Chapter 511: 511. Finally Entering The Last Day, And She’s Not Being Professional Anymore

The last day of the week arrived the way last days arrived: when you stopped counting toward them and started counting away from them, which was a specific kind of arrival that Elizabeth had not experienced before in relation to an arrangement she had entered for professional reasons.

She realized this upon waking up.

She realized it as she dressed, as she went downstairs, as she stood in the kitchen waiting for the water to boil, and as she gazed out the kitchen window at the morning, looking at things without actually seeing them, lost in her thoughts instead.

Rex came downstairs twenty minutes after her. She turned from the window when she heard his footsteps in the corridor, a habit she had unconsciously developed around day four.

"Morning," Rex said.

"Morning," she said.

She poured his tea without asking if he wanted it, a habit she had developed without consciously deciding to do so. Then, she set the cup at the edge of the kitchen table, placing it where he would naturally reach for it when he sat down.

Rex took a seat at the table and picked up the tea. He looked at her with the same uncomplicated attention he gave to things he was not actively involved in.

"This is the last day," Elizabeth said.

"It is," Rex said.

She looked at her own cup.

"The access request for the Valdric consortium records came through this morning," she said. "I got the confirmation when I woke up."

"We can start on the primary records tomorrow."

"Excellent," Rex said.

"The analysis framework is solid enough to absorb the new material without restructuring," she said. "We built it well."

"We did," Rex said.

Elizabeth looked at him. He was sitting at her table, or the Starlight household table, and he was drinking tea she had made him, and the morning was entirely ordinary around all of it, and she was aware that the word "ordinary" had acquired a different content over the past seven days than it had carried before them.

"Rex," she said.

"What?"

"I want to say something and I want you to let me finish it," she said.

"Okay," he said.

She held her cup in both hands.

"I know what you did," she said. "I don’t mean the analysis, or the intelligence briefing with Lady Valentina, or the expedition..."

"I mean the week." She held his gaze. "I know it was constructed..."

"I know you understood what the conditions would produce, and you arranged them with that understanding." She paused. "And I want you to know that knowing that doesn’t change anything I’ve felt this week..."

"Which is either very sophisticated or very naive of me, and I genuinely cannot determine which."

Rex said nothing, but he already knew Elizabeth was truly his now. Even he doesn’t need the desire level notification to know because he has been silent for this whole week to enjoy the moment with her.

"I’ve decided not to care about either option," she said. "I decided that somewhere around day four."

"I know," Rex said.

"I know you know," she said. "That’s also something I’ve decided not to care about."

She set the cup down. "The week ends today..."

"The arrangement is what it was... I go back to Alexander and the household, and the academic calendar and the analysis work proceed through the authorized channels." She paused. "That’s all accurate."

"Yes," Rex said.

"And none of it," she said, "is going to feel the way it felt seven days ago."

"I recognize that this situation is a result of your actions, and I want to be clear about my awareness of it because I prefer to address it openly rather than let it silently influence my professional judgment without acknowledging its existence."

Rex looked at her across the kitchen table in the morning light with the expression he produced when he was genuinely paying attention to something rather than managing his response to it.

"That’s very honest," he said.

"I am naturally honest," she said. "Sometimes, it can be a bit of a hassle."

He almost smiled. She had learned to recognize the specific movement at the corner of his mouth that indicated an impending expression, which often did not materialize.

"What do you want to do today?" Rex said.

Elizabeth looked at the window. Then back at him.

"I want to avoid thinking about tomorrow until it actually arrives," she said. "I’m quite skilled at worrying about what’s ahead, and I’d like to spend just one day not being so good at it."

"Okay," Rex said.

"That’s all," she said. "That’s what I wanted to say."

She picked up her cup and drank her tea, while the kitchen remained quiet in the comfortable way it had over the past several days, reflecting the silence of a space where two people had spent enough time together to no longer feel the need to fill it. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

...

Lily found them in the study room an hour later, which was where they had gone because the work was still real and the records still needed reviewing, and she stood in the doorway and looked at them with the expression of someone reading a room they have been reading all week and finding it consistent.

"Alexander sent a letter," she said.

Elizabeth looked up.

"He wants to come tonight," Lily said. "He asked if there was space."

"He also said that he thought it might be beneficial to be closer to the Academy for the early session tomorrow."

Elizabeth was quiet for a moment.

"There’s some space," she said. "Tell him yes."

Lily looked at Rex, and Rex looked at the document in front of him, and Lily looked back at Elizabeth.

"I’ll tell him," she said and left.

Elizabeth looked at the document she had been annotating. She wrote one more notation, and then she set the pen down, and she looked at Rex.

Rex looked at her. "You sure?"

"It’s fine," she said, but both of them knew that she only used that phrase when things were not actually fine. "I want it that way..."

"Anyway..." She picked the pen back up. "Let’s finish the secondary relay section."

Rex looked at the document. "We can finish it tomorrow."

"I would like to finish it today," she said. "So that tonight... we can do it until we’re satisfied..."

"Okay then," he said.

They finished it by noon.

The afternoon carried a distinct quality, as if it were aware that it was bringing something to a close. Diana prepared tea and brought it to the study room silently, which was her way of acknowledging the moment.

Lily came in twice, likely for reasons other than those she stated. Both times, she regarded Elizabeth with the same warm attention she reserved for things she cherished. Elizabeth accepted this attention in silence, not acknowledging the unspoken message behind it.

In the middle of the afternoon, Elizabeth stopped writing and looked at Rex while he was cross-referencing two sections of the relay document and writing the summary notation for the week’s analysis.

He looked up.

Elizabeth stood up from her chair, walked around the table, and wrapped her arms around Rex from behind, an action she had not taken before. She remained in that position for a moment, resting her chin on his shoulder while the summary notation lay unfinished on the table.

Rex held her hands as they crossed over his chest and remained silent until he spoke. "How unusual for a professor like you, Elizabeth."

"I’m not being professional," she said.

"Yeah," he said. "I can tell by the way you’re breathing right now."

"I’ve been not being professional for most of this week," she said.

"Yes," he said. "And something that made me respect you as a professor for the first time."

"And yet," she said.

"And yet, what?" he asked.

She stayed another moment. Then she straightened, returned to her chair, picked up her pen, and finished the notation; her expression was entirely composed, and the only evidence of the previous thirty seconds was that the notation she completed was better than the one she had been writing before she stopped.

"I want to tell you only when we’re in bed..."