Work Text:
"Goodbye, Kate". And below he had signed as he rarely did, with his Christian name.
_________
Several people, if asked, would have confidently said that Kate Somerville had always been a strong woman, with the resilient heart of someone who had seen several pieces of her soul lost to the wind, together with the people she had loved and hadn't been able to keep close (Gideon - Francis - Philippa, oh, Philippa).
In the quiet hours of many sleepless nights, however, she often wondered how much longer her steady patience and obstinate resilience would keep the fragments of her heart from scattering - she would glance at her writing table and, with a shiver, she would then blow out her candle, sitting very still in the dark of her chamber. She couldn't stand to see her precious, pitiful collection of all the letters she had received throughout the years and just could not bear to give to the fire.
The ones from Francis, of course, were the most painful ones. She had never read any of them more than once. She could not imagine, of course, that she had been spared the most lethal blow: all the unsent correspondence from her own teenage daughter's captivity.
"Dear Kate..."
