Chapter Text
Love is like a flame. It can burn bright, roaring like a fireplace, keeping you warm and safe, or it can engulf you like a house fire, scarring you. And, worst of all, it can be snuffed out like a candle.
Tonight, Florence is dreaming of fire. In her dream, she wakes up in her bed alone, and feels the unnatural warmth as soon as she does. She springs from her bed and runs through the open door into the hallway. She can see flames creeping across the walls and floor, and her heart catches in her throat. Where is Anatoly? Has the fire already killed him? She frantically runs down the hallway, towards the kitchen, which has already been engulfed. Florence stops, unable to go any further without burning herself. She can feel herself crying, from the smoke or from her desperation, she doesn’t know. She sprints back down the hallway to their room, looking for anything that could say where he had gone. As the fire begins to spread into the room, Florence sees the light of the flames glinting off of something small on Anatoly’s bedside table. She scrambles over towards it, her heart pounding. It’s his wedding ring. The one she'd given him. He’d left his wedding ring here and left. Why had he left his ring here? What was he doing? Why had he left her? Is it her fault that he left and that their apartment was on fire? She begins to cry even harder, feeling unable to move. The fire is in the room now, surrounding her. Just as the flames begin to lick at her, Florence wakes up.
She sits straight up, breathing heavily. It was a dream, of course it was. Anatoly is right next to her, asleep, his dark hair mussed up in a way that makes her smile. There are a few grays now, but they both are getting older, she supposes. The moon coming in through the cracks of the blinds shines onto his face, and he is beautiful. They’re okay. Their apartment isn’t burning down, and they’re okay. Anatoly is here. He isn’t going somewhere, leaving his ring here… He loves her, and she loves him, and everything is okay. They’re happy. Florence kisses him on the forehead before lying back down to sleep, and he stirs.
“Florence? What’s going on?”
She smiles to herself. “It’s nothing, love.”
Anatoly pulls her closer to him, and she relaxes. He loves her. How else could they be here together? That thought is what chases her into more pleasant dreams as she drifts asleep once again.
The next morning, they’re in the kitchen. Anatoly is making eggs. He likes eggs, they’re one of the only breakfast foods he consistently eats. Florence likes eggs too, she supposes. They’re fine. She is sitting at the table, drinking coffee and doing the crossword. She needs a five letter word for “low female voices.”
“I had a weird dream last night.”
Anatoly doesn’t look up from what he’s doing. “Oh? What was it about?”
“In the dream, I woke up and the apartment was on fire. I was alone in our bed, and I ran around the apartment looking for you, but the fire had spread too much. When I came back to our room, you still weren’t there, but you had left your ring. Then the fire came into our room and I woke up. That’s why I was awake.”
Anatoly has stilled at the counter. She can hear him breathing evenly, not responding. He lets out a breath before speaking. “That sounds horrible.”
“It was pretty bad.”
He shrugs, and turns off the stove. “Would you like some eggs?”
“Sure.”
There have been a lot of moments recently like this one. Florence has always felt, ever since they met, that they were in sync. There weren’t tons of awkward pauses or uncomfortable conversations, never avoiding talking to each other. But now they’re lucky if they even see each other in a day. Florence’s job tends to start early, so some days she’s out of the house before he is, and he’s been working late. They had been thrilled to get married, absolutely over the moon, and that feeling was still there. Sometimes. Other times, it was just tense. Florence is no longer in the chess world. Of course she isn’t! It had brought her much more trouble than it was worth. She will always hold affection for the game, of course she will. She met Anatoly there. Even her time (seven years!) with Freddie means something to her. But Anatoly still immerses himself in chess. While he doesn’t play anymore, he coaches. Specifically, he coaches Leonid Viigand. While Leonid technically doesn’t need to be coached, they both enjoy it and Anatoly still can teach him a few things. A few years ago, they had received a phone call from Leonid, who was alone at the airport. He had flown from Russia to America without telling any of them. He was just calling them to ask about hotels in the area and where he could exchange his money, but obviously they weren’t going to leave him alone there. At the time he was barely even 20, and had never been to America, so despite the fact that it was very late at night, Anatoly had driven several hours to pick him up. Leonid had stayed with them for a little while, before finding a place for himself. It’s nice to have him around. Florence enjoys his company, although he is very quiet. She doesn’t love that Anatoly is still obsessed with chess. He hides it well, doesn’t talk about it as constantly as he did when he played. But she can tell that he loves chess the most out of everything in the world. More than his ex-wife, more than her, more than anything. And maybe there’s something to respect about that. But it really just makes her kind of sad. And her feeling sad about it makes her feel guilty, because chess brings him so much joy. Does it make her selfish to wish he loved her more than chess? It isn’t fair for her to want him to give up the thing he loved, or even just make more time for her, just so she could feel happier. Plus, Florence is happy. She is! She has an amazing husband and a fantastic job and lots of friends. She’s certainly happier than she was before Bangkok.
The year she and Anatoly had spent together in London in between the championships in Merano and Bangkok was, while it was happy, one of the worst years of her life. She had felt guilty for leaving Freddie, and then even worse when Anatoly revealed to her that not only did he have a wife, but he had two children. Two children who she had stolen a father from. Two children whose mother would have to explain to them that their papa wasn’t going to be coming home. The thought made her nauseous. Anatoly didn’t even seem too bothered about it, either. It was kind of unsettling how little he cared then. Now she knows that it wasn’t that he didn’t care, it was just he didn’t express it in the same way she would have. Their minds were very different, she had found out. At the time it had upset her that she seemed to care more about his kids than he did. She felt torn, wanting to be a good person but also deeply in love. Because she was. She knew that he was the one she wanted to be with forever. Even if she couldn’t have him with her for the rest of her life, she loved him and probably would for the rest of her life. They were happy back then, it was even kind of fun. It had felt like a secret at first even though she knew it very much wasn’t. They lived in a cramped London apartment, played chess all the time, and everything seemed good. Except for the arguments. The arguments were constant. Florence usually started them, picking a fight, upset for no reason in particular. It always led back to the same thing, through. She was upset he hadn’t told her about his children, he was upset she was upset. They were non-arguments that were arguments. There wasn’t any screaming or crying or anything like that. Just conversations, because Anatoly refused to get as upset as she was and she wasn’t going to be seen as hysterical. She loved him, but she wanted him to respect her. And by acting hysterical she would lose his respect, so she kept a tight wrap on her negative emotions. She could be calm. So they would just talk over games of chess, and it would just make her even more upset that he focused more on the game than the conversation itself. By the time they got to Bangkok she was deeply in love with him and she couldn’t stand to be around him for longer than a few hours. So she spent time away from him, but not too long because she would miss him. And seeing Svetlana around Bangkok made her feel horrible. She couldn’t even look her in the eye.
Walter had told her that the USSR had her father. He told her that if Anatoly threw the match, Molokov could get him out and she could have her father again. But obviously he was lying, she had seen him die. She had watched him die, so why did she want this so badly? Why did she believe him? She didn’t know what to do. Florence felt like a little girl again, waiting for her papa to come home, but she knew he never would. Oddly enough, the thing that got her to understand that they were lying was Freddie. He came to her hotel room and tried to convince her to listen to Walter. But she knew he knew that her father was dead, because she had told him. She had cried while telling him about it, and he had held her and assured her that it wasn’t her fault and that she was going to be okay. And Florence knew what Freddie looked like when he was lying. So she told Anatoly to not listen to any of them, that they were all lying and trying to ruin him, and when he listened to her, it seemed like her strange newfound dislike she had for him evaporated completely. He trusted her. He loved her. And when he won, she was thrilled. Anatoly was still the world champion! And they had been able to leave together, this time to go to New York! They were both so happy.
They lived together for a couple of years, and when Anatoly asked her to marry him of course she said yes. Svetlana had divorced him right after everything that had happened in Bangkok, and she had moved to New York too with her children. She and Florence are something resembling friends now, which proves that time heals all wounds, or however the saying goes.
So, Florence has everything she could possibly want. But then why is she still not happy?