Work Text:
February 1981
When Florence gets home, Anatoly is there waiting for her.
He meets her at the airport, helps her with her suitcases—three, full of everything she could take with her from her apartment in New York. Anything that didn’t fit in those three suitcases was thrown out or left on the sidewalk. Nine years of her life, compressed into three suitcases.
The whole time, she worked with a pit in her stomach, dreading the moment Freddie knocked on her door. He never did. In a weekend, the apartment was cleared out and the keys returned. She’d had to leave behind so many books.
Anatoly holds her, and runs his fingers through her hair. He says nothing of the tears she blinks back, but kisses her softly even so. The next morning, he brings her breakfast from the bakery down the road from their flat. They eat together, and begin what Florence desperately hopes will be the rest of their lives.
As the weeks go by, she finds herself relaxing into a sense of ease she has never before experienced. There has always been something—some crisis she is trying to avert, some goal she is striving to achieve, something eating away at her time and attention. Before Freddie and chess, it was school. For a while, it was both. Now, suddenly, she has time.
They put together their new flat together. They wait at the embassy together as Anatoly waits to be granted his permanent visa. They tentatively explore London, hand-in-hand. Not much has changed since Florence was last here, but with Anatoly at her side, she experiences it anew—and even though the weather is gloomy and cold, they find joy in it, in having the freedom to simply be together.
Of course, there is still chess. The next world championship is already practically around the corner, with only a year’s turnaround time, and they only have so many months to prepare. But with Anatoly, Florence doesn’t worry about it as much. She doesn’t have to corral him, to put so much effort into managing his public image only to fail, to play damage control every someone looks at him the wrong way. She doesn’t have to stop Anatoly from destroying himself.
It is more than she ever thought it could be. She has a home here with Anatoly. They take care of one another.
It isn’t perfect. There are still moments.
They rise late one morning, after a night spent analyzing one of Anatoly’s old games. They walk the couple of blocks away from their flat to a little cafe for brunch. The walk takes them through a churchyard, a welcome spot of green in the middle of the city center.
“If I get the breakfast platter, would you help me eat it?” Florence asks as she studies the menu. She loves the variety, but the quantity is always too much.
Anatoly’s eyes crinkle around the edges when he smiles at her from across the table. “If I must,” he says, with mock resignation. “You know, you could take it home with you.”
“It isn’t as good,” Florence says. “I spent years living off leftovers. Now that I don’t have to, I want to enjoy it.”
Their food arrives, and they talk idly as they eat. They throw around ideas for the day’s agenda, what they might study and where they might go. Anatoly tells Florence about his run-in with their new next door neighbor, whose little dog barks every time someone walks by the front door, which inevitably carries through the walls.
They haven’t gone out of their way much to meet the neighbors. With as much attention as they’ve had on them, as much news time their actions have garnered, anyone could recognize them. It feels safer to cling to the anonymity of a small flat in a big city, to keep to themselves. They have both left so much behind for each other.
Florence is telling Anatoly about something she heard on the radio the previous morning when she notices he’s distracted. It happens sometimes, but when she follows his gaze, she finds at the end of it a woman sitting alone at a table on the other side of the cafe. She bounces a toddler on her lap as she struggles to quiet his cries. Florence had instinctively tuned the noise out. Anatoly watches the scene with a look on his face that is hard to name, but is very familiar.
To matter what they do, there will always be these moments. The rest of the world is out there, and it is going to continue giving them these reminders—they can’t escape it entirely.
Florence reaches across the table and takes his hand. He responds automatically, squeezing it back, and tears his gaze away from the woman, his attention finally brought back to the table.
“I love you,” she says, and wishes that were enough to block everything else out for good.
“I love you, too,” Anatoly says.
And, no matter what else is true, Florence believes him.