Chapter Text
“I’ll come back to you, Pen,” he whispered as he held Penelope’s face in his hands seconds before she was pulled away by her best friend, Eloise, on the eve of his departure,
“I’ll come back.”
— — —
War is over.
Colin Bridgerton stepped off the train and into the damp platform, the city’s fog welcoming him home. He had spent the past 2 years in the trenches, dreaming of coming home, of her open arms ready for his embrace. Her. Penelope. The only person who had ever truly seen him.
Now standing before her doorstep, he contemplated knocking on the door. He stopped hearing from her a few months after he left after all. Has she moved on? What if she had forgotten about him? These thoughts unsettled him more than he cared to admit. The pounding in his chest became more difficult to quiet with every second that passed. Then, before he could lose his nerve, he knocked.
The door swung open, to his surprise, it was not Penelope who greeted him. It was Eloise.
The moment she laid eyes on him, her breath caught in her throat. He had embraced himself for joy, for relief, for squeals of excitement. Instead, her face twisted into something he could not quite read, an expression that filled him with confusion and a sinking sense of dread.
“Colin,” she whispered as if his name had been forced from her lips, barely more than a breath. “Oh, Colin.”
Something in her voice and the look in her eyes made his chest tighten. “Where is she?”
Eloise tightened her grip against the doorframe. Her lips parted in an attempt to say something, but no words came. The concerned look on Colin’s face snapped her attention back, urging her to step aside.
Colin walked in, his boots dragging across the hardwood floor. The house seemed quieter than he remembered. It felt hollow. Only silence, suffocating silence where warmth had once been.
Then his gaze landed on it— a black ribbon draped over the hearth.
He felt the room tilting beneath him, hands trembling, breath trapped somewhere between his lungs and his throat.
“No.”
Eloise stepped forward. Her face streaked with silent tears as she reached for him, hands hovering as though she would shatter him at the slightest touch. “Colin—“
He shook his head violently, backing away as if he could outrun the truth. “No, she—she was waiting for me. She promised.” He choked out, chest heaving with denial.
“She was.” Eloise whispered, two words cutting through him like a sharp, merciless blade. The confirmation of what he suspected upon walking through the door knocking all the air out of his lungs.
His knees gave out before he could stop them. Eloise dropped in front of her brother, pressing something into his hands. A pile of letters, tightly bound together with a fraying string, his name scrawled across each one in very familiar handwriting.
“She wrote to you,” Eloise choked out, her voice breaking. “Every week. Even when the letters no longer came back.”
He fumbled to untie the knot, his fingers numb and vision blurred by tears. The pages were worn, ink smudged where Penelope’s fingers had once lingered. He flipped through every single one before discovering the last letter. Separate from the others, sealed.
With shaking hands, he broke the seal.
— — —
Dearest Colin,
I’m unsure if this letter will ever find you, but I have to write it anyway. I promised I would wait for you, and I have. Through the seasons, through the silence, I waited. I wanted to see you again, to hold you, to kiss you. I had fought to keep my promise. I am so tired now, Colin.
But I have not been alone.
You see, shortly after you left, I found out I was with child. Our child. I thought of telling you, but how could I when I did not even know where you were? And so, I waited as I promised I would. With a heart filled with hope and a life growing inside me.
I dreamed of the day you would return. Of the way your face would light up when you saw her. Yes, Colin. Her. Our daughter.
She has your eyes. I tell her stories about you. I tell her that her father is brave, that he is a kind, good-hearted man and that he will come home to us one day.
But my body has grown so tired now. The waiting has become unbearable with every passing hour. As much as I want to, I’m afraid I will not be able to hold on much longer. I am not choosing to leave you, okay? But some things are out of our control.
Forgive me, won’t you? My wish is that the war has been gracious to you. I hope you are safe. I hope you will not hate me for leaving first.
Kiss her for me. Tell her about how much she is loved by her mother. Tell her about how much I love you.
Always, even in eternity,
Your Pen
— — —
Colin let out a strangled sound, pressing the piece of paper against his chest as if he could hold on to her. As if he could will her back to him. His heart twisted in his chest as he looked up to his sister, a look of desperation taking over his features.
“Where is she?” His voice cracked barely above a whisper.
Eloise’s eyes flickered briefly before she nodded towards the direction of the stairs.
His eyes caught a glimpse of a little girl descending the stairs. Tiny, unsteady footsteps.
Colin’s breath caught at the sight of her. A little girl with a head full of red curls, small hands clutching the railings. She looked just like her. His chest was filled with a wave of emotions crashing over him— fear, hope, love, and something indescribable all knotted together. But this was not the reason for his heart shattering entirely.
His eyes.