a/n: so i really should update more quickly so that i don't have to go back and reread my story threads to remember what is going on and it feels super meta and almost a little cringey when i get to parts that i don't remember that feel cheesy after the fact and ughhhh

not like when you immediately proof read and everything still feels super fresh and cool...

The rain heaved against the pains of glass, and the wind bellowed and raged so that the doors rattled on their slowly-rusting hinges. She felt subtly amazed that Francis worked as much as he did, that his parents had more money than the Almighty, but they should live in a house that was falling apart.

Big and old- and crumbling to bits with age and the weight of its own structure. A grand old house, withering on the inside.

Bash was in the bathroom, washing his hands. The phone rang and severed her from her trance, counting the crystal raindrops as they plummeted against the glass.

"Hello," she said. "Yes, dear- yes but-" she frowned. "Well I- mhm. A whole week? But Francis, the storm will blow over in another few hours."

But the words felt hollow in her own mouth. She didn't want him to come back. Not if he did not want to, only that she knew that was appropriate, that she should want him to go home.

"Yes. Yes I understand. Goodbye, dear."

The phone clasped down on its cradle. Mary leaned on the end table the phone telephone sat on for a moment, taking a deep breath.

She grabbed the ornemental plate next to it and threw it against the wall. It shattered and splintered into a cascade of cream and rose-colored peices on the floor. Mary resisted the groan in her throat.

"He's cheating on me." She bit down on her lip. "Isn't he?" She did not turn to face Bash, but she knew he was there.

He didn't say anything for some time. "Mary, you are- the most extraordinary woman. And whatever Francis does, it says more about him than it would ever say about you."

For some time, she had known about the blonde. She found the single golden strand tangled in the lapel of his coat. At first she thought, "I must be crazy." But then there was the smelll that clung to his shirts, of cheap roses and too much spice. And then extended business trips, and the way the women talked about her when they thought she could not hear them. But she had never been so aware of it.

"I don't care," she said. She looked at him, at his eyes that turned from green to blue and back again depending on the light. Her fingers touched his cheek. "I don't care."

He grabbed her waist, greedily brought her to his body, leaning his forehead on hers. Taking her face in his hand, he kissed her.

It was wonderful.

"If you expect me to resist, because you're married and no less to my best friend- you should know I won't."

She clutched him back down to her, kissing him again.

She'd made a terrible mistake; she feared this wasn't it at all.

"What am I going to do?" She backed away from him smoothing her hair from her face. She swallowed a sob.

"Whatever you want to," he said. He moved her hair back from her face, more gently than she had. "Mary, what do you want?"

When Francis came home, he found his wife in a pair of trousers, sitting on top of a second hand brown leather suitcase, clasping down the beaten little gold buckles that sealed it shut. She was wearing her reddest lipstick.

"What's this?" He said.

"I'm leaving," she said.

He was saying something behind her. She felt surreal moving toward the door. Like she'd come out of herself and reentered differently. Perhaps because she had remembered what love was.

She only felt badly that she had put so much time into a garden that would not grow.

a/n: in other news i just binge watched all of season 4. i have decided this season is dead to me. i refuse to accept it. like... wtf. what even happened in those last 16 episodes. am i the only person who thought that was terrible? i feel like i'm in mourning, tbh, so finishing this was super hard.

thoughts?