Title: Silent Waltz

Synopsis: A girl, a lake, a time and a place that no one would have known. A dream brought them together, but the dream is a memory. A memory that is not his own. Eliot/Lacie/Glen.

Rating: T

A/N: There I am working diligently on my NaNoWriMo, when the piano version of Lacie comes up on my iTunes and I got this scene stuck in my head of Eliot, Glen and a girl named Lacie. Of course I had to write it. This one—like so many others—is dedicated to my dearest sister Smeep, who supports me forever and is the one who keeps me writing, even when I don't have the spark to do so. Love you, sister, forever.

Disclaimer: I don't own Pandora Hearts, its characters, music or anything affiliated with it.

…

It was a single figure of a girl, dancing by a lake to a tune that was not unfamiliar to him but not familiar to him, either. There was nothing playing the music, no one hummed it and it was not carried over the wind from far away. In fact, he was sure that the music was only in his mind, just there to compliment the girl and her dance. The way that her body moved, turned, leaned was so full of passion that she could have never possibly thought that someone was watching her, let alone watching her as riveted as he was, even if it was somewhat sick. Tears streamed down her pale face in the moonlight as she spun around, hands reaching for something far, far away that it seemed that she could not reach, no matter how hard she tried.

Each movement of her movement was full of a sort of artistic longing. The tragedy of an unknown, unrequited love. Eliot Nightray could only stare at the beautiful arc of her back or the despairing way her head reached for the sky. He could only appreciate, but do nothing. It was not anything more than admiring, his watching; nothing more than seeing beauty and appreciating it. Still, there was an ache in his chest from the heartbreak that this woman was feeling. Maybe it meant something to him in some foreign way; the way that someone read a newspaper and felt sorry for the children who were orphaned or the soldiers that had died. It was a hollow kind of apology, but an apology he was making to her, nonetheless.

One, two, three, four, five, six.

Her danced changed to a waltz. She waltzed alone, all alone, her arms pretending to hold onto someone who was not really there. One, two, three, four, five, six. It wasn't the sort of dancing that ladies of society did at parties. This was more pure, the tribal dances of the unknown natives of a far off land, unaware of society and its rules, uncaring about the world and its expectations. This was a waltz that meant more than petty gossip and fashion. She danced for emotion, she danced for herself and only for herself. "Beautiful," he whispered with lips that were not quite his own.

She danced and danced and the moon moved above them and it seemed that there was no one in the world but the two of them and nothing mattered but this connection that the two of them had, that she didn't even know about.

Almost out of breath, she sat down, panting, dropping one—scandalously—ungloved hand into the pond next to her, laying down next to the edge of the water. Eliot watched as her chest rose and fell. Up and down. Up and down. Though her dress was expensive and tailored to perfection, she didn't have any sort of care as it fell into the mud, the fabric becoming dirty and ruined. Up and down. It was beautiful.

If he were a painter, he would have put this scene on a canvas so that it could never be forgotten, that the people of ages to come could gaze upon her beauty next to a scene that would be considered wonderful to some—the green of the trees, the blue of the water, the white of the moon—but could not compare to the woman that it surrounded. However, even if he were a painter, he could have never done it justice. The moon shining on her face, the water reflecting the leaves of the trees around her, the grass cushioning her hair and body as it were made for that one purpose, for this one moment. The half-smile on her face through the tears that fell from her eyes for reasons that Eliot did not know, but longed to from the bottom of his heart.

Eliot was not a painter, but a musician. And without even having noticed it, there was a piece of paper lined with music staffs in one of his hands and a quill in the other. As soon as he realized it, note after note flowed from his hand like they had always been there to begin with, the melody already remembered perfectly in his mind without having ever heard it. It did not take him any thought, any effort at all, really, to capture this moment in a song that would be his greatest opus.

Soon after that, however, something within him snapped, and he could no longer just sit there idly as the girl got up and begins to dance once again, this time slower and sadder, no longer young and raw, but old, as if she knew the ways of the world and its trouble.

He emerges from he woods, feeling awkward and unwanted, but at the same time, full of life for the first time in a long time. "Your dancing is beautiful," he says, just so that she would know that he was there, so that he would not surprise her more than he had to. It may not have been the most wise thing to say, but Eliot was not the most wise person on earth—even if he sometimes pretended to be—the truth was here, that he was just sort of speechless.

When she sees him, she can do nothing but stare. She looks down and notices her dirty clothes, she is all too aware of the disastrous state of her hair and she must have thought that upon seeing him, she would be in all sorts of trouble for the wild personality that she had hidden through their entire acquaintance. Her heart burned with shame.

"Master, I'm sorry that you had to see that. I really… I don't do this often, I just-"

She looks desperate. It didn't suit her. "May I dance with you?" Eliot asks with a shy smile. "I don't dance as well as you do. My talents lie elsewhere. However, upon seeing you dance, the only thought that crossed my mind was the fact that… I would like to be your partner." Of course, that was a lie. Many other thoughts had crossed his mind as she had danced that he did not mention. He had thought about how beautiful she was and how she glowed like a fairy princess in this meadow that belonged to her and only her. When he saw her, it was like a dream that he never wished to wake from.

"Master… Master Glen…" Tears fill her eyes. "Master Glen, I…"

Eliot smiles. "I love you, Lacie." He had not even known that he had known her name until the moment it had rolled off of his tongue. But it felt natural for him to say it; it felt like he was born to say this name over and over again until he died. "I always have." There was something so self-conscious about expressing these feelings, but at the same time, liberating. Like seeing her in the pale moonlight with no holding back, he thought it was time for him to do the same thing. It was just as taboo to a man of Eliot's rank to express his feelings in such a way as it was for a lady to dance alone, gloveless and raw in the night. He wanted to be the same as her; was this the way to do it? The way to please her? That was all he wanted now, all he cared about. He just wanted to see this girl smile and smile always. "So please, may we dance?"

Tentatively, he took her hand in his, and when it seemed that she was not going to fight back and tell him to leave her alone and that she hated him, he put an arm around her waist and the two of them began to waltz together under the sweet light of a full moon. They fit perfectly together. They were the perfect partners for one another, complimenting each other in all of the best ways.

"Master Glen, I too have loved you." Lacey's sweet, warm breath hit Eliot's face in the coolness of the night; it felt wonderful just to be so close to her at last, loving every moment that they were together. "From the very beginning, I have loved you." A tear ran down her cheek. For a moment Eliot was torn. Did he risk letting go of her to wipe the tear off of her cheek, or would he wipe it? Without more hesitation, he took his hand that was intertwined with one of hers and moved it to her face where he wiped the tear away. He wished for her to never have to cry again. "I would have never thought that you would have felt the same for me as I have for you. Please tell me that you are not lying and that this isn't some sort of cruel joke played on a lonely person such as myself. Only if you do this, can I be truly happy and revel in the delight that I feel from your love."

Eliot brought her body closer to his own body, their warmth spreading over each other, warming each other in the cool wind of this summer night. "I love you," he told her loudly, wanting to shout it to the skies so that all could hear. "I love you," he said again as a whisper, full of all of the tenderness that he had ever known or given. "And I always will, Lacie." Lacie cried sweet tears of joy into his chest and Eliot looked upon this girl whom he loved so much with sheer bliss. Could there have been a more perfect moment? A more pristine life? A more beautiful melody for them to dance together to in the moonlight?

…

"Eliot?" Reo shook his master a little harder. "Eliot?"

Eliot rolled over, now awake and irritated. "What is it?" he asked.

"You were groaning in your sleep again," Reo told him, sounding a little bit more than miffed that Eliot was getting angry at him even though he was just trying to be nice. "I was worried that you were having another nightmare or something."

In the back of his mind, Eliot knew that he had a dream—a strange dream—but he could not, for the life of him, remember what it was about. There was a serene feeling to it, but nothing else came to mind. "I don't know," Eliot told his friend with a frown. "It must have been," he decided. "Because now that it's over, I feel very alone."

Reo frowned; once again he was second to fiction and dreams. Eliot got up and walked to the other side of the room, where there was a grand window overlooking a lake. It was not a beautiful lake with trees around it and the moon was not full, but it was a beautiful scene, nonetheless. A phantom image from the forgotten dream came to him momentarily, a beautiful smile that was gone moments after it had arrived. "You should go back to sleep, Reo. I'm going to write a song." While he had slept, Eliot had a flash of inspiration and a song to write.

It would be called 'Lacie'.

…

Fin