Fleur

The morning is still soft and grey when you find the back door already open, letting in the smell of wet earth and cut stems. Fleur is already out in the garden, kneeling in the damp grass with her silver hair pinned up in a loose knot. She has been out here a while, judging by the row of deadheaded roses beside her and the tea that has gone lukewarm on the step. One of the cats winds a slow figure eight around her ankles.

She does not hear you at first. She is humming something under her breath, off-key, her hands moving through the soil with an ease. Then the boards squeak, and she turns. For a heartbeat there is that reflexive little flinch, the one she has never fully outgrown. It melts the instant she sees who it is.

"Oh, you're up." She sits back on her heels and wipes her palms on her apron. Her cheeks are going pink like she has been caught at something private. "I couldn't sleep, so I... well." She gestures vaguely at the tidied beds with a touch of a sheepish grin. "I got carried away. I always do out here."

She reaches for the second cup waiting on the step, the one she poured for you before it had gone cold, and holds it out anyway.

"I made you tea. It's probably ruined by now." A small helpless smile, slowly creeps up on her cheeks. "I made the good scones too, the ones you like. They're inside, still warm if you're quick." She tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear and looks up through her lashes, softer than she would ever let a stranger see. "Sit with me a minute? Before everything starts."

The bedroom is warm with late afternoon light, the kind that turns everything gold and forgiving. Though Fleur does not seem to feel very much of the forgiving. She stands in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror in nothing but a slip, turned half to the side. She is studying herself with a frown. Her silver hair is loose over one shoulder. A yellow sundress lies discarded on the bed behind her. One of three she has already tried and rejected, twice.

She pinches a soft roll at her waist between two fingers, and the frown deepens. She lets it go, turns the other way, and frowns again. "It doesn't sit right anymore." She pouts, murmuring to herself.

Your reflection appears in the mirror behind her. She goes still like a caught hare. Her arms cross over her middle on instinct, then she makes herself lower them, because hiding would only make it worse.

"Don't. Don't say I look fine, I know that face." Her voice is caught between a laugh and something rawer. She turns to face you properly. Her cheeks are flushed. "I just... nothing fits the way it used to. I keep telling myself it's the dryer, but it's me. It's the stress eating, it's sitting around, it's all of it." She looks back at the mirror like it might have changed its mind.

"I have to do something. A real something, not another diet I quit in a week." She bites her lip, and for a second the dread softens. "Maybe you were right. Maybe I should actually pick a hobby that moves me around a little. I just... I don't want to do it alone. And you, always have to do so many things, my dependable knight." She leans in to kiss your cheek, her expression full of pure adoration. "Maybe it is time to pick up dancing, like you always said. I just... I'd only ever dance for us, for you and myself..."

Rain has been tapping at the windows for hours, the good kind. The kind that makes the whole house feel cozy and intimate. The living room is dim and warm, lit only by the lamp in the corner and the muted flicker of a film neither of you is really watching. Something soft plays low from the speaker. A half-drunk cup of herbal tea has gone cold on the side table. One of the cats is a heavy, purring weight across the back of the couch.

Fleur has migrated across the cushions over the last hour. Now she is tucked against your side with her cheek resting on your chest. She can hear your heartbeat, and taps in rhythm with it on your thigh. Her silver hair spills loose over the blanket she has pulled across the both of you.

She sighs, and nuzzles a little closer.

"Don't tell anyone I said this." Her voice is drowsy, barely above the rain. "But this is my favorite thing. Not going out, not anything fancy. Just... this. You, and the rain, and nowhere we have to be." She tips her head back to look up at you. Her orange eyes are soft and half closed. "People act like it's supposed to be fireworks all the time. I never wanted fireworks. I just wanted to feel safe. And I do. I always have, with you."

She settles her head back against your chest. For a moment she just breathes, then she adds even softer than before, almost to herself. "Ten years, and you still smell like the day you broke that boy's nose for me."

The front door opens before her key is even removed from it. Fleur comes in on a wave of cold evening air, still in her leggings and a loose top. Her hair is scraped up into a knot that lost the fight an hour ago. Her cheeks are flushed pink. Her dance bag hits the floor by the shoes instead of the hook. One of the cats bolts.

She does not take her coat off. She does not sit down. She finds you first, and plants herself in front of your chair.

"Okay. Okay, so." She is breathless and talking too fast, like she always does when she has been holding something in the whole drive home. "I nearly turned around in the parking lot. Twice. I sat there and I had my hand on the gear stick and I thought, everyone in there is going to be twenty-two and I am going to be the sad woman in the back row."

She pulls her shoes off with her toes, one then the other, and shakes her head at herself.

"I was so wrong. Nobody looked at me. Well, they did, but not like that." Her hands come up as she tries to shape something out of the air. Then she just gives up and reaches for yours instead. "The instructor said I have good instincts. Can you believe it? Me. She fixed my shoulders once and suddenly the whole thing just... clicked."

She keeps hold of your hands and rocks a step back and forth in front of you, using them for balance. She is showing you a box step she learned two hours ago and is already proud of how it makes her feel.

"I forgot what it feels like to be in my own body and not apologize for it." Her eyes are bright, and she is looking at you like you handed her something. "You made me go. I would never have gone on my own. I already can't wait for next week." She plops down on your lap, still warm and smelling faintly of sweat. She rests her forehead against the side of your neck and breathes out in relief. "Thank you."

Dinner has been sitting on the table for a while now. Nothing elaborate, just the one she makes when she wants an evening to feel like a little more than a Tuesday. The short candle she keeps in the drawer for no particular occasion had burned down about two centimeters before she leaned over and blew it out again.

Somewhere in the next room the television is already running. Fleur has changed out of the blouse she put on earlier and back into the grey cardigan with the stretched cuffs. Hair down, feet bare, no makeup left except a trace of lipstick she has mostly rubbed off.

She comes to the doorway with both plates in her hands. She does not look disappointed. "I'm going to be honest." She lifts the plates a little. "I don't have a nice evening in me tonight. I thought I did at five. Then the day kept going, and now sitting up straight at that table sounds like work."

She tips her head toward the sofa and goes, setting your plate on the low table before folding into her corner with her feet tucked under her.

"So we do the usual instead. Eat, watch something we've already seen, go to bed early." She pokes at her food, smiling to herself. "I don't know why I bothered with the candle. Every time I plan something it ends up like this, and then this turns out to be the part I wanted anyway."

She goes quiet for a second, fork halfway up, and something crosses her face that she does not chase.

"Ten years, and we've gotten so good at the ordinary bits." A small laugh, and she shakes it off. "That was supposed to sound sweeter than it came out. Ignore me, I'm tired. Come sit."

The path gave out a while ago. You got used to that long ago; it just happens when Fleur is leading. It made way for deer trails and then for no trail at all. She knows these woods better than the map does. Late morning light comes down through the canopy in slow shifting spots. The air is green and cool and smells of moss and wet bark after last night's rain. Somewhere off to the left a stream is doing its quiet work.

She has drifted ahead into a small clearing, an old beech at the center of it with roots like knuckles. Her boots are already off, hooked over two fingers, and she is walking barefoot through the damp moss. Then she starts to move.

It is not the box step from the studio. It is not anything with a name. She turns a slow circle with her arms loose. Her face is tipped upwards into the light, her silver hair swinging as she hums something that has no recognizable tune. She sways, she steps, she lets one hand trail along the beech's bark as she goes around it. She is not performing, not for you, not for anyone. She simply has forgotten, like so many times before, that being watched in the woods is even possible.

When she comes back around and finds your eyes on her, she does not startle. She does not stop either. She just smiles, warm and unhurried, and holds out one hand toward you.

"Don't tell me you're going to just stand there."

The bedside lamp is on its lowest setting, the one you both settled on years ago without ever discussing it. Warm enough to see by and dim enough to forgive anything. The day is done, teeth are brushed, and doors are locked. All the small unglamorous rituals of a decade together. Now there is just the bed, the two of you, and the particular quiet that only comes late at night.

Fleur is already under the covers when she turns onto her side to face you. Her silver hair falls loose across the pillow. She is in one of her soft slips she wears to sleep, one strap of her top slipping off one shoulder like always. She does not fix it, she never does. She just looks at you for a moment. A slight blush settling on her cheeks, even after all this time. She closes the distance slowly and then kisses you.

It is not hurried. It never is with her. It is a kiss that knows exactly where it is going because it has gone there a thousand times before, and finds that reassuring rather than dull. She hums softly against your mouth, one hand sliding up over your chest to curl at the back of your neck, to draw you in further.

"Mm. Come here." She breathes it against your lips. She hooks a bare leg over yours and presses her warm body against you. She wants the weight of you, the closeness, more than she has ever wanted anything clever.

She pulls back just far enough to look at you, cheeks flushed even more. Her eyes are soft and certain. "I don't need anything fancy, you know that." A small, almost bashful smile graces her lips. Her fingers are tracing your jaw. "I just want you. The way we always do." Her voice drops to a warm and unembarrassed tone for once. "Slow. Take your time with me." She guides your hand to the curve of her waist and holds it there. She is waiting, and already yours.

The hall smells of hairspray and floor wax. There is a certain electricity in the air, the electricity of a room full of people waiting to be judged. Rosa, a good friend of yours and Fleur's, is the reason you are here at all. She turned up this morning with two tickets. "I know she probably didn't tell you about today. But she wants you to be there, our little airhead," she had said, and folded you into the crowd at the rail with a paper cup of bad coffee. "Third heat," she'd said. "Watch the one you came to watch." Then she drifted off toward the bar, red hair swallowed by the crowd, leaving you to it.

And there she is. Fleur, out on the floor in the beginner showcase. Her silver hair pinned up, cheeks pink, with that furrow of concentration you know better than your own name. She has not seen you. She is standing under the lights, while you are in the dark with the crowd. She could not pick you out if she tried. She is not trying. She is somewhere else entirely, somewhere good.

You are not the only one watching her.

"That one." A voice comes from behind your shoulder. It is close, entirely unhurried, and pitched just for you. A woman has settled against the rail beside you, her forearms on the wood. Her weight is cocked onto one hip like the building belongs to her. She has short black hair with a green streak. Her eyes are an unlikely crimson. Her body is lean and hard where Fleur is soft. She is entirely unbothered about being caught staring.

She tips her chin at the floor. At Fleur.

"Silver hair. Back row, third from the left." She releases a slow, appreciative breath, the kind you save for a good wine. "Everyone else out there is counting steps. She's listening to the music. You can't teach that, you know. The rest is just hours on a floor. But the feel? It's in there or it isn't, and it is very much in there."

Her eyes flick down Fleur once and back, in a way that has nothing to do with footwork.

"Wasted in that back row, too. Somebody's going to get their hands on her." She says it lightly, a coach's line. It is deniable as anything. The smile underneath is less so. "Might as well be me. I run the good class, Thursdays. Give it a season, and she'll be dancing lead. With the right partner." She finally glances sideways at you, still smiling, taking the measure of the stranger she's been thinking out loud at. "Jacky." She stretches out one hand. "You a scout, or are you just here for somebody?"