A/N: Written for a Victorian Quote Roulette on another site. This is a companion piece to my short stories To Thine Own Self and In My Memory Locked. This particular scene takes place sometime during the later half of In My Memory Locked. As an extra challenge to myself, I decided to try to write from Hamlet's perspective this time instead of Ophelia's.

Moment

"The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter – often an unconscious but still a faithful interpreter – in the eye."
~ Charlotte Brontë, "Jane Eyre"

She is standing in the garden, her hair blown loose about her shoulders, free from its regular ties. How she has managed to leave the castle without someone noticing her in her state, I can only guess. But she has a mischievous streak, one that cannot be quenched by a simple glare or a sharp word from her meddling father; she is as free as the birds that soar above the castle. Free to choose, free to dance, free to do as she will, for she lives only as she knows how.

Winter has only thus come upon us. Though frost falls every morning, setting the grass to glittering, we have yet to see a decent amount of snow. It has not been a cold Danish winter yet; autumn still hang by a thread. I wish it were not so. I wish the snows would come faster.

Snows to bury the dead. Snows to bury the grief that sinks within me like a dead weight; grief of which I cannot yet speak, but never releases its tormenting grip.

It is only when I am with her when I feel like I am myself again. It is all in her smile, in the gaiety of her step, in the widening of her eyes – so large, so beautiful – whenever she sees me. She is like the candle that refuses to burn out, even against an oppressive wind. A fire that cannot be doused.

Ophelia lets me forget. Forget who I am. Forget who I should have become. There is only time, now, for us, in every moment that we steal together.

She steps lightly around the dead shrubs, ones that are yet to be removed. The wind has picked up; it plays with her hair, blowing her long locks across her face. She pulls her cloak tighter around her body, but otherwise makes no mention of the cold. She should be freezing, but I have never heard her complain. She loves being outside. She has often enough dragged me away from the castle, away from my studies, away from my duties (to the grievance of my mother), in order to see the wildlife that clings to the sides of the rolling hills of Elsinore.

"Even in winter, it's beautiful," she tells me.

When I ask her why, she merely smiles in that way that she does, as if nature were her own child.

"Because there's always a promise of spring," she says.

Can there be? I ask myself. Can spring come again? I do not know. The oppressiveness of the castle weighs heavily on me. My father… my father is dead, my uncle to become king. I have sought to launch an inquiry, my own investigations – why did my uncle not wait for me to return from Germany? – but I have been unsuccessful. I guess my mother has something to do with it. She has ever been too fond of my uncle. Too fond. I know the look in her face when she sees him.

I know it, because it is the same that falls upon Ophelia's when she looks at me.

Ophelia runs her hands across the shrub, her face intent. "Some day," she says, "there will be flowers that bloom here. Little white things; they are gentle creatures, their beauty like the stars in the sky at night…" She pauses and looks up, catching my eye.

I have slipped into a habit of standing and watching her. The dark prince in his dark clothes, silent and stern, like a heroic warrior-poet of old. Our conversations in writing had been so full of words; but now my tongue, heavy with misery, refuses to work, though my mind constantly hastens to spin words out in any order. It leaves me without words to speak and only the capacity to look.

She knows. She always knows. I can see it in her face, clear as day. Somehow, she manages to read my mind. My grief for my father, my anger at my mother, my suspicions about my uncle – they are all plain to her. As soon as she sets those wide eyes on me, it is as though my soul is bared before her, like a book, which she then reads.

In any other person, this trait would be hated. I was raised entangled in an ever-growing web of lies and deceit; I learned how to cheat others, how to pretend, how to spin false information. It is the way of the grotesque court that only flourishes while my uncle prepares for his coronation. But in Ophelia, I see no malice. No treachery. Only kindness and sincerity.

It is the most refreshing thing in the world and the thing I love most. Even if she could not see, even if she could not know, I would look to tell her all, if I could without hurting her. But the more she knows directly from me, the more she is in danger. She is too sweet, too innocent of Elsinore's ways. She cannot manipulate the court as I can; I must protect her from it.

"Why so troubled?" she asks, stepping towards me. It is still early in the morning – the sun rose not two hours hence – and I can see her breath rising like a curtain of mist before her as she speaks.

"My thoughts preoccupy me," I say softly. "I wish they would not."

"Then let go," she says, taking my hand in hers. Her fingers are very cold. "Think not of your grief, of that dark anguish that haunts your heart. It has already been too long; I cannot bear to see you as such."

"I know." I kiss the back of her very white hand and let it drop. "You should find gloves," I tell her. "Your fingers will freeze."

The corners of her lips turn up in a smile. "I will be fine," she said. "Do not concern yourself with me; you are the one who needs my attention."

I cannot help but smile; there is always that flare of girlishness, woman though she may be. Silly comments… It is she who we should be concerned for; there is much more at risk for her status if our romance is discovered. And I have no desire to see her hand become frostbitten. The winter's kiss is no torment anyone should suffer.

"Gloves, Ophelia," I say.

"Perhaps another time," she answers. She turns and looks out at the expansive garden, holding her head high. She stays very close to my side. "There is a peacefulness today that does not often frequent Elsinore."

"Peacefulness or not, that will not help you if your fingers fall off!"

There is something in my tone that she finds amusing. She spins around, forfeiting her view of the castle gardens; her hands are pressed against my body, and she nestles close. "This is a moment," she says softly, speaking into my cloak. "Enjoy it for what it is; there may not be another chance."

"There will always be another chance if we make it so."

She draws back slightly and looks up at me. Her eyes are sparkling; perhaps from tears, perhaps because the wind has smote them one too many times. She searches my face for a moment and presses a hand against my cheek, as she often does.

She doesn't speak. She doesn't have to.

The look in her eyes is enough for me.

I kiss her then – fervently, passionately, momentarily forgetting that there could be many a courtier or servant who could see us. But it doesn't matter. This is our moment and it will soon pass – for the sake of my peace of mind, I need to forget my own troubles before they begin to haunt me for eternity.

Our lips part. Ophelia's cheeks are blushed crimson. Her eyes glisten. "I do not ask you to forget your father," she says quietly. "But I do ask you to, one day, pass forwards. The dead will not walk again, but there is much in this world to live for."

I close my eyes. "Thank you." I often tell her this. If it were not for her, I shudder to think of what would have happened to me. She is more important to me than she will ever know – I am too much of a coward to tell her outright.

"What for?" she murmurs.

"Do you not know?"

She catches my eye. She smiles. She kisses me softly, one of her hands resting on the back of my neck.

"I know," she whispers against my lips and she kisses me again.

A moment never lasts long enough.

fin