Years From Now
Disclaimer: I don't own Lizzie, Robert, or anyone else From The Secret Garden or Back To The Secret Garden. All I own is the plot.
A/n: Wonder why I, a huge Harry Potter fan, is writing a fanfic about The Secret Garden? The sequel didn't seem finished to me. Well, I also won't be posting the rest of this week, seeing as I have finals. Enjoy!
Lizzie looked around her room. It had been her room since she came back to Misselthwaite Manor three years ago. She went back to her orphanage in the States after leaving at first, but kept contact with Lady Mary Craven, a friend of hers who had first sent her to Misselthwaite. One day, a year after she came back, she received a note from Lady Mary, asking her to come back if she'd like. Obviously, she'd chosen to come back.
Presently, Lizzie was 17 and quite tall and pretty. She and Robert were still good friends. In fact, seeing as Geraldine had left the previous year, they were best friends.
But this year, Robert's turn had come. He would be turning 18 tomorrow, and would have to leave. The orphans always had to leave when they were 18. Lizzie would miss him terribly. But, for some reason, she wished they were more than friends.
"Hey." Robert said, leaning against the doorpost of her open door. He had grown quite tall, as well as handsome, smarter, and a lot friendlier over the past few years.
"Hey." Lizzie replied.
"Can I come in?" Robert asked, glancing around the room.
"Sure," Lizzie moved aside to make room for him to sit. He sat, but was quite nervous, for some reason. But why?
"What were you thinking about before I disturbed you?" Robert asked.
"Oh, just... I don't know." Lizzie answered.
"Maybe about how pleasant life will be without me here?" Robert teased.
"Nah, life without you would be like it was before I came here. That's what I was thinking about." Lizzie replied sorrowfully.
"You'll be fine. You're leaving next year too," Robert told her, putting an arm around her shoulders reassuringly, "Besides, when you leave next year, all the guys you meet will probably be lining up around the block to be your sweetheart."
She began to laugh, but he was really serious. He hadn't really noticed her rare beauty until that very moment. He had always been wrapped up in his studies or not paying true attention to her. He hadn't seen her as anything except a best friend who was like a little sister to him. He was going to miss her.
"I swear the girls at your job the day after tomorrow will be talking about you non-stop." Lizzie replied. She honestly didn't want another girl to be talking about him.
"I originally came up here to ask about a walk through the garden." Robert asked, standing up and offering his arm to her.
"Of course." Lizzie replied, as she took his arm. They walked down the stairs, across the lawns, and to the garden wall.
"Hmmmm, which way? Our old way, before the key, or the old door?" Robert asked.
"Over the door" said Lizzie. So they walked over to the so-called 'Staff door'. Robert climbed up first, then jumped down. When Lizzie climbed up, she was still not very skilled at climbing and she fell, but was caught by Robert. They both laughed because the last time she fell and he was there, he didn't even notice.
The garden hadn't really changed, except for new flowers growing. Robert put her down and they sat by the fountain.
"Remember when I pushed you in there, looking for the key?" Lizzie laughed.
"Yes, our first alliance established by your persistence. You wouldn't let me run away, or not help with the garden." Robert replied, cracking a smile as well. They sat there; remembering until the sun began to set. They both stood up then.
"I don't want you to go tomorrow." Lizzie said, hugging him. He hugged her back.
"Neither do I." Robert replied.
"Really?" Lizzie laughed, "I bet that years from now, you'll remember this place, while sitting by the fireplace of your London home across from your wife. You might remember me, but I'll probably be some old spinster you wouldn't recognize."
"Come now, you know you'll find someone!" Robert exclaimed with a look of shock on his face. 'No one that beautiful should be meant to be alone' He thought.
"Oh really? Who then?" Lizzie challenged.
"Someone handsome and suave, who'll sweep you off your feet the minute, you meet him." Robert replied, thinking up the person he wished he was so that he might have the slightest chance with Lizzie.
Lizzie turned away and whispered, "Like you."
Robert stepped foreword, laid a hand on her shoulder and asked softly "What did you say?"
Lizzie only just realized what she had said "Nothing." She replied, amazed at her own stupidity.
"If I heard you correctly, you just said that I was handsome and suave and that I swept you off your feet the minute you met me." Robert responded.
"I...I...I.... Did." Lizzie said hesitantly and softly.
"Well, you swept me off of my feet when I first saw you the night you first came here." Robert replied just as softly
"I did?" Lizzie asked quietly.
Her answer was not in words as he turned her around, clasped her in his arms, and gave her a soft, sweet, gentle kiss that became longer, deeper, more loving, as she put her arms around his neck and tousled his chestnut brown hair about her fingers. Their lips opened and the kiss became searching until they had to come up for air.
They caught their breath and said, still holding each other, "I love you." They then sat down, but Robert wouldn't let go of Lizzie. She wasn't in a hurry to part with him either, seeing as she cuddled into him. But Robert had something to say.
"Lizzie?" He asked quietly.
"Yeah?" She replied.
"Would you...Will you marry me?" Robert asked.
"Of course." Lizzie answered, the certainty in her voice at its peak.
"We won't have a lot of fancy things." Robert warned.
"I don't need fancy things. I just need you.. and, perhaps a garden." They both laughed. They had restored the magic to the Secret Garden four years previously. But, as they laughed, it began to rain. They ran out of the garden to the gazebo.
"Figures this would happen just as we decided to walk outside." Robert said. They laughed because he had said something like that four years ago when he had been working outside and it started to rain.
"This was where I'd first tried to start a decent conversation with you." Lizzie remembered.
"I'm sorry I hurt you that day. I hadn't really realized how much I had until I saw that you had gone running across the lawn. I do owe you though. You saved my life with your quick thinking the night my bedspread caught fire." Robert admitted.
"Well, you can thank Robin Redbreast, who called me to the garden that night. I think the animals knew you were in trouble because they went away. When they went away, I came back. I saw a large amount of light, too large to be a candle, so I assumed it was a fire." Lizzie divulged.
"That assumption saved my life." Robert said
"Well, If Miss Sowerby had thought I'd started that fire that would have been it for me. My butt would have been back in America in an instant," Lizzie told him as they sat down, "I say we should thank Lady Mary. If it weren't for her, I'd still be in America and we'd never have met."
"Oh, I think we would have in some way. Fate has a way of working itself out. Such as when you thought the key had been stolen, wasn't it found?" Robert replied, in the sort of voice he used for his class arguments.
"This was where you suggested to me that Geraldine could have stolen the key." Lizzie remembered, laying her head on his chest as he put a comforting arm around her.
"It's sad that we have to grow up, but then again, my arrogant, know-it-all, attitude wouldn't have gotten me very far." Robert laughed.
"You could be very nice when a person got under your skin." Lizzie reminded him.
"Well, then you burrowed deepest then, didn't you? You not only unearthed the hidden caring part of me, But you were secretly rewarded with my love too." Robert teased.
"You've become a lot less uptight ever since I came. You laugh more than you read poetry now." Lizzie reflected.
"And you, Lizzie dear, were what poetry always made me think of. I remember you catching my glances at you all the time." Robert told her.
"You caught quite a few yourself." remarked Lizzie.
"Enough of the past. Let us talk of the future." Robert answered poetically.
"Of course! When shall we be married? Probably not until next year, I'm sure. But what about the spring after I turn 18, in the garden!" Lizzie suggested.
"Whatever you wish." Robert agreed.
"All of our friends should come." Lizzie added.
"Of course, but before you, my dear, my only friends were textbooks and poetry." They both laughed as they continued planning.
* * * The Next Day. * * *
Robert had said goodbye to everyone, but pulled Lizzie aside.
"I wanted you to have this as an engagement ring." Robert said to Lizzie as he pulled out a little black box. Lizzie opened it and gasped. The ring inside was sapphire set in gold.
"It was my mother's. It was given to me when she passed on." Robert explained. They kissed goodbye before Robert left. Lizzie just watched as the car pulled away. She then went up to her room and cried. 'He's gone.' She thought to herself as she looked at a picture of them together, in the garden. It only made her eyes go even mistier.