Work Text:
1
At eight, Penelope decides, finally, that she will simply learn how to ride a bicycle herself, thank you very much, because no one else is willing to help her and she is tired of being made to feel less than. Pru had been ruthless that morning at breakfast, teasing about how only babies did not know how to ride, and if you are so smart, you can figure it out yourself. Their mother simply pursed her lips in that particular way of hers and said that their father should be the one to teach her. When Penelope did manage to gather the courage to ask him later, he barely looked up from his newspaper before dismissing her with a wave of his hand.
At eight, newly eight to be exact, she is already used to feeling like a stranger within her own home. To being different in every way that matters. Her hair is too red. Her eyes are too blue. Her temperament is too sensitive, her mother so often says with a roll of her eyes and a sigh of exasperation. She cries too easily. Feels too much. Cares too deeply about things that do not matter.
Penelope does not fit in the spaces her family occupies, has never understood how to mute her colours or dull her personality enough to match them. And she knows she needs to stop trying. Knows she needs to work on depending on them less and herself more. So that very day she walks to the library by herself, checking out a book on cycling with wobbly hands because asking the librarian feels terrifying, but not as terrifying as never learning. She nicks Philippa's old bicycle from the garage, the purple one with the white basket that Pip hasn't touched in two years, and sets out to teach herself in the way she has taught herself everything that matters: through stubborn determination and the reliability of research.
The neighbourhood square is perfect for her purposes. It is mostly flat and mostly empty, bordered by trees that provide cover from prying eyes and judgment. Penelope has been at it for the better part of an hour, her knees bloodied from two separate falls, her elbow scraped raw from a third. But she is getting better. She can feel it in the way the bicycle wobbles less, in how she makes it five meters, then seven, then finally, finally!, more than ten before her feet instinctively reach for the ground.
She is flushed with success, with the triumph of having done something by herself, for herself, when a boy appears on the path ahead of her. He seems to materialise out of nowhere, stepping out from between the trees, and Penelope's eyes lock on him with the single-minded focus of someone who has not yet learned how to steer and watch simultaneously.
"Watch out!" she shrieks, but her hands are frozen on the handlebars and her feet cannot find the pedals to brake.
The boy looks up just in time for Penelope to barrel directly into him, her front tyre catching his legs, the impact sending both of them sprawling. She goes over the handlebars, landing hard on her already-battered knees, and the boy goes down beneath her, his glasses knocked clean off his face.
For one horrible moment, there is only silence and the sound of her own ragged breathing.
Then Penelope starts to cry. Not the delicate, pretty tears her sisters can summon at will, but great, hiccupping sobs. She scrambles off of him, her hands shaking as she searches the ground for his glasses. When she finds them, one lens is cracked in a spider web pattern.
"I'm so sorry," she gasps, tears streaming down her face as she crawls toward him. "Are you okay? Are you hurt? I didn't mean to—I'm sorry, I'm so sorry—"
Her muscles are already tensing, shoulders hunching in preparation for the yelling that is sure to come. For the anger and the blame and the confirmation that she has ruined something else, broken something else, proved once again that she is too much and not enough all at the same time.
Instead, the boy starts to laugh. It is not a mean laugh, not the kind her sisters wield like weapons. It is bright and genuine, surprised and a little bit delighted, and it confuses her so thoroughly that her tears stutter to a stop.
"That," he says, still laughing as he sits up and brushes dirt from his shirt, "was actually kind of brilliant. I didn't even see you coming."
Penelope stares at him, glasses clutched in her hands, completely at a loss. He is older than her, maybe eleven or twelve, with brown hair that flops into his eyes and a smile that seems to take up his entire face. He takes the glasses from her gently, inspecting the damage with more curiosity than anger.
"I broke them," she whispers. "I'm so sorry."
"It's okay," he shrugs. "They're just glasses. I've got another pair at home." He squints at her, then grins wider. "I'm Colin," he adds.
"Penelope," she manages, wiping at her face with the back of her hand. It only succeeds in smearing dirt and tears across her cheeks.
"Nice to meet you, Penelope." His gaze drops to her knees, and his expression shifts."You're bleeding."
She looks down. Both knees are scraped raw, blood seeping through the tears in her tights, and her elbow is in much the same state. She hadn't noticed, too focused on him and his broken glasses and the horrible certainty that she'd done something irreparably wrong.
"Oh," she says faintly.
"Come on," Colin says, getting to his feet and offering her his hand. "My dad will help. He's good at this sort of thing."
Penelope hesitates, staring at his outstretched hand. She has learned to be wary of kindness, to wait for the inevitable moment when it will be snatched away or used against her. But Colin just waits, patient and steady, his hand extended in invitation rather than demand.
Slowly, she reaches out and takes it.
His palm is warm against hers, his grip firm as he pulls her upright. He does not let go immediately, instead steadying her when she wobbles, his touch careful and deliberate. When he does release her, it is only to collect Pip's bicycle, righting it with ease before gesturing for her to follow him down the path.
Edmund Bridgerton is in the garden when they arrive, tending to rose bushes with the kind of focused attention Penelope's father only ever gives his newspaper. He looks up when Colin calls out, his face shifting from concentration to concern when he sees the state of them both.
"What happened?" he asks, already moving toward them.
"Cycling accident," Colin says cheerfully. "This is Penelope. She's learning how to ride."
"By myself," Penelope adds quietly, though she's not sure why. It feels important, somehow. That they know she was doing it alone.
Edmund's expression softens in a way that makes her chest ache. "Well, that's very brave," he says, crouching down to her level. "Let's get you cleaned up, shall we?"
He tends to her scrapes with the kind of gentle efficiency that suggests he has done this many times before, narrating what he is doing as he works so she knows what to expect. Colin hovers nearby, keeping up a steady stream of chatter that makes her relax in increments. He tells her about his own cycling mishaps, about the time his brother Benedict crashed into the pond, and about how his other brother, Anthony, once ran straight through his mother's prized flower bed and blamed it on the dog.
When Edmund finishes, he smooths a final plaster over her elbow and pats her hand. "There. Good as new."
"Thank you," Penelope whispers, and he smiles at her in a way that feels like sunlight.
"Colin," Edmund says, straightening. "Why don't you teach Penelope how to ride properly? I have a feeling she's determined enough to master it with the right instruction."
"I was thinking the same thing," Colin says, grinning at both of them.
They spend the rest of the afternoon on that path, Colin running alongside her with one hand on the handlebars and the other on her back to guide her. Edmund watches from a distance, calling out encouragement and gentle corrections. Penelope falls twice more, but each time Colin is there to catch her, to steady her, to tell her to try again.
And she does. She tries again and again until her legs are shaking with exhaustion and the sun is starting to sink low in the sky. Until finally she makes it the entire length of the path without wobbling, without falling, without needing Colin's hand to keep her upright.
When she brakes at the end, flushed and breathless and triumphant, Colin is there waiting for her, his smile bright and kind. He holds up his hand for a high five, and she slaps her palm against his.
"Told you that you could do it," he says brightly. “Do you want to come back to my house? I think you would get along well with my sisters.”
Penelope looks at him—at this boy who laughed instead of yelling, who helped instead of mocking, who spent hours teaching her something he already knew simply because she needed to learn it—and something inside her shifts and settles into place.
“I’d like that.”
2
Kate brings a softening of Anthony’s edges that Colin never expected to see, while Kate and Anthony, together, bring changes that, in hindsight, he probably should have accounted for.
Their wedding is a beautiful but whirlwind affair. Intimate and romantic, with only close friends and family in attendance. Colin stands beside his brother proudly, unified with him in their mutual endeavour to mend their relationship that has spent years degrading under the weight of resentment and expectation. Colin is happy for his brother, for his new sister, but the changes are swift to take as soon as the vows are spoken. Kate and Anthony take a three-month sabbatical to visit her extended family in India, and while they are gone, their mum finalises turning Bridgerton House over to her eldest. She maintains that moving into Number 5 is what she wants, and Colin does believe her, but change is difficult for him. Always has been. He grew up in that house, the oldest of the youngest, trying desperately to fit in everywhere because he felt like he belonged nowhere. At twelve, he finally felt like he had found a place, felt at home with El and Daph because Penelope came along and made space for him. But then his father died, and everything irrevocably changed, and Colin has spent most of his life trying to remain in control. Trying to prevent change or endlessly prepare for it so it doesn’t have a chance to pull him under again.
When his mother moves out, she does so quietly, without any pomp and circumstance. One day she is there and the next she is not, and Colin understands the sentiment behind her silence. Some things are dealt with privately. Violet tasks each child with going through their belongings themselves. The younger ones have it easiest; they pack it all up and move with their mum across town. Francesca does not place a high importance on things, and Eloise does not place high importance on sentimentality, so they block a few hours out of a random day and do what needs to be done and move on. Daphne has been gone for so long that she barely has anything left to go through, and Ben has been in and out for just as long, so he knows exactly what he wants and where those things can be found.
Colin, naturally, pushes it off and off and off until the Friday before Kate and Anthony are set to be home from their trip. Throughout the weeks and months leading up to the imposed deadline, Colin ignores calls about it from his mum, leaves the texts from Ben and Daphne on read. He even shuts Eloise and Franny down when they attempt to needle him into setting a deadline for himself.
Penelope is the only one he allows to say what needs to be said. When he reacts like a petulant child to her directive, whining that he simply does not want to deal with it, she calls his bluff and offers to call movers and set up a storage unit for him. It’s only then that he relents.
It is hard for him to discern when she became so vital to his day-to-day life, when she transitioned from Eloise’s friend to his best friend. It is as if one day Colin simply realised that most of his favourite memories contain Penelope in the periphery, and it is difficult to recall a time when his life did not, by some extension, include her. In a move that was inexplicable at the time, Colin had made her promise to keep in contact with him when he went away to university. He is thankful he asked, and even more thankful that she agreed, because after arriving at Cambridge, following in Anthony’s footsteps had been difficult, and Colin struggled to find his purpose and himself. The only reprieve he found from the pressures placed upon him by his family and his own sense of inadequacy was in his emails with Pen.
Then, one day, he sent her a text because he had to tell her a story right then, and they started talking and never stopped.
Now, Colin is six weeks away from graduating, eight weeks away from starting a job for a startup travel blog that will allow him the freedom to explore, and when he thinks about leaving London for good, it is only his family and Pen that give him pause.
Pen offers to go through his stuff with him, but he refuses. Tells her he can do it alone. That he doesn’t need anything. But still, she shows up at his flat that Saturday morning, having made the trek all the way from school, those scones of hers that make his mouth water and coffee from his favourite shop in hand. He nearly cries at the sight of her, and actually does a little when she simply pushes the coffee into his hand and shoves the scone into his mouth and smiles that smile of hers that warms him through and through.
In a family of eight children, it is hard to feel seen and heard. But with Penelope, Colin has always felt seen and heard, and also understood.
They drive to the house together and set to work, Penelope distracting him by putting on his old iPod and making fun of his music, teasing him about the decades-old artwork still hung above his desk. Colin knows what she’s doing before she even does it, knows she goads him into arguments just to keep him from retreating too far into himself, and he is so profoundly thankful for her in ways he can’t even begin to articulate properly.
He does try, even opens his mouth, but the words catch and die in his throat.
Which is okay, he figures, because she usually just knows.
Throughout the day, he procrastinates entirely too much, so they end up staying the night with a vow to get to work first thing in the morning. Except that he cannot sleep. He tries, but he is wound too tightly, the walls of the only home he has ever known too suffocating as he lies in his childhood room with her just down the hall and his father’s presence everywhere he looks. Because that’s what this is about, he knows. Saying goodbye, permanently, to the father he lost too soon and the place that holds most of his memories of him, of their family before it was fractured.
The house will remain in the family, of course, but it will be Anthony’s. And Kate’s. Their children’s. Their children’s children. He understands why that is, understands the intricacies of the inheritance and the passing down of tiles and properties. Colin knows he will be back here again, but still… change.
It is as unavoidable as it is irrevocable.
Colin has never learned how to deal with it properly.
She knows, of course. Finds him in the kitchen just two hours after they say goodnight, drinks the whisky from his glass, and pushes him back upstairs to his room. Starts again with the bookshelf, wrapping figurines and picture frames in old newspaper, placing them gingerly in a cardboard box she labels fragile. They make their way through his room, slowly. She makes fun of baby pictures, and sneezes constantly as the dust stirs and then resettles. Colin tells her stories of his father, of this picture and that item. He talks, and she listens, and when he is tired of talking, she fills the space with her presence and a comforting smile, or with mindless chatter when she knows the silence is stretching on too long and making him uncomfortable.
When they are mostly finished, his life broken down into keep and donate piles, he sends her to sleep just as the sun is beginning to crest the horizon. He tries to do the same, but still cannot; his body somehow simultaneously keyed up and exhausted, his brain a mess of static and worries moving too fast to decipher. The clock ticks by one hour, then two, and when the sun has fully entered the sky, he gives up altogether and wanders without any direction. Finds his way to his father’s study without meaning to, his fingers unsteady as he twists the lock.
For years and decades, this room has remained mostly untouched by time. His mum would work out of it at times when she served on this committee or that board, but Anthony never did, and things were left primarily as their father had left them: Journals and his favourite books lining the shelves behind the large, ornate desk. The portrait of him and his mum from their wedding day, front and centre on his desk, with Hyacinth’s sonogram tucked in the corner.
Now, the room is stuffy and dark, and when he opens the curtains to let the light shine in, the contrast burns his eyes. The bookshelves and walls are now bare, a lifetime piled neatly into boxes meant for storage or someone else.
Penelope finds him again, reaching for him the moment he starts to break. Her fingers are swift and secure near the crook of his arm, and he’s not sure why, but it just makes things worse. He collapses into her, burying his face in her hair as he cries. She does not ask him to talk. Does not ask him what’s wrong. Simply holds him until he is the one to pull away. For the longest time, they simply sit on the floor of this room that once felt larger than life, silent but existing alongside each other.
Without thought, Colin catches her wrist, fingers intertwining with hers. He squeezes softly, just a slight amount of pressure, and she holds on.
For the first time in a very long time, the unbridled tension and apprehension that licks at his nerves constantly starts to ebb into calm.
“I don’t know what I would do without you,” he murmurs.
Something flickers across her features as he speaks; he catches it, but cannot decipher it before she smooths her expression into something almost painfully neutral. Where their hands are tangled together, the pad of her thumb draws back and forth over his knuckles, and it anchors him, makes him feel steady for the first time in a very, very long time.
Outside, daylight continues to filter in, casting Penelope in this bright halo of golden hues. She is watching the movement of her thumb against his skin, and he is watching her, taking note of the way her freckles peek out on her cheeks and nose, the way her hair tints almost copper in this light. She is so close, and so pretty, and so, so familiar. And he thinks, idly and recklessly, what it would be like to lean in, to brush his mouth against hers, to feel connected with her in every way possible.
He forces himself to look away.
3
In theory, Penelope loves weddings. Loves the promise of them, the hope woven into the vow of forever, the flowers, the carefully chosen readings. In practice, they make her feel like an outsider, watching something she fears she will never quite have claim to. At Benedict and Sophie’s reception, her bridesmaid dress is a pale pink that makes her skin look porcelain in the right light, but she hates it because she fears she was only asked to wear it out of obligation, or worse, a favour to Violet. Champagne warms in her hand as she stands amongst the outskirts, ignoring the familiar ache of longing that settles in her chest as she watches couples sway and the Bridgertons carry on with their familiar antics.
Eloise had abandoned her twenty minutes ago, dragged off by Benedict for a smoke. She was asked to join, but cigarettes remind her of her mother, and the smell of smoke makes her physically ill, and the anxiety of feeling like an outsider looking in was already turning her stomach enough as it is. She could probably leave, could slip out before anyone notices she's gone. Thinks about what excuse she could make when someone, inevitably, notices she is gone. But then Colin materialises beside her, jacket discarded somewhere, sleeves rolled to his elbows, looking rumpled and flushed from dancing with every aunt and cousin who'd asked.
"Dance with me," he says, and it's not a question.
Penelope wants to refuse. Wants to tell him she's tired, that her feet hurt, that she should probably check on Violet. Or El. Or anyone, really.
Instead, she sets down her champagne and takes the hand he offers.
The song is slow, something instrumental that she doesn't recognise. Colin's palm is warm against the small of her back, his other hand engulfing hers, and Penelope tries not to think about how perfectly she fits against him. How easy it would be to let herself believe this means something it doesn't. The want hits her hard, unreliable as it sparks at the base of her spine and spreads. She closes her eyes as the deep-rooted affection and love follow, filling her and fuelling her yet also making her feel inexplicably empty.
"You look beautiful tonight," he murmurs, and the words are so quiet she almost misses them.
With a tilt of her head, she pulls back to look at him. Finds him watching her with an expression she cannot quite decipher, something soft and searching that makes her breath catch. His thumb traces small circles against her spine, an absent gesture that probably means nothing but feels like everything. Around them, other couples orbit in their own worlds, but Penelope is hyperaware of every point of contact between them—his chest against hers, the way their feet move in unconscious synchronisation, the warmth of his breath when he dips his head closer. He opens his mouth to say something further, but she cannot hear it.
"Colin." She cuts him off gently, unable to hear the rest. "You don't have to say that."
"I know I don't have to." His hand tightens on her waist. "I wanted to."
Something dangerous unfurls in her chest. Something that feels torturously like hope, like possibility. She knows she needs to push it back down, needs to continue to protect herself the way she always has. She knows she needs to remember that Colin loves her, yes, but not in the way she loves him. But the exhaustion from existing under the burden of unrequited love, from hiding her truth with constant deflection and smiles that are just bright enough, licks at her nerves.
The song shifts into something new, still slow but with a building crescendo that they ignore. Colin pulls her imperceptibly closer, and Penelope lets herself imagine, just for the length of this dance, what it would be like. What it would feel like to close the remaining distance between them, to press her mouth to the pulse point at his throat, to tell him the truth she's been carrying for years.
She doesn't, of course. She never does.
Penelope simply smiles through the moment, indulging herself by pulling him closer to her still. The song switches to something vaguely familiar she can’t quite place. Colin knows it, of course, hums along with the tune somewhere near her ear, the vibrations digging into her skin and bones. She presses her eyes closed and allows herself this quiet moment to think about the possibilities of impossibilities.
It is enough for now.
4
School, for Colin, has always been an exercise in perseverance, but only when necessary and at the absolute last minute. It is never that he couldn’t do the work; it was more that if it held little interest to him, he couldn't be bothered. And when forced, he operated best when the stakes were high, with adrenaline leading the way.
Everyone is surprised when he is granted acceptance into Cambridge, and even more surprised when he actually manages to finish. Especially since he comes home that first term ready to quit and study something that is of actual interest to him, even sits down with his mum and lays out his reasons in a well-rehearsed speech. But Anthony plays the it is what dad would want for you card, and when you have a dead father and sensitivity to rejection and an abject fear of being a disappointment, it turns out guilt is quite the motivator. So, instead, Colin spends his tenure at Cambridge faffing off and half-assing a degree in business because it is what is expected of him, but he cannot fathom a life belonging to the grind of a corporation, cannot stomach doing anything else that Anthony expects or wants him to, so when he fulfils his duty and graduates, he says absolutely not to the job Anthony wants him to take and starts devising his own path.
At twenty-one, Colin leaves London with the goal of figuring out a way forward without the constraints of his last name and the burden of expectation. He takes a job (and buys into) a start-up travel blog because the idea of travelling felt fulfilling and a step towards finding his purpose in a time when he felt horribly unfulfilled and purposeless.
At twenty-five, Colin returns to London having travelled to the ends of the earth and back, including every continent and too many countries to count.
He comes home to find everything and everyone around him has changed, and yet he remains stuck, stagnant, just as aimless as he was years before.
The eighteen months prior were spent on the road, cataloguing his life frame by frame for an audience of strangers who think they know him because they've watched him eat street food in Bangkok and hike mountains in Peru. The start-up blog had failed spectacularly and fast—haemorrhaging money and credibility in equal measure until he'd had no choice but to shut it down and pretend it never existed. Influencing had felt like a natural pivot at the time, a way to maintain his presence and get his name out there while he looked for more legitimate work. Except the work never came, and his follower count grew, and suddenly he had brand deals and sponsorships and a comment section full of people who thought his life was aspirational.
His family doesn’t take him seriously, thinks the exposure has gone to his head, but in reality, he overthinks every picture and every word chosen as a tag because he doesn’t want to fail at this, too. Even if it is a ridiculous way to make a living. His mum worries in that way of hers that feels like love wrapped up in sighs of disappointment. Anthony prods endlessly about his plans—what's next, Colin? When are you going to settle down and do something real? Have you thought about the future? Have you thought about your prospects? Prospects are important, Colin!—as if what he is doing isn't real. The rest of his siblings make an effort, but their lives are in progress, while his is constantly in flux, and the distance and time spent apart make it feel forced more often than not.
He comes home for an extended stay over the holidays, hoping that time away from airports and hotels and the relentless pressure to stick to itineraries and document everything will rejuvenate him. Will help him figure out the mess of indecision in his head. It only serves to make him feel more miserable. More trapped. More aware of how far he's drifted from any sense of direction or purpose.
He ends up sleeping on Penelope and Eloise's sofa in their too-small flat because it is the only place where he feels like he can catch his breath. The guest room at Number 5 is nice enough, with worn sheets that smell like his mother’s favourite detergent and familiar knick-knacks and photographs decorating walls that still feel unlived in. Anthony offers a spare room at Bridgerton House (not his old room because that is now a nursery in the making, but rather Hyacinth’s that is still untouched by the renovations with pony wallpaper and a nail polish stains on the carpet), but Anthony has this whole life and this whole family, and the divide that has always been there between them feels almost insurmountable now.
So, after a week of restlessness and insomnia at his mum’s, he finds his way to Eloise and Pen’s, all but begging them to take him in. Eloise refuses immediately, but Penelope softens her, and Colin’s promise of cooking and cleaning and buying them food and alcohol and whatever they could possibly want eventually wears her down. He sleeps on the sofa that has been passed down from sibling to sibling for years, the one with the worn cushions and springs just barely poking through, and it is uncomfortable, but also somehow comforting. Their cramped living room with Eloise’s books stacked in precarious towers and Penelope’s collections of misshapen mugs from her pottery phase feels familiar and real. Like home.
Inexplicably, he sleeps the best he has in years on that sofa.
December passes in a blur of procrastination and avoidance, of forced cheer on Christmas and Boxing Day. He spends most of his free time with Pen and El, feigning happiness and ignoring the worried looks Penelope gives him when she thinks he isn’t looking. While the distance he has placed between himself and London has forced a divide between him and most of his family, it has only served to push him and Penelope closer. What began as innocuous check-ins on Sundays for proof of life in those early days he spent abroad turned into a routine, and that routine became heavily relied on by him. Even more so as time wore on and his lifestyle wore him down. It was comfort, always, knowing that regardless of what hemisphere or timezone he was in, Sundays were for Pen. He could hear her voice and see her face, and her mere presence, even from miles and continents away, would provide him with a much-needed reset.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
Penelope materialises out of nowhere now, two glasses of champagne in hand and a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. He is hiding, of course, hidden in the outskirts of Anthony’s party, in a house that once felt like his home. Colin offers her a smile of gratitude as he reaches for the glass she offers him. She looks pretty in her dress and heels, the gold sequins catching the light every so often and making her literally sparkle.
“I am found,” he replies sardonically.
She makes a displeased sound in the back of her throat as she slides into the space next to him on the settee.
"Hiding from your adoring public?" she teases, gesturing toward the party happening around them. Anthony is holding court near the fireplace, Kate is beside him, looking radiant and slightly amused and very, very pregnant. To the left, Benedict is arguing with Eloise about something, both of them gesticulating wildly. Hyacinth and Gregory are taking advantage of the distraction to sneak drinks.
"Something like that," Colin says. Then, because it's Penelope and he's never been able to lie to her properly, he adds, "I am miserable company tonight, Pen. I’m sorry."
"Fair enough." She takes a sip of her champagne, studying him with that particular look that suggests she's reading all the things he's not saying. "Want to talk about it?"
He winces. "Not particularly."
She purses her lips and tilts her head to the side as she regards him carefully. “Want to sit here in silence while I recharge for my next round about the room?”
With half a smile, he bumps his shoulder against hers. “Of course.”
They sit like that for a while, shoulders pressed together, champagne slowly dwindling as they watch the party unfold. It should feel awkward—two people hiding from celebration while everyone else embraces it—but instead it feels like the first genuine moment Colin has experienced all night.
"What about you?" Penelope asks, as if she can sense the shift in his thoughts. "What's next for the infamous Colin Bridgerton, travel extraordinaire?"
The sarcasm in her voice is gentle, affectionate even, but it lands like a punch anyway.
"I don't know," he admits, staring at the champagne in his glass like it might contain answers.
Then, because the champagne has loosened something in him, or because it's Penelope, or because he's just so fucking tired of pretending, he says, "I hate what I'm doing."
It's the first time he's said it out loud. The first time he's let himself acknowledge it beyond the constant background hum of discontent that follows him everywhere.
Penelope doesn't look surprised. She just nods, takes another sip of champagne, and asks, "What would you rather be doing?"
"Writing, I think?" The words come out uncertain, like he's testing them. "I have this idea for a book. I've taken thousands of photos over the last few years. Interviewed people all over the world in different countries and different languages. So many different stories. I think... I think I could make something out of it.”
“About the power and lost art of human connection?” she muses quietly and easily, and fuck, of course, she is able to put into words so simply what he has struggled to for months.
“Yes,” he grins. “Exactly.”
"Then do it," Penelope shrugs.
"It's not that simple."
"Why not?"
Colin laughs, but it’s mirthless.
"Because I have contracts. Brand deals. Followers who expect me to keep producing content. Because I've built this whole persona and I don't know how to just... stop?"
"So don't stop. Just shift." She shifts herself, turning to face him more fully. Her eyes are bright and intent, and Colin feels pinned beneath her gaze in a way that isn't entirely comfortable but isn't unpleasant either. "Write the book. Document that process instead. Your followers will either come along for the ride or they won't, but at least you'll be doing something that matters to you."
"I think I want to come home," he says quietly. It's not quite what he meant to say, but it's true nonetheless. "I'm tired of living out of suitcases. Tired of performing my life for strangers. I just... I want to come home."
"Then come home," Penelope says, and she makes it sound so reasonable. So possible.
"That's easy for you to say, Pen." Something shutters across her face—hurt, maybe, or frustration—before her expression settles into something more neutral.
"No," she says carefully. "It isn't. I don't... I don't have a home. Not really. I don't have a family like yours that loves me unconditionally and will accept me back no matter what I do or how far I drift. You do. Don't take that for granted, Colin."
The words settle between them, heavy with honesty. Colin wants to argue, wants to tell her that she has those things too—that his family is her family, that she's always had a home with them—but before he can find the words, she's already shifting gears.
"Come on," she says, standing and holding out her hand. He takes it readily. "Let's go rejoin the party before they send out a search team."
They slip back into the noise and chaos of the celebration, but instead of rejoining the main group, Penelope steers them toward the bar. She reaches over the counter with the confidence of someone who's spent half her life in this house and liberates a bottle of champagne, grinning at Colin like they're teenagers stealing alcohol for the first time.
"To new beginnings," she says, taking a swig straight from the bottle before passing it to him.
"To coming home," Colin counters, and drinks.
They make their own fun after that, dancing to songs they both love and mocking the ones they don't. Penelope is tipsy and loose-limbed, laughing at everything, and Colin hasn't seen her this carefree in months. Maybe years. She's always carrying so much—her family's disappointment, her own insecurities, the weight of trying to prove herself worthy of space she's always deserved—but right now, in this moment, she is simply happy.
It does something to him, seeing her like this. Makes his chest feel too full and too tight all at once. Penelope has always had this effect on him, this ability to make him feel settled, grounded, as if he doesn't have to perform or pretend. She knows all his worst parts and stays anyway. She's seen him fail and succeed and everything in between, and she's never looked at him with anything but affection and unwavering belief. He wonders, briefly, if he offers her the same space and security to do the same. Realises that he wants to be that person for her, the place where she can land when everything is a mess, the place where she can feel safe to simply be. He realises, for perhaps the very first time, that he would very much like to be those people for each other.
Penelope spins under his arm, champagne bottle dangling loosely from her fingers. She laughs, head thrown back, exposing the line of her throat, and she is so pretty it makes his chest ache. Around then, the countdown starts, voices rising throughout the house. Their gazes catch, and hold, and Colin sees the moment she feels it too, the shift in the air between them. Her smile falters slightly, her eyes widening.
She takes a swig of champagne. Then another. “I’ve never had a New Year’s kiss,” she says, voice wobbly from the champagne. “Will you kiss me, Colin?”
The ask causes a surge of possessiveness, of warmth to spread from the base of his spine and out, filling every synapse until he is leaning in, hand cupping her cheek, his thumb brushing against the corner of her mouth. One of her hands curls into the fabric of his shirt, the other holds onto the near-empty bottle of champagne.
The countdown reaches zero, shouts of Happy New Year and streamers popping echoing in the distance, but all he can hear is the hitch in her breath, all he can see is the slow fall of her eyelids just before their mouths brush. The kiss is soft at first, tentative and questioning, but then Penelope makes a slight sound in the back of her throat, and everything shifts. Colin's other hand finds her waist, pulling her closer, and she rises on her toes, her fingers threading through his hair.
The kiss deepens, becomes something that feels world-altering and inevitable.
His world stops.
Resumes.
Rearranges itself.
Then Penelope is pulling away, giggling breathlessly, eyes slightly unfocused. "Thank you," she says, her words slurring around the edges.
And then, suddenly, she is gone, pulled away by Hyacinth and Eloise, and all he can do is stare after her, waiting for her to turn back, to offer him a look, or a smile, anything to indicate that she feels as changed as he does.
She never does.
5
Colin has been back in London for three days when Penelope asks him to help her move.
It's not a big move—just across the city to a nicer flat she's secured with her promotion, one with a proper second bedroom and windows that let in actual light. She's been in the old place for years, the cramped one she shared with Eloise before El moved in with her partner, and Colin knows every corner of it. Knows which floorboard creaks near the bathroom, which cabinet sticks, how the afternoon sun hits the kitchen counter in a way that makes it impossible to prep food without squinting.
He shouldn't know these things as well as he does. Shouldn't feel the loss of them like something physical.
"You don't have to," Penelope says over the phone, and he can hear her chewing her lip the way she does when she's trying not to ask for something she wants. "I know you’re only home for a long weekend. If you're tired—"
"I'll be there Saturday," he says. "What time?"
He does not tell her that he would rearrange far more than a schedule for her. That he would rearrange his entire life, if she asked.
The move itself is chaos in the way all moves are—boxes mislabelled, furniture that doesn't fit through doorways, the discovery of items long thought lost. Colin carries the heavy things while Penelope directs traffic, her hair piled messily on top of her head, an old university t-shirt hanging off one shoulder. She looks young like this, uncomplicated, and Colin keeps finding his gaze drawn to the strip of pale skin visible at her collarbone, to the way her neck curves when she tilts her head to read a box label, to the small sounds of satisfaction she makes when something slots into place exactly where she wanted it.
He looks away. Picks up another box. Doesn't think about it. Has trained himself to exist in her presence without letting himself want.
It is always easier when he is travelling. When there are continents between them, and their relationship exists within the structure of scheduled calls and texts. When there is distance between them, he can pack his feelings into something manageable. He can tell himself the kiss was a fluke, a product of champagne and midnight and the particular magic of New Year's Eve. He almost even believes it.
Being here, watching her stretch to place books on a high shelf, watching her laugh when she finds an old photograph of them at Benedict's wedding, watching her tuck a strand of hair behind her ear with paint-stained fingers—being here makes it impossible to pretend.
By evening, the bones of her flat are mostly assembled. Furniture in place, boxes stacked along walls waiting to be unpacked. They order Thai food and eat it sitting on her new living room floor because the table is buried somewhere beneath a mountain of her things, and Penelope leans against the sofa with her legs stretched out in front of her, looking exhausted and happy.
"Thank you," she grins, tipping her head back to look at him. Her eyes are warm, a little tired, and she's smiling in that unguarded way she only does when it's just the two of them. "I couldn't have done this without you."
"You could have," Colin says. "You could have hired movers like a normal person."
"Movers don't make fun of my book collection."
"That's because movers aren't your friends. They're contractually obligated to be polite about your eleven copies of Pride and Prejudice."
"They're different editions, Colin. With different covers. They are not the same."
"It's unhinged, is what it is."
She throws a prawn cracker at him. He catches it, eats it, grins at her outrage.
This is the problem, he thinks. This ease between them, this comfort. It would be simpler if being with her felt difficult, if he had to work at it. Instead, she slots into his life like she was always meant to be there, and every moment with her feels like coming home.
He wonders if she feels it too. If the air between them vibrates at the same frequency for her. If she ever looks at him and thinks what if in that desperate, hungry way he's never quite learned to silence.
He wonders, but he does not ask. Asking would mean knowing, and knowing might mean losing, and losing her would be too much.
After dinner, they attempt to set up her television, which involves far too many cables and an instruction manual that seems to have been translated through four languages. Colin is on his back behind the entertainment center, trying to locate an outlet in the dark, when Penelope crouches down beside him with her phone's light.
"Any luck?"
"I think your wall is broken."
"My wall is not broken."
"There's no outlet back here, Pen."
"There has to be. The listing said—" She leans further in, trying to see past him, and loses her balance.
She catches herself with a hand on his chest. Her face is suddenly inches from his, close enough that he can see the faint freckles scattered across her nose, the slight chap of her lower lip. The torch goes skittering, casting strange shadows across the ceiling. Neither of them moves to retrieve it.
Her palm is warm through his shirt, and he can feel his own heartbeat hammering against her hand—too fast, too obvious, surely giving him away. She has to feel it. Has to know. Colin watches her lips part slightly, watches her eyes flicker down to his mouth and back up again, and for one wild, reckless moment, he thinks this is it, this is the moment, just lean up and kiss her and find out, just—
"Found the outlet," he mutters instead.
Penelope blinks, and the moment shatters. She pulls back, retrieves her phone, laughs in a way that sounds slightly off.
"Well," she says. "Good. That's—good."
Colin finishes connecting the cables with hands that won't stop shaking.
He doesn't know why he does this to himself. Doesn't understand the impulse toward self-preservation that keeps stopping him at the edge of the cliff, pulling him back just before the fall. He thinks about his father sometimes, about the things Edmund Bridgerton never got to say, the conversations cut short by a body that failed without warning. He thinks about all the words his father must have swallowed, all the love he must have assumed could wait for later, and later never came.
Colin knows time is not guaranteed, that silence is its own kind of loss, that the things we don't say can haunt us as much as the things we do.
He knows, and still, he cannot make himself speak.
6
Penelope is three weeks away from finishing her postgraduate programme in Edinburgh when she gets the call in the middle of the night. Her mother’s voice is shaky and exhausted as it crackles over the line.
It’s your father, she starts, then stops, and it’s all Portia has to say, really, because the tears speak volumes about what is left unsaid. Penelope has always known how to read between the lines.
The bile rises in her throat, sweat pooling near the base of her spine, and before Penelope can even blink away the sleep or flick on the nearest light, she is out of bed and changing into jeans, throwing on the nearest sweatshirt as she registers bits and pieces of what her mother is telling her. She hears drugs and heart attack and surgery, and stops listening. Penelope pulls up the internet on her phone as her mother sobs, googling terms in an effort to gather facts and statistics because she has always found comfort in the reliability of them. The numbers and letters blur together nonsensically.
She cannot wait for the train, so she jumps in the car and drives all night, windows rolled down and music blaring to keep her awake. Talks to Eloise, who calms her and soothes her by trading gossip and rants about nothing until she cannot stay awake any longer. After their two-hour phone call disconnects, Penelope sings along with the radio, counts back years and memories, and feels a vague sort of longing for what was, but more so aches from grief for what wasn’t. Growing up a Featherington was a lesson in humility and survival, the indifference wielded by her father and the criticisms wielded by her mother simultaneously hardening her armour while fuelling her self-doubt. While most children were worrying about skinned knees and broken hearts and being told you’re going to change the world one day, Penelope was learning how to fade into the background of any space in an effort not to upset the shaky equilibrium that surrounded her.
It was Eloise and Colin who taught her what true affection was, Violet who taught her what being loved should feel like, and the rest of the Bridgertons who taught her she belonged in any space, at any time.
As she drives and drives through spitting rain and the black of night, Penelope tries to remember the last time she spoke to her father in some way that wasn’t superficial or in passing. It was her birthday, she thinks, nearly six weeks prior. A text message that prompted a voicemail. They never actually spoke. It hurts her heart in a way she is entirely unaccustomed to, this fierce constriction that burns and reverberates deep within her chest because years before she placed boundaries in an effort to survive and move on, but now those feel wrong.
Penelope starts to make a promise, a vow to a god she hasn’t prayed to in years, to be a better daughter, a better person if only—
But then she stops herself. Wishing and hoping and praying has never gotten her anywhere, and she needs those facts and statistics before she can start with the stage of bargaining.
When she stops for an energy drink and petrol an hour outside of London, the sun is just starting to peak over the horizon, bathing the sky in brilliant shades of blues and pinks. She sends a quick text El as she watches; she is awake already. Then to Colin, too, even though she is too tired to calculate the time difference half a world over. She keeps her text to him simple. To the point. She and Colin deal better with absolutes when it matters the most. They rely on each other too much for their honesty, on the stability of their routines. Penelope needs that more than anything else right now.
Colin tries to call immediately after, the phone vibrating in her hand almost as soon as she clicks send, but she knows him too well. Penelope knows the first words out of his mouth will be Are you okay? in that quiet, gentle way of his that always undoes her entirely. Penelope is not ready for it. She’s not ready to break just yet, not until she knows there is just cause for it. Still, she has also never quite been able to figure out how to lie to him about things of importance, so she simply lets the call click over to voicemail and turns the music up as loud as it will go in an effort to drown the mess inside her head, her mouth moving along with the lyrics to cover the ache in her chest.
When she arrives at the hospital, Prudence stands outside the car park, cigarette between her too-bony fingers as she waits. The first words out of her mouth are Don’t tell mom as she takes one final drag and stubs out the butt with the toe of her shoe. The second is he’s gone, her words breaking along the edges, but her face is completely stoic. Penelope just sort of deflates then, everything going soft and hazy as her shoulders sag, eyes just starting to burn as Pru suddenly and uncharacteristically bridges the distance between them, burying her head in the crook of Penelope’s neck. Her tears soak the collar of her sweatshirt, and Penelope holds her tightly, tells her it’s going to be okay because that is what sisters are meant to do.
With her heart in her throat, Penelope blinks back tears, holds it together for her sisters, and for her mother, and for a very pregnant Pip, who loses all composure at the sight of Penelope. She holds it together for the hours and days that follow as she stays, cashing in the last of her vacation days at the library and finishing her final assignments remotely to help her mother adjust to this brand new world, to make sense of her father’s books. And then, less than a week later, because Portia cannot be outdone by her dead husband and needs her own bypass surgery when a fainting spell at the funeral home turns out to be more than the dramatics Penelope initially labelled them as. Penelope holds it together in the aftermath of losing one parent and almost losing the other while somehow feeling as though she never really had them at all. She holds it together as her mother fights the diet and the physical therapy and the medications from her surgery, acting every bit the part of the woman who taught her how to be unbelievably stubborn by simply existing. She holds it together while her sisters come and go, flitting in and out whenever they feel like it, usually with their children, who wreak havoc wherever they frequent in tow.
(There had been a conversation, one that started and ended with Pru’s absolute refusal and Pip’s tears, her voice breaking as she murmured I just can’t, okay? And Penelope had nodded and agreed because her sisters had husbands and children, and Pip had a baby due in eight weeks, and isn’t that what sisters are supposed to do? What family is supposed to do? Carry whatever burden the others aren’t able to?
Her family has always been her weak spot, where she is most vulnerable. They’ve never been afraid to take advantage of it, either.
And Penelope, well, she’s never been good at saying no.)
Penelope does a remarkable job of holding everything together until she comes home from the pharmacy after a long morning of arguing with the chemist about the status of her mother’s prescription, to find everything has erupted into complete chaos in her absence. Her niece’s screams from the makeshift crib in the living room curdle in the pit of Penelope’s stomach. Her nephew is running around with a blanket tied around his neck pretending to be a superhero, jumping off of chairs and tripping over rugs, and Prudence is saying, We’re out of milk again without even looking up from her computer as the house phone rings and rings and rings from its position on the coffee table right next to her goddamn feet. With clenched fists and a diatribe of filthy language, her mother used to wash her mouth out with soap for right on the tip of her tongue, Penelope escapes to the kitchen, picking up the phone on the wall and slamming it back down on the cradle just to stop the shrill ring from popping in her ears.
She’s seething silently near the sink, thumbnail between her teeth as the water slowly refills the pitcher somebody emptied and promptly left out, when the sound of the front door creaking open and closed echoes throughout the house. Suddenly, the noise dissipates. The baby’s wails subside into a soft, manageable cry. Her nephew’s heavy stomping ceases altogether, and Penelope turns sharply at the sound of footsteps that are too heavy to be her sisters, senses immediately on alert.
The minute she sees him, the tiny thread that had been holding her together starts to fray at the ends, threatening to unravel her completely. There is a lump in her throat so thick she nearly chokes on it, and for a full minute, all she can do is stand there, hands tight around the countertop for support as the water overflows from the pitcher into the sink behind her.
“I just bribed your nephew with a PlayStation. Is your sister going to be pissed?” Colin asks, smirking, and Penelope laughs a little, the sound twisting off into a sob she has to swallow around to keep from fully escaping. “I also got milk,” he adds matter-of-factly, and he holds it up as proof, so ridiculously satisfied with himself, before placing it and a brown bag full of other groceries to the side.
She finds it absolutely ridiculous that the milk serves as her final undoing, the sight of it on the messy counter and his proud face unhinging her completely. The affection and gratitude she feels for him in this moment is so vast and fierce that it overwhelms her, stealing the breath right from her lungs. She doesn’t know why he’s here, how he managed the time off, and doesn’t ask because he’s Colin and he always just knows. It’s who they are, and the tears start to burn behind her eyes and fall without remorse. Penelope is so beyond exhausted by this point that she doesn’t even try to stop them.
Colin’s face clouds with concern, his mouth softening. She has spent years and decades loving him, teaching herself to accept what is and what will never be. There are times when it is easy, when her mind is able to lie and convince herself that she can love him but not long for him. That she can move on with her life and no longer what if. But then there are moments… moments where his kindness, his genuine nature, his mere existence simply leaves her breathless. Makes her ache with the hope of maybe.
Without thinking, she crosses the short distance to him, throwing her arms around his shoulders as she buries her head into his neck, breathing in his warmth. She draws on the strength he offers, trying so very hard to make it her own. Pulling her closer, his arms curl around her waist, and her fingers leave wrinkles in their wake as she curls them in the fabric at his shoulders. She has missed him, missed her best friend, and she didn’t realise how much she needed him until he was here, standing in her parents’ kitchen with the mud from the driveway dirtying his perfect shoes.
“My sister keeps forgetting to refill the bloody water pitcher,” she murmurs, hiccupping a little against the skin of his neck. His laughter is warm and reassuring as it presses into her skin.
Colin holds her until she is ready to let go.
7
The Stirling estate in Scotland is too quiet in the way that only grief can demand—a heavy, suffocating silence punctuated only by the occasional creak of old floorboards and muffled conversations that never quite reach full volume. Colin stands outside Francesca's bedroom door, hand raised to knock, but he hesitates. Inside, his sister lies curled beneath the duvet, still in her nightgown though it's nearly noon. She hasn't moved in hours. Hasn't spoken since yesterday. The funeral is in three hours, and their mum is downstairs wringing her hands, and Anthony keeps checking his watch like time might somehow fix this, and Colin feels utterly useless. Michaela had tried and failed, tried and failed, and by the third time had to excuse herself because it was too much.
He knocks softly. "Fran?"
No response.
He tries again, pushing the door open just enough to slip inside. The curtains are drawn, casting the room in a dim, grey light that makes everything feel suspended, untethered from reality. Francesca is facing the wall, her breathing so shallow he has to watch carefully to confirm she's actually awake.
"Hey," he says gently, crossing to sit on the edge of the bed. "You need to get up. Get dressed. Mum's worried."
Nothing.
"Franny, please." His voice cracks despite his best efforts. "I know this is—I can't even imagine what this is, but you have to—"
"I can't." Her voice is hoarse, barely above a whisper. "I can't do it, Colin. I can't get up and put on that dress and stand in that church and watch them put him in the ground. I can't."
Colin opens his mouth to respond, to say something reassuring or encouraging or helpful, but the words die in his throat because what could he possibly say that would matter? What could he offer that would make any of this bearable?
The door opens behind him.
Penelope slips inside without preamble, in her own funeral attire—a simple black dress that makes her skin look pale, her hair pulled back in a way that's practical rather than pretty. She meets Colin's eyes briefly, something passing between them that he can't quite name, and then she's moving past him toward the bed.
She doesn't ask. Doesn't hesitate. Simply kicks off her shoes, pulls back the duvet, and climbs in beside Francesca.
Colin watches, frozen, as Penelope wraps her arms around his sister and pulls her close. For a long moment, nothing happens. Francesca remains rigid, unmoving, and Colin thinks maybe this won't work either, that nothing will work because grief like this doesn't have a solution.
Then Francesca turns into Penelope's embrace and breaks.
The sound that comes out of her is something Colin hopes to never hear again. Her entire body shakes with it, and Penelope just holds her, one hand cradling the back of Francesca's head, the other rubbing slow circles against her spine.
"I know," Penelope murmurs. "I know. We’re here. We’ve got you."
Colin's own eyes burn. He should leave. This moment is too private, too intimate for him to witness. But he can't seem to make himself move, can't tear his gaze away from the way Penelope holds his sister together even as she's falling apart.
Francesca sobs and sobs, and Penelope just holds her through it all, murmuring soft reassurances that Colin can't quite make out. She doesn't try to quiet her or rush her through it. Doesn't offer empty platitudes about time healing all wounds or John being in a better place. She just holds space for Francesca's grief, lets her purge it in a way she hasn't been able to since John died.
Eventually, Colin forces himself to stand, to slip out of the room as quietly as Penelope had entered. He closes the door behind him and leans against it, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes.
Downstairs, he finds his mother in the kitchen. "Pen's with her," he says, and Violet's shoulders sag with relief.
"Thank God," she breathes. "Did she—is Francesca—"
"She's crying," Colin says, and somehow that makes his mum cry too, and he goes to her immediately, holding her as she allows her armour to fall, even if just for a moment.
The funeral is devastating in the way all funerals are, but especially so when the person being buried is young and vibrant and shouldn't be dead at all. Francesca makes it through the service with Penelope's hand clasped tightly in hers, and Michaela by her side. Colin stands with his brothers, feeling helpless and hollow. They bury John in the family plot overlooking the loch, and the sky weeps rain in a way that feels horribly fitting.
Afterwards, the house fills with people, distant relatives and John's friends and neighbours offering condolences that all blur together into meaningless noise. Colin goes through the motions, accepting embraces and murmuring thank yous, but he feels disconnected from it all, like he's watching everything happen from behind a thick pane of glass. He knew John, but not well, and his grief feels like it is undeserved and not allowed, even though it is mostly for his sister.
By the time everyone leaves, and the house finally quiets, it's well past midnight. Colin lies in bed staring at the ceiling, exhaustion weighing down his limbs, but sleep remains frustratingly elusive. His mind won't stop replaying the day, the sound of Francesca's sobs, the finality of dirt hitting John's coffin, and the way Penelope never once left his sister's side.
Penelope, who climbed into bed with Francesca without being asked and held her through the worst of it. Penelope, who has been the best friend he's ever had and so much more than that for longer than he's been willing to admit.
The restlessness eventually drives him out of bed and down to the kitchen. He's not surprised to find Penelope already there, fumbling with an unfamiliar kettle in the dim light from the stove hood. She looks up when he enters, offering him a tired smile.
"Can't sleep either?" she asks softly.
"No."
She holds up the kettle in a wordless offer, and he nods, crossing the kitchen toward her. They move around each other with the kind of easy familiarity that comes from years of friendship—Colin reaching around her for two mugs from the cabinet, Penelope stepping aside so he can access the drawer for spoons. Their movements are perfectly synchronised in a way that speaks to how often they've existed in each other's spaces, how well they know each other.
Colin finds the tea bags and drops one in each mug while Penelope leans against the counter, arms wrapped around herself. She looks exhausted, dark circles shadowing her eyes, but there's something else there too, a kind of bone-deep weariness that he recognises because he feels it himself.
The kettle begins to whistle softly, and Penelope moves to take it off the heat, pouring hot water into both mugs. Steam curls upward, and Colin watches it dissipate into nothing, feeling like that's what he's been doing for years now—dissipating, fading, never quite solidifying into anything real or permanent.
He came home two years ago with such certainty that London was where he needed to be, that putting down roots would fix the restlessness that had plagued him. And it had helped, for a while. He found a job he didn't hate at a magazine that let him travel occasionally but always brought him back home. Built a life that looked good on paper. Worked on his book tirelessly. But the loneliness persisted, a constant ache that he couldn't quite shake because Penelope was always there but never his. He watched her finish her postgraduate programme with honours. Watched her land her dream job at a publishing house. Watched her go on dates with men who didn't deserve her, watched her fall in and out of brief relationships that never quite stuck, and every time he felt sick with longing and relief in equal measure.
He told himself he was protecting their friendship. Told himself that risking what they had for the possibility of more was selfish and foolish. Told himself that maybe someday he'd stop being in love with her and could move on. Even believed the lie for a bit, too.
Penelope hands him his mug, and he wraps both hands around it, letting the heat seep into his palms. They stand there in comfortable silence, sipping their tea, and Colin thinks about Francesca. About how suddenly John died, without warning, and how Francesca never got to say all the things she probably wanted to say. About how grief like that doesn't just come from losing someone—it comes from all the unsaid words and missed opportunities and the terrible knowledge that time is finite and unpredictable.
Life is too short to keep pretending.
Penelope leans her head against his shoulder with a soft sigh, and Colin wraps an arm around her, pulling her closer. She fits against him perfectly, the way she always has, and something inside him simply breaks open.
"I love you.”
The words come out quietly, but clearly, hanging in the air between them. He feels Penelope go completely still against him, her breathing stopping like she's holding it, and for one terrible moment, Colin thinks he's made a catastrophic mistake.
But he cannot stop now. Cannot take it back. Does not want to.
"I'm in love with you," he continues, his voice steady and even as his heart hammers against his ribs. "I have been for a long time. I don't expect you to say anything. I don't need you to say anything. I've just been carrying it for so long and... watching Fran today, watching her lose John without warning..." He swallows hard. "I thought you deserved to know. I need you to know."
He chances a look down at her, and his stomach drops. Tears stream down her face, catching the dim light from the stove, and panic rises in his throat, making him nauseous.
"Pen, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—it's okay that you don't feel the same, I didn't mean to—" He's rushing now, desperate to fix this, to take back the words that are clearly causing her pain. "Nothing has to change, I promise. We can just forget I said anything, I won't—"
Penelope kisses him.
It's not gentle or tentative. She turns in his arms and kisses him like she's been waiting years to do it, one hand fisting in his shirt, the other cupping his jaw. Colin's mug hits the counter with a clatter, but he doesn't care because Penelope is kissing him and nothing else matters.
When she pulls back, she's laughing through her tears, the sound breaking on a sob that she immediately tries to swallow down.
"You absolute idiot," she says, and it comes out fond and exasperated and full of so much affection that Colin's chest aches.
Colin stares at her, brain struggling to process the words. "What?"
Fresh tears spill over, and she swipes at them impatiently, still half-laughing. "I've loved you my entire life, Colin."
"But you never—you didn't—" Colin can't seem to form a complete sentence, too overwhelmed by the enormity of what she's saying. "That night. New Year's. We kissed and you just… you just walked away."
Penelope lets out a watery laugh. "I was drunk and terrified and you looked at me like the kiss meant something, and I couldn't—" Her voice breaks. "I couldn't let myself believe it meant what I wanted it to mean. I couldn't risk losing you if I was wrong."
"You weren't wrong." Colin's hands come up to frame her face, thumbs brushing away tears that keep falling. "Pen, you weren't wrong. That kiss changed everything for me. I just thought—I convinced myself you didn't feel the same, that it didn’t matter to you.”
"Nothing more?" She laughs again, the sound caught between joy and disbelief. "Colin, there has never been anything 'just' about the way I feel about you."
He kisses her again, slower this time, trying to pour years of longing and frustration and love into it. She responds in kind, hands sliding up into his hair, and Colin thinks about all the time they wasted, all the words they didn't say, all the opportunities they let slip by because they were both too afraid to risk what they already had.
But they have it now. They have this.
When they break apart, Penelope's crying again, but she's smiling too, that brilliant smile that makes her whole face light up and always makes Colin's chest feel too full.
"I can't believe we've been so stupid," she mumbles.
"Speak for yourself. I've been very clever." Colin grins. "I told you I loved you, didn't I?"
Penelope laughs, the sound bubbling up genuine and bright despite the tears still clinging to her lashes, and pulls him down for another kiss.