.

Penelope moans when his tongue sweeps across hers, and then, suddenly, they’re moving. Her legs are a bit unsteady underneath her as she allows him to guide her back, back, back until she hits the cool brick of the building with a sound thud. He uses one hand to absorb the force of the contact while the other travels along her neck, her shoulder, over her breast and waist, before settling at her hip. His grip is strong as it digs into the flesh and bone there, and she likes the delicious pressure of it, wants more, needs more, and juts her hips against his in a silent plea. He groans, his mouth moving more urgently against hers, but his body remains still.

Colin surrounds her everywhere, but it is not enough, and she feels like she is both floating and tethered at once, the opposition of the two feelings pulling her apart, just so the need and want can fill her and fuel her. She wants him closer, and this time, she does not ask; she wraps her leg around his thigh, pulling him to her. Heat blooms in her belly and consumes her as he ruts his hips against her, the evidence of his desire for her hard against her belly.

He breaks the kiss with a gasp. His mouth moves along her jaw, to her ear, then skims along her neck. He mouths at the point where her pulse beats rapidly for him, pressing a gentle kiss there just before he starts to suck.

“Tell me if you want me to stop.”

She moans and keens at once, tilting her head back to give him better access, hiking her leg up higher in hopes that he will press against her where she is aching for him. “I don’t want you to stop.”

Colin claims her mouth again, and the force of this kiss makes her delirious.

She cannot think. Cannot breathe and then—

Her phone starts to chime and vibrate, and everything starts to slow. The lust that had been licking at her nerves loosens just enough.

There is a car just over Colin’s shoulder. Penelope squints through the haze and sees the aggravated driver typing on their phone. Hers chimes and vibrates again, a final call of sorts.

“My car is here.”

Colin’s nod is tight, a bit remorseful as he starts to untangle from her. She misses his warmth immediately. Is actually beginning to feel bereft from the loss of his touch, just as he reaches out to straighten her jacket and wipe at the smudged lipstick near the corner of her mouth. The tenderness of the moment, of his touch, is such a stark juxtaposition to the ferocity of everything that just transpired between them, and it stuns her.

Emotion swells in her throat, a spark of adrenaline running along her spine.

Suddenly, she feels as though she is teetering along the edge of the cliff, daring herself to peek over it.

And then she simply decides to leap.

“Come back to mine with me?”

His grin is unmistakable as he answers her with a kiss.

Chapter Text

_________________________________________

Colin cannot stop touching her.

In the back of the car, he sits too close. His thigh is flush against Penelope’s, and his shoulder is lodged between hers and the seat because he cannot be bothered to leave a single span of space between them. He doesn’t kiss her. Is careful to resist the urge because he knows he will not be able to control himself if he does; knows he probably would have fucked her in that alley if she had asked him to.

Colin does not kiss her, but his hands are everywhere.

Fingers graze over her jaw, the perfect round of her cheek, over the swell of her lips. Then down and further down to her shoulder, her arm, the back of her hand. He would be content, he thinks, to just hold her hand if that is her preference. But then she is shuddering under his touch, her breathing hastens, and she whispers his name, and it all stretches his control thin, then thinner until it snaps. Colin watches with rapt attention, jaw slack, as his touch dances along her leg and downwards to the hem of her skirt, pushing it up slowly until the creamy expanse of her thigh is exposed. The tips of his fingers trace along the muscle of her thigh and then inward, following the curve. Penelope gasps, opens her legs wider, the movement causing the fabric of her skirt to slide up even farther.

Immediately, Colin’s gaze jerks to hers. The black of her pupils, the desire and lust and need he sees there causes his throat to go dry.

Shifting forward, he brushes his mouth to her jaw, then to the spot below her ear. “May I?”

Penelope’s eyes dart towards the front of the car, where the driver has his earbuds in and is talking in hushed tones on his phone, before sliding back to Colin’s. She nods, only once, and he does not need any more permission, does not want to waste any more time. Immediately, his hand begins seeking and exploring, his groan guttural and ripped from his lungs as he feels the soaked cotton between her thighs. He chews the inside of his cheek to temper himself. Buries her face in her neck to muffle the sound of his groans. She smells like a hint of sweat and alcohol from the bar mixed with something purely Penelope. It is exhilarating. Makes him dizzy. His hand is shaking ever so slightly as he traces the line of her warm cunt through the fabric of her knickers. She moans and gasps at once, his name a jumbled mess in between, and he needs her to do it again, and again, and again so he repeats the motion and watches her face as her body sings from pleasure.

Then there is the sound of a throat clearing.

Followed by a loud cough.

Their heads snap towards the driver, who looks at them with disgust.

“We’re here,” the man says dryly. When neither responds or moves, he continues, “Get out.” Then: “Now.”

They laugh as they spill onto the street, unable to feel a hint of shame or remorse as the car pulls away, tyres peeling in the process. They stand together on the small path outside her flat, the streetlight above them flickering, her soft giggles filtering through the air. Colin steps forward, closing the gap between them. Reaches for her, his hand soft against her cheek and his sigh one of sheer contentment as he watches her eyes close at first touch, her head moving a fraction of a turn to press her lips against his palm. The moonlight and hazy light of the lamp above paint her in this ethereal glow, her hair like fire against the darkness. She is so beautiful it makes his chest ache from the tension, from this tight constriction he has had for years whenever she is near, but can only now welcome because he can recognise it for what it is.

“Pen, I—”

There is so much he wants to say, so much he needs to say, but none of the words feel right or good enough for her. Besides, she just blinks up at him with her bottom lip between her teeth, and it doesn’t matter because the words get stuck in his throat anyway because she is so damn distracting. The wild heat thrumming between them from outside the bar, from the backseat of the car, from weeks and months and years of subtext and foreplay masquerading as banter, fades into something better, into a warmth that both fills him and fuels him.

When she pushes up on her toes to kiss him, it is with a depth of familiarity Colin has always yearned for.

This kiss is somehow both deep and gentle, their mouths moving together with a synchronicity they’ve barely practised but have somehow already learned. It feels like something Colin would be content with doing forever, merely kissing her, but then she steps closer, her hands twisting into the fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer to her still. His hand moves to her hair, tangling, and they both moan the moment her tongue finds his.

Colin gives in readily, ready to give her anything she wants.

With a nip at his bottom lip, Penelope pulls back, and he groans at the loss of her, tries to chase her mouth.

Penelope laughs. Does not let him make contact.

Beside them, her fingers tangle in his and tug as she begins to walk towards her door.

All Colin can do is follow.

He holds her hand as she leads him up the stoop to the front of her building. Follows closely behind up the two flights of stairs to her flat, his touch ever-present, lingering on her back, her waist, squeezing her arse when he is close enough. When they reach her door, she lets go of his hand to fumble through her bag for her keys properly. He hovers, stepping close until he can feel the warmth of her back against his chest, can smell the scent of her shampoo and the floral notes of her perfume that have always reminded him of summer at Aubrey Hall. He leans down as she clumsily tries the key in the lock, his teeth grazing her ear. The key slips, and she huffs his name with an edge of a whine. His grin is unmistakable as he presses kisses to the side of her neck.

The moment they are inside her flat, he presses her against the door, his mouth finding hers.

Penelope has lived here since she was nineteen. Inherited it in the conscious uncoupling when she and El decided to try things on their own a few years back. Colin has been here a thousand times before; he can follow the layout with his eyes closed, knows exactly where she keeps her favourite mug and where she hides the good snacks because she thinks doing so will keep them safe from him when he comes over. He can close his eyes and recall every memory, every laugh, every cry shared with her in every crevice and corner of this place and recognises that it feels more like home to him than Bridgerton House, where he grew up or Number Five, where his mum resides.

Because she is here.

Because she is his home.

Euphoria bursts to life and spreads through him at the idea that he now gets to know her like this, here, where they have shared so much of their life together. He moans into her mouth at the mere thought and for a moment can do nothing but kiss her and kiss her and kiss her some more. Penelope is so good at this—at kissing him and touching him in a way that makes him feel both wanted and cared for, with both reverence and urgency. He knew she would be, but he hadn’t expected her to be this good (likely did not want to contemplate, even for a second, how she became this good) so much so that he has the urge to give in, give them both what they want, and fuck her right here, right against the door, so every time she comes and goes, she has to think of him.

But there will be plenty of time for that later.

He is far too tall, a knot in his neck already forming from the angle he has to conform to in order to kiss her properly. Colin remedies it by wrapping his hands around the back of her thighs, applying the slightest amount of pressure that she instantly understands, the two of them moving together until her legs are wrapped around his waist.

Penelope pulls back, giggling a bit. “Pulling out all the stops?”

He grins. “For you? Absolutely.”

The giggles turn breathless, her head lolling back as he presses his hips against hers. He can get hard just from the thought of her—it’s almost Pavlovian at this point—but having her here, pressed against him, moaning for him, makes it painful. Colin wonders if it will subside a bit, the unrelenting way he wants her, after they fuck. Wonders if it will temper the ache a bit to finally put to rest all that he has wondered about and wanted for over the years. He hopes it doesn’t. There have been times when wanting her and loving her have been so painful for him, but it also makes him feel alive. Colin wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Penelope’s eyelashes slip against her cheeks, a flush deepening on her chest and neck before spreading, and suddenly he is distracted from his thoughts, and needs to know if it extends everywhere. He rolls his hips against hers again, desperate to hear more of her breathy sounds, but this time she moans, and in an instant his mouth is on hers again, lips sliding together in a bruising kiss that he feels in his teeth.

Colin doesn’t realise he is moving until after his feet have carried them halfway across the room. His mind is blank, empty of everything but her, of her name, the Penelope, Penelope, Penelope playing on a continuous loop. Her bedroom is too far, and he cannot wait. He breaks their kiss and deposits her on the sofa, shrugging off his jacket and tossing it to the side carelessly. He is on his knees in front of her before either one of them has even caught their breath.

“Col—What—” she stops, gawping a bit as he runs his palms over her legs, up her calves, over her knees and under the bunched fabric of her skirt before he trails them all the way back down to her ankles.

She has these heels on—tall, black, with a bow at the heel—and he thinks he might like to fuck her in just them, but starts sliding them off her feet anyway. Makes a note to make time for that later. The shoes are expensive, the red soles gently worn and notable even in the darkness of her flat. He sets them to the side carefully. Gently grabs her ankles and tugs until she is perched on the edge of the sofa. She makes a surprised noise that quickly turns into a gasp as he presses a kiss to the bone of her shin, the inside of her knee. Goosebumps rise in the wake of his touch.

Penelope presses herself on the heels of her hands, peering down at him with wide eyes.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m tired of wondering what you taste like,” he says, and Colin barely recognises his own voice.

“Oh,” she says simply.

And that is all she says.

But then she settles back onto the sofa and smirks, actually full-on smirks, and it is a bit playful, but also entirely devious as her knees part slowly, her skirt now ruined as it hikes high around her waist. She reaches a hand to her blouse, starts unbuttoning just enough so she can slip inside. He probably should have undressed her properly first, he thinks regretfully, but she makes him lose his mind, makes him lose all sense, and he is just a man, and he loves her and wants her so much he is actually starting to burn from the intensity of it.

“Go on then, Bridgerton,” she murmurs.

One hand is inside her shirt and bra, teasing herself, and the other is combing through his hair. She tugs a bit on the ends, the pleasure-pain of it ripping a moan from him. Then, suddenly, she is urging him forward with just the slightest amount of pressure to the back of his head.

It is the sexiest thing he has ever witnessed thus far in his life: Penelope Featherington demanding he satisfy her.

Colin hides the slightest tremble of his hands by pressing kisses to the inside of her thighs as he pulls her knickers down and off. Once free of them, he presses his shoulders between her legs, and she is so pretty and pink and soaked, and it is overwhelming—the sight of her, the scent of her, the way she presses her thighs open even wider to give him a better view. He cannot wait any longer and surges forward, pressing his tongue against the seam of her, lapping at the wetness, eyes closing and a moan escaping at the burst of her on his tongue. He feels absolutely unhinged at the way she surrounds him so completely. He swipes his tongue again, and again, and she jerks her hips against his face and the sounds she makes grow deeper, louder, the sweet way she whispers oh my god over and over as intoxicating as the way she tastes.

He forces himself to open his eyes and pull back just slightly. Their gazes catch instantly. Penelope’s breath is coming in short pants, her chest heaving. Her lower lip trembles as she peers down at him. He wants to watch her as he does this, needs to watch as he unravels her, as he memorises the weight of every gasp, every sigh, every hitch in her breathing so he can become adept at knowing exactly what she wants and how she wants it. So he can spend the rest of his days worshipping her as she deserves. He presses a kiss to her inner thigh again, then again, then sinks his teeth in just a little, like he’s always wanted to, before moving further up to the place where the muscle fades to bone. He waits, holding her gaze. She opens her legs wider, settles deeper into the sofa, and he sighs in relief as he presses his mouth to her once more.

The mission is to make her come; he makes that clear right away. Kisses her clit. Sucks a little, then with a bit more pressure until she is making a sound that has him reaching down to press a palm hard against his cock to offer some relief, to keep himself from coming embarrassingly in his pants. She starts to grind herself against his face, using him, and it is so hot that he has to tell her, and when he does, she whimpers and does it again. She cries out for more, just before biting her lip so hard he worries she might start bleeding, and he is about to tell her he wants to hear her, needs to hear her, but then she curls both hands in his hair and lets out a deep moan that echoes through his skull as he slides a finger into her. She is so tight, the heat of her almost scorching, and slowly he starts to fuck a finger in and out of her, his mouth never ceasing the circular motions she seems to like. When he adds another finger, her whole body arches, hips jerking off the sofa and against his mouth, thighs trembling as she wraps her legs around his shoulders to anchor him closer.

The tension mounts throughout her entire body, the pitch of her keening cries turning desperate, and he knows she is almost there. He watches her, listens to her, allows her to invade into every last crevice of him, his tongue stroking her clit, his fingers thrusting in and out of her. He curls them, hits that soft spot deep within her. Her eyes snap open, gaze slamming into his. He does again, and Penelope cries his name as she shudders around his mouth and fingers, their eye contact never faltering.

It is insanely beautiful to watch.

Colin’s tongue returns to gentle, soft motions as she rides out her orgasm, only stopping when she pushes him away as it becomes too much. He rests back on his knees, watching as she catches her breath, as her eyes slowly start to widen from being half-lidded in pleasure. He sucks his two fingers into his mouth and she groans.

“It just isn’t fair,” she whines, throwing an arm over her face.

He makes a tsk sound in the back of his throat, smirking as he replies, “I think I was more than fair just then.”

Peeking out from under her arm, she raises an eyebrow at him. “How are you this hot and that good with your mouth? It’s just cruel.”

With a sheepish shrug, he says, “Only the best for you, Pen,” and then rises to kiss her again.

She moans into his mouth, and he knows he is a mess, his face slick with her, but she must like it because their kisses instantly turn from slow and languid to something heated. She pulls him on top of her, their bodies intertwined at the weirdest angles, but somehow it works, they make it work, because then she’s flat on her back and he is above her, between her thighs, and they’re making out like they’re teenagers, hips rolling together in search of friction and relief. He could come right now, probably, from just the taste of her still on his mouth and the sounds she makes and the feel of her underneath him. But he wants to see her naked. Actually thinks he might die if he doesn’t see her naked very soon, so this won’t do.

He isn’t sure if she says it or he does or if they are just on the same page, but suddenly he is being led down the hallway to her room. Then she’s leading him inside, and he just stands there like an idiot, watching as she unbuttons her blouse and slides off her skirt. She takes time with her bra, making a bit of a show out of it. And she should, of course she should, because her tits are incredible, but then she is standing naked before him, looking like a fucking painting, and he actually gasps at the sight of her, drool pooling in his mouth.

At her sides, her hands twitch, and he knows her, knows she is trying not to hide herself away. Colin has never wanted her to hide from him, always wanted to be the one she allows to see her truest self, and it is painful for both of them, he knows, that she wants to retreat into herself now. Crossing the distance to her swiftly, he embraces her face with both hands and urgently presses his mouth to hers.

“Fuck, you're pretty, Pen,” he rasps against her mouth. “Do you even realise how beautiful you are? So much better than anything I’ve ever imagined.”

Their kisses turn desperate and chaotic, and suddenly she is clawing at his clothes, slipping his shirt over his head and pushing his jeans and boxers down his legs in a haste. He follows her lead, shuddering when she presses open mouthed kisses to his chest, and moaning when he finally, finally, gets to hold her tits in his hands. The weight of them is perfect, just heavy enough, and he has to pull away from her mouth just so he can see the obscene way they spill out of his fingers.

Colin grins. And laughs. He cannot help it. He is an idiot, and just a man so in love it makes him stupid, and he has always laughed at the worst times. The sound is almost delirious, practically giddy as it fills the space around them.

Penelope startles just slightly, eyebrow raised. “Something funny?”

He shakes his head, pressing his mouth against the corner of hers as he begins to move them backwards towards the bed. “No, I am just… this is just…” he stops himself, swearing under his breath because his brain is a jumbled mess of everything but her. “I’m just really, really happy.”

Something indecipherable flickers across her face, so fast he almost misses it. It feels like maybe he said the wrong thing, and the mess in his brain starts to make sense again, but only in the form of intrusive thoughts, torturous what-ifs. He is about to comment on it, to ask her what is wrong, where she went just then, but then she smiles something slow and sweet, and kisses him again. And again.

And then, suddenly, everything is bright and warm, and Penelope once more.

She's graceful as she scoots backwards onto the bed, but he's not. He is all limbs and impatience as he crawls after her. She laughs, and he does too, and they are still laughing as he moves above her, their mouths meeting in a near miss of a kiss. He settles between her legs, his cock now red and raw and leaking and impossibly hard sliding against the warm wetness of her perfect cunt, and the laughter quickly turns to gasps and then into moans. She shifts her hips up, rutting against his, and he has to pull away from her mouth because he can't catch his breath, too overwhelmed by the sheer pleasure of it all. Penelope mouths at his jaw, his neck. Bites into the muscle at his shoulder. He loses himself a bit in her, in the moment, and just closes his eyes and revels in the weight of her touches and the sighs of satisfaction that leave her lips as she explores him.

When she wraps her fingers around his cock, he clenches his jaw in an effort to maintain control. It is futile. When she drags the tip of him through the heat of her, he bites the inside of his cheek so hard he tastes metal just to keep himself from coming embarrassingly fast all over her hand.

Colin knows then that no matter what he does, he won't last long once he's inside of her. Knows this will be far different and so much better than any other time he's done this. Because it is her. It is them. Penelope has been rewiring his brain for years, altering his brain chemistry, but now she has succeeded in invading every last synapse, every last bit of grey matter. Doing this now, with her, will change absolutely nothing for him; it will only serve to solidify everything he already knows in the marrow of his bones. It will, he knows, change everything for them.

The anticipation of that spurs him on even further, causing his breathing to stutter, his balls to tighten, and—

His brain finally catches up with his body then, almost a moment too late, as he swiftly grabs her hand that had been stroking his cock, intertwining their fingers and moving them to rest near her head. Penelope huffs a little, and he kisses her promptly, swallowing the sound before moving on to trace the smooth column of her throat with his mouth, then the hardness of her collarbone, then further down until he reaches her chest. He licks the generous swell of each of her breasts, takes one in his hand, kneading softly. Penelope gasps when he flicks the nipple of the other with his tongue, moaning and arching into him when he takes her entirely into his mouth. He sucks and licks and kneads to his heart’s content and her fingers tighten around his while her other hand tangles in his hair, pressing him closer. She is so responsive, so vocal, her pants and breathy little gasps of his name addicting. He wonders if he could make her come from this alone, from just his hands and mouth on her perfect tits. Actually starts to double down in his efforts to test the theory when suddenly she is pushing him away.

“Condom. Bedside Table. Now.”

He’s a bit dazed, vision blurred at the edges, but the vision of her crystallises instantly. Blissed out, eyes dark and wide and full of want and need for him. He can do nothing for a moment but stare, watching as her chest heaves as she watches him back.

“Colin,” she whines, actually full-out whines, and she sounds so wrecked, so desperate, he can do nothing but follow her command.

Moves off of her momentarily to fumble in the bedside table until his fingers find a strip of foil. He tears a packet off. Opens it. Rolls it on. When he glances back at her, he finds her still watching him. Penelope is watching him, wide-mouthed, eyes hooded in pleasure, and touching herself. She has one hand palming her breast, the other between her legs.

“Fuck, Pen,” Colin chokes.

Penelope has the audacity to smirk and shrug as she murmurs, “You’re taking too long.”

And, fuck, he loves her.

She is perfect.

In an instant, he is on her, practically pinning her into the mattress, his mouth capturing hers, hard. She moans into the kiss as he settles fully against her, opening her legs wider at his waist so she can carry the full weight of him. He has imagined this a million and one times, the details ever changing, but he has always had a bit of an affinity for the image of her on top, riding him, tits bouncing in his face. But now, as he settles between her thighs, Colin feels a primal, heady desire to devour her. To consume her. To surround her so completely that she will never be able to forget him. So he is as seared into the very essence of her as she is him.

They pull away from the kiss at the same time, completely breathless. He doesn’t let her go too far, his mouth catching the corner of hers. Their lips graze each other’s with every breath and subtle movement. Everything about the moment is so intimate, and it makes his chest expand and expand and expand until he feels like his lungs are going to explode. He grips one of her thighs in an attempt to ground himself, to garner some control, and she cries out.

“Colin,” she pants prettily. “Please.”

She is so wet that he slips inside of her without any resistance. Still, he forces himself to pause. Stretches her slowly. He has to. She is so tight, and so hot, and he needs to catch his breath. But then she hooks her leg on his waist, tilts her hips towards his, and takes him fully inside of her, her body welcoming him to the hilt. He moans into her mouth, a depth to it he didn't know he was capable of, and she reaches up to cradle his face in her hands and kisses him.

And keeps kissing him.

When he moves, it is slow, as purposeful as he can manage. It doesn’t last. Every thrust is met with a roll of her hips, taking him inside of her further. In this, they are as perfect and in sync as he always dreamed they would be. Every meeting of hips, every brush of their mouths, every touch of her hands across his skin is a new sensation, a new colour on the spectrum, a new level of existence unlocked.

It feels amazing.

It feels terrifying.

But Penelope is there, wrapped around him entirely, her body holding him, cradling him, taking care of him. Her fingers dig into his skin and leave marks he will proudly carry with him for days. Her mouth makes demands of faster and harder and right there that he readily obeys. She tries to hike her thigh even higher on his waist and slips, but he is there, hooking his arm underneath, lifting her leg higher, the new angle allowing him to sink impossibly deeper inside of her. Obscenities fall from her mouth, a mixture of fuck and don’t fucking stop and he picks up his pace, faster and faster until all that is leaving her lips is an incoherent mess of his name.

Tension builds and builds and builds. Fills every bit of space between his lungs and ribs, nearly suffocating him.

“Pen, I can't—” He chokes on the words, gasping as they wrench from his lungs, indecipherable amongst his own pants. The power she has over him, the force of his desire for her, is humbling. But Penelope merely smiles this dreamy, blissed-out smile, and threads her fingers through his hair.

“Let go, Colin.” Her eyes catch his. “I've got you.”

At her words, the last thread of control he possesses begins to fray and unravel and then disappears altogether. His orgasm comes fast and hard, lightning ricocheting along his spine and reverberating through him until his vision goes white and his ears ring, and all he can do is mumble her name over and over into the skin of her neck. Under his lips, the rapid thrum of her pulse beats wildly, and he counts each one as her hands continue to card through his hair with the gentlest pressure, as she whispers praise into the skin near his temple.

She holds on to him and does not let go.

*

Hours later, Colin wakes up in her bed, happy and content and completely tangled up in her.

He wants to stay there forever.

Chapter Text

_________________________________________

Penelope wakes, completely intertwined with Colin, and her immediate thought is how right it feels.

Before, with other men, she enjoyed the act of sex and the physical intimacy of just being close to someone, but in bed, even after, something about being held always felt suffocating to her. It was a chore, always, to spend time in that post-coital fog of touching and whispered sweet nothings, but she would do it because it felt like the thing to do; it felt like it was expected.

Now, Colin holds her close, even in his sleep, and she wakes to his breath on her neck, his hand splayed on her hip, and hers holding it there. Their closeness, the way he is wrapped so tightly around her, should incite that familiar feeling of panic, but instead, Penelope finds herself leaning into it, into him.

She knows the moment he awakens. Notes the subtle change in the cadence of his breathing, the way he tenses momentarily before relaxing. There is a soft hum he emits, low and just for her, something resembling contentment, she thinks. He shifts closer, his hardened cock against her arse, and kisses the skin just below her ear as he murmurs good morning into her neck. Things feel so perfect in this moment, and she actively does not allow her mind to wander, to overthink. Instead, she allows her body to move on instinct. Rolls her hips into him, grinning a little at the way he groans and nips at the skin of her shoulder just before pulling her closer.

It is early, daylight just beginning to filter in through the curtains, and they do not talk, only breathe and exist together as the city comes to life outside her windows. Last night they had fucked hard and fast each time, consumed by their need for each other. This morning, they both seem to be content to just be, to luxuriate in the laziness of early morning without any thought to what comes next. Colin’s hand glides from her hip to her belly, then down, while the other that had been trapped beneath her cups over her breast, squeezing and kneading with just the right amount of pressure that has soft moans stuttering off her tongue.

Colin works her over slowly, teasingly, fingers slicking through her folds with the gentlest of touches at first, then increasingly firmer with every stroke. He bumps his thumb against her clit once, twice, circles it on the third time. Repeats the process again and again. She whimpers and keens, whispers only his name, and he answers her plea by fucking two fingers in and out of her slowly, methodically. He is quiet as he encourages her, as he pants sexily in her ear, and she comes hard and fast on his fingers, her cry of pleasure breaking through the haze surrounding them. He holds her as she settles, the palms of his hands gliding over every inch of her as he whispers praise into the skin of her shoulder.

When she rolls over to face him, Colin grabs at her, pulling her towards him until she is flush against him. His mouth presses against hers, tongue sliding past her lips easily, and this kiss is deep and urgent but not frantic nor rushed. He kisses her and kisses her and keeps kissing her, his hands everywhere and nowhere, roaming over every inch of her. His touch is a mixture of pressure and delicate reverence, and it drives her wild. The arousal coils in her belly and spreads, and when his hands find her breasts and his mouth finds that spot at the base of her throat, she feels him everywhere, but it is not enough. She wants to be consumed by him.

Her please is strangled, and he obliges, separating from her just long enough to roll away to the bedside table for a condom. Penelope grasps for him the second he’s within reach again, pulling him back to her and into a kiss as she moves her leg high on his hip—an invitation he readily accepts. When he presses inside of her, she whimpers into his mouth at the fit and stretch, sore and overly sensitive but also entirely too desperate for him. He notices the slight resistance with which her body betrays her and stills, pulling away from her mouth to search her face, to seek reassurance and further permission. Penelope only nods.

When he begins to fuck her, it is slow. They kiss until they are both breathless, parting for air but only just enough so that every movement causes their lips to brush together. Colin matches the rolling of his hips with lazy strokes at her clit, alternating the pressure just before she can ask for more. Everything about the moment is sexy and romantic. They move together as if they know each other already, and she supposes there is some truth to that sentiment. It should scare her, maybe, and probably will later, but everything feels so good and easy, and Colin whispers to her how good she feels, how well she takes him, how badly he wants to spend every day doing this, Pen. Every. Single. Fucking. Day. And when she comes it is a surprise, the crest of it slow and quietly intense, and he continues to fuck her right through it until he comes too.

*

“Can we spend the whole weekend together? Just you and me?” he asks, eager and hopeful, sometime later.

They are tangled together again, Colin on his back and Penelope burrowed into his side. On his chest, their hands lay intertwined. She counts his breaths one by one. Evens her own to match. It’s fully light outside now, the sun a bit blinding when it catches her eyeline. She lives on a busy street of professionals and hears the opening and closing of doors, the chorus of her neighbour’s golden retriever barking at a passerby. A whole world exists outside this room, out of this moment with him, and they should talk about it. They need to talk about it.

But he holds her with an amount of pressure that is somehow both delicate and certain, and she feels so unbelievably safe here with him.

“Please,” she says, and she can feel his grin as he presses a kiss to her hair.

*

Penelope doesn't ask for the excuse he gives for not returning to Number Five or the one he offers his brothers when he cancels their plans for later that evening. She doesn't think about how she is supposed to see his mother and entire family the next day for brunch. How she is expected to be in the same room with him and act as though he's never had his mouth between her legs or fucked her slow and sweet until she felt raw and flayed open but somehow still wanting. She certainly does not think about how, in less than thirty-six hours, he is set to leave, again, because that is how this goes, how this works, how it has always been destined to be: Colin leaves, and Penelope stays.

Penelope does not allow herself to think at all; she only acts.

And when Colin does try to bring up all that remains unsaid, all that they very much need to talk about, she changes the course of the conversation. And when that fails, she distracts him altogether. Which he sees right through, calling it a clever diversion technique in between moans and gasps and arching of backs, but does not seem to mind, considering it leads to them fucking on almost every available surface of her flat.

By the time the sun is beginning to set, he proposes they eat actual food for the first time all day, so they hang out in her too-small kitchen for a while, using what little ingredients she has to whip up a sauce that somehow tastes amazing despite the limited, somewhat expired ingredients. They bump into each other every so often, Penelope reaching around him for ingredients, and Colin just to be playful. He presses a kiss to the crown of her head, the corner of her mouth, her cheek every so often, just because he can, she thinks, and it feels domestic in a way that makes her chest start to ache. All too easily, her mind starts to wander, to overthink, and that ache in her chest grows into a gnawing panic that catches in her throat. She crosses the small distance to him, wrapping her arms around his waist from behind, hugging him close. He smells like her body wash and shampoo, but also somehow still like him, and she finds the combination addicting. That panic starts to spread, and she tries to cover the slight shaking of her hands by dipping her fingers under the cotton of his shirt to press against his skin in an effort to ground herself.

She feels the shiver run along his spine, hears the sharp inhale of breath. Colin leans into her, for just a moment, before he shakes his head and promptly turns around to face her.

“Nope.” His grin is playful but tight as he shoves her wine glass in her hand and walks her backwards. “I cannot focus when you do that. And I'm hungry.”

As if on cue, her stomach grumbles, reminding her that outside of some crisps and a shared toastie, they’ve barely eaten today. Eggs were overdone and chewy by the time they got to them after becoming… distracted with one another, and lunch was foregone in favour of other activities. She is about to make a joke about how well he actually did eat today, but his back is already to her, and she is actually quite famished, so she allows him to focus on his task at hand.

Hopping up on the counter, she swings her legs and sips her wine and watches him. Every so often, he glances her way from over his shoulder, and she catches a glimpse of that dumb, wide and happy grin that is so innately Colin stretching across his mouth. It makes her breath catch every time.

Penelope tries, and fails, to remember a time when she didn't love him in some capacity.

What started as an infatuation in her early years steadily built into love with time. She recognised early on that her love for him was unlike anything she'd ever felt for anyone else. She had tried to find it, to replicate it or even settle for something similar over the years—first with lanky boys with kind smiles that reminded her of him and later with men who were the complete opposite of him in every possible way.

It was all pointless.

Eventually, she became okay with it. Learned to tolerate the bitter taste of unrequited love and feel comforted by the fact that he did, in fact, love her—it just wasn't in the way she dreamed about.

Eventually, she was able to acknowledge that being in love with Colin Bridgerton and being loved by him has changed her, for better and for worse. Loving him as fiercely as she does allows her to know she is capable of such things after years of growing up void of affection and never being taught how to love.

And being loved by Colin Bridgerton, and by extension his family, even if it was friendly and familial and not at all the way she yearned for, taught her that she was capable of being loved.

She has worked so hard to accept these truths, to be at peace with the idea that someone not returning her feelings is not a moral failure or because she is unworthy, but simply something entirely out of her control. Now, the idea that Colin’s feelings have changed, that he may feel for her a fraction of what she had always felt for him, terrifies her because it threatens to undo the very foundation she has built for herself.

If they were to try this and fail, she would not survive the fallout.

Penelope knows this.

She would lose everything.

And it is with that knowledge in mind, she steels herself when he turns towards her expectantly, the sauce now brought to a respectable simmer on the stove and a timer set for the noodles.

“Pen,” he starts, drawing out her name. “Can we talk?”

Her stomach drops, fingers tightening around the wine glass in her hand. “Do we have to?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why?” He repeats, that tendon in his jaw tightening. “Why do we need to talk?”

She takes a long sip of her wine. “Yes.”

He scans her face, a bit incredulous and also a bit annoyed. “Because everything has changed in the last twenty-four hours and—”

“—It hasn’t, though. Not really.”

His eyes widen and then narrow, his gaze flickering over her face intensely. She cannot look him in the eye, so she simply stares straight ahead, at the way his throat bobs as he swallows. “How can you say nothing has changed, Pen? Everything has changed—”

“—Outside of this,” she frantically motions between them as she talks, “no, it hasn’t. Right? I mean, you still leave tomorrow. You have nine months left on your contract with the magazine. What does that leave us with?”

He watches her closely as she talks, his eyes moving over every bit of her. She’s always been adept at hiding bits of herself away, first to make herself conform to other people’s standards and later to fit into the mould she had created for herself. But it has always been more difficult with Colin. He has always seen her. She wavers now under the intensity of his gaze, unable to maintain eye contact for more than a second at a time.

“Whatever we want,” he says finally.

“What do you want, Colin?”

“You.”

He says it immediately and with such certainty, with such conviction that it stuns her into silence.

Something flickers across his features and lingers, and for a moment, he looks like he might get sick. His voice is teetering on the edge of frantic as he rushes to say, “I am starting to get the feeling we aren’t on the same page. Was that—Fuck, Pen,” he pauses to swallow, a stricken look settling on his features. “Has this all been casual for you? Because it hasn’t for me. It could never be for me, not with you. Not with anyone, really, but especially not with you—”

“—No,” she shakes her head. She makes a point to look him in the eye now, to catch his gaze and hold it in an effort to calm him. “It’s not casual for me. But it’s also not that simple.”

“It is very much that simple, Penelope. I want to be with you. You are the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thought that crosses my mind before I go to bed, and that—that isn’t new for me if that is what you are worried about. I have felt like this for a long time, the timing of it all happening now is just shit. But I can't lie and say I'm unhappy about it.”

He sounds so honest, so sincere, so desperate, and hope rises in her chest. She tamps it back down immediately.

“Ok, say we do this long distance, then what? I know you scraped together this time off now, but your schedule doesn’t allow for that regularly—”

“—We make it work. People have made relationships work with a lot less, Pen. I don’t understand what is so difficult about this—”

“—But at what cost? When you leave, Colin, it’s…” She swallows and tilts her chin to hide her face, horrified over how emotional she sounds. “It’s hard. It’s always been hard. But I manage. If we were to add in all this… I just…I worry we would grow to resent each other.”

Colin shakes his head emphatically, finally crossing the distance to her. Her perch on the countertop makes it so she is, for once, mostly even with his height. He cradles her face in his hands gently, his forehead pressed against her own. His touch is so tender, and she cannot help but melt into it. “I could never resent you, Pen.”

She laughs, but it is both mirthless and watery. “You say that now. But what about six months down the line, when I’m weak and missing you and I beg you to come home and you can’t? What then?”

He is quiet for a moment. Then: “I don’t know.”

“I don’t think we can move forward without some certainty. I know I can’t. There’s too much at risk.”

His hands drop from her face, falling to her waist. His grip is tight, fingers pressing in, and it does not feel like he is holding her as much as he is holding on. She does not want to look at him, but she forces herself to. Breaks a little at the unshed tears and the discreet quiver of his chin. She draws in a shaky breath and feels her reserves crumble, torn between wanting to give in, to give him everything and the need to protect herself. She does not survive this not working. She is the one at risk of losing everything. And in what world does this work? It is clear Colin wants her, desires her, and has feelings for her that are far beyond anything platonic. But his life is everywhere but here. What happens when he grows stagnant with her lifestyle? With her?

For a long moment that stretches her nerves far too thin, they merely hold space for one another. Then, finally, Penelope leans forward, wrapping her arms around him and holding him close. She buries her face in his chest again, drawing in his warmth, his strength. It takes him a beat, but when he wraps his arms around her, his embrace is tight, so much so that she almost feels like she cannot breathe.

“Where does this leave us?” He rests his cheek atop her head as he talks. She feels the reverberations of his words in her bones.

“I don't know,” she whispers.

They stay like that for a while, holding on to one another. The sauce simmers and bubbles on the stove, and the pasta water boils over occasionally, causing the flames to crackle in the distance. Every noise echoes dully in the back of Penelope’s head, drowned out by the beating of her heart and the force of her swallows as she tries to keep her tears at bay. When the timer chimes, he still does not let go of her.

Colin draws in a ragged breath as he untangles himself from her just enough to pull back to look at her. “Do you want me to leave?”

“No. I want you to stay.” She does not cry, but the tears burn at the edges of her eyes. He looks uncertain, like he is trying to determine the next step. She does not know where they go from here, but she does know she doesn’t want him to leave. She never wants him to leave. “Please stay, Colin.”

He does.

They are quiet through dinner and after, as they curl around each other on the couch and watch television mindlessly. They are quiet as they get ready for bed, standing side by side as they brush their teeth. It’s a trick of the light, how easy things appear, because the simplicity is marred by all the things left unsaid. Colin is in bed first, waiting, and she crawls towards him and folds herself around him. Penelope falls asleep like that, tangled up in him, and only awakens hours later, too hot to be comfortable. She starts to move away, but his grip tightens, and she searches his face in the darkness to find him already awake.

“I could get out of my contract,” he says, voice hoarse from lack of use. “I could quit.” She knows then, immediately, that he has not slept. He looks tired and worn out. She reaches for him, thumb pressing at the creases between his brow.

“You could, but you can’t, Colin. You would risk never being able to get another job if you let this opportunity slip away. Besides, you love your job. And you've worked so hard, Colin. ”

“I love—”

She kisses him just to shut him up.

He does not respond immediately, stilling completely as her mouth presses against his. She feels the frustration radiate through him, and when he finally responds, his mouth becomes possessive and greedy as it takes hers. His grip on her loosens so that he can move over her. Her knees part to make room for him on their own accord, and when he is settled between them, she tangles her arms and legs around him until they are intertwined once more. He kisses her through it all, hard and unrelenting; she opens her mouth to him, tongue searching, and when he deepens the kiss further, it is almost harsh. He tugs with his teeth, pulling her bottom lip into his mouth, and the burden of his weight above her, the pleasure-pain of his teeth nipping into her lip feels like too much but also not enough. She holds onto him tighter.

They are quiet as they slowly undress each other, moans and gasps and sighs of pleasure filling the space between them. They are quiet as they allow their hands to wander over muscle and bone, curves and edges, memorising, making memories to carry with them. They are quiet even as he presses into her, their eyes meeting and never leaving one another’s as they fuck slowly, as if they have all the time in the world.

And they are quiet after, with his face buried in her neck and her fingers running through his hair. His weight presses her into the mattress, holds her down, and the panic is swift as it blooms in her chest and rises, but she holds him through it, afraid to let go.

*

The next morning, they both wake early but are slow to start. They simply lay in bed for the longest time, watching as the early morning light flickers in through the window and brightens into sunshine, holding on to one another.

It is destined to make them late for brunch, but she is reluctant to separate from him yet, so she joins him in the shower. It is not anything she has ever done with a man before—always too self-conscious, too fearful of being so bare and vulnerable before someone else. But Colin makes her feel safe and wanted and beautiful in a way she has never felt before, so she decides to join him quietly after initially telling him no and allows herself a moment to appreciate his grin and the subtle lick of his lips as he takes in the sight of her. The urge to cover herself, to stand in a way that does not accentuate the softness of her body, has her hands fidgeting at her sides. She does not allow herself to fall back into old habits.

Instead, she places all of her attention on him. Draws out this respite they have found in one another until the very last minute. Takes her time washing his hair and his body, pressing open-mouthed kisses to clean skin every so often. Colin whimpers and moans and sighs her name, over and over, each sound becoming more and more desperate with each passing moment. When she digs her nails softly into his scalp as she rinses his conditioner, his control seems to dissipate completely.

“Fuck,” he swears, stumbling a little the moment her fingers travel down, down, down, tracing the hard ridges and angles of him before taking his cock into her soapy hand. “I need you…”

Clumsily, he reaches a hand between her thighs. Despite still being ridiculously insatiable for him after two days of fucking, she is too sore for even the gentlest of touches. The knowledge that she will ache with reminders of him for days thrills her. Knocking his hand away, she shakes her head as she presses a kiss into the curve of his jaw.

“I want to take care of you,” she murmurs, using the slightest amount of pressure to push him backwards until the backs of his knees hit the edge of the built-in bench in her shower. “Will you let me?” The question is pointless because the moment she presses her palm against his chest, motioning for him to sit, he does so before the words have even finished leaving her lips.

Kneeling before him, she parts his thighs and moves between them as the spray from the shower falls along her back. Takes a moment to admire his perfect cock with the most reverent of touches, smiling with pride at the way he immediately starts to leak all over her fingers. She wonders if being able to work him up like this so easily, to have him come undone for her so readily, will ever stop causing a bubble of pride to explode in her chest when she thinks about it. She wonders if she will ever have the opportunity to do so again.

Slowly, she teases him, just like he does to her, pushing him to the point of begging with just a few jerks and circular motions of her wrist and fingers. When she takes the full length of him in her mouth, the sound he makes is obscene, like it is ripped from him violently.

Penelope moans at the taste of him when he spills down her throat, her nails digging into his thigh, marking him as he did her, and leaving him with something to remember her by.

*

Brunch is yet another lesson in avoidance.

Colin remains constantly in her periphery, regardless of how much space she attempts to place between them. They had agreed, after all, that this was for them and them alone. At the table, she sandwiches herself between Kate and Sophie, but regrets it immediately because that leaves the seat across from her open. Penelope dutifully makes conversation with and around him, but he is oddly quiet. Reflective almost. She is careful not to look at him too often or at all, really, but it is pointless because she can feel the heat of his gaze on her at nearly every moment. Eloise observes them both carefully at the oddest of times, eyes volleying between Penelope and Colin with a stare that is both accusing and curious. Both of them ignore her.

It isn’t until they are safely in the car, on the way to Heathrow, that she feels like she can breathe.

But by that point, Colin isn’t looking at her at all, and the silence between them feels stilted and uncomfortable. They are silent as they leave his mum's, as they turn on the motorway, and all the way until she takes the last junction for the airport. They are silent as she pulls up to the kerb just outside Ticketing, and even as she exits, watching behind her sunglasses as he drags his carry-on out of the boot and slings his backpack over his shoulder.

They are silent, too, as she draws him into a hug.

“I don’t want to go,” he says against her temple, just after pressing a kiss there.

“You have to,” she replies, careful to keep her face buried in his chest. “That’s how this works, yeah? You go, and I stay.”

Colin pulls back to look at her, index finger pressing the bridge of her sunglasses down her nose just far enough so he can look in her eyes. He regards her carefully, gaze flicking over her features rapidly, and she guards herself against it out of habit. Whatever he is looking for, he must not find it because he simply sighs and presses her glasses back to their rightful position just before pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth. He lingers, waits for her to take more, and when she does, he sighs something wistful into her mouth.

This time, when he pulls away, it is entirely. He takes a step back. Adjusts the strap of his backpack, fidgeting with a dangling buckle mindlessly. She can feel him placing the distance between them, and starts to steel herself the moment he sets his jaw and straightens his spine. It takes her a moment to find the courage to look him in the eye, and when she does, the whites of them are red, tears pooling in the corners. Her own eyes burn.

“I don’t—I can’t…” Colin trails off, swallowing thickly. He looks away. Stares at his shoes. “I don’t think we should… I think we need some space—”

“Oh.”

It slips out before she can stop it, sounding more like a gasp than a word.

“—From that, not from you,” he says in a rush. “Never from you… I just…”

He looks a bit crazed, dragging a hand through his hair and tugging until it’s a mess, eyes wild as he stumbles over his words, trying to explain himself. He is right. She knows he is right. Knows she is an idiot for thinking this should go any other way, but hearing him say it, acknowledging the new boundary before them, devastates her. But she does not allow it to show, does not want him to feel guilty for doing what he needs to do, what she fully realises she has pushed him into doing. So instead, she just pulls him to her again, wrapping her arms around him in a hug.

“It’s okay,” she says quietly. “I understand. You’re right. Of course you’re right.”

They stand there like that for a bit, simply holding on to one another.

Penelope is the one who pulls away first.

“Call me when you land?” she asks when they part.

He smirks, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Always.”

*

Her phone chimes before she is even back on the motorway.

I miss you already.

Chapter Text

_________________________________________

It starts, Penelope sometimes thinks, with her mother.

A memory exists just on the cusp of Penelope’s subconscious, the details crystallised despite the passage of time. So much of her recollections from her younger years are a mess of scattered snippets that make little sense, the edges of them undefined and unable to be placed back together. The entirety of the memories were once pushed so far down into the recesses of her mind that now she cannot (or does not want to, her therapist once pointed out) recall.

But this one, the image of her mother sitting in the dark, dying cigarette between her fingers as she holds a tumbler of something amber, is vivid and stark.

In the memory, Penelope, barely fifteen, crosses the threshold to the kitchen, eyes red and nose raw from crying. She wipes the moisture from her face. Tilts her chin to conceal her face. Her mother does not even bother to look in Penelope’s direction, the embers of the burning ash of the cigarette set her mother’s face aglow in the darkness.

It is less than a year after they put her father in the ground, and Penelope’s entire world became even more fractured and irreparable than she thought possible. Her mother’s anger has increased tenfold, and Penelope once thought it was simply an aspect of her grief, but now she knows it is just a new facet of her mother she needs to adapt to. Pip and Pru have moved on, seemingly without effort. Like so many other times in her life, she envies them for the ease with which they are simply able to live. At night, though, Pip sometimes crawls into bed with Penelope, holding her as she cries her own tears, whispering promises of it’ll be okay until they both fall asleep. During the day, they remain forever divided. Pip is always just left of centre, a step behind Pru as she echoes her mother’s scorn when remnants of Penelope’s tears and grief are visible in the morning.

Her status as an outsider, a wallflower—even within the walls of her own home—continues to become more cemented with every passing day. It exacerbates her grief at times into something borderline unmanageable.

“Come sit with me, Penelope,” her mother commands, her voice devoid of emotion, of any inflection at all, her hands steady as she stubs out the dying cigarette.

Penelope hesitates, still frozen at the threshold of the kitchen.

“Now,” her mother barks. Then, almost as an afterthought, she adds impatiently, “please.”

With her bottom lip between her teeth to hide the slight wobble of her chin, Penelope crosses the distance to her mother. Sits next to her at the table. Watches as she lights yet another cigarette and takes a long drag. The smoke makes Penelope’s throat tickle. She tries very hard not to cough. Scattered on the table are piles of envelopes, Past Due and Final Notice marked in red on most of them. Her mother hides the truth from the rest of the world, but inside these walls, and especially with Penelope, she wields the truth like a weapon. Like a carefully placed taunt.

That man is not worth your tears, Penelope.

The silence pops in her ears as they sit there, her mother smoking her cigarette and Penelope trying to ensure she is sitting up straight enough. She carefully avoids eye contact, which is why when her mother reaches for her, Penelope startles on contact.

Her mother’s hand is cold and reeks of nicotine as it palms Penelope’s cheek.

“One day you will understand, Penelope. You must. One day you will realise why I treat you, my most sensitive child, the way I do. You must protect yourself. You must take care of you. Nobody else will, do you hear me?”

Years later, Penelope is still unsure if it's the nicest or meanest thing her mother ever did for her.

*

On Monday, Penelope wakes before the sun and feels hungover.

The previous night, after the airport, she returned home and immediately crawled into bed. Sleep found her with surprising ease. Glancing at her phone now, she notes she has been out for well over twelve hours, but somehow still feels exhausted. The adrenaline from the past 72 hours has long since abandoned her, leaving her muscles, bones and mind feeling fatigued and heavy. She stretches her arms and legs out, but it does little to relieve the ache in them.

In the darkness, the brightness of her phone is glaring, alerting her to several missed notifications. She doesn’t swipe to see who they are from; she already knows.

Rolling over, she buries her face in a pillow, willing sleep to find her once more, but is almost instantly overcome by the scent of him, of them. The edges of her eyes start to burn, nausea rolling through her, and she hates herself for feeling this way because she knows this entire situation is a mess of her own making. The onslaught of memories is instant, the longing (and, traitorously, the arousal) is swift as it cuts through her, and while the previous night’s sleep was deep and dreamless, she knows if she tries again now, she will not be as fortunate.

Pushing herself out of bed, she starts pulling the sheets off the bed in a huff. Stalks down the short hallway and shoves them into the washing machine with more force than strictly necessary, a bit out of breath from the haste of her movements. She has a full day of work starting in less than two hours and knows she cannot continue to dwell on things that cannot be undone.

It is best, experience has taught her, to keep moving.

She showers. Washes her hair. Moisturises. Takes care in doing her makeup. Starts the kettle. Decides to make herself an actual breakfast because she barely ate at brunch yesterday—or throughout the entire weekend, really—and even though she doesn’t feel hungry, she knows her body needs fuel to keep moving and moving is how she survives.

When she goes to open the refrigerator, the sight of the postcards startles her.

They stare back at her, their images and inscriptions burned in her mind.

Swiftly, she closes the refrigerator. Switches the kettle off. Grabs a blanket off the armrest of her favourite chair and collapses onto the sofa, covering herself with it as she curls into herself and into the cushions.

Today is a perfect day for working from home, she decides.

*

Throughout the beginning of the week, Penelope does just enough work to get by.

Tuesday, she works from home again, citing an illness that may or may not be contagious. She certainly doesn’t want to get anyone sick, she explains to her boss via email. And it isn’t quite a lie, she rationalises. Her foul mood is sure to infect others. She is exhausted and irritable, and her frustration tolerance is practically non-existent. And, again, she realises this is all her fault, that she is existing in the aftermath of a mess of her own creation, and that knowledge does much to make her feel so much worse.

Regardless, Penelope is good at her job, respected even, so when she cancels some meetings and moves her schedule around, nobody really pays attention. It has been years since she has had to be micromanaged at work, and she even has an assistant now who can take some of her meetings for her and report back. So, she stays at home, in her pyjamas, hair a ratty nest of untamed curls because she never finished her routine on Monday after her shower, and throws herself into the mundane. She answers Colin’s texts with her own perfunctory good morning or a vague update about her day. Their interactions are stilted and insignificant, and it is painful, the striking contrast, but she keeps on moving. Takes the time to work on some backend administrative stuff she has been putting off and edits for a few of her authors who don’t need as much handholding or brainpower. Keeps her phone on silent and just out of reach. If work needs her, they can reach her on Slack. Everyone and everything else can wait.

It is nice, for a while, to be distracted.

It barely lasts.

The flat feels haunted. Penelope can smell him everywhere. Can close her eyes and see memories of them replaying everywhere. And not just from this past weekend, but from the entirety of her tenure within these walls. When he first helped her and Eloise move in during uni, the summer he slept on their couch while he hid out from his mum and Anthony, the movie nights, the dinners, the time they sat vigil by Eloise's side during her first heartbreak. Every last recollection is painful, a reminder of what she has to lose, what she fears she may have already lost.

Penelope is able to redirect her thoughts for a bit, but that, too, does not last.

Gradually, everything starts to feel stifling, a pressure building behind her ribcage that makes her lose her breath. When she cannot stand it any longer, she packs up her things and heads to her favourite cafe. Decides to treat herself to some fancy avocado toast that costs too much and an expensive latte as she works. The pastry is flavourless, the latte bitter. And she is so close to being unravelled, so close to becoming entirely unhinged, that she almost starts to cry right in the middle of her favourite cafe as her favourite barista watches her with a confused look upon his face.

In an effort to refocus herself and maintain composure, she starts to read through the scribblings she has been making in her journal. It is something she has done for years, the act of pouring her thoughts onto the page typically allows her the ability to centre herself when nothing else will.

Without you
Time does not stand still
But without you
I feel like I’m drowning
So I wish it would

The laughter is hysterical as it bubbles out of her at the evidence of her melodramatic, ridiculous, shitty-poetry-writing self. The sound echoes throughout the nearly empty cafe, and all three of the baristas are now looking at her with a frightened, wide-eyed look. Penelope is far too exhausted to care.

She ends up staying at the cafe until closing, although there is very little work to show for her time there. A few edits, a few email replies, a lot of wallowing. It’s late, nearly bedtime, when she gets back to her flat. She knows she should eat, but she doesn’t feel hungry, so instead she just crawls into bed. She still hasn’t properly remade it, so there is just a top sheet strewn across the mattress and her favourite blanket. The one with a bit of weight to it that always makes her feel calm.

It is the first time she has allowed herself some screentime all day, and it is muscle memory, really, the way she immediately sends him a reel that made her chuckle. She catches herself too late, a beat after her thumb clicks send, and finds herself holding her breath as she waits for those three bubbles to appear.

They never do.

Then she finds herself scrolling up, up, up over hundreds of text messages and pictures and memes from the last few weeks and months, and her heart and lungs literally clench inside her chest. She rubs at the point of the most pain, right to the left of her breastbone, and tosses her phone to the side.

Suddenly, she feels wide awake, full of restless, anxious energy, which makes her uncomfortable. The kind that makes her need to immediately move, to stay busy, because if she allows it to run rampant, it will end up clawing under her skin. She throws herself out of bed and starts moving through her apartment on autopilot in an effort to distract herself. Straightens things up. Rearranges others. She cleans the kitchen, the bathroom, the floors, the windows, the floorboards, the grout between the tiles. She does not allow herself to cry. She starts and stops reading the same book at least ten different times. She thinks about calling Colin, just to hear his voice, but doesn’t. Hides her phone from herself. She tries to sleep, again, but when she closes her eyes, she sees him in bed next to her. She does not sleep. She thinks about Colin. She decides not to allow herself to think about Colin. She misses Colin. She cannot stop herself from missing Colin.

By the time she has worn out her mind and body enough to allow sleep to claim her, the sun is just starting to crest over the horizon.

*

On Wednesday, she sleeps most of the morning and then most of the afternoon. Ends up using a sick day.

When she wakes much later, it is to a ridiculous number of notifications, several missed calls from her assistant, and even more from Eloise. It is then, and only then, that Penelope realises she has mostly ignored Eloise for the better part of the last three days, which is something they just don’t do. It is an unwritten rule of their friendship and has been since, well, forever. She catches it just in time because typically, after three days of minimal contact, Eloise has a tendency to just show up. Penelope texts back something vague about not feeling well and taking a day off work.

She doesn’t wait for a response before she rolls over and goes back to sleep.

*

On Thursday, she makes it to the office and puts in great effort, play-acting a productive member of society. She preemptively cancels on Eloise, still feigning an imaginary illness. But then she realises what the day is and wishes she could crawl back in bed. The paper calendar on her desk, which she still uses out of preference, reminds her that it is the first Thursday of the month.

And on the first Thursday of every month, Penelope meets with her therapist.

It has been a standing event in her calendar for over a decade. At times, there were weeks and even months between meetings. At other times, only a few days. Her therapist's name is Jill. She is no-nonsense with a kind face and unruly blonde hair that she has subtly let grey over the years. Jill first met Penelope when she was sixteen at the request of Violet, who was the only adult in Penelope's life who seemed to notice the anger that simmered in Penelope after her father's death. Penelope had protested, offering platitudes of I'm fine, but Violet had insisted in that tender, non-demanding way of hers, and there was nothing, even then, Penelope wouldn't do for her.

So, Penelope went to that very first meeting and stayed quiet. Listened to the ticking of the clock as silence stretched on and on until the point of discomfort. Jill asked a few questions, and Penelope answered honestly but without much detail. As the questions became less pointed and more mundane, the silences became more comfortable and less frequent, conversation edging into small talk that surprisingly came easily to Penelope despite a lifetime of despising such a thing.

At the end of the first session, Penelope gathered her things quickly, desperate for an escape, but found herself pausing at the door.

“I'm sorry to have wasted your time,” she mumbled.

Jill simply smiled. “It was hardly a waste, Penelope. I will take great care getting to know you in whatever way you will allow. I hope that one day you will trust me enough to help you.”

The warmth and kindness in her words and her smile reminded Penelope so much of Violet. And, just like the times when she was on the receiving end of Violet's kind and genuine nature, it made Penelope deeply uncomfortable. The tips of her eyes stung and, inexplicably, agitation ran along her spine.

“So you do think I need help?” Penelope retorted petulantly.

“Everyone needs help. It is just that not everyone is able to accept it or ready to ask for it.”

“I didn't ask to be here,” Penelope muttered, not meeting the woman’s eyes.

“Yet you are here. And it appears an appointment has already been made for next week.”

Idly, Penelope pulled at a loose thread on her jacket. “I may not come back.”

Jill nodded, eyes still kind behind her glasses despite Penelope's attitude. “Of course. That is your choice. But I hope you do.”

Penelope did go back.

And she kept going back.

They met at the same time every Thursday for weeks and months. They talked about nothing and everything. They talked about school and Eloise, the Bridgertons. They discussed Penelope’s dream of becoming a writer and how she never thought that was possible until Eloise simply asked her why notwhen Penelope tried to downplay her dreams. Jill helped her recognise her intrusive thoughts as just thoughts that had no power and her automatic thoughts as faulty representations of reality. Jill helped her realise that the anger she felt was a valid emotion, but what she was doing with it—allowing it to fester and seed—wasn't healthy.

After several months, Penelope’s breakthrough felt anticlimactic but essential all the same. Penelope had come to the office without an appointment on a Friday, having skipped school after an awful argument with her mother. She waited until Jill had an opening, anger filling every crevice of her body until she felt consumed by it. By the time Jill invited her into her office, Penelope had half-moon bruises on her palms from squeezing her hands into fists so tightly.

As she collapsed into the familiar chair opposite Jill's, Penelope grabbed a pillow, covered her face with it and screamed.

And screamed. And screamed. And screamed.

Penelope screamed into that pillow until she was sobbing, until the thought that had been eating her insides away since the day her dad's heart stopped beating became words, and those words were finally uttered aloud.

“I hate her. I hate her so much. I wish it had been her.”

Penelope felt deflated the moment the words left her mouth. For a moment, she could not look at Jill, fearful of the look of surprise and disdain she might see, but after a deep breath, she summoned the courage and was surprised to see nothing unfamiliar. Just patience. Just that same kindness and warmth.

“And isn't that entirely fucked up?” Penelope found herself continuing without any forethought. She began talking so fast she lost her breath, and had to gulp in air between words. “Because he wasn't even there. I have no real memories of him—good or bad. He is just this shadow that exists at the edge of everything. How fucked am I, that I would prefer that to someone who is actually alive and present?”

Penelope reached for the box of tissues to her left, always there but never offered outright, and sniffled as she wiped her nose. Jill looked on, eyes narrowed just slightly, a look of consideration on her face that Penelope had never seen before.

“Perhaps you are not the problem,” Jill said finally.

“I feel like I am.”

Jill, always patient, did not sigh, but she did shift in her seat. “Where is—”

“—The evidence of that,” Penelope finished for her with a watery smile and half roll of her eyes. “I know, I know.”

Portia became the primary topic of conversation within her sessions for a long time after that. There would be days when Penelope vented. Days when she yelled. Days when she cried. More often than not, there was the really hard work of deconstructing all the faulty belief systems her upbringing had instilled in her. The ones that made statements like I am unworthy, I am unlovable, I am too fat, I take up too much space run on a continuous loop in her brain.

Jill and Penelope had seen each other through the highs and lows of the last decade and more: Penelope's first relationship, first break-up, an almost engagement, graduation from university, and the disaster that was her first editing job. Penelope sent a card and flowers to the office when Jill took extended bereavement leave after her husband unexpectedly died. Penelope always brought biscuits for the staff during the holidays and sometimes just because. And after two years of the pandemic, when they were only able to see each other through screens, Penelope asked for a hug when they finally reunited in person and was surprised that Jill did not hesitate to accept the offer.

Besides Eloise and the Bridgertons, Jill is the longest non-familial relationship of Penelope's life.

So, Penelope knows it is odd that during her first appointment after she and Colin started doing whatever they started, she hadn’t updated Jill on the recent events. In fact, Penelope had been careful not to bring Colin up at all since their kiss at Heathrow nearly three months before. Jill knows exactly who he is, of course, and has stood by silent and supportive as Penelope worked through the devastation of unrequited love and towards understanding that other people's thoughts and feelings, especially how they might pertain to her, are not within Penelope's control. Penelope is also fully aware that it is odd that whenever Colin had asked what kept her at the office late on Thursdays, she didn't answer and simply changed the subject.

Colin knows about the therapy, of course. He took her to appointments that first summer and encouraged her to increase her appointment frequency when her panic attacks returned with a vengeance during uni and then again during the pandemic. Colin knows about the anxiety, and the bouts of depression, and the Portia of it all, but Penelope doesn't think he knows. She doesn't think he fully realises how fucked up her brain is and how fucked up she can be.

And even with all the work, all the growth, all the self-discovery and self-acceptance, the default to hide parts of herself away has always been the hardest habit to break.

But there is no hiding here. Not now, as Jill sits across from her, her head tilted to the right, and her lips pressed into a thin line as she waits. Penelope made it to her office today, but her hair is still a mess (albeit cleverly hidden by a headband and a bun that is so messy one of the junior editors actually called it chic), and there are bags under her eyes that her foundation couldn’t even begin to touch. Penelope had tried to cancel this appointment last minute, ready to accept the hefty late cancellation fee without a second thought, but the office manager had immediately countered with a later time in an effort to be accommodating, and Penelope knew that was the universe’s way of telling her what she already knew: she needed this appointment.

In periods of stability, these sessions often transitioned away from structured therapy and more towards talk therapy. She has been seeing Jill for so long that the conversation flows endlessly and easily most of the time, the comfort she finds in the woman’s presence allowing all of Penelope’s carefully placed pretences to fall away. But today their version of playing catch-up is over in a matter of minutes, and the silence is deafening as Jill regards her with a careful, scrutinising look.

“You don’t look like yourself today, Penelope,” Jill finally remarks softly.

“I—” Penelope starts and stops there.

I’m fine, she opens her mouth to say, but the words get lost somewhere along the way. Tension builds inside her belly and spreads to her chest, filling her lungs until she cannot breathe.

“I—I’m not having a good day,” she finally manages to say.

Jill nods slowly, her smile small but kind. “Tell me.”

It is only when Penelope tastes salt that she realises she is crying. The tears are silent as she starts to speak. And once she starts, she can’t seem to stop.

Everything spills out of her: the kiss at Heathrow, the phone sex, the sex sex, the way they left things. How her body feels like it is vacillating from being in overdrive and shutting down. How she feels like a liar and a fraud and a failure. But mostly, and worst of all, how she feels like a bloody hypocrite because she did this. Penelope knows she did this. And, as a result, she knows she has no right to be this miserable.

By the time she is finished talking, by the time she has laid out all of her dirtiest secrets, Penelope cannot even look at Jill.

“Go ahead. Judge me.” Angrily, she wipes at the tears still falling. “I am.”

“Penelope,” Jill tsks. “There is no judgement here. You know this.”

“I am a failure, though! I can’t even do bloody therapy right!”

“There is no right way to do therapy. So long as you are doing it, of course—”

“—But we’ve talked about the self-sabotage for years. I even recognise this is exactly that. Yet here I am, over a decade in, and I am still doing the same shit I did when I was sixteen. Doesn’t that frustrate you as my psychologist?”

“It sounds like it is frustrating to you.”

“Of course it is!” Penelope shouts. She regrets it immediately, the echo of her voice ringing throughout the office. She mutters a sorry as she burrows deeper into her chair, her cheeks red from embarrassment.

A long silence passes before Jill continues on, seemingly unaffected. “Let’s start unpacking some of this, alright?”

Penelope groans. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“Good thing you have me then, yes?” Jill says with a hint of a smirk. She waits a beat before continuing. “Let’s review the basics that are particular to you, alright? When you self-sabotage, what is typically the motivating factor?”

The answer is automatic: “Fear.”

It is a truth she recognised very early on. So much of Penelope’s childhood was consumed by fear. Fear of being too much. Fear of not being enough. Fear of letting people get too close. Fear of allowing people to see the truest, most ugly, most vulnerable parts of herself. Because if the people who were meant to see her unconditionally could not, how could anyone else? She recognises now that it is from this fear so many of her worst and most unhelpful coping skills were created—her people pleasing and over apologizing, her tendency to shrink herself to something less than so she could not be a bother, her instinct to push people away when they stepped just a centimetre too close—all in an effort to control her surroundings so she could protect herself.

Jill nods. “What scared you so much about this situation?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she says flippantly. “Everything?”

“Let's be more specific. It doesn’t sound like you doubt the validity of his feelings—”

“—I don’t,” Penelope says, shaking her head.

And it’s the truth. After their time together, even she, someone who has perfected the art of denial, cannot doubt the depth of his feelings for her. And truly, that is one of the most fucked up aspects of the aftermath of this. The mere idea of Colin reciprocating even a fraction of her feelings has been something she has wished upon stars for, yet she is unable to find comfort in the reality.

“Is it the idea of a relationship?”

“Yes? No… Maybe?” Penelope rubs at her temples in frustration. “I don’t know.”

“You’ve had relationships before, Penelope.”

“Yes… But this would be… different.”

“What would make it different?”

“Because it’s Colin.”

Jill smirks. “He’s just a man, Penelope.”

“He’s also my best friend. His family is my family. I…”

“Go on.”

I could lose everything, her mind reels, and even though this is a place for the truth, even the darkest ones, she cannot bring herself to say it aloud. Jill stares at her, so very patient. She has always been good at that. At waiting for Penelope to come to her own conclusions, to bring up her fears and worries and even her dreams on her own terms.

But, in this, she isn’t ready. Cannot bear to say the words out of fear that they will become a reality. And Jill must realise this because after a long moment, she merely nods as the clock on the wall slowly ticks past the hour, signalling their time is up.

“We are out of time for today, but I think we should move up our next appointment, yes? Next week?”

Penelope nods and moves to stand. Jill walks her out, a routine of theirs typically comprised of enjoyable small talk. Today, they are silent. As they near the door, Jill pauses, humming thoughtfully.

“I will leave you with some homework, though, Penelope. You mentioned that the deciding factor of your conversation with Colin was the idea of long distance. I ask that you reflect on whether you truly feel that a long-distance relationship isn’t worth the effort, or is it that you don’t feel you are worth the effort.”

*

Penelope already knows the answer to Jill’s question, but she still spends the entirety of Thursday evening and Friday doing what she does best: avoiding it. Her schedule is bombarded with all the meetings she kept rescheduling at the beginning of the week, and when her assistant greets her first thing with a cortado, Penelope already knows it is going to be a day. Which is fine, really. It is a reprieve. A busy schedule means a busy mind, and a busy mind means minimal time thinking about All The Things. A busy schedule means absolutely zero time for wallowing, which is more than necessary because Penelope is able to fully admit she is becoming quite pathetic.

The Friday afternoon meeting runs well into Friday night because of a never-ending video call with the influencer-turned-actress of Penelope’s nightmares. But Penelope is grateful because the late night equates to a legitimate excuse for declining whatever thing Eloise and Benedict were trying to harass her into attending.

Instead, her night is comprised of takeaway from her favourite restaurant and a bottle of her favourite wine from the off-licence on the corner, a date with her sofa and trashy television, and a promise to carve out some time for her novel. Penelope has been working on the same project since graduate school, her harddrive full of a series of various edits and variations on themes because she doesn’t allow herself to delete anything even if it is absolute shit. Recently, Penelope had found herself more inspired than ever before, the rewrites flowing out of her with ease, but that seems to have stalled. She knows from experience that the best way to avoid becoming truly blocked is to schedule time to write and allow herself the space to do so without self-editing, so she does just that.

It is a technique that typically works, but tonight all she can do is stare at the blinking cursor on the blank page.

Her thoughts are a jumbled mess of regrets and hopes and Colin.

Penelope feels so full of longing for him that she aches from it. The pressure of it builds within her, filling every cell and synapse, every space that exists between muscle and bone. Out of habit, she reaches for her phone, pulling up their thread. She can count their exchanges from the past week on her fingers and does not need her toes. It feels foreign to her, that lack of contact. They always made time for each other, regardless of the amount of physical distance between them. The lack of the consistency now serves as a reminder of how fucked things are between them.

Clumsily, her fingers type out a message, but she deletes it immediately. Places her phone face down next to her near-empty glass of wine.

There is so much she wants to say to him. So much she should have said to him.

Everything that has been left unsaid between them plagues her. Haunts her. Frightens her.

And the only way out, Penelope has learned, is through.

Saved Draft
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject:
Date: Last Saved 8 AUG 2025 23:59

I love you.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

I have always loved you.

I will always love you.

I should have told you. I don't know why I didn't.

That is a lie, actually. I do know why, and since there is only room for total honesty between us if we want to move forward… The truth is that I have loved you for so long, through so much, that it feels a bit intrinsic to me now. The weight of it is etched into bone and seared into muscle and sinew. It no longer feels like something monumental but rather something that simply is. One of the truest parts of myself.

I have never been good at showing the truest, most honest, most vulnerable parts of myself to anyone, Colin.

Except with you.

It has always been harder to hide with you.

*

Penelope may have met Colin first, and he may be the unequivocal love of her life, but Eloise is her sister, her confidant, the other half of her brain.

And, as a result, Eloise always just knows.

Just after nine AM on Saturday morning, Penelope wakes to a knock on her door and finds Eloise standing there, pastries and coffee in hand. She mentions something about needing proof of life just before declaring the day a Peneloise Day. Penelope does not cry, but her eyes do burn as she pulls her friend into a hug, so utterly thankful for Eloise in ways she has tried and failed many times to express.

Typically, Eloise is all motion and little forethought, but Penelope has always been the one to get her to slow down. Conversely, Eloise is the one who can usually draw Penelope out of her safe little radius and into the real world. They balance each other out that way, and they always have. Eloise pushes while Penelope calms, and they both make sure the other does not stray too far in the opposite direction.

This type of day, a Peneloise Day as it was coined back in their uni days, was commonplace when they lived together. It is, quite simply, a day filled with a mash-up of their favourite things, each of them allowing the other one a veto. Today, Penelope uses her veto too soon, saying absolutely not to watching a livestream of a botany lecture hosted by a guy Eloise has been talking to, which is how, after a day of carb-loading and mindless TV, they end up at a local club that is hosting a rave night. This type of thing has always been more Eloise’s scene than Penelope’s, but rules are rules. So Penelope makes herself look presentable, puts on a cute outfit, and actually finds herself feeling mostly good, happy almost, for the first time all week when they pose for a selfie while waiting for a car.

A gummy (perhaps two in Eloise’s case) was consumed while getting ready, and no less than two shots were taken as soon as they entered the club, so by the time they hit the dance floor, Penelope and Eloise are mostly giggling as they weave their way through the sea of bodies. Even though the bass of EDM always makes Penelope’s head hurt, she loves to dance, and it isn’t like anyone she knows is here, so she lets herself go and enjoys the simplicity of just moving her body. The gummy and alcohol have a nice mellowing effect, allowing her brain to unwind into a nice, slow cadence of nothing for a while.

About an hour in, they start to wear off.

She is mostly sober again by hour two.

There is a guy at the bar too short to be Colin, but the hair has just enough curl and is just the perfect shade of brown to remind her of him. It makes her miserable. It makes her ache. It makes her sick. It has been years— years!—since she has trained her subconscious not to see him in glimpses of the most obscure things. Yet here she is battling an onslaught of feelings and memories because a stranger in a crowded club is the wrong height, with the wrong color eyes, but the same damn haircut.

Eloise reads the shift in her mood instantly, reaching for her hand and yelling something about getting some air. She holds Penelope's wrist, pulling her through the crowd and out into the night. The humidity is oppressive, making Penelope’s skin feel sticky, but away from the music and people, she also feels like she can finally catch her breath. The street is crowded, filled with people waiting to get into the club, but Eloise cuts right through them and into a small alleyway off to the side. Penelope is fumbling with a hair tie, throwing her hair up and off her neck, when she hears the click of the lighter. Her groan is instant, the grimace on her face unmistakable as she watches her friend bring the lighter to the unlit cigarette in her mouth.

“What?” Eloise asks, letting out a puff of smoke.

“That shit’ll kill you, you know.”

Eloise grins. “That’s the basis of its appeal.”

“That’s a bit too nihilistic even for you,” Penelope scoffs.

Rolling her eyes, Eloise says, “Jesus, could you sound any more like Violet?”

Penelope’s mouth presses into a frown as she watches Eloise bring the cigarette to her mouth and take a long puff. The air is still, so the smoke lingers, and the scent of it makes Penelope’s stomach turn, her mouth watering as if she could start retching at any minute. Reaching out, Penelope plucks the cigarette from Eloise’s fingers, tossing it on the ground and using the heel of her shoe to stub it out. Eloise glares. Penelope shrugs. For a moment that seems to stretch into minutes, they simply stand across from one another, silent. Penelope watches the people in the distance, head leaning back against the cool brick behind her, and Eloise watches her, the weight of her gaze scrutinising.

Eventually, Eloise must lose her patience because she finally just asks, “Are you going to talk about what's going on with you?”

“Not—”

Eloise holds up a hand, effectively stopping Penelope from speaking. “And don't say nothing, Pen. I am not an idiot and, quite frankly, it's insulting.”

The lie is right there, right on the tip of Penelope’s tongue. It has been perfected and uttered various times over the years, so much so that it almost feels like the truth most times. But now, Eloise simply stands there, expectantly with one eyebrow raised as she waits. The longevity of their friendship has always been a testament to their commitment to one another, and while Eloise has always had difficulty accepting the opinions and decisions of others, she has always given Penelope the space necessary to be whatever she needs to be in the moment, even if she loudly vocalised her opposition. Still, it became easier to keep the truth about her feelings for Colin to herself, limiting her chances of full exposure.

She is past that now, Penelope knows, and she contemplates total honesty just to unburden herself, but she still cannot bring herself to reveal the whole truth.

“Colin and I…” Penelope trails off, desperate to find the exact right words, but realises there are none. Eventually, she just spits out: “I slept with Colin.”

Eloise doesn’t so much squeal as she does gasp, her eyes wide. She looks almost… gleeful, which thoroughly confuses Penelope. “Oh my god,” Eloise says. She points a finger at Penelope. “I knew it. I fucking knew it.”

“How—”

“—Give me some credit. You two have been weird all summer. Besides, last weekend you both just disappeared at the pub and then showed up at Mum’s together. Even she said something, by the way. You weren't exactly subtle. Ugh. You know Colin has been moping like a little bitch for years about his ‘unrequited love’,” Eloise pauses to make quotation marks with her fingers, “Thank fucking christ you two being together will put an end to that—”

Penelope shakes her head emphatically. “—We aren't together, El.”

Eloise’s diatribe stops short, eyes narrowed and head tilting to the side as she processes. “What?” she asks. Then, before Penelope’s mouth even opens to explain, she trudges on, “Are you trying to keep it a secret or some bullshit like that? I mean, okay, if that’s what you want, but it will not last long. Not with my nosy arse siblings and especially not with Violet. She can sniff out a scheme—”

“No,” Penelope squeaks out. She clears her throat. Tries again. “No. We aren’t… we’re not…It isn’t a thing, El. We aren’t a thing. We aren’t in a relationship. We are just—”

“—Penelope, I swear to fucking god if you say you’re just friends right now, I will smack you.”

“Well, it’s the truth. We are not together.”

“Well, why the fuck not?” Eloise asks matter-of-factly.

“What?”

“What?” Eloise mocks. “How could you guys not be together?”

“It isn't that simple. He is travelling for the next nine months— ”

“So? It's nine months. You have loved him since you were nine years old.” At Penelope’s gasp of surprise, Eloise merely rolls her eyes and continues, “Just because I feign ignorance in these matters doesn't mean I am, in fact, ignorant. It really is that fucking simple, Penelope. He loves you. You love him—”

“I—”

“—Do you want to be with someone else? Can you even picture yourself with someone else?”

Penelope’s stomach turns at the thought. “No. No. Of course not.”

“Then fucking be together!” Eloise practically shouts, hands thrown in the air in frustration. “It truly is that bloody simple.”

Silence follows.

Eloise is loud and brash, and Penelope is used to it, used to how big she feels everything, but still, she flinches at the octave of her friend’s voice. Eloise notices immediately and winces, her features softening as she crosses the distance between them to stand side by side with Penelope.

“Colin… Look… Colin, he's an idiot, but he's good, you know? He loves so big and so unconditionally. And he loves you so much, Penelope. I know this just from watching him show you just a fraction of the love I know he has for you. You deserve to be loved like that. He deserves to be with someone who can love him like that in return, and you are the only one who ever could. Who ever has.”

There is a rush of evidence in the form of memories and touches and declarations to support Eloise’s words, but part of her still fights against reconciling them as the truths.

“That's just it, we do this and… he will eventually realise I am not worth all that. “

“Everyone is worthy of love, Penelope. Even you. Especially you.”

Penelope shakes her head, not allowing the words to sink in. “I can't lose you, El. Your family. Him.” Penelope pauses to swallow, emotion thick in her throat. Finally, she breaks. “I wouldn't survive it. What if—What if it doesn't work out?”

With a tilt of her head and a furrow of her brow, Eloise looks so empathetic, so understanding, and it reminds Penelope so much of Colin that it overwhelms her. Penelope swipes at the tears on her cheeks.

“Babes, what if it does?”

The mere idea stuns her. It has no right to, but it does. Protect. Protect. Protect. That fundamental directive spurred so many years of faulty decision-making in the name of self-preservation. It has been carved into her mind for so long that somewhere along the way, she stopped asking herself what if. Stopped dreaming of happily ever after. Stopped wanting for more, and became accepting of what was, because doing so protected her from the eventual hurt and heartache that was sure to come. If she didn’t want for more, she couldn’t be disappointed. If she kept everyone just right, within reach but also just far enough away, it would hurt less when they moved on. Penelope used to think it was brave, the hyper-independent way she conducted her life. Now, she fears it is the opposite.

“Look,” Eloise sighs heavily, and the sound pulls Penelope’s attention back to her. “If you don't want to be with him, I respect that. And… he will too…But if,” Eloise pauses, bumping Penelope with her shoulder to catch her attention, to force their gazes to meet. Her tone is soft, but firm as she continues, “But if you are holding back because you're scared, well… fuck, Penelope, that isn’t who we raised you to be.”

There isn’t anything Penelope can think of to say to that, so she simply says nothing at all.

Chapter Text

_________________________________________

Colin spends half his flight writing and rewriting a resignation letter.

To Whom It May Concern, he begins, earnest and truthful as he thanks the people at Conde Nast for their generosity and time, crafting the perfect and poetic way to say I quit. He types, then deletes. Re-types. Deletes. Over and over.

He has one perfect version completed and saves it to his drafts to contemplate. When he secured this contract, it felt like a big deal. It was a big deal. A culmination of years of grinding and making a name for himself quietly and carefully. His mum and Anthony had been so proud, and he had soaked in every bit of accolades offered, pride swelling within him at finally being recognised for his hard work. Now, Colin orders a drink and pictures Anthony’s face and his mother's, too; can already see his brother’s scowl and his mother’s look of surprise as he tells them he is moving home after quitting his job. He then allows himself to imagine Penelope’s response and pictures it as happy and full of elation, but realises that he cannot be sure this is even what she wants. He had existed alongside her this past weekend, blissfully happy and content, completely in love and enamoured by her, and he thought she felt the same. Thought they were working towards something. Thought he saw the love he felt for her returned in the way she touched him and looked at him, in the way she kissed him and fucked him. But she had stopped him from saying it, hadn’t she?

Doubt starts to consume him.

He deletes the draft.

A pain in his chest seeds and grows, spreads until it makes it difficult for his lungs to expand against his ribcage. He rubs his hand over the spot right next to the hard bone of his sternum, trying to relieve a bit of the ache. It doesn’t subside. It doesn’t even begin to dull.

Colin spends the second half of his flight torturing himself with memories of the past weekend, of Penelope, a sob perpetually caught in his throat.

By the time his flight lands in Miami, Colin is exhausted from lack of sleep and the endless racing of his thoughts, from the amount of emotion constantly welling up inside of him. It’s early morning already when he exits the airport, and the sun is too bright, even behind his sunglasses. He had texted Penelope the moment the plane touched down, per their long-since cemented ritual, but he did not allow himself to wait for a reply; instead, he clicked his phone to silent and pocketed it immediately.

He dares himself to see how long he can go without looking at it. He only lasts three minutes. His screen is empty of notifications when he looks at it. He pockets it again in a huff.

The assignment this go around is stationary, settled mainly in the same area, so his publisher sets him up with a small little studio versus a hotel. Typically, this is a welcome reprieve as the efficiency studios are homey with delicate touches. They are void of the luxuries a hotel offers, but comfortable because they are meant for living, not simply a stopover. This one is nestled a block off the beach, with a sliver of the ocean visible from the small balcony if he stands on the tips of his toes and leans over the edge. He thinks if Penelope were here, he would have to lift her up so she could see the water. The view is beautiful. It also makes him incredibly homesick.

Closing the blinds, he toes off his shoes and collapses onto the bed, willing sleep to claim him.

He is thankful that while sleep does find him, his dreams do not.

*

He wakes up eight hours later to a dying sunset and too many notifications on his phone to count. He skims through and ignores most of them, immediately clicking on the text chain with Penelope. Her response is perfunctory, with proper punctuation and a standard smiley emoji. Nothing else. It is like a kick to the stomach to realise she didn’t even respond or react to his I miss you from a day earlier.

That ache in his chest begins to deepen into a gnawing pain. Around him, the room is bathed in brilliant hues of pastel orange and pink, the beams scattered through the vertical blinds.

Colin pulls the pillow over his head and goes back to sleep.

*

The assignment is relatively simple: a human interest piece on the indigenous tribes in the area that were instrumental in the founding of the national park system of Florida. Fortunately, he is paired with Patrick, a journalist he has worked with a few times before, which provides him a bit of a reprieve because even though Colin does his job and does it well, he is undeniably distracted those first few days as he spends much of his time trying to temper his expectations and emotions.

It has always been a problem for him—the act of containing his emotions. The act of containing himself. He has always been the sensitive one, always just on the edge of being too much.

A therapist told him once, way back when, that his father’s death made his body feel like it was in a constant state of fight or flight, nerves and mind permanently hyperaware. His brain overanalysed and, at times, overreacted. Colin can attest to the validity of this, to those miserable days and weeks after they buried his father, when everything felt like it was spinning out of control and he felt paralysed by the change, unable to make sense of the emotions that overwhelmed him and the lack of belonging he felt in a world that no longer included his father. He now knows he has become adept at reading the emotions of others, predicting their wants and needs, not only to soothe their pain or grief, or whatever ailed them, but also to be in control of everything around him. And when that failed? When the world kept spinning too fast and further out of his grasp? Colin simply perfected the art of leaving because that he could control.

But with Penelope, it has always been different. Yes, his emotions were still too much—he always felt so seen and so heard and so comfortable while in her presence. But he also never felt like he had to be in control with her. He never felt like he had to tamp down all the aspects of himself that society and Anthony and the rest of his siblings always considered to be too much.

With Penelope, he could simply exist.

Their exchanges continue on, albeit brief, after he leaves London. She does not call, and he doesn’t either. There are very few texts sent outside of good morning and vague updates about their days. She sends him gifs, and reels, and memes and he responds in kind. These exchanges have forever been cemented as part of their language, ways for them to say I am thinking of you, I miss you without having to say the words. He used to find comfort in them, but now everything just seems so empty. He is used to missing home, to missing her, but now that he is able to fill in every last detail of his wildest fantasies with memories, the missing feels like a visceral ache in his gut. It makes him sick.

Two days in, he starts rationing himself. Allows himself to only check her socials once per day. Physically reminds himself not to take his phone out simply to check and see if she has contacted him. It is all a lesson in patience and humility, and by day four, he is struggling. That ache in his gut has begun to hollow him out, and his memories are a constant source of torment. He feels sluggish and fatigued, wanting nothing more to just sleep because in his sleep, he dreams of her, of them, and in his dreams, when she asks him to stay, she means forever.

*

By day five, he is a mess.

“You alright, man?”

Patrick’s voice startles him out of his thoughts. They’re standing next to a mangrove, Patrick finishing up with a park ranger and Colin fiddling with his camera’s settings. It takes him a minute to realise he’s even talking.

“Yeah—Did you—Were you talking? Did you need something? I was lost a bit in thought there,” Colin says a bit sheepishly.

“No, you’re all good.” The man stops for a moment, like he is considering whether or not to continue. “Just wondering if you are okay. You have been too quiet this trip. It’s a bit unnerving, man.”

Patrick is a nice enough guy—American, from Texas, with a southern drawl that Colin used to think only existed in movies. They’ve worked with each other several times over the years and are more friendly than colleagues. He is one of the few people that Colin would call a friend if pressed to do so. They make it a point to grab a pint or a night out whenever they are on assignment together or even if they happen to be in the same place at the same time. Throughout this trip, Patrick has asked nightly, but Colin has refused every attempt with various excuses.

“It’s…” Colin starts and stops, unsure of what to say. Chooses not to say anything at all, just mumbles an apology and goes back to adjusting the settings on his camera.

“What’s her name?”

The question startles him, causing him to click the shutter release on the camera prematurely. The resulting image is a blurry mess. “What?”

“C’mon. It’s always a girl. What’s her name?”

Colin considers ignoring the question, but her name is perpetually caught in his throat, and he thinks it might be nice to shed some of this burden. So, after a long moment, he simply answers, “Penelope,” and immediately regrets it.

“What?!” Patrick all but screams in shock. He makes a show out of removing his sunglasses to stare at Colin dramatically. “The Penelope? Did that shit finally happen? I called this years ago,” he says gleefully, clapping his hands. “You've been borderline lovesick for as long as I've known you.”

Colin presses his mouth into a thin line. “I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration.”

Patrick laughs, loud and boisterous, performative almost. It reminds him a bit too much of Benedict. “It is definitely true. You talked about that girl nonstop. I seriously thought she was your wife for the first two years we knew each other.”

“Well, she isn’t,” Colin snaps, replacing the lens cap on his camera. “She’s just a friend.”

“Right.” Patrick draws out the word like an accusation. “A friend who we have finally successfully fucked?”

That statement makes him both angry and ill at once, and Colin can’t help but grimace at the nausea that rolls through his stomach. Colin levels a glare at him. “It’s not like that. Don’t—Just… Don’t.”

Patrick holds his hands up in mock surrender, signalling his apology. “Sorry.”

They lapse into silence. It isn’t comfortable, but it grows into something Colin can easily ignore. They finish up with their content and share a car back to the city, and by the time they see Miami proper coming back into view, conversation begins again, and Colin isn’t sure why he says yes to a drink, but he does. Patrick doesn’t bring up Penelope, and Colin doesn’t either, and instead, they discuss nothing of importance. It is freeing, for a bit, to have his mind void of anything at all. One drink turns into several, then they do tacos at this curbside place that has an underground speakeasy through an empty and refashioned porta potty, and one minute they’re joking about how fucking weird that it is and the next minute they are doing shots at said bar. And this, too, feels freeing—the way the alcohol numbs and makes him forget, the way he can feel his heartbeat slow into a steady thrum instead of being in overdrive, the way he does not think of Penelope at all.

Until he does, of course. Until his phone beeps and vibrates in his pocket. He pulls it out to look, and disappointment consumes him when he sees the sibling group chat going off and nothing from her. Colin ignores the chat and orders a round of shots. Downs both of them and orders some more. The process of using alcohol in excess to numb whatever ails him is an old habit he tried to bury years before, and he knows, as he orders that third round, that he should quit, that this, too, he has a tendency to be excessive with. But for the first time in days, that gnawing ache has turned into just a dull annoyance, into something manageable, and he wants to hold onto that as long as he can.

Patrick is perpetually single and flaunts it, so Colin isn’t surprised when women start coming and going regularly throughout the evening, making small talk, fluttering their eyelashes, laughing too loudly at his dumb jokes. Colin contributes to the conversation when appropriate and maintains boundaries when some women start getting a bit too handsy. When one asks him directly to dance, his mind and mouth immediately move to say no, but Patrick answers for him. The woman looks gleeful and grabs Colin’s hand, and Colin follows because not doing so would be far too awkward. There is something mumbled from Patrick about the best way to get over ‘em is by getting under someone else as he claps him on the back, and Colin turns his head to mutter a rebuttal, but his friend’s attention is already elsewhere.

The place is packed, and he follows the woman blindly through throngs of people until they are right in the middle of everyone. Sweat pools at the base of his spine from both the heat and anticipation. The woman is tall, with perfectly tanned skin and dark eyes. She’s objectively beautiful, and years before, when he was the worst version of himself, she would have been the type of woman Colin would use to make a point to himself that casual is something he could not only do but do well. He has long since accepted that it isn’t who he is, but the alcohol coils in his mouth and makes him feel light, and the distraction of dancing makes him feel even lighter. He welcomes the change readily.

The song switches to a beat that is deeper, more sensual, and before he can think twice, the woman has pressed herself entirely against him. Her back to his front. He stills, then allows his body to act on autopilot, his hands moving to rest at her waist, body moving in rhythm with hers. The alcohol that was just making him feel light and floaty suddenly starts weighing him down, making him falter, and the reprieve he had been granted by his absence of thought is now over, his mind reeling about how everything just feels wrong. The woman reaches for him, her hand skimming along his jaw, tangling in his hair in an attempt to pull him closer, and it is clear what her intentions are, what she wants, and the bile is burning in the back of his throat in an instant.

He pushes away from her and through the people around them over and over until he is outside. The humidity in the air is thick and stifling, and suddenly, everything feels like too much—the heat, the anxiety, the taste of bile in the back of his throat. Before he knows what is happening, he is vomiting in a bush.

Colin is sitting on the ground, back against the cool siding of the building, when Patrick finds him a few minutes later. He tosses him a water bottle. Colin fails to catch it properly, causing it to hit him square in the chest. He watches as it slowly rolls into the dirt before grabbing it.

“This,” Patrick says, motioning at him with a wave of his hand, “is a real vibe killer. You are clearly not okay, Bridgerton. And I’m here if you want to talk, but it’s clear I am not the one you want or need to talk to.”

A car pulls up, and Patrick helps him into it, tossing a few extra dollars to the driver to ensure there are no stops between their current location and the studio Colin’s been staying at. He even opens the bottle of water and makes Colin drink half of it in one gulp before he tells him he will check on him in the morning. The motion of the car makes Colin's stomach lurch at first, but then oddly soothes it. It is well after midnight, but the city is just starting to wake up. It makes him feel adrift and displaced, and he rests his head against the back of the seat, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes and hates how pathetic and lost he feels.

*

By the end of day six, he cannot handle it anymore—the distance, the avoidance, the erasure of everything that has happened.

In the morning, Colin wakes to a pounding head and too bright sun filtering through the blinds. He texts her good morning even though it is nearly noon in London. She replies in kind, just those same two words in return. An hour later, he sends her a picture of his view, of that little sliver of the beach amongst the highrises. She merely hearts the picture in response. He chews his thumbnail raw, waiting as the blue dots hover for what seems like forever before disappearing altogether.

He swallows thickly against the sob of frustration rising within him, and swears he can still taste her. Six days, 4,428 miles and entire fucking ocean away and he can still taste her. He wonders if he will ever stop seeing her every time he closes his eyes. Wonders if he will stop hearing her voice every time a beat of silence leaves him without distraction. Wonders if she will ever not occupy his every thought.

All the wondering is pointless, he knows. He already knows the answers.

Patrick is true to his word and brings him coffee and doesn’t ask questions he must know Colin does not want to and is not willing to answer as they make their way to their last interview. The day ends up being a bit hectic, with a last-minute change in location, which has them travelling hours out of their way. It is annoying, especially when they have to backtrack through downtown at rush hour, but it is a welcome relief to his mind because it does not give him time to overthink or worry or remember.

But then the day comes to a close, and Patrick leaves for his next destination, and Colin is alone again.

And then the cycle continues on.

Dinner is a solo venture at a local tapas place. He nurses a beer and eats too many chips. Thinks about how if Penelope were here, she would make him drink margaritas with her despite the fact that he hates tequila, and how he would do it, always, because she asked and because he could never deny her. He pulls up her Instagram for the first time all night and sees that Eloise has tagged her in a story a few hours prior. The lighting is shit, the picture grainy, but Penelope is smiling and has that bold red lip he loves on her. The longing hits him swiftly, and he nearly doubles over from the force of it as he sits there, by himself, in the middle of a crowded restaurant.

A week prior, Colin had left London, vowing to give her space. To take space he knew he needed while promising himself that he would respect the boundary she set, even though he hated it. Even though he thought it was dumb. He had thought, briefly, that it would be no different than before. He has spent so long loving her in silence, after all. He should be used to it by now.

And he was used to it… before.

Before her touch was ingrained in the very fabric of his being.

Before it was cemented just how much she was ingrained into the very fabric of his being.

Colin thought he knew, thought he had a grasp on just how important she was to him, how she invaded every recess of his brain, every thought.

In reality he had no fucking clue.

He regrets sleeping with her, but only because it makes this feel so much worse. Knowing her so intimately, so completely… knowing how incredible and right it feels when you are truly and wholly connected to the other person… the change within him feels irrevocable. He doesn't want to go back, but he also does not want to feel like this. Colin never thought last weekend would end like this.

And, really, he guesses he didn't really think at all, which is likely the root of the problem.

His beer turns sour, and he realises too late that he has, in fact, eaten too many chips to even enjoy his food. He throws some cash onto the table and wanders around for a bit. Wynwood is just a few streets over, and he pays his entrance fee and ambles around the gardens, taking in the graffiti art and sculptures and the smell of the food carts lining the walkway. He takes some pictures of a few and sends them to Benedict, who responds almost immediately. He takes some more, just of the ones that remind him of Penelope or the ones he thinks she would like and realises he has taken pictures of nearly every piece he has encountered because he sees her everywhere and in everything.

He sends her a few. She doesn’t respond.

When he returns to his studio, he is completely exhausted, but everything feels like it is overdrive. He clicks on the television in an attempt to zone out, but all he can find is old episodes of The Office, and it makes him think of Penelope, naturally, because once upon a time, it was their show. Something they bonded over because Eloise hated it and it drove her nuts when they quoted it incessantly, but also because it was a little secret they shared, that they preferred the American version to the British original.

On the screen, Holly and Michael are getting engaged, surrounded by their friends and the blare of fire alarms and sprinklers. Colin’s breath catches, his throat suddenly dry as he watches. Amongst the chaos, Michael announces they are moving to Colorado, so simply, so naturally, and Colin has seen this episode at least ten times during various rewatches, but this is the first time he feels as though he can fully appreciate the gravity of the moment, of Michael’s declaration. Because when you love someone and you want to be with them, that’s what you do. You make it work.

Penelope had made it seem like it wasn’t that simple, but Colin thinks it is. That it could be. That it should be.

Maybe he just has to try harder to show her that he could be here and still be present for her. That he is worthy of the time and patience it would take to make it work.

Beside him, his phone sits motionless, void of any notifications from her. The blank screen taunts him. Frustration rises and takes over, filling every last pore and crevice of him, and he knows for sure that he cannot do this anymore.

“Fuck it,” he mutters to the empty room, reaching for his phone.

Colin to Penelope💛
9 AUG 2025
[19:50]

Colin: I don’t like how we left things last week

Her reply is almost immediate, despite it being close to 1 AM in London.

Penelope💛: I don’t either
Penelope💛: I don’t like this
Penelope💛: This distance between us

Colin pauses. Contemplates. Tries to choose his words carefully, but swiftly gives up, too tired for careful and too desperate to bridge the distance between them.

Colin: I don't mean to be pushy
Colin: I don't want to do anything that makes you uncomfortable
Colin: But I can’t stop thinking about you
Colin: and I don’t think I can go back to the way things were

He pauses as the blue dots appear and linger.

Penelope💛: What does that mean for us?

The breath leaves him in a whoosh, some of the frustration, the desperation starting to ebb into relief that she is willing to talk, that her answer isn’t immediately no. He should call her; he wants to call her. But he knows Penelope better than he knows himself, and she is too easily startled, does not respond well to feeling cornered. It makes her retreat into her armour so she can ready herself for whatever is next. He cannot risk that now.

Frantically, he pulls up his calendar and email. Makes a few adjustments to his upcoming itinerary. He is set to be in Vermont to capture an upcoming festival, and typically, he leaves himself a 48-hour buffer to get acquainted with the area, to map out ideal vantage points so he can capture the perfect shot. It’s an important part of his process, but this—her, them—is more important.

Colin: I will be back tomorrow night
Colin: A short trip
Colin: Can I see you?
Colin: Just to talk
Colin: Please?

He holds his breath as those blue dots appear.

Penelope💛: Yes

*

To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: may contain spoilers
Date: DELIVERED 10 AUG 2025 03:17 BST

I love you.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

I have always loved you.

I will always love you.

I should have told you. I don't know why I didn't.

That is a lie, actually. I do know why, and since there is only room for total honesty between us if we want to move forward… The truth is that I have loved you for so long, through so much, that it feels a bit intrinsic to me now. The weight of it is etched into bone and seared into muscle and sinew. It no longer feels like something monumental but rather something that simply is. One of the truest parts of myself.

I have never been good at showing the truest, most honest, most vulnerable parts of myself to anyone, Colin.

Except with you.

It has always been harder to hide with you.

You have always made me feel so safe, so cared for, so seen. I know this ability of yours - to be so patient and so kind to everyone who crosses your path - is not individual to me, but I cannot begin to explain how it affected me. How it changed me. How simply meeting you changed me. How loving you and being loved by you, even if it was just platonic, even if it would never be anything more than platonic, saved me. Meeting you brought me to Eloise, to your mum, to your family. I was alone for so long, Colin. Growing up under Portia's reign and amongst my father's indifference... it was so lonely. I was so sad. I was so hopeless. I was, at times, consumed by feelings of worthlessness. Meeting you and Eloise, being taken in by your family, and being loved by your family. I... even as a writer, I do not believe there are enough words to describe how much that changed the course of my life.

I fear losing you. I fear losing them. I always have.

I fear that in allowing myself to fall even further in love with you, allowing myself the privilege of being with you, that you will undoubtedly see the real me. All the bits I've hidden. All the bits I've lied about. All the mess I've been trying to clean up for years. I worry that once this happens, once all my deepest secrets have been unearthed, you, too, will leave.

I have spent so much of my life trying to protect myself against this, trying to protect myself in everything. It is all I know. It is not an excuse. You do not deserve excuses.

But I think I can do better. I want to do better.

For you. For Me. For us.

Yours,

Pen

Chapter Text

_________________________________________

Somewhere in London, a man waits for a woman on the steps outside her flat.

Penelope sees Colin the moment she rounds the corner; his outline is unmistakable, even from a distance. Her steps falter, pausing almost completely, despite the knowledge that he would likely be waiting. Despite the feeling of calm just slightly edging out the apprehension that has consumed her all day at just the sight of him. She had been at his mum’s for an early Sunday Roast when she received his text alerting her that his flight had finally landed. He had been expected much earlier, but there was a storm brewing in the Atlantic, delaying things.

The moment she enters his field of vision, he stands. His smile is warm, genuine, wide. Her own twists at the corner of her mouth as she continues towards him, stopping when they are finally within reach of each other. It is late, almost dusk, and there is a shift in the breeze, a thickening of humidity in the air signalling a looming rainstorm. That same damn light flickers on and off above them, the buzz of it echoing on the quiet street. She remembers the last time they were here. Can still feel the heat and weight of his touch. Her whole body flushes.

“Hi,” she says.

Colin’s grin grows wider. “Hi.”

His carry-on sits at his feet, and it hits her, suddenly and a bit dumbly, that he came to see her first. Not his mum. Not his siblings. After a hellish day of travel, he did not think about heading to the flat he keeps in SoHo to shower or even nap. He caught a taxi and came straight to hers. Penelope thinks back over the years and is struck by how much of a routine this actually is for them. Upon his return from travelling, it was either Violet or Penelope that Colin sought out first, never anyone else. She used to think it didn’t mean anything. Never allowed herself to think that it meant anything. Now, Penelope knows it means everything.

Christ, they were so goddamn stupid about things, weren't they?

Standing with him now, a lifetime of moments between them far more significant than this one, Penelope is struck by how tense things feel between them. Not awkward, not apprehensive, just…tense. Colin stands before her, hands twitching at his sides before moving to hide them in the pockets of his jeans. He rocks back on his heels a bit, chews the inside of his cheek. She has spent a lifetime studying Colin Bridgerton, learning his tells, learning his ticks, and she knows he is trying to keep himself from bridging the distance between them, from reaching for her because in the past, he would have. In the past, he would not have hesitated to hug her tightly and would have been reluctant to let go. In the past, he would have held on until she was the one to pull away. He always waited for her to be the one to pull away.

Now, he is careful with her in a way that he hardly ever is, and it sets her on edge. She has been riddled with nerves all day, the excitement over the prospect of seeing him again both double-edged and relentless, leaving her stomach in knots. Last night, driven by the knowledge that she would see him today and by the acceptance that absolute honesty (with herself and with him) was necessary to move forward, she did what she always did when her thoughts did not make sense to her, when her mouth had trouble catching up with her brain and heart. She typed her thoughts out, edited the words until they flowed, until their meaning was precise. And then, with all the courage she could muster, she clicked send.

With a fucking read receipt that informed her he opened the email four hours later, likely when he woke to go to the airport. Yet he did not respond and has not yet even acknowledged it. The doubt intensifies, a lifetime of lies regarding her unworthiness seeping to the surface. Despite them, Penelope remains resolute in her decisions to be honest, and breaks the divide between them first, reaching out to touch her fingers to the stubble at his chin. His breath hitches, a shudder visibly running through him.

“I like the beard,” she says softly.

There is a loud snap of lightning in the distance, followed quickly by a roll of thunder. She counts to three in her head before dropping her hand. Colin sighs a little, at the loss of contact perhaps, reaching to rub at the spot on his chin that her fingers just touched.

“Yeah, I… I got a little lazy, I think.”

“I have a difficult time believing that.”

He shrugs. Searches her face for a long moment before amending, “A little lost, then.”

“Yeah,” Penelope breathes. And nods. Continues honestly, “Me too.”

His eyes widen slightly, the weight of his gaze heavy as it searches hers. He looks surprised, taken aback almost at the way she does not allow her face to shutter into something of neutrality, at the way she allows the vulnerability to remain for him to see. He still seems uncertain, his hands back in his pockets as he holds himself back.

“I missed you,” she says, and the small little quirk of a smile that spreads across his mouth is so beautiful and gives her the courage to continue on, “And I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too,” he says, grinning fully now. He takes a step forward and towards her. Her belly clenches at the sudden closeness, at the warmth she can feel radiating off him. “Although I am surprised your neighbour didn’t call the police. She kept coming to the door to make sure it was locked. Said I looked shifty.”

“The old lady with the wig? Yeah, she’s harmless, but so bloody nosy.” Above them, the movement of a curtain catches Penelope’s attention. “She will probably call the police, though, if we linger long enough.”

Their joint chuckling fades into an awkward silence, and for a long, strange beat, they simply stand there, staring at one another, the tension between them setting fire to the doubt swarming in her gut. Penelope starts to feel like her body is in overdrive, the familiar adrenaline of fight or flight kicking in, and she is suddenly acutely aware of how closely he is watching her, how much space he is giving her to take the lead.

The sky opens up slowly above them, rain starting to fall.

“Come up with me?” she asks boldly.

Colin merely nods, one hand reaching for his bag and the other slotting against her back every so often as she leads them upstairs. He follows behind closely, but unlike the last time they made this same trek up to her flat, he is careful to only touch her with the gentlest of pressure at the small of her back. There are no flirtatious touches, no brushes of his mouth to her ear, no whispered sweet nothings. Which is fine, really, because after a week of barely speaking to him and a week of physical absence after the most ridiculous and fantastic sex of her life, the gentle touch at her back is actually quite maddening.

At the door, she fumbles with her keys again, overwhelmed, but is able to engage the lock and push the door open on the second try. He follows her inside, follows her lead. Toes his shoes off and places them in line with hers near the door, his pristine sneakers slotting right amongst her heels and flats.

“I snagged some leftovers from your mum,” she says, staring a bit too long at their shoes, at the way his things fit amongst hers. “I’m willing to share, if you’d like.”

“I think I need a shower, actually.” Penelope tears her eyes away from the sight of their shoes together and glances at him. It is the first time she has noted how tired he looks. His sigh is heavy as he runs a hand over his face. “They redirected my flight to Atlanta, which is, quite possibly, its own special circle of hell, and…” he trails off, shaking his head. “Is that okay? I’ll only be a few minutes.”

“Oh. Yeah. Yes… Of course.”

The juxtaposition of this moment with every single one they have shared before within this space is jarring. He has never asked for permission; he is always comfortable enough to come and go as he pleases. Her mugs and dinnerware are even organised by his preference because he convinced her it flowed better. The uneasiness he carries with him now causes her own to fester and grow, that doubt spreading into a slow panic.

He disappears with his bag, and she stands there for far longer than necessary, listening as the water starts to run. She definitely does not allow herself to think about the last time he was in her shower, but fails miserably. The idea of him naked, in her shower, in the last place they fucked is… well, too much for her to handle, really, so she focuses on actions and not her thoughts. Heads to the kitchen to unload her takeaway containers, straightening up as she goes. It’s a needless effort. The space is still mostly tidy from her insomnia-induced deep clean a few nights prior, but if she stills for too long, the panic has space to take over, and when she panics, she knows old habits are harder to fight against. So she keeps busy. Starts heating up some of the leftovers because she knows he will be hungry even if he denies it. Picks the wilted greens out of the salad because she knows he hates the texture, and removes the berries because Colin has always felt very strongly about the addition of fruit in a salad.

“I got your email.”

Penelope had been so fixated on her task that the sound of his voice startles her. She whips around to face him so fast it makes her dizzy.

The sight of him is devastating. His hair is wet, and the cotton t-shirt he wears clings too tightly everywhere, as a pair of stupid grey joggers hang low on his waist. He is so fucking handsome it hurts. He lingers in the entryway of her kitchen, eyes poring over her intently, and she does not know how she ever thought they could be just friends after last weekend because her want and desire for him have not abated; they have only continued to grow. She feels consumed by it, and all he is doing is existing. He stares at her, and she stares at him, and the arousal is swift as it pools in her belly. Her body’s instinctive reaction feels a bit traitorous given everything that remains unsaid, everything that remains undecided between them. However, it seems that giving herself permission to be fully honest in her thoughts and actions has allowed all that she has worked so hard to ignore over the years to rise to the surface more intensely and unrelentingly than ever.

“Oh,” is all she can think of to say.

“Did you…” Colin pauses. Swallows. Holds her gaze as his hands fidget at his sides. “Did you mean it? What you wrote?”

Penelope swallows against the onslaught of growing panic, against the need to retreat and protect.

“Yes,” she says. And then, because she wants to be clear, she wants to be honest, and she needs to be brave, she continues, “I love you, Colin. Of course I do. I have always—”

Colin makes a strangled sound, something desperate and low, and then he is before her, his hands on her face as his mouth fuses with hers.

*

I love you.

Colin had read and re-read her email a million times over. Was kept awake by the hope it instilled within him. The entirety of it has been memorised, seared into his mind, imprinted on the back of his eyelids. He had written out a number of replies, but could not seem to string together words in a meaningful enough way, so he decided to wait until he was with her to tell her the truth of his feelings. Because he knows Penelope. Knows even with the truth laid blatantly before her, she will still instinctively look for evidence to support it, and if he is with her when he finally, finally utters aloud what he has been wanting to say for years, there will be no mistaking the validity of his declaration.

Hearing her say the words aloud simultaneously breaks and mends something deep within him.

Makes him feel both vulnerable and courageous.

Kissing her seems like the right thing to do—the only thing to do, really—and he cannot hold back from touching her, from being close to her, from pouring every bit of love and admiration and affection he feels for her out into the open. So he bridges what little distance is left between them, takes her face between his hands, and tilts her chin just so until their lips can meet. It is an urgent, desperate kiss. Colin is greedy in the way his tongue seeks and demands entrance into her mouth and Penelope is unashamed in how easily she grants him access, in the way she sucks lightly on his tongue and bottom lip. Between them, her hands fist in the cotton of his shirt, pulling him impossibly closer, and they both stumble a bit as they move backwards until her back is hitting the edge of the counter, until they are pressed up against each other everywhere.

There is a moan—his, hers, it doesn’t even matter because it gets lost to the moment instantly—and he needs to feel her, all of her. His hands leave her face to tangle in her hair, to smooth over the dips and curves of her, to settle at her waist and dig in. She gasps into his mouth at the pressure, juts her hips against his. Deepens their kisses. Penelope tastes exactly how he remembers, but also better somehow. They become so wrapped up in each other, in the primal give and take of their kissing, and it takes him a second to register the feel of her hands against his bare skin, the touch of her fingers under the waistband of his joggers. Her hand dips lower, palming his cock with the gentlest of touches, and suddenly he cannot breathe, cannot think, cannot even keep kissing her.

It feels amazing—every single fucking thing about her is amazing—but he knows what she is doing even if she doesn’t. The next moments, minutes, hours unfold before him with their gasps of pleasure and arching of backs, and he wants that, fuck does he want that, but he also wants all of her.

“Pen.”

Colin sighs her name, but it still comes out like a plea as he rests his forehead against hers, searching her face. They are both dazed and breathless. She blinks up at him, apprehension flickering across her flushed features. He presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth before beginning to untangle himself from her. He takes one, single step back from her, to place distance between them for his own sanity, but is careful to hold on, one hand at her waist and the other on her cheek.

“I can’t… We…” He stutters and stops, tries to right the mess inside his head. He sees the fear in the widening of her eyes, in the way her body grows rigid. He holds onto her more tightly as he continues, “I made the mistake of thinking we were on the same page before, and I can’t do that again,” he tells her softly. “You asked for certainty before, and I should have given it to you. I should have told you that I love you. That I am in love with you and have been for years… I am 100% certain about you. About us. About our future. There is nobody else for me. You are it, Pen. You have always been it for me, even when I didn't realise it.”

Penelope’s smile is slow, but wide as it stretches across her mouth, and she is beautiful as she murmurs, “I love you, too.”

“Good,” he says, and his cheeks ache from how wide he is grinning. “I am glad we have that settled.”

His thumb draws the line of her cheekbone, and he leans down to capture her lips with his once, twice, three times. It is meant to be languid and lazy, but he can feel the dissonance in the movement of her mouth against his. When he pulls away again, he searches her face. She stares at him wide-eyed and full of concern, full of fear. He saw the same look across her face countless times the previous weekend, every single time he got just close enough to force the necessary conversation about their future. He had followed her lead then, allowed her to retreat into herself, allowed her to distract with sex and physical intimacy while withholding the emotional intimacy he desperately needed. Colin knows he cannot do that to either of them again.

“Hey,” he says gently, guiding her chin so he can hold her gaze as he murmurs, “where did you go just then?”

The question startles her, he can tell, and she reaches up to cover her face with her hands as she attempts to move away from him. Colin’s instinct is to hold on, but he resists, allowing her to place whatever amount of distance she feels she needs between them. She slips from his grasp, moving to the opposite side of the kitchen.

“This is so complicated,” she sighs, and her back is to him as she talks, her hands gripping the edge of the countertop in front of her.

“Don’t do that, Pen. Please. Please don’t hide.” His voice sounds as exhausted as he feels, his tone bordering on begging. She turns to face him slowly, her arms now crossed over her chest. “Look, I needed to see you. We needed to have this conversation in person, so I came home. I made it work. I will always make it work because you are so fucking important to—”

“—I know, but—”

“—No! No buts, Pen!”

He doesn’t yell, not exactly, but the frustration and exhaustion and desperation make his words come out too loud, and he winces immediately, dying a bit at the way she recoils slightly. Penelope has never explicitly told him the horrors of her childhood, but he has been watching and learning her for years, and he knows that raised voices and shouting and even a noise that is slightly out of place easily startle her. Can force her to draw back into herself. He cringes as he watches just that begin to happen in real time.

Tiredly, he runs his hand over his face. “Fuck. Fuck. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“—It’s okay,” she says, almost in a whisper.

“It’s not. It really isn’t, I just…” he shakes his head. Takes a breath. Tries again. “Whatever your concerns are, tell me. We can work them out. I know we can. But you have to be honest with me. You have to talk to me. You have to let me in. That is the only way this works. Please—Please don’t shut me out again, Pen.”

Silence fills the room, stretches on and on between them. For what feels like far too long, they simply stand together in her kitchen, just within arm’s reach of one another. At his sides, Colin’s hands curl and uncurl into fists. Penelope’s arms remain tightly crossed over her chest and only release to move to the counter, gripping the edge of it on either side of her as if she is holding on. He watches as the tips of her fingers turn white from the force of her grasp, his gaze only forced away when she begins to talk.

“When you leave, Colin…” Penelope will not look at him as she talks, as her voice breaks along the edges, as she continues, “it feels like you are leaving me. That you are choosing to leave me. That I am not good enough for you to want to stay.”

Her truth devastates him. Cuts right into the most vulnerable pieces of him, the parts of him that have worked so hard to be worthy of all those around him, to be worthy of her. The idea that he has failed in this, in making her believe that he would always choose her, that he would always work on being better for her, for them, makes him feel ill. At his core, he knows that her worry is not specific to him, that it is about her and all the lies she has been led to believe about herself, but fuck if it doesn’t hurt all the same.

He swallows around the sob caught in his throat. “That's not—”

“—I know. No. I know.” Penelope wipes at the tears streaming down her face. “I know that it is irrational. I know that is just my stupid brain lying to me. But I can’t help it, you know? I cannot help but be afraid that once you see me, all of me, all the fucked up crazy bits I work so hard to keep contained that you will one day decide it isn’t worth it, that I am not worth it, and stop coming back. And then if I lose you, I lose your family. And your family is my family, yeah? They—they mean so much to me—and I can’t—I can’t—”

Penelope starts talking so fast that she cannot catch her breath, her words broken between hiccups and sobs, and Colin cannot stand it any longer—he crosses the kitchen and wraps his arms around her. For a moment, she simply stands still, unyielding in her unwillingness to accept comfort, her hands still holding on to the counter as if it is all that holds her upright. But Colin does not let go. Instead, he simply holds on, and when she sags into him, it is with a sigh and a sob rolled into one, her arms folding around him as she allows him to carry some of her weight.

He holds her as her sobs subside and waits for the tears to do the same. Strokes delicate patterns into her back until she fully relaxes into him.

“I may leave,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. “But I have always come back to you, Pen. I will always come back to you.”

*

“I’m scared we are going to fuck this up.”

Penelope’s voice barely sounds like her own, hoarse from emotion and exhaustion. Outside, rain steadily pelts against the window, thunder rolling in the distance as the storm starts to recede. They are in bed, tangled around one another. Penelope, on her side, curled into him, with her head on his chest as she counts his breaths and evens her own to match. Colin has one hand intertwined with hers on his chest, the other wrapped around her, holding her close. He had led her here as her tears slowed, as the frantic energy that had taken over ebbed into calm, content to merely hold her.

At her hip, his grasp tightens momentarily, and she can feel rather than hear the sharp inhale he takes in response to her words. “I am, too,” he admits quietly. “But I am more scared of what becomes of us if we don’t try. I—I love you so much, Penelope.”

She tilts her chin so she can look at him. Finds him already watching her.

“I love you, too, Colin,” she says, and it feels so good to say it aloud, to finally breathe the words into existence, that she says it again. And again. He positively beams under the weight of them. Her fingers tighten around his where their hands lay intertwined. “Do you think that’s enough? That it will be enough? We both have so much to lose if we try this and it doesn’t work.”

“I think…” he begins, his voice barely above a whisper. He clears his throat before beginning again. “I think love is a start. A solid foundation. But the rest—the rest is choice. Commitment. I promise to choose you. To choose us. To stay committed to making this work even when it’s hard. And… I don’t know, Pen. I just—I know we’ve got this. I know our life is going to be so beautiful together.”

The depth of emotion and ferocity behind his words stun her. He brings their joined hands together, pressing a kiss to her knuckles, to the back of her hand, to her wrist. She has never felt so cared for, so loved, and the gravity of that knowledge mixed with the experience of being fully present with Colin for perhaps the very first time leaves her absolutely breathless. He looks at her with such affection, such adoration, with such hope, and it is so, so beautiful. Colin has always carried the optimism to balance her stark realism, always able to see the good in everything and everyone. In the years Penelope has known him, he has always served as a spark of light in the darkness of her life. It has, at times, made her feel so unworthy, but grateful all the same to merely catch a glimpse of it. She spent so many years yearning for the ability to bottle up some of his essence so she could make it her own.

It is absurd to think that she may be able to bask in it unashamedly and endlessly.

A vision of their future unfolds before her, snippets of her wildest dreams turned into reality within her mind's eye. Previously, thinking such thoughts felt forbidden, like an exercise in masochism, but now she cannot help but welcome the endless possibilities. Excitement rises within her, drowning out most of the lingering apprehension.

On reflex, on instinct, Penelope shifts closer to him. Buries her face into his shoulder. Breathes him in. Holds on tighter everywhere they touch.

“So, how does it work? The logistics? You know I—”

“—Need facts and specifics, yes,” he murmurs, and she can hear the grin in his voice as he presses a kiss somewhere near her temple. “I think we accept that these next months will be hard, but worth it. I pored over my schedule on the flight, and I think I can arrange it so the longest we go without seeing each other is a month.”

“We've done a month before. That's not too bad.”

Penelope feels his nod as he continues, “And then, once this contract is up, I move onto something close to home. I will still travel but not nearly—”

She jerks back in surprise, gaze slamming into his. “—Colin, I don't want you to do that for me—”

“—I am doing it for me. For us.” His hand leaves hers and reaches for her face, his thumb dragging across her cheek, the corner of her mouth. He looks as if he is going to cry. “This is—This is it for me, Pen. I am yours. I have spent my whole life looking for a place to belong, and like a goddamn idiot I missed the truth that has been in front of me the entire time. Where I belong is with you. I refuse to waste any more time. I refuse to be without you a second longer.”

Her throat begins to close, full of emotion, full of sheer, unadulterated hope. “This is it for me, too. This is… You are everything I have ever wanted, Colin.”

She reaches for him, needing to be connected to him again, and runs her fingers through his hair. His eyes fall closed, his whole being melting into her touch. Fingertips drag over the curve of his ear, his jaw, under his chin, before her palm rests flat against his cheek. Colin hisses an inhale, tilting his head inward just slightly to press a kiss to her skin. When his eyes open again, they are wide, happy, and so, so bright. The desire to kiss him hits her like a storm, so she simply leans forward. Finds him doing the same. Their mouths meet in a soft, delicate mess of a kiss that lingers.

When they pull away, their foreheads touch just so. Colin's eyes are glistening. She knows hers are too.

“Fuck,” she laughs, the sound both watery and a bit hysterical. “We’ve been idiots about this, haven’t we?”

Colin hums and grins. “Definitely. Absolutely. One hundred percent. Yes.”

They both lean in again, in perfect tandem, their mouths meeting with a soft certainty that builds into urgency. Penelope opens her mouth wider, inviting him in, pulling him closer until she is on her back and he is mostly on top of her, the exquisite burden of his weight a welcome comfort. Colin’s smile at the adjustment is immediate, and she can feel it matching her own as his lips slow against hers. Colin drags out the kiss as he pulls away, skimming his mouth over her jaw, down the line of her throat. He buries his face in the place where collarbone meets neck, enveloping her completely.

The laughter that bubbles out of her then is both instantaneous and infectious. When he shifts to see her, they simply gaze at each other for a long beat as the soft sounds of their laughter subsides. There is a fullness in Penelope’s chest that aches when she looks at him, as she watches his smile stretch impossibly wider across his face. He is beautiful to her, and she cannot help but stare, cannot help but allow her hands to wander, running over the muscles of his back and under the cotton of his t-shirt, seeking the warmth of his skin. He sighs a little when she makes skin-to-skin contact and presses his eyes closed, leaning into her touch.

When he dips forward, Penelope thinks he is going to kiss her again, but he doesn’t. He slips his mouth to the corner of hers briefly. “I can’t believe you’re here with me. I’ve wanted this for so long, Pen,” he breathes somewhere near her ear, and she shivers. Barely recognises the depth of his voice. “You have no idea.”

Her lips curl just slightly. She presses him closer to her with the palms of her hands. “I think I have some idea,” she murmurs.

It is meant as a joke, a poor attempt at humour, but he pulls back suddenly, looking at her with such raw vulnerability that it causes her breathing to stutter. His eyes search hers imploringly, longingly, and he looks at her as if his heart is in her hands and always has been, and whatever amount of resistance she has held onto against the inevitability of this, of them, frays and unravels completely.

So she kisses him.

And kisses him.

Penelope kisses him without any apprehension, her heart full and in her throat.

All that wasted time, she cannot help but muse, but then he whispers I love you into her mouth, and she knows it is better now. Better now that they are older, wiser, the type of people willing to work on themselves in an effort to be better for each other. Better now when every touch and every kiss holds a promise, not hesitation or regret.

They do their best to take their time. Kiss each other slowly and thoroughly, fueled by the sounds of low moans and soft sighs, the delicate arching of backs. Colin pushes her jeans and knickers down her legs with careful ease. Traces the dips and curves of her legs and thighs, relishing in the feel of her. He runs the pads of his fingers over the soft lines of her inner thighs, presses a single finger against her, just barely, groaning a little at how wet she is already. Penelope cannot help herself. Slants her hips towards his touch. Reaches down and teases herself, thumbing her clit in search of some sort of relief. The last week has been impossible, and she feels emotionally wrecked and overcome by desire and need for him.

Colin swears, the fuck graceless and beautiful as it falls out of his mouth, and she loves the way his jaw goes slack, the way he says her name as he watches. He teases her a little, then, one finger curling inside of her, then two, and he moves nice and slow, opening her up to him. Already she is writhing under his touch, bottom lip between her teeth to keep her from begging, and when he slides down her body and presses his tongue against her, pleasure blooms in her spine and spreads like fire under her skin.

But then he pulls away, grinning as he mumbles not yet and goes to slide her shirt over her head, then her bra, suddenly desperate to get at what is underneath. Once it is tossed to the side, his hands immediately seek out her breasts, skimming the curve of them before dancing over her ribs, her sides, and down, down, down until his fingers drag over the faint marks on her belly and hips tenderly, almost reverently. There is a sudden panic that rises from the vulnerability of being naked before him, all of the imperfections and secrets her body carries laid bare for him to see. Penelope looks away, tilting her head to the side. But he is suddenly there, his mouth finding hers because he knows her, and he loves her—all of her. Always has.

The force of the kiss, the need behind it, reverberates deep in her bones. Makes her lightheaded and leaves her gasping for air. She has to pull away to catch her breath. And after she does, after she evens her breathing enough to be somewhat steady, there is a joke. Something about him being too clothed, and they both laugh as she helps rid him of his clothing.

And then suddenly they are both entirely naked, smiles dumb and wide as they take in the sight of each other, as they attempt to process that this is actually going to happen, that they are going to try and make this work. As they relish in the reality that their future together is truly whatever they want it to be.

Colin looks at her, and she looks at him, and she feels so ready to love him fully. To be loved in return.

“I really, really need you inside of me, Colin,” she gasps. “Please.”

“Fuck…” He stutters a bit. Draws in a shaky breath. “Yeah?”

“Yes.”

It is somehow both a plea and a command, and when he moves to roll off her and towards the bedside table, she stops him. He gazes at her, eyes wide and imploring as they search her own. Their conversation is wordless: I trust you. I love you. I want all of you. Gently, she pulls him back to her until he is fully settled between her legs again, the weight of him against her already driving her towards delirium. She clambers at him, drawing him closer. And then he is notching his cock at her entrance, moving into her inch by torturous inch until he is inside her fully and Penelope can do nothing but moan and breathe and exist in this moment with him. He fills her so completely, the stretch of them together tight and familiar and bordering on madness.

Colin grits his teeth, bites back a groan somewhere along her throat, and when he starts to move, it is slow. A steady pattern of thrust and retreat that has her begging for more, has her canting her hips to meet his with a request for something deeper, something headier, something all-consuming. He gives her all that she asks for and more, his hips driving into hers at a wild pace, his arm moving to hike her leg up higher, pulling him in deeper.

“Fuck,” she breathes, her mouth sliding against the length of his neck. “I need—”

She trails off, unable to finish her thought, unable to even think properly.

More she thinks, but cannot seem to say, which is okay because he already knows.

Effortlessly, Colin rolls them until he is on his back, and she is above him, thighs on either side of his. His hands roam over her as she begins to ride him, grabbing at her thighs, her hips, her arse. He pushes himself up, changing the angle inside her, and she whimpers at the change in pressure, closes her eyes against the feel of him thrusting up into her and at the sight of him pressing his mouth to the swell of her breast.

Her fingers dig into the skin at his shoulders, her back arching to get the right angle, and she feels so impossibly full like this. Her knees ache, slipping a little against the sheets, but he anchors her, his palms curving around the gentle crest of her hip, holding her steady. His mouth trails from one breast to the other, mouthing along the hard bone of sternum, the muscle of her shoulder, the softness of her arms, everywhere his lips can reach. The light, warm touch of his mouth and tongue, combined with the slight burn from his stubble is overstimulating, but also, inexplicably, has her wanting more. Penelope tries to pull his lips to hers, to kiss him fully. Wants to lean forward, covering his body with hers so she can feel connected to him in every way possible, but he pulls away. Shakes his head.

“I need to see you. I need to… I never thought…I need to see you, Pen.” His voice is wrecked, hoarse with emotion, eyes full of tears. Penelope nods, tenderly cupping his face, using the pads of her thumbs to catch the moisture on his cheeks.

Slowly, she straightens her spine, allowing herself to be on full display for him, her hips rolling and rocking over his in search of the perfect angle, the perfect rhythm. One of Colin’s hands travels up to wrap around the back of her neck, fingers tangling in the soft curls of her hair there, holding on. She lets go, eyes falling closed as she rides him in earnest, the pattern of their meeting hips becoming more frantic with each passing moment.

They’re quiet today, their moans and sighs surprisingly soft, and when her eyes slide open again at his quiet urging, he’s watching her, looking right up at her, his thumb tracing the hard bone of her jaw, the outline of her lips as his fingers continue to tighten in her hair. Penelope moves, and keeps moving, and watches him watch her, the moment so incredibly intimate, the pure love and want and need so evident in the way he looks at her, in the way he says her name over and over, the consonants and vowels stringing themselves together until it is practically incoherent.

It’s what does her in, really, and Colin pushes her past the point of breaking with his thumb on her clit and whispers of praise, of I love you. And he watches her, wide-eyed, his gaze hard and unrelenting, as she arches her back and comes undone around him.

He follows easily, spilling inside of her, and when she can no longer hold herself upright, she falls forward and onto him. Penelope presses her mouth to his neck, feels the rapid beat of his pulse under her lips as she tries to figure out how to breathe again. Her ears are ringing, thighs burning and boneless. Everything is too bright and hazy at once, the sound of silence, of stillness, almost too loud. Penelope can hear her heartbeat in her head starting to slow and even, and Colin holds her closely, both hands on her back now, pressing firmly between her shoulder blades, holding her against him.

It’s almost suffocating, but Penelope loves it, loves the way he carries her weight, the way he supports her, the way his fingers trace patterns into the bones of her spine.

When the haze starts to subside, she rolls off of him. Misses the feel of him pressed against her immediately, even with their cum slick between her thighs. Reaches for him, their hands colliding somewhere between their bodies. They both shift until they are shoulder to shoulder, and when she turns to look at him, he is right there, grinning at her.

All she can do is grin back, and inch forward, sighing a little when their mouths meet again.

*

They stand together, just outside Ticketing at Heathrow, facing yet another goodbye.

This time, however, when Colin leans in to kiss her, it is with certainty, with promise. Also with desperation, of course, but only because he wishes it could last forever. Penelope reaches for his neck, pulling him down and into her, their mouths sliding together with an ease that is already familiar, already well-practised. He moans a little into her mouth and feels her grin as she pulls away. Through the haze, he thinks he hears the sound of a throat clearing, but he cannot be bothered with such nonsense.

“I don’t want to leave,” he murmurs. There is a crick in his neck from the angle as he leans his forehead against hers. They’ve been at this a while.

“I know. But three weeks, yeah? We’ve got this,” Penelope says.

A smile twists at her mouth as she gazes up at him, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes, and Colin knows she is trying to be brave, knows the worries are licking at her nerves. But she assured him the fear was no longer about him, or about them, just the product of those lies she was told years ago that still haunt her.

At their sides, his hands intertwine with hers, holding on, and he cannot help himself; he leans forward again to brush his mouth against hers.

“Colin,” she warns, but there is no urgency behind it, and she slips her tongue into his mouth so he simply kisses her for longer.

When they pull away, again, she motions behind him where the line for security is steadily backing up. He is already late—they had stayed in bed far too long, kissing and making love and planning for her to travel to see him on assignment in three weeks—and Colin knows if he doesn’t get a move on, he is one incident at security away from potentially missing his flight. But he loves her, and she loves him, and they are finally, finally on the same page, so nothing else really seems to matter. He leans forward to kiss her, one last time, and she tsks him under her breath, but still sighs a little when their lips slide together.

This time, the sound of someone clearing their throat is unmistakable, and causes Penelope to step away from him fully.

“I love you, but you need to go. Now. Or you will miss your flight.”

He practically glows at her words. “I love you, too,” he says automatically, and loves the way she grins right back. “And you are, of course, right.” He picks up his carry-on bag and slings it over his shoulder.

“Text me when you land?” she asks quietly.

Colin grins. “Always.”

With one last hug and chaste press of his mouth to her lips, he starts his trek towards security, glancing back and smiling at her every so often until she is completely out of his eyeline.

His phone vibrates in his pocket before he even reaches security.

Penelope 💛💛💛 to Colin
12 AUG 2025
[15:23]

Penelope 💛💛💛: I miss you already
Penelope 💛💛💛: twenty sleeps until I can see you in person again & I can’t wait
Penelope 💛💛💛: I love you