White Collar Ficlet - Living Well

[elrhiarhodan]

Title: Living Well
Author: elrhiarhodan
Fandom: White Collar
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: June Ellington, Byron Ellington, June/Byron, canon death of a canon character
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: None
Word Count: ~600
Summary: June and Byron make a better life for themselves and for their family, despite the forces aligned against them.

A/N: Written for purimgifts 2013, for TigerBright


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June knew what to expect from the world.

It was 1969 and while so much was changing (mostly for the better in many ways), the deck was still stacked against her and Byron. They might have a veneer of respectability – money, and lots of it, no matter how it was made – granted them that. But so much was closed off from them, even though there were now laws.

Byron wanted to move the family into an apartment in a pre-war building on the Upper West Side, in a neighborhood filled with parks and trees. It was a spacious and light-filled place, a whole universe away from the cramped rooms both grew up in in Harlem. This was a place where the schools were good and where their daughters could get a better start in life. Where they could walk at night without fear.

They put in an application, provided all the financial information the co-op board asked for, went to the interview, and waited. June knew though, that this was not the place for them, that they weren’t wanted, no matter how much money they had.

The letter arrived this morning. Her hands didn’t shake as she read the politely worded note explaining that their application had been rejected. No reason was given, of course, but it was clear why. Byron raged, though. He wanted to tear that god-damned building down with his bare hands. He wanted to sue. He wanted…

She knew what he wanted to do and she shared that rage, but of all the crimes Byron had committed, he never raised so much as a fist to another creature in violence. She would make sure he never did.

So she poured him a glass of whiskey, took one for herself and told him, “Living well is the best revenge.”

There was an old house on Riverside Drive, a mansion that had fallen on hard times. It was no more than ten blocks north from the place that Byron had hoped to move to. Like that place, here there were trees and parks and good schools for their daughters. Time and misuse had put their marks on the place, but the bones were good. In the golden light of a summer evening, June put her hands on the sun-warmed granite and told her husband that this place was their home.

It needed a lot of work, but neither she nor Byron was afraid of hard work. It took years to make it into the showplace that Byron had always wanted, but not so long for it to become a home June had always dreamed about. Spacious and light-filled, safe and secure. They raised their girls there and watched them get married there, too. And if there was a little larceny on the fourth floor sometimes, that was all for the better.

In that great stone house, they made music and made love and lived every moment with joy.

Byron died there, too. Quietly and at peace after a long and terrible illness, he died in the bed they had shared for more than fifty years. June could still hear his laughter; she could still feel his love. In the dark moments when she needed him the most, she could even feel the touch of his lips on her skin.

Together and alone, June knew that, yes, they lived well. And revenge never mattered.



FIN