In September of 2009 my friend Stutley Constable expressed an interest in writing a few oneshots with unusual pairings (ones that are not Sparrabeth or Willabeth). We decided that it would be fun to cooperate on such an undertaking. This story and eleven others are the products of that venture. We hope you will enjoy them.

James and Elizabeth

Post CotBP, no DMC or AWE

It wasn't the ending I chose. I did choose my ending, it just was not the one fate decided to let me have. The sun went around the Earth and didn't rotate back. In the dark of that long night, I lost the life I had planned. On a whim, I had made plans, to spend forever in the arms of a blacksmith, his rough hand always there to take mine, his eyes always there to catch my gaze. But they had taken him away, far away. He would never come back.

And I walked to the altar for another man.

"I do." The words I said. Not my words. Not my words. Not my words.

"You will learn to love me," he whispered that night, and turned over on his side, away from me. I stared at his back until it came light outside, but the world did not brighten in my heart, only my eyes. I wondered if that is mostly what I will see, his back. Would I always stand behind him?

"Do you love me now?" he asked upon setting the heavy dress boxes on the dresser. They had come straight from Dover on a merchant's ship, ordered the week before.

I replied hesitantly, reluctantly, "Not yet my dear."

And we would dance some more around the raw matter until it blurred and became everything, and nothing at once.

"Do you love me now?" he would ask as he brushed a lock of hair from my cheek and tucked it behind my ear. I would turn my face the other way and look out the window at the yard. Thorny vines crept up the glass, barring the opening, barring my escape.

"Not now," I answered and went to walk in the garden, alone.

"Do you love me now?" he asked after ordering the stable lad to parade my new mare around the yard. She was a handsome thing, the mare. Straight from Spain.

"Not yet," I said and waved the horse away.

Months of awkward conversations and dinners turned into a routine that dragged on and on and forever on.

Shoes from Paris. A gold comb from India. A corset from London. A mirror from Persia.

And he would ask me, with every gift, "Do you love me now?"

The answer was always the same.

"Do you love me now?" he said when he clasped the thin silver chain of a locket around my neck and let my hair tumble back over my shoulders.

"Not now," I said, and my hand went to the heart shape at my throat. "Not ever," I whispered as an afterthought.

And when I finally turned around, he was gone.

That night I stood in front of my mirror and remarked at the shadows of my face, the dip of the corners of my mouth, the empty frown. I looked at the locket hanging there on the woman in the mirror, then I undid the chain and set the locket on the dresser. I went to bed.

He did not go to his bed in the next room, although I sat up listening for his footsteps.

I sat up waiting for him to return to his rooms. I waited for the heavy thud of the heels of his boots, then the thud as they were dropped by the bed. I never heard it come and I fell asleep waiting.

I dreamt I waited longer. I dreamt he never came back. I got up and went to find him but he wasn't there to find. I dreamed he had given up.

I dreamt of when things were easier and he was a friend, a constant. Things had fit in place. Things had been so simple... I dreamt a dream from which one wakes.

I wanted to see the locket again, the last gift.

It shone beautifully in the white light, and I wondered why something so pretty could not win my love. Was it not beautiful enough for me? Was none of this beautiful enough for me? Were the shoes not expensive enough, the trinkets not from far enough away? Was none of this treasure enough?

I felt the locket in my fingers and brought it closer to my face to see it better. The clasp fell open.

Inside, there was a small round sketch in a dark gray. I touched the little piece and a tear came to my eye. It was not because I was staring into a replica of what was supposed to be my future, my love, my blacksmith. It was not because I missed him so terribly. That had faded in all of the grief and misery I had been causing and living in.

The feeling of guilt overwhelmed me until I had to fight not to cry. I took a deep breath and pulled the picture from the locket. I opened the top drawer of the dresser and put the piece of parchment in the back where I wouldn't find it until much later. Then I clicked the locket shut and slipped it back on.

"Not ever," I had said. Remorse began to turn to panic. It was the panic felt when something is forgotten- something vitally important and it is too late to go back for it. It was the feeling that one gets if something terrible is going to happen and it is too late to stop it.

I opened the door and crept silently out into the hall. I didn't knock. I was too afraid of recieving no reply.

As the door swung open I was afraid that my dream may have been real, that he had not turned in for the night, that he had left for good.

He must have come in after I had fallen asleep. I could see his body under the many sheets and covers on the bed, silent and unmoving in sleep. I took a moment to breathe.

I walked as lightly as I could to his bed and carefully lifted the edge of the bottom blanket. I slid into the cold space and laid a hand on his shoulder. He started and rolled over.

"Elizabeth?"

"I'm sorry," I whispered, referring to scaring him. "I'm so sorry," I repeated and let the tears I had been holding back streak soundlessly over my cheeks. I took a deep breath. "Can you love me still?" I asked him.

He didn't answer. Instead, he held me to him and I closed my eyes against the burn of tearful regret.

"Can you love me?" I repeated and took in a shuddery breath.

He paused, then said,"not now."

"Why not?" I whispered, scared and sorry.

"You have only decided to love me because of him, no? I have returned him to you in the smallest piece of matter and that is why you have come to me. I don't want second place. And I don't want you to make a place for a second. Leave it be. I can see my affections for you have meant nothing over this past year."

I opened my eyes.

My hand went to the locket and I opened it. I showed him in the dim light that there was nothing inside.

"Where is the picture? There was a picture inside, I swear."

"Buried in a drawer with piles of jewellery from London and combs from Wales," I say and look down at the locket. I cannot look at him.

"But you hate those things."

"No, I simply don't need them."

I think he understood for he relaxed his hold on me.

"Do you love me?" he asked again after several moments of silence.

"Do you love me?" I asked in return and met his gaze.

"I always have," he said and his face showed all of his pain unmasked before me. "Can you love me?"

"I always will," I replied.

I realized with those words that nothing was perfect, but everything was going to be fine.

"Good," he said.

"We're good," I closed my eyes.

He nodded.

Yes, we would be good if nothing else.

Thank you for reading, please review :)

If you enjoyed this story and wish to read the other stories
in this challenge you can find them on my profile and on Stutley Constable's fanfiction(dot)net/u/1963348/Stutley_Constable (replace the dot)