gave in to the fire [will]

Bérénice inhaled slowly, filling her lungs to capacity before letting the breath out in a controlled stream. Staring at Will’s front door from the footpath, she knew she shouldn’t linger too long or he might spot her through the windows and ruin the element of surprise, but she also knew the moment she strode forwards everything would be over. It had been over for a while though, and she thought they both knew it, really.

The French witch hadn’t told him she was coming because the last thing she wanted was for him to plan -- a meal, a date, anything. Maybe, also, a little bit because she was still deciding if she wanted to do this -- but she had to. It wasn’t fair to anyone, but least of all to Will, if she kept the truth from him and kept this relationship limping on now that she had poisoned it.

Bérénice stepped forward, looking where she was placing her feet so as not to stumble in her heels on the short, uneven path from the pavement to his front stoop. She looked the same as she ever did; almost immaculately presentable in a pressed blouse and knee-length skirt, her hair up in a low bun. It was mid-morning on a Saturday, the sun shining ironically down on what was about to be their own personal storm.

She had mulled over this moment since leaving Harlan’s family home, trying to anticipate how Will would react to the news. He was so gracious about everything else, it was hard to imagine him being anything else -- but where a few weeks ago Bérénice had thought they might break up under a mutual agreement, once they finally had enough time together for it to feel less sudden, now she was giving him a reason to be angry with her -- and her alone, because she wasn’t dragging Harlan’s name into any of this -- and doing it before the summer gave her second thoughts. It had been two weeks since she'd kissed Harlan, another week since seeing Will last, but it was the first weekend she'd been able to get away from her duties at the school. Breaking up with her boyfriend did not count as a personal emergency, no matter how much it felt like it.

Bérénice knocked on the door and waited.


@William Dasher

It was a beautiful day.

Winter seemed like a distant memory now that the sky was blue and rather than the annoying beep of his alarm clock, he was now awoken to birds singing. Will didn't have any plans that day, apart from buying a newspaper and taking Dave for a walk. The wolfhound was getting old now, his muzzle turning grey, but his sense of irony faded as he'd recently taken to hiding his lead whenever Will said the word walkies.

A knock at the door caught his attention and Dave flicked one of his ears up then decided it wasn't worth it and went back to sleep. Will jogged down the stairs quickly in his bare feet, dressed in jeans and a jumper and his freshly washed hair sticking up like a newborn chick's as he opened the door and blinked in surprise.

"Bérénice" he said dumbly, panic setting in as he wondered if he'd forgotten some sort of relationship milestone. Dates flicked through his head - the anniversary of their first date? First meeting? First time they'd had sex? Will had forgotten to smile so he did. "Hello," he replied warmly as he managed to get his head on straight. This was the first time she'd been to London in...goodness knows how long. A few weeks, at least.

"Is everything okay?" Will asked, concerned with a frown as his dark eyes swept over her appearance. Bérénice looked exactly the same, clean pressed and elegant, but her jaw seemed tight. "Come in," he finally said as he stood back and opened his front door to let her in, wondering if he should greet her with a kiss but something warned him against it. Instead, he simply closed the door behind her and lead her through the hallway to the kitchen, the smell of freshly baked bread and cut grass permeating the space.

"Tea?" Will asked as he went about making one for himself. "You can hang your coat up," he called out, popping his head around the corner to smile at her as he opened the biscuit tin. "I've only got custard creams at the moment," he announced as he shook it. "And a couple of jammie dodgers. Looks like your lucky day."

“Hello,” Bérénice repeated, offering a weak smile in return and immediately regretting it. He looked fresh out of the shower; damp hair and that wonderful glow on his skin. Will’s question brought her back to Earth.  “I-- yes,” she lied, stepping in when he opened the door wider -- she couldn’t very well dump him on his front stoop, for the neighbours and any passers-by to see, even if it would mean she could get this over and done with and get back to France.

It wasn’t cold, but her delicate hands wrapped around her own arms as she followed him to the kitchen. A soft frown crossed over her features as the aromas of fresh baking filled her nostrils. Merde, what was she doing? Harlan’s words came unwarranted to mind -- Prince Charming -- and the guilt swelled up in her chest again, as fresh as it had been the minute she’d left the Bellamy estate.

Tea? “If you’re having some,” she nodded gently, giving a smile another shot and doing a marginally more convincing job of it. She undid the tie holding her coat about her waist and shrugged out of it reluctantly, feeling very much like she was shedding a layer of armour. She hung it and turned back in time to see Will beaming at her about biscuits and for a brief moment she wondered if she could go through with this. He was everything she had thought she wanted -- kind, intelligent, handsome. What was it that was missing that had led her to kiss Harlan?

The villain, the other man’s voice reminded her unpleasantly.

Bérénice shook her head as if it might clear the memory and came back to the kitchen proper, lingering awkwardly as Will finished making the tea. Harlan wasn’t the villain in this -- she had been the one to complicate everything, hopefully not for both of them.

“What have you been doing?” She wasn’t ready to launch straight into it, wanted to savour Will for just a little bit longer before she dropped the bombshell.

Will offered her a bemused smile at her reply. Bérénice had done that peculiar British thing when asked if they wanted tea, to reply only if the maker was having one and then spiralling into a mild panic when finding out they didn't. She hadn't spent a lot of time in London to pick up that habit and he absently wondered who else she'd been hanging out with.

The kettle boiled and he poured water over the bags, foregoing the teapot because he was very much a bag-in-mug kind of gentleman. When doling out the sugar, he hesitated over her cup - shouldn't he know how Bérénice liked her tea by now? Will frowned quickly. It was a silly trivial thing but one that had made him stop. He added two into his own along with the milk and if she did like sugar, he could simply say he gave her the wrong cup and switch - modern problems required modern solutions.

"Here you go," Will announced as he pressed the cup into her hands with the same amount of care he would a baby. "Just baking a bloomer," he added as he sat down at the kitchen table and picked up a custard cream, dunking it into the tea and nibbling the edge carefully. "I was going to have it with some soup, if you'd like some?"

Will didn't think he was crazy but there was a definite unspoken something between them. He was only too happy to make house calls but he wasn't sure if the same extended to his girlfriend. She wasn't really the "just-dropping-by" type. She was smart and punctual and elegant and refined so this surprise visit didn't sit comfortably.

It was on the tip of his tongue to say that he'd missed her and while tha was true, her less than enthusiastic reply to his statement last time in Chatoeil made him drink his tea quickly. His dog padded out from the living room slowly, bypassing his owner and heading straight to Bérénice . Dave sniffed at her skirt before blinking at her and turning away, causing Will to frown. "Sorry," he replied as he reached out to scratch the wolfhound's ear affectionately, letting the dog plonk himself on his feet. "He's not been himself lately."

"It's nice to see you," the publisher said brightly with a sunny smile. "Did you want to go for a walk or something after your tea?" He asked, hopeful. "I found a great little cafe I thought you'd like," he explained.

Will set about making the tea and Bérénice forced herself to sit, rather than linger awkwardly and raise more suspicion than she already had. She pulled out a chair at his kitchen table and sat, smoothing her skirt down and crossing her legs at the ankle. After a moment he passed a cup to her and she forced another small smile as she said “Merci.”

Baking bread, reinforcing that niggling feeling that sad somewhere at the base of her skull. “I would love to,” she lied, smiling again in a vain attempt to cover her tracks. “I don’t know if I can stay for lunch, though,” she said carefully, wondering if she should just rip the bandaid off, as the moldu said.

She opened her mouth, then closed it again as she felt Dave’s snout sniffing along the outside of her thigh. The dog retreated to his master and Bérénice wondered if the animal had a sense of what was to come. Will apologised and Bérénice shrugged it off with another forced smile; “It’s fine.”

“Yes, you too,” she replied. It would be impossible to not register how stilted their conversation felt. Even at Easter, things had been a little off, but she had still been trying then, she supposed. The witch sipped at her tea and wrinkled her nose softly at the lack of sugar. If she were more comfortable here -- if she weren’t about to break up with him -- she’d simply ask for a spoonful, but she wasn’t, and she was.

She set her cup down and folded her hands in her lap. “I--” She frowned, focusing on Will’s teacup rather than looking him in the eye. “William, I came here because I needed to tell you something,” she began. Her deep brown eyes flicked up to meet his. “I think...” Merde, this was difficult. “Will, I think we both know this isn’t… it’s not working.”

Then, to make sure he didn’t try to convince her otherwise: “There’s someone else.”

Bérénice couldn't stay for lunch. "Okay," Will replied cheerfully, or so he thought. It actually sounded sad and perhaps tinged with annoyance that he didn't know he was feeling. "I'll box you some up," he added as he sipped at his tea, wondering why she'd come all this way. She looked as though sharing a cup of tea with him was too much to handle, too. How odd.

He watched her carefully as she fidgeted and he knew that look, he'd seen that look, they needed to chat. Will fell silent as the waves of uneasiness rolled off his girlfriend. The slow tick-tock of the clock on the kitchen wall was really starting to piss him off now. Will didn't want to talk. It wasn't like he didn't see what was happening but having Bérénice lay it all out for him made him flinch.

She struggled to catch his eye and he found himself staring at her intently. She looked so beautiful in that quintessentially French way, so effortlessly elegant. Style was something a person was born with. It was like a knife in his chest and  Bérénice was turning it. Will forced himself to swallow. "That's a bit unfair," he said in a voice just above a whisper. "It's not working now but it doesn't mean it can't work," he added quickly as he reached across the table for her hand. "If we talk about it and make an effort, we can fix things." She could fix him.

Maybe if he'd tried harder, been nicer, more romantic. Maybe if he'd been more handsome, funnier, wittier --

There's someone else.

The biscuit he was holding snapped in half and dropped into his tea with a dull plonk!, sending droplets of hot tea over his hands but he didn't react. There was a whistling in his ears, the type someone would experience after a loud gig - everything was muffled. She hadn't even let him try. She'd dropped the bomb, the final nail in the coffin - she'd met someone else.

His warm brown eyes weren't the colour of an autumn dappled stream any more as he blinked at her and he found his lips twisting into a smile that was not very becoming. "Oh," he added delicately as he pulled his hand back and away from her, placing the cup down on the table. "For how long?" Will asked her, despite not wanting to know the answer. Was this all a big joke? Was she sat in her little flat with the mystery man, laughing at him? The thought of anyone else's hands on Bérénice's skin made him want to balk. All the times she'd said she was busy, was she with him? Were all those times she was "stuck at school" true? Or was she just having clandestine candlelit dinners with someone that wasn't him?

She hadn't said she'd cheated but it was certainly implied. This was a case of history repeating itself. Honey's face swam in his mind's eye and he willed it away hastily. Will was silent as the cogs in his brain started to go into gear. He was mentally dissecting their relationship, building a timeline as to when she could have possibly met "someone else". He was so stupid. He was so fucking stupid. He must have had the word "mug" tattooed on his forehead. He hadn't said anything in a little while and he was holding on to his teacup too tightly.

"Who is it?" Will asked, the honeyed tone of his usual voice replaced with something a little rougher. He watched her closely as he weighed up which would be less painful - a teacher from Beauxbatons or just a friend. Bérénice looked uncomfortable and a foreign and unnerving sensation crept up his spine. He liked watching her squirm. And he didn't feel bad about it.

Will was breaking her heart -- not because she was suddenly madly in love with him again but she did love him, in a way. She just wasn’t in love with him. He started scrambling to piece them back together before Bérénice severed the rope completely, but the only way this could have worked was for one of them to uproot their life -- their career -- for the other, and that was unfair, much as he might not like it.

But her nail in the coffin had worked, judging by his expression. His biscuit chose an opportune moment to give up the fight too and fell into his tea. Bérénice moved -- about to reach forward and check he was alright -- but he withdrew his hand before she’d really committed to the thought. Her hands gripped one another in her lap.

There’s someone else was kinder than Henri had been, but she didn’t miss the irony in all of this. They had discussed their last relationships -- how they’d ended -- with each other, That was what made this all worse, wasn’t it? But Bérénice was committed to being the villain, here, for Will’s sake -- and for that reason, she ought not to cry.

She pinched the skin on the back of her hand to distract herself, but his next question helped too. How long? “It’s not like that,” she answered him hastily. It wasn’t. It had been one kiss -- but downplaying it would make things harder to reconcile. “Two weeks. It was after Easter,” she added, hoping to make it clear that she hadn’t seen Will since, inadvertently confirming that something had happened. “I wanted to come sooner but—”

She sat back in her chair, her mouth slightly agape. “You don’t know him,” she said -- truthfully, she thought, too.

When Bérénice  insisted it wasn't what he thought, Will snorted. He couldn't help it. He was behaving rudely. It had taken a lot of courage for her to come over here, sit him down privately and explain how she felt. It was just a shame he wasn't in the right mindset to listen. "What's it like, then?" He pressed her, fighting to keep his face neutral, fighting to keep things civil because Bérénice  wasn't a bad person.

Two weeks. Will sucked in air through his teeth and held it, sounding like a hiss of pain. He made calculations in his head - was what why things had been so off at Easter? Had she planned this?

It took him a couple of seconds to read between the lines before he caught up on her slip - something had happened. He reached up to take his glasses off his face as he pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes closed as he counted to ten. Will wasn't usually an aggressive man but it was difficult not to feel like a laughing stock. "But what?" He said, dropping his hand to blink at Bérénice . "You couldn't fit me into your extracurricular activities?"

As soon as he said it, Will regretted it. His fingers twitched, wanting to take her hand, but he forced himself to bite down on the sides of his tongue to stop the apology escaping. He dropped his eyes, uncomfortable with what he'd said but honing in on the small part of him that though she deserved it. It was small, miniscule really, but it was now the driving force. He was hurt so she deserved to be, too.

He smiled at her at her next comment, wrapping his fingers around his mug. He pressed his skin against the china, feeling that the heat searing his skin was oddly comforting. He didn't know him. His smile was small, tired. "That's supposed to make me feel better?" He asked her, genuinely wondering if that's what she was thinking. His tone was softer now as he regained some modicum of control over himself.

Will sort of wanted to know, though. It wouldn't help him but he was a glutton for punishment. He knew, deep down, retaliation was not in his nature. He wouldn't seek this person out - it wouldn't make him feel any better. He didn't want the details. He didn't want to know what drove her to do what she did because he'd lie awake thinking about it, slowly driving himself mad.

He nodded once, folding his lips together in a grim, thin line. He flicked his eyes back up to her face, just for a second. Would Bérénice  act the same way if the shoe was on the other foot, he wondered? It was a simple case of I-like-you-more-than-you-like-me. That was fine but it was still painful. "I think you should go," Will said softly as Dave sat at his feet, watching her with doleful eyes.

He reached down and scratched the Wolfhound behind the ear on his wiry fur. "C'mon mate," he said as he pushed his chair back and stood to his full height, arms folded across his chest with his hands tucked beneath his armpits. "If I have anything of yours, I'll mail it back," he found himself saying whilst knowing full well that Bérénice  had never left her mark on his home.

Will snorted and Bérénice sat back in her chair, mildly affronted by the noise. She was just as taken aback by his verbal rebuke; she blinked -- surely that was a rhetorical question, he didn’t really want an answer? But if she were to answer him… Had she been the only one feeling off? Surely not. They had both been stilted and their actions forced at Easter, and the time before that… Well, it was hard to recall, really. Nothing had stood out, and wasn’t that answer enough?

She watched him pinch the bridge of his nose, her chin tilted down and shoulders back. He dropped his hand after a moment and looked at her, all the better to snap at her. Bérénice flinched, surprised by the venom there. He seemed to have surprised himself too; he looked apologetic, almost, as he glanced away -- but she wasn’t going to let him off that easy. “I have a job, William. I can’t just leave the school every weekend, you know that.” They’d talked about it almost every time they saw each other, how incompatible their schedules were -- or rather, hers was. How difficult was it for him to take weekends off, after all?

They both sat there for a minute, then Will spoke again. Bérénice sighed softly, shrugging her shoulders gently; “I don’t know.” She held his gaze, tried to communicate that she understood how this felt -- but he knew that. They’d both been here before, just not with each other -- and she had been in Will’s shoes, then.

Will wasn’t looking at her again, but Bérénice kept her eyes on him. She felt like there was more that ought to be said, but what? It would be different if she were grovelling, trying to convince him to stay (or rather, let her stay) -- but she didn’t want that. She had convinced herself between kissing Harlan and turning up at Will’s door today that he would be better off without her.

I think you should go. Bérénice stared at him for a second; that was it then. She had delivered her bombshell and it was time to go. No passionate arguing, no vulgar name-calling. Just a cup of tea and a smothered sigh.

Will got to his feet and Nice gazed up at him, hit by the sudden realisation that this might be the last time she saw him. She got to her feet and nodded silently, keeping her hands folded together and not lingering to push her chair back in, but lingering a little because the idea of just running away seemed cowardly. Still, she moved to the door into the hall and stopped, hand on the frame. She glanced back at him. “I am sorry, Will,” she told him quietly.

She turned into the hallway and grabbed her coat from where she’d hung it only minutes earlier, folded it over her arm and let herself out, closing the door with a soft slam.


[end]