11 November, 1893 — The London Ballet

The unresolved issue between Oz and Sophia had been weighing on his mind ever since their last conversation, much as he'd tried not to let it. Of course, he'd spent plenty of time not thinking about it, too. Since his swearing in on the first, and in the few days beforehand in preparation for it, he'd been inundated with government business. There was work to be done just getting the lay of the land, and in getting up to speed with all the various departments, and a backlog of routine business that Ross hadn't been able to attend to while packing up and getting ready to clear out, and Oz's own pet project of putting together the committee on voting reform. He'd been spending most of his mental energy on being Minister and all of the things that went with it... but any time he had a moment to breathe, the argument they'd had bubbled back to the top of his mind like bile rising in his throat. Each time he tried to reassure himself that Endymion would handle it, and sometimes he was able to convince himself of that long enough for his mind to go back to other matters. But as the days stretched on with no word from Sophia that she was willing to negotiate, and no confirmation even from Endymion that he had tried to negotiate, it became harder and harder to believe his brother could be trusted to handle this on his own.

He'd drafted a few letters to Endymion asking for progress, but always ended up tossing them into the fire unsent. He wanted it done properly, not to be rushed, so he didn't want to needle — but Merlin, would it have been too much to ask for Endymion to have reported back periodically and said how it was going?

Eventually, left to his own devices on a Saturday, the anxiety had built up to unbearable levels. He decided suddenly that if he stayed in the Mayfair house a moment longer he would drive himself insane. He checked the clock on the wall, then checked his pocket watch as though he didn't think the clock was trustworthy. Then he made a decision — a snap judgment, one that he would almost certainly regret later — and went to fetch his overcoat. "I'm going to the ballet," he announced to Thomasina, and if she had any reservations about his leaving the house with no notice whatsoever, she at least didn't voice them strongly enough to cut through his haze as he dressed for the evening and left. It was a short walk and the air was cold, but not crisp and clean as he was used to from the Irish autumns he'd left behind.

(The Galway estate was where he had lived during his entire marriage to Thomasina, and the air there felt like her. London air was Sophia: hazy, abuzz, heady, intimate, claustrophobic, smothering).

Minister Dempsey! We weren't expecting you tonight, the manager tittered in excitement. Oz hadn't visited the ballet since swearing in; while the manager had always fawned over him (or more accurately, his money) his enthusiasm seemed to have swelled with the boost to Ozymandias' prestige. Oz's usual booth was engaged, he explained, but not to worry; the patrons there could be reseated; hardly even an inconvenience! they had only just arrived and hadn't even gone up to the booth yet; not to worry, plenty of space to move them to; yes, of course, he could go right up, everything here was well in hand. Oz did go right up, not in the mood for small talk with anyone he crossed paths with in the lobby. He asked the usher he passed on the stair to get him a bottle of wine delivered to the box — not a service the ballet typically offered its boxes, but one they were happy to accommodate for him.

He sat languidly in his usual seat, practically draped over one arm of the chair, while he waited for the performance to begin. He didn't know why he'd come here tonight, exactly, except that in the moment he couldn't think of anything else to do. It was a bad decision, being here — he ought to leave, and leave things to Endymion. Even if Endymion didn't come through, all he was doing here was incriminating himself further. He'd almost made up his mind to leave when the bottle of wine was delivered, and opened, and then he felt self conscious walking out. The house lights dimmed. Now it would have been conspicuous to leave.

He drank his glass of wine in three gulps. There was a purpose in being here, he decided. A reason the idea had sprung to mind, and why he'd held on to it through the streets of London all the way to the door of the ballet. She'd gotten the last word, in their argument — she had the power, to an extent, because the pregnancy was in her body and she would have to choose which path to follow. Being here tonight was taking back the last word, exerting what little power he still felt he had in the situation. Reminding her that he was not impotent.

She hadn't taken the stage yet. He poured himself another glass of wine and leaned back in his chair. When she did take the stage she was sure to see him. He'd chosen this box specifically because it put him in easy line of sight to the performers in center stage; he'd picked this box for her benefit. There was nothing to do now but sit back and wait to be seen.

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MJ is the light of my life <3

Her husband was going to the ballet, and Thomasina was feeling — neglected. She was not used to the feeling. In six years of marriage, she had always been able to captivate Ozymandias when she wanted to. But tonight, when she wanted to pull him away from thinking of the Ministry, when it was a Saturday, he had to go to the ballet?

It took her hardly any time to decide that she would have to follow him. She had the lady's maid change her into an evening gown, apparated nearby, and walked into the ballet's lobby before she could give it a second thought. Mrs. Dempsey! the manager had greeted her, enthused. We did not expect you to join your husband!

The manager explained that the waiter had just brought up a bottle of wine for the pair of them, and Sina nodded and exchanged pleasantries and let herself up.

She slipped into the usual box as quietly as she could manage. Usually — she had only been here once before, for Don Quixote, but she remembered. The London Ballet, drinking wine by himself, when he'd scarcely seen Thomasina since his swearing in?

Sina stood, watching her husband drink his wine quickly, and then watching him sip and watch the stage. How long could she lurk here before Oz noticed her? She felt as if she was trying to commit legilimency, just to pull context out of his mind, because he'd been odd for hours and she could not abide the feeling that she did not understand him.

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   Ozymandias Dempsey

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set by MJ

Showtime, Ozymandias thought when Sophia Voss finally took the stage. The change in his posture was immediate. He'd been watching the stage intently before she arrived (so intently that it had been easy for his wife to stay outside of his field of vision), and second-guessing his recollection of the show every time another performer emerged from the wings — was that her? was that her? — but when he really saw her for the first time he smirked. He set his wine glass down on the side table and immediately forgot about it. Where he had been languidly leaning in the armchair he now sat up straight, leaning forward on one elbow. His eyes tracked her across the stage like a hawk, waiting for the moment when she would glance his direction and they eyes would meet.

He'd had time to consider while waiting for her entrance, and he'd thought through a few possible ways tonight might go. Was he hoping for another conversation? Maybe. He thought he planned to linger in the box after the show while the house thinned and emptied, giving her plenty of opportunity to make her intentions known if she wanted to receive him in her dressing room — or for her to come here, if she was angry enough. But he thought it just as likely that she would flee the ballet once the performance was done, and he was fine with that outcome, too. What he really wanted, he had decided, was to see her stumble. Not dramatically; not to the point where she would be injured or the performance would be derailed. Perhaps not even to the point where a casual observer, a typical audience member, would even notice. But he had watched her often enough that he could read the emotion in her movements — not just what she put into it as she played the character she'd been assigned, but her own emotion as a performer. He wanted her to err in some subtle way that he would be able to pick up on, from his lofty seat in the box. He wanted proof that his presence here tonight had affected her. The silence that had fallen between them after their last argument had been maddening, because it had given him no foothold by which to predict what she was thinking or feeling — and subsequently which way this would go. He still expected that she would fold, because it would have been madness to try and keep the child and even more madness to try and raise it here in England where everyone knew her to be a widow — and not a recent enough widow that the math on the pregnancy could be stretched to fit. But he wanted the reassurance that she was progressing towards the inevitable conclusion; he wanted the validation of seeing her crack beneath the pressure.

Come on, Sophia, he thought as he watched her. Give me what I want.

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MJ is the light of my life <3

Did he think of her, these last few weeks?

Beyond the… news. Their mistake. Did he think of her on the odd nights he was alone, wife at work and bed cold? Was it her, Sophia Voss herself, that he thought of? Or was it still the allure of an illicit rendezvous that had him hooked for so long? Now that they were over, would he find simply another? Or when she was long gone, a memory from months past rather than weeks, would he miss her?

Sophia thought of him more than any amount of time he deserved. They were details of no consequence, but no less acute: dark curls that felt soft between her fingertips, the cinnamon and clove of cologne he wore for her, the sound of his voice in her ear — he was very good with his words. No, Sophia did not miss him. But she thought of these things too often for someone with no time.

And there truly was no time, which helped Sophia ignore the inconvenient truths of her predicament: she was running out of time for good. It was their busiest time of year, ending one show to tee up their next for the holidays, with grueling days split between practices and performances. By the end of it she’d have the bulk of her year’s wages in hand, only if she managed to survive the season through her persistent illness. (This was exactly like her second pregnancy, a fact that only made the churn in her stomach worse.) Then there was the matter of her daughter, still in hospital, and under no condition to be removed. Fleeing this awful country was always a distant hope, wasn’t it? But now it felt like no more than a few flying figments in the wind that Sophia tried, in vain, to catch.

And despite all this, like a bloody damn fool, she caught herself wondering in idle moments between stretches or cigarettes: is he thinking of me?

Perhaps he was. The manager found her the moment she finished leading the corps de ballet in their warm-up, girls scattering everywhere to their cues. He’s here, the man that needed no name. The churn in her stomach came back with a vengeance, though Sophia refused to think it had anything to do with him. The show must go on.

For the first act, the Sylphide is as elusive as Sophia herself wished she could be. The woman materialized by apparition in her first appearance, and arrived in a man’s study shrouded in mist. At center stage, he sat and quietly read his newspaper (comically, a real copy of today’s Daily Prophet). Starting with a slow pirouette, Sophia began her dance. As with all performances, enchantments in the theater suggested fantastical moments as real despite increasing absurdities – and in this performance, the set, costume, and dance subtly cued the audience to the fact that the man on stage was dreaming. The male dancer’s kilt and shirt changed to a paisley blue suit as his eyes drifted closed and the paper drifted to the floor. Yet he rose to attention, turning precisely to watch Slyphide’s dance. Eyes still closed, he followed her like a shadow, furniture around them shapeshifting until every piece grew tall and spindly like trees, and the chandelier and bookcases of the study twisted into ivy and flower canopies, and the lights made the first dance seem hazy and overly saturated in color. Only Sophia remained constant, pale and ethereal in a gauzy costume that evoked air, air that seemed as dense as invisible wooden planks as with each backstep the ballerina danced further and further up in the air above stage. The hero followed her as she cleverly evaded his grasp, until suddenly, a door opened in the middle of the stage and another man burst in. In that instant, the hero crashed down into his armchair with a thud. The sylph is gone, and if one blinked they’d miss how the set suddenly snapped back to its normal study from the start. Although it seemed a bit small, and empty, and boring now that one saw what it could become.

~

Backstage, Sophia fell violently ill. She determinedly avoided her (former?) paramore's gaze, but she still felt it, smoldering on her heaving chest.  A few dancers flocked to the prima ballerina’s aid with water as she expelled what little she ate earlier in the day, and made sure her hair and wings and makeup were still proper. He wasn’t here because he was simply thinking of her, like before. Sophia was certain he had come to dissuade her decision, entreaty her, perhaps threaten her, do what he could— he was not, of course, here for her.

The dancer who played the old witch with a concerning prophecy joined them backstage in the left wing, signaling Sophia’s upcoming cue. Onstage, a wedding procession complete with an enthralling Scottish reel drew gasps and lively applause from the audience. The ballerina moved swiftly to her place for her next entrance, batting away her protege Karina and her well-meaning but entirely irritating concern. To her very core and until her dying breath, Sophia was an artist of the highest caliber. Tonight’s audience would not be disappointed with anything less. No one man could change that.

Sophia slipped into the Scottish dance for the hero’s upcoming nuptials. It was a shocking and strange contrast; her costume moved like a whisper between gingham and plaids, and her languid grace made the powerful leaps and spins taken by the rest of the dancers seem garish. The hero was enamored by her, and started to follow her again– though this time when he pointed Sophia out, the other characters could not see her. A murmur started to work its way through the audience, too. By design, about half of the audience could see Sophia and the other half could not. Viewers were beholden to their companions to tell them what was happening, and laughter erupted from those that could see Sophia as she took increasingly silly antics: taking people’s props and switching them, spinning men up into each other’s arms rather than their lady’s to disrupt their dance. In time Sophia took her antics to the front rows of the audience – swapping tophats with fur shawls, daintily sipping a glass of wine swept from a gentleman, or borrowing a lady’s sight glasses. (She did not look at the center box seat, not once.) Soon, she disappeared from sight entirely.

The hero and his bride took center stage as they danced beautifully alongside the full cast. They were meant to show off how very perfect a match they were for one another, and how very much in love they were. Delighted by the unusual show, the group dance finished to thunderous applause. The cast scattered, men to one side readying a wedding arch, and women to the other doting on the bride and adorning her veil. Center stage, the hero took out a ring from his satchel and raised it to the light and for the audience to see.

When Sophia reappeared, the full audience could see her sneaky approach. She took the ring from his hand, gracefully evading his maneuvers to catch her, the man increasingly shocked and dismayed that no one noticed her. To flee, Sophia returned to her little invisible staircase, which she skipped up gracefully to a terrifying height. The man nervously followed.

Nearly eye-level, Sophia finally turned in one of her pirouettes to look at Ozymandias. Her smile was painted on, and did not waver when their gaze met. The moment was fleeting, as she continued her terrifying climb into what seemed like utter darkness in the theater ceiling above and the man followed. Of the audience members, only Oz would know about the catwalks that existed up there. Down on stage, the wedding came to a chaotic halt once the wedding party discovered the groom was missing. In a dramatic affair, the groom’s brother set out with a search party, and the curtain lowered to thunderous applause for intermission.

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ps. here's a synopsis of the ballet
pps. and clip of one of my favorite act I performances, plus another clip of the moment the groom disappears
ppps. anddd a complete and total nerdblog about the historical significance of this ballet in the 19th century <3

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   Ozymandias Dempsey

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thank you gin for the set<3

She knew he was here, Ozymandias decided after her first thirty seconds on stage. She hadn't looked at him, and by that point it seemed purposeful; he'd chosen this box to be directly in her line of sight while she was dancing, after all. Someone would have told her that he'd arrived, even if it had been at the last minute, and she knew where he was and was avoiding eye contact. This was all predictable: all of the staff at the ballet knew or suspected their affair, so someone probably mentioned it to her any time he came to the ballet. This being the first time he had visited since the election would have caused an added stir... not to mention that some of them had probably picked up on the fact that they'd fought recently. Oz doubted Sophia would be keen to share the details with anyone here, when her career would be immediately thrown into jeopardy if anyone knew, but he suspected (hoped?) that her mood over the past few weeks would have given away that something was the matter. Coupled with his absence, it wouldn't have been a difficult leap to make for the sorts who paid attention.

So someone had told her, and she knew what he was after and was determined to ignore him. It was a battle of wills, then — fine. He could win a battle of wills, he thought. He continued to watch her intently as she danced, lying ready and waiting for the moment when she would slip and either look his direction or make a mistake he could register. Her first dance passed without either occurring, unfortunately. The moment that Sophia was off the stage Oz leaned back in his chair again, evidently immediately bored by the production. He hadn't come to see the sleepy groom, after all, or his chorus of wedding guests preparing for the event which would never take place. (There was a parallel too easily drawn between himself and the protagonist of the ballet: the groom's world shrunk and dimmed when Soph left the stage, and so did Ozymandias' interest — but he was not keen on looking much further into the potential for metaphor, knowing how this plot line ended up for everyone involved).

He sipped his wine idly, knowing there were several dances before the sylph — Sophia — reappeared. As her entrance neared his posture improved again, until he was poised and ready for her return to stage... but she seemed to miss her cue. Oz's brow furrowed as he watched the stage, wondering if this was the slip he'd been waiting for — but it was monstrous, no matter what she was feeling Sophia would never have simply missed her entrance. And she hadn't given any sign during her first dance that she had been close to cracking, so it was hard to believe that she'd swung so far in the other direction. Even more strange, the other dancers on the stage didn't seem phased by her failure to appear — and then Oz caught sight of a top hat moving, by all appearances, on its own, and it suddenly clicked. He knew the trick at work in this scene, because he'd been to see the show before, but he had never been on the other side of it. He'd sat back and smugly watched the expressions of confusion on guests' faces while watching Sophia cavort around the stage causing mischief — he'd never been in the half of the crowd who couldn't see her before.

That's not fair! he seethed internally. At first he was convinced she had done this purposefully, to spite him, but it wasn't as though she was personally in control of the magic. Oz wasn't even sure that it had that level of precision, to pick and choose which guests were affected — but if it did, it was likely a spell that would have been put in place as the house was filling up and set to work over the course of the first act, so put into motion before he'd arrived and appropriated the box. It couldn't have been anything other than bad luck that he'd ended up seeing only empty air where Sophia should have been... but that didn't make him any less furious about it. It occurred to him to track down the manager and complain (but obviously he wouldn't do that, because what on earth would he say? He'd never disapproved of the charmwork here before, and if he tried to explain himself now he didn't know that he'd be able to avoid saying something directly about Sophia, which would have been too incriminating). He started to glower, but took a breath and made a conscious effort to ease the anger out of his expression. Just because he couldn't see Sophia didn't mean she couldn't see him, and if she looked this direction he didn't want her to feel as though she'd won the the high ground. The first dance had been a draw, if anything; this one was starting in her advantage, but he wouldn't cede the point without a fight.

So, stoic; and if he was gritting his teeth every time someone in the audience laughed at one of her invisible antics and fighting back the urge to grimace at every interaction she had, it was unlikely she could see that from the stage. He kept watching 'her', or where she ought to have been; between his recollection of the show from previous performances and the signs here and there of the things she had moved it was easy enough to track her progress on the stage. Impossible to see the things he cared about — whether she was looking at him, whether she was stumbling, whether she was affected — but giving the impression that he was seeing was some small comfort, he supposed. By the time she left the stage he had reached a state of being permanently on edge; he had to flex his hand and shake it out, dispersing some of the tention before he trusted himself to reach for his glass of wine again. It was a short reprieve — he knew she was headed back to the stage imminently for her final dance.

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MJ is the light of my life <3

Thomasina did not care for the ballet; it was not that she disliked it, it was that she did not consider it particularly worth her time. Oh, the artistry of the ballerinas was impressive — feats of physicality, feats of magic, feats of story. But Thomasina always had the sense that the ballet was not for her; it was for rich men and women with too much time on their hands, who wanted to fantasize about the (inevitably-promiscuous — Sina did not believe every stereotype, but she did believe the ones about performers) ballerinas. Sina did not have too much time on her hands, so she did not often go to the ballet. Tonight, though, she had the time — because Ozymandias had left her without something else to occupy herself.

She watched him watch, still trying to see what it was that had brought him here instead of home, with her. It did not take her long to figure out which ballerina caught the bulk of his interest, the one whose absence took away Oz's interest — and it was helped, because Sina recognized the prima ballerina.

She was, after all, caring for the woman's daughter — the girl who languished in St. Mungo's after touching her mother's haunted book. Thomasina had previously thought of the ballerina as stupid, or perhaps simply irresponsible; you should not have cursed items near children. Now, though, she watched Ozymandias watch the ballerina-sylphide as she pirouetted through the man's dreams.

Her husband was angry. It was easy enough, for Thomasina, to tell who he was angry with — Mrs. Sophia Voss, the prima ballerina, the elusive sylphide who was engaging in invisible antics down on the stage. He had left her that night to go grit his teeth in a box at a ballerina who likely could not see him, and Sina could almost see why. She was not stupid, or irresponsible — she knew who her husband was.

Thomasina was leaning closer to him, watching him watch. If he leaned back far enough, he may be able to feel her breath on his neck. And the curtain had descended, and she was starting to plan her exit — something during the second act that would give her the time to wreak havoc at home, with a well-placed bribe to a staff member here to let him know that she had joined him, and he had not noticed her — but she did not yet leave. She stood behind her husband, hovering, as the ballerina ascended up the catwalk and made eye contact with Ozymandias.

Was Sina sure, as the curtain descended? No — she was not sure until she watched Ozymandias shake out his hand. He had always given the things he touched the power to make him angry. She was sure, and still she remained, near unmoving, a ghost just behind him — because she could leave during the second act.

She wanted Mrs. Voss to see her.

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   Alice Dawson, Ozymandias Dempsey

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set by MJ

Her third dance went by in a flash, quicker than he remembered it being from previous performances... but as the music hadn't changed he had to attribute the difference in perception to his mood, since he spent every second that she was on stage waiting for her to look at him. He'd been so sure at the beginning of the show that he was going to win this particular fight, but not being able to see her in the second dance had rattled him and now he was desperate for some sort of acknowledgement. It wasn't enough that she obviously knew he was there and was avoiding looking at him — he wanted her to see him, and her persistent refusal had his anxiety rising. And then finally she did, only a moment before the curtain fell for intermission. The timing could not have been a coincidence. This wasn't a slip, a stolen glance where she hoped he might not notice — if there had been any of those, the second dance would have been the time for them, while she was flitting about the stage causing mischief and had a fifty-fifty chance of remaining undetected regardless. Her gaze was level, her expression didn't waver. She had chosen that moment to look at him, and she had chosen that moment for a reason. It was a challenge, he thought — but if it was just a challenge then it would have been better timed at the end of the show, as the sylph died — as Sophia could finally be certain of having the last word. Her look had been offered with half the show still to go, which meant it was more than jeering.

It was an invitation. He knew where she disappeared to when she stepped off the stage. He knew the way up to the catwalks. It was bold — even knowing the ballet house as well as he did, it would be difficult for him to get to the catwalks without being seen by someone, especially during intermission when everyone would be rising from their seats to mull around the lobby. And it would only be a two minute interaction at most, if he went — the intermission didn't last long, and she'd have to get ready for the second act, and he'd need to be seen to be back in his box when the curtain rose again, lest anyone notice his absence and wonder about it. But he would go, he decided immediately when she disappeared into the catwalks. He'd go quickly, before the curtain had even touched the floor, and he'd find her and kiss her with the force of all his pent up rage from the first act — and nevermind if that was what she wanted or expected, nevermind if he was ceding power to her by taking up the invitation at all, nevermind if he was doing something he'd later regret — whatever happened at intermission, or after the show, or in a week, he was not going to be ignored during the second act. He would ravish her backstage if that was what it took, and when she came out for her next dance she would look at him.

The curtain touched the stage and Oz sprung to his feet before the house lights had come on, before the applause had even faded — and nearly ran in to his wife standing only inches behind his chair. He paled slightly; the breath went out of him as suddenly as if he had been struck in the chest. "Thomasina," he said — and stepped back from her so hurriedly that he knocked over the end table that had been holding the wine glass and the bottle.

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MJ is the light of my life <3

It was intermission, and the dancer who played James already apparated backstage to prepare for the second act. Sophia, however, had not left the catwalk. A white-knuckled grip on the railing anchored her to the spot.

Oz’s expression had been inscrutable as she drifted past him, but then again, she did not linger for very long. Sophia would not risk more than a subtle acknowledgement, and if he had something to say to her, then fine-- let him come up and say it. She would give him sixty seconds. But perhaps it would not be so simple-- as she moved past she noticed there was someone with him, someone she failed to get a good look at until she gazed down below now.

It was his wife.

The revelation should not blister in the way it did, but clearly he brought her here to overstate a point. His choice. The ballerina’s heart raced, and the flush of warmth that colored her cheeks and chest pink felt foreign. Perhaps this is was what shame feels like. Sophia wouldn’t know – and she discarded the thought as quickly as it came.

For in the box below, their behavior seemed rather odd for a couple that arrived together. Ozymandias seemed surprised, for one. The table and wine fell with a clatter as he backed away from the woman like he’d seen an apparition. Sophia stayed so still her bones ached; it was not as though they could see her up here, catwalks concealed by charms to look like nothing more than a starry night. But she was riveted to the spot, watching their interactions unfold as though watching her very own private play. How curious to be the one watching them -- funny, even, the way life imitates art.

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   Melody Crouch, Thomasina Dempsey

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thank you gin for the set<3

She had not expected for Oz to move. Sina stayed where she was, eyes flashing, as her husband sprang to his feet and nearly bowled into her — he was obviously shocked to see her there, with his pale face, and with the crash of the wine bottle to the floor. Sina's hands balled up at her sides — she wanted to strike him, or kick the dropped bottle, or otherwise cede control to her temper. Now he looked at her, now he saw her — and the storm that was raging inside her chest hit a fever pitch.

"Going somewhere?" Sina said — her tone was as if he had accidentally cornered an asp. "I thought we should watch the show together." He had wanted to come here tonight, after all — wanted to see the woman Sina was now certain he had been fucking. Sina remembered — he had been a sponsor of the ballet for over a year; he had been sleeping with this woman for over a year.

He had wanted to come to the box; she would not release him now. He could stew in his discomfort until the end of this, and then — she had not decided what would come next.

  

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set by MJ

Ozymandias' heart was racing, and Thomasina's eyes were flashing. This was a hurricane that he had just stepped into the middle of. There was no opportunity to play dumb about it, or try and play off whatever she had seen, because her words and her tone made it perfectly clear that whatever she had seen had left her furious. He didn't know what she'd pieced together, but he was sure that her imagination had filled in all the rest — she might very well be angry at him over some hyperbolic version of the truth that she had conjured up, but the box at intermission of the ballet was hardly the time or place to litigate that.

He had a dozen things he wanted to say, but wasn't sure any of them would get an answer. He wanted to know how long she had been here (hopefully only a moment or two?) — he wanted to know whether someone had said something to her that tipped her off (but who would have known and subsequently betrayed his confidences like that? Endymion might lecture him privately, but he wouldn't have gone behind his back and spoken to his wife. Locke wouldn't have. Who else knew — really knew?) — he wanted to know how much she suspected (but of course there was no way to ask that without hinting that there was more to uncover). The wine bottle rolled away from his foot, splashing red wine on the carpet. He ought to have picked it up, but that would involve him on his knees at his wife's feet, and he already felt quite unbalanced enough without striking such a dramatic pose.

"You don't understand," he said, tone desperate. Whatever she had seen, he was confident in this point. He was sure that neither Endymion nor Locke would have told her about the pregnancy, so unless Sophia herself had done it she couldn't have suspected that; Soph wasn't showing yet. (He'd looked. Intensely. He would have noticed even the subtlest of signs if they were visible from the stage). So she could not have guessed that he was here responding to a situation, that there was a larger purpose behind tonight's venture than just idle flirtation, and — he did not want to tell her, obviously, but he wished he could convey that he had not left her at home tonight because he'd wanted to sleep with someone else. She had plenty of reason to be angry with him — his list of sins was lengthy, and probably going to be larger before the night was through, but it did not include neglecting his wife in favor of a dalliance. He did not hold her in so little regard as that — and that was the bit he wished he could convey, somehow.

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MJ is the light of my life <3

Ozymandias was desperate, and Sina straightened, making herself as tall as she could — if she did not stand firm now she would never be able to stand firm again. She had asked him for three things, when he proposed. Just three. And now she was ready to screech at her husband in the London ballet, while he spoke to her in a desperate tone and the goddamn ballerina would be back on stage shortly.

"Oh, really?" Sina said. She was trying to keep her voice from rising — even in the depths of her rage, she did not want society to find out about the scandal. Trying, but not quite succeeding — she had gone from a whisper to a speaking voice, taking advantage of the sound of intermission. "Enlighten me, then."

When they were fighting, the best tell that Thomasina was not actually mad was the expressions on her face. She was constantly moving, both her body and her face, as she thought through mischievous ways to poke at him or to make the other people around them uncomfortable. Right now, though, she was rigid — impassive, and nearly expressionless, except for the fierce look in her eyes.

  

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set by MJ

There was the rub, wasn't it? Because of course he couldn't enlighten her. He didn't want to tell her all the gory details, and knew her better than to think she would actually want to hear them. But he couldn't jump straight in with what he wanted to convey, either. The two of them didn't just talk about emotions that way, and even if he discarded their years-long facade and tried to be sincere for a moment he doubted that she would believe him. She did not look as though she was inclined to give him much benefit of the doubt, on any front, and if he offered her no evidence to support his claim then what else could she do but dismiss it?

"You're angry," he said, and immediately hated himself for having said it. Was there any more pointless or stupid observation he could have made at the moment? Of course she was angry. "Let me take you home, and we'll discuss it." He could say things at home that he could not say in the box at the ballet — it was generally private enough for conversations not to be overheard, but anyone could see them, and if one of them raised their voice it would carry straight across the house. And being here in the ballet house, with the spectre of Sophia Voss looming around and over and between them, was hardly going to help anything. Hopefully Sina hadn't really meant what she'd said about watching the show together — hopefully that had just been a comment made out of spite and irritation, and she didn't intend to pin him down here to watch him writhe for the entirety of the second act.

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MJ is the light of my life <3

There was a beat where Thomasina glowered at him, rather than responding — she was running through the facts as she had them, and the scenarios. 1. Her husband was having an affair with the prima ballerina, whose 2. daughter was one of Sina's patients. This was an indignity. 3. She had not been this angry, genuinely angry, at him in years — and 4. she did not want the general public to know it.

She still considered him, the moment stretching. They had the house in Mayfair. There was the house in Galway. She did not want to go to Galway, where his family was, and going to her own family's home was out of the question. Whatever he had wanted to do here tonight, Sina had interrupted it — and if he was offering to take her home, then she was still more important than the fucking ballerina.

In seeing her, he had ruined the plans she had been half-formulating before he turned around — smashing every piece of glass he had in his office, barring the door to her rooms and waiting for him to figure out what she knew. This was much worse, because now she was just suffocated in the moment, the ballet pressing in around her, feeling like a scorned woman.

5. She had no desire to watch that woman pirouette across the stage again.

"Take me home," Sina spat.

  

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set by MJ

Oz would have liked to have felt relieved — at least they were escaping the ballet, at least this conversation didn't have to be held in hushed tones and time-bound to however long the intermission lasted, at least there would be no potential for interruption by well-meaning waitstaff asking if he would like a second bottle of wine in his box — but he was far too keyed up to feel anything but anxious about what lay ahead. He reached into his pocket to lightly grasp his wand, since he had no intention at all of braving the lobby full of ballet patrons or the streets of London outside the theater on their way towards home — particularly not since the ballet manager would probably seize upon the fact that he was leaving and try to detain him in conversation long enough for him to miss his window of escape during the intermission. He did not think his wife particularly wanted to be touched at the moment, but her desire to forge through the crowds below them probably mirrored his, so he'd assume side-along apparition was the lesser of two evils in this case.

He reached out to take her arm just tightly enough to apparate them away. Then he glanced over his shoulder, gazing in the direction of the catwalks, though they were obscured from view from his angle. What would Sophia think of this display? She would know that Thomasina had been here, of course. If she had seen him, she would have seen Sina in the box as well; she might have known that his wife was here before he did. If nothing else, he was sure word would get back to her from the front of house staff, since presumably someone had seen her come in and make her way into the box. And he knew that Soph would notice that he was gone in the second act. What would she make of that? It was entirely the wrong message to send, he worried. If she thought that Sina being here was orchestrated, part of his plan, then everything in the first act looked like a callous power play. Leaving in the second half would come across as a dismissal. If he'd been trying to coax her back to the table to bargain with him, this was likely to do the opposite.

But it wasn't as though he had options, at this point. He could not have conceptualized brushing past Thomasina on his way to confront Sophia; his wife would probably have left him on the spot. The business of the bastard wasn't worth the risk of losing Thomasina. Nothing was worth that risk.

He clenched his jaw and apparated them both back to Mayfair.

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MJ is the light of my life <3

As the events in the balcony below played out, Sophia lingered on the railing. She could hear nothing of what was exchanged, and it reminded her of a mimed performance she’s seen in the past. The woman was rigid and distant, expression impassive. Mrs. Dempsey had always been difficult for Sophia to read, even up close and in person. So she looked at the person she knew best.

And he did not seem pleased to see his wife. It was an incriminating sort of surprise on his face, a look that reminded Sophia of when they had encountered each other at a public ball. Like that time, this interaction had not been a part of his plan. Whatever he said, his wife’s expression was so shuttered that his words bounced uselessly off her shield. It had always been a mild curiosity for Sophia, one she never had much reason to think about too deeply — how much his wife knew, or how much she cared, of her husband’s affairs. At first, Sophia did not think she was his only one. But then their dalliance seemed to last far longer than either of them expected it would… and Sophia started to believe this had more to do with whatever Ozymandias decided to run away from, some safe harbor he found with her that he didn’t in other places. Much in the way she found comfort in his company to cope with her unyielding grief.

With the dancer’s stomach tied into knots, Sophia began to realize that perhaps Mrs. Dempsey hadn’t known. But now she did.

It was against Soph’s better judgment to stay. There would be people looking for her, there was an entire audience waiting for the next act. The lights would soon flicker on and off, beckoning everyone to their seats. A small voice told her in the back of her mind that she should go. Nothing good would come of this, watching what happened next. (She had to see what happened next.)

Oz grasped his wife’s arm. This motion should not wound in the way it did, Sophia reminded herself. Then for a split moment, Oz looked up in her direction — surely he could not see her, but it was as though he knew she was still there. The lights flickered to signal the end of intermission, and the couple in the balcony disappeared from one blink to the next.

Sophia covered her mouth as she backed away from the railing, chest heaving as though she’d just finished her performance. For the very first time, fear over the consequences of their actions crept up her spine. That fear curled around her heart, beating ferociously in her rib cage. What would happen with her daughter in the hospital? What would happen to her, to go against a man with the might of the Ministry and a scorned wife by his side?

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   Ozymandias Dempsey

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thank you gin for the set<3