So, I haven't touched this story in a few years- yes, I am the worst. Sue me. This update is brought to you by all the lovely people who have asked me to continue to update in the comments, and by the Coronavirus.

This was a bad idea. A no-good, stupid, terrible idea.

Yet, Angelica continued walking down the moonlit path in the direction of this bad decision. It had been a week since her arm had been shot- to cite the least traumatic event of that day- and since then, she had been completely avoiding her problems. All of the turmoil and anxiety of the experience had built up into a well of reckless energy that she was now tapping into in the most rash way possible.

Angelica fully intended to speak with the man who had killed Berle.

Despite the fact that she knew this was a bad idea, she didn't feel bad. As Angelica walked down the gradually rougher path towards the prison, she actually felt a weight lift off her shoulders. She was within reach of some real, tangible answers, and knowing this made her feel something other than numb for the first time all week.

The entrance was in sight, and she wasn't quite sure what to expect. She had read about prisons, but had never actually visited one- not that she had ever wanted to until now. A scrawny young man stood at the entrance, armed with a bayonet. Luckily for Angelica, he already looked jumpy, and when he finally saw her approaching he went white in the face.

"Madam, you don't have authorization to be here-" he started, but Angelica impatiently pulled a hefty bag of coins out from under her cloak and held them temptingly just out of the man's reach.

"This is more than half your year's salary- I would think closely before rejecting my offer."

The guard looked over his shoulder, as if to check whether or not any of his superiors were watching him. He swiveled his head around like an owl for a good five seconds before finally snatching up the bag.

"Your funeral."

"Excellent." Angelica deadpanned. "But I'm going to need an escort if I am to get where I'm going."

"Where exactly are you trying to get?" the guard sneered, clearly dreading her answer.

"The man who's to be executed next week."

The guard hesitated, and for a moment Angelica was sure he would completely decline her bribe altogether. "There's quite a few men to be executed in a week. You're going to have to be more specific than that."

"I'll know him when I see him. Just let me through."

The guard gave her a skeptical look and motioned tensely for her to follow. He led her down some dirty-looking stone steps and into prison below. A few guards turned their heads, but none did anything to stop her from going further with her escort.

The first thing she noticed was the horrid smell; the immensely over-crowded cells were packed to the brink with people of all ages. Some shouted obscenities as they passed, some didn't acknowledge her at all. Angelica did her best to remain unphased as she scanned each cell for the face that made his appearance in her nightmares each night.

It took a few moments for Angelica to realize where the man was located. A little further away from all of the overflowing cells stood a smaller one, with only one man inside. He was facing away from them, staring at the wall in front of him. She had half a mind to believe he was dead. The thought scared her.

"That will be all, thank you," Angelica dismissed. The guard nodded, looking her up and down with undisguised curiosity before he walked back to his post.

Angelica watched him go until she could no longer see him thanks to absence of light further down the corridor. She then turned back to the man in the cell, jumping when she realized he had turned to face her while she was looking away. His bulging eyes were staring right through her.

"How did you get down here?" His raspy voice was quiet. Angelica had to shake off the initial tremors of fear and remind herself that she was down here for a reason.

"Leverage. Apparently it doesn't take much." She clasped her hands together in front of her, feeling the need to hold on to something now that she no longer had the bag of coins.

"Pray tell, how much leverage did it take? Leverage that could've been put to good use, but instead was spent on me?" The man's words were biting, but his tone was pleasant by contrast, as though he were discussing the weather. His eyes were squinted in resentment but did not contain any of the blind rage present on their first encounter.

"That 'leverage' was the money I had planned to use to pay a lawyer to divorce me from my husband. A lawyer who is now dead, thanks to you."

The man blinked slowly.

"I'm sorry." There was no remorse in his voice. If anything, he sounded immensely tired.

"Please, I didn't come here for you to humor me."

"Then what are you here for?"

"Answers. I want to know why you…" She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence. "I want perspective.

"'Perspective'?" he repeated in disbelief, his raspy laughter echoing off the stone walls around them.

Angelica's neutral expression changed to one of undisguised hatred. The man's laughter morphed into a coughing fit.

"You got a name?"

"Angelica," she answered through gritted teeth.

"Well, Miss Angelica, I'm 'fraid you came all this way for something I can't help you with."

The unrest brewing in the pit of her stomach was unlike anything she'd ever experienced. He had to be lying to her. "No, I haven't. You are the man who stole my future. You owe me answers."

"I don't owe you shit," he growled, spitting for good measure. "You owe me. You killed my f-family."

Angelica stared at him in disbelief. "Who do you think that I am?"

The man's eyes were distant and full of pain."Doesn' matter who you are. You looked the other way, and someone else put 'em down like dogs." His face contorted into a grimace, and he released a gut-wrenching cry. "Like animals!"

When he looked up again, his gaze was full of the fury and disgust Angelica remembered so vividly. She backed up a few paces, struggling to breathe. Every instinct in her body was telling her to flee, but her feet stayed grounded in the knowledge that this man was locked up. "S-so you have a vendetta against the entire city of Paris, is that it?"

He shook his head slowly. "I couldn't expect you to understand. What did you say you would've spent that bribery on? A divorce? Quite a petty thing to do when most of the city wouldn't hesitate to kill you for a fraction of that money, don't you agree?"

Angelica opened her mouth to justify herself, to say anything, but she was too busy suppressing the realization that this lunatic was right. That she would never understand why this terrible thing had happened, because even after everything she'd been through, she couldn't conceive of ever being so desperately angry. Even worse was the irrational guilt stemming from the insinuation that she could've done something to prevent all of this.

"You don't seem the type to take things lying down. You don't know what you'd do," he said, as if reading her thoughts.

Angelica knew that she needed to get out before she fell any further down this rabbit hole, for her own sanity. She turned to leave, but there was one more innocuous question nagging at her for reasons unknown.

"Do you have a name?"

The man wore an expression that was almost confused. He seemed to be weighing the answer in his mind. "Henri."

Angelica looked Henri up and down once more, putting the name to the face that had been in her nightmares every night since she'd seen it.

"Good luck, Henri."

"I'm sorry Mr. Jefferson, but I cannot help you."

Thomas was beginning to think he might hear the phrase in his sleep. He had visited three of the best lawyers money could buy in a week, and each of them had unanimously agreed that Angelica's case was "frivolous" and "not to be trifled with". As always, he thanked the lawyer for their time and slammed the door on the way out, cursing violently under his breath.

Part of the reason he was working so hard to arrange everything so nonstop- other than the looming threat of Angelica traveling to London dangling under his nose- was that he needed something to distract himself from what had happened the week before. Thomas was sure he had never been as frightened as when he had been carrying Angelica around as she bled out, scrambling to find a doctor in time. He still hadn't seen her since that day, and she hadn't responded to any of the three letters he had sent.

As he marched away from the lawyer's house, though, he found his footsteps leading him down the familiar path to her home. He considered turning around to give her the space she so clearly desired, but the worst case scenario that had been nagging him all week kept his course steady.

What if she had already left? Without a chance to say goodbye? No, she would have told me. She would've said goodbye. There will be no goodbyes today.

It would add up- why she hadn't answered any letters or come to visit, not even to return the books she'd borrowed, as that was her usual excuse. Thomas found his pace quickening as these pesky thoughts continued to bombard him the entire walk there. When he knocked on the door impatiently, it was about a minute before someone answered it. To his relief, it was Angelica rather than John. As soon as she saw his face, she cringed a bit.

"Thomas." Her voice was unusually hollow.

"Nice to see you too."

In a move quite unlike herself, she stepped forward swiftly and wrapped her arms around him, pressing her face into his chest as closely as she could. All of his annoyances melted away as they stood there, and Angelica hadn't realized how much she had been craving his comfort until now.

"Here, why don't you come in? John isn't here and I have some things I need to talk to you about."

With those words, he felt the pit of his stomach drop. "Things?"

"Are you coming in or not?"

Thomas followed her inside and to the left into a small sitting room that was so pristinely clean that it gave off a cold aura. He sat down in one of the hard-backed chairs and watched as Angelica did the same.

"I wrote you, you know." he said dryly, and Angelica grimaced.

"Yes, I know. I got all three. When people get that many letters and don't respond, it's because they don't have anything to say."

"Yeah, either that or they've moved to a different country." Thomas sniped. Angelica shifted in her seat uncomfortably.

"Look, about that-"

"You aren't seriously going through with it, are you?"

"I am." The words slipped out of her mouth before she could find a way to sugarcoat it. Thomas was looking at her like she had just punched him in the face.

Angelica wouldn't apologize to Thomas, but he could see her eyes pleading for forgiveness. He was unable to respond for a moment, and when he did, his voice was full of hurt.

"And that's what you want?"

"I don't know what I want any more." Angelica said truthfully. "I thought I knew, but...I just know what I can change, and I can't change what happened, just like I can't change the fact that I'm stuck with John."

Thomas's eyes flashed. "Don't lie to me. If you really wanted to divorce him, like you did a week ago, you could. Berle isn't the only lawyer in Paris-"

"Berle isn't in Paris, he's dead!" Angelica's calm demeanor finally snapped. "And that's the thing, I won't be in Paris! Even if I could somehow find another lawyer who was willing to help me in the span of two days-"

"Hold on, you're leaving in two days?" Thomas burst out incredulously. Her guilty expression confirmed it.

Sighing, Angelica stared at the ground before looking back up resolutely, her face blank. "Yes. I'll be back in London soon, you'll be back in America, and we'll forget about this whole thing."

He couldn't believe what he was hearing, nor could he keep the disgust he felt from his tone. "What happened to you? A week ago you were ready to go back to America with me."

"And then I lived through a traumatic experience and realized that there are more important problems in this world than my own," she deadpanned."I can't just ignore that; why are you acting like it didn't happen?"

"I'm not pretending that the shooting didn't happen, but I'm not pretending that everything leading up to it didn't happen either!"

Angelica's eyes narrowed. "The world has put everything into perspective- don't know what I was thinking before; I'm perfectly fine as it is. I have an amazing family and a husband who loves me, while Berle's wife is grieving and the streets are lined with people who have nothing!"

Thomas shook his head, and there was a great silence that hung over them both, the only sound being the second hand on a clock persistently ticking away their time left together. Eventually, he forced himself to meet Angelica's eyes again.

"You know what I think?" Thomas asked in an uncharacteristically quiet voice. "I think you're afraid."

Angelica crossed her arms defensively. "Maybe I am. You should be afraid too, given what just happened to-"

"No, not afraid of another shooting- you're afraid that if you fight for yourself again, you'll lose, so you're going to just let everything that you were fighting happen anyway."

"Is that such a terrible thing?" Angelica snarled. "The last time I was hopeful about something it was literally put down right in front of me. If that isn't some sort of a sign then I don't know what is."

"Right, so you lived through that and you're just going to give up?"

"I'm not 'giving up', I'm accepting reality! And it's about time you did too." Angelica stood up and left the room, reemerging a moment later with three books in her arms. "Here."

Thomas only stared at them coldly. "Keep them."

"They're yours." she snapped back.

"Not any more."

Angelica put the books on a small table, then stood crossing and uncrossing her arms uneasily. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean for this to happen so suddenly. I'll write to you, if you'd like. I'd love to hear what's happening in America when you return."

"Don't you already have 'your dearest Alexander' for that?" Thomas asked bitterly, and she bristled immediately.

Was he seriously petty enough to bring Alexander into this? Was he no better than John?

"Or perhaps I'll write to him exclusively." Angelica remarked.

The expression on Thomas's face was ugly, to say the least, and it was a side of him she hadn't seen emerge before.

"I'll be sure to say hello to your little friend when I return without you, while you live out the rest of your miserable days in London because you refuse to stand up for yourself! When I first met you, you talked about change like you were some kind of martyr, but now of all times you're afraid of it!?"

Angelica could see the flash of regret in his eyes as soon as the words left his mouth. She stood up and turned around so that he wouldn't be able to see the amount of damage his words had done.

"Angelica, I-"

"I think it's time for you to leave," she said simply, her voice below freezing.

"No, I didn't-"

"Thomas, get out." Uncompromising.

He stood, smoothing his coat nervously. Neither of them said anything as they walked towards the front door, but Thomas turned back around when they reached it, feeling sick to his stomach that this had gone so wrong. Pieces of their time together flashed before his eyes, and he couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that this was quite possibly the last time he would see this woman. He wouldn't.

"Angelica, I didn't mean what I said. I- I just want you to stay." his voice wavered uneasily.

To his utter surprise, Angelica wasn't looking at him with the cold hatred she had been a second ago; rather a thoughtful, calculating expression. Something told him she was considering forgiveness, if only because she was having the same sick feeling that was plaguing him.

"Thomas, do you love me?"

What?

The question caught him off guard, but he was ready to answer almost immediately.

"Yes."

"Then promise me something: when you go back to America, defend everyone like you have defended me. Man and woman."

"I will." he pledged, looking at her expectantly.

"Then I will write to you." She stuck out her hand like it was a business deal, and he shook it, rolling his eyes.

"Does this need to be so formal?"

The shadow of a smile crossed her face. "I suppose it's just easier this way."

Thomas cringed a bit- none of this was easy. "If you should ever visit the states, my door is always open." He kissed her hand before forcing himself to turn and leave. His feet felt heavier every step he took.

"Thomas, wait."

He looked over his shoulder hopefully. Angelica had tears streaming down her face, and he knew she was holding back everything she wanted to say, everything Thomas wanted to hear. "Thank you. For everything."