AN: Just a modern North and South story, not as easy as I thought it would be, but I'll give it my best shot. It starts near the end, but circles back to explain how we got there. I don't know much about the locations and certain plot details so just roll with it. Also, I'm doing this from memory, I don't have the book to use as a reference and some things had to be adjusted for modern times so, again roll with it. I own nothing.


I will never attend another funeral, Margaret vows. I don't care who dies next, I just won't go. The next casket I see will be my own. The way she feels at this moment, she's sure it won't be long.

As a murmured "Amen" passes through the small crowd, Margaret stands and walks away. The rest of the mourners follow suit a moment later, heading toward their cars while she ventures deeper into the cemetery. All others depart, except one. One dark figure remains at the gravesite.

An observer might assume he had a strong attachment to the deceased and was not yet ready to say goodbye, but they would be wrong. He stays for her.

She doesn't see this of course. When you feel so utterly alone, you don't go searching for familiar faces for fear of disappointment. Instead, her eyes are occupied with scanning the headstones as she passes them. At last she stops, finally finding the marker for which she was searching. In a rather unladylike way, she sits cross-legged, gathering the black fabric of her dress in her lap in an attempt to preserve her decorum.

Bess Higgins, the cold marble reads. She had wanted it that way. She'd said that she wouldn't feel at home in a grave labeled Elizabeth Anne Higgins. "Unless, of course, my death mask turns out terribly dignified," she laughed. "Otherwise, I'll stick with plain old Bess," she declared. "I'd rather be too grand for my name than my name be too grand for me."

"How can you joke about this stuff?" Margaret asked then. It wasn't a tone of reproach, but of amazement. She was genuinely impressed with Bess's resilience and candor.

"Well," she shrugged, "if I can joke about it, I can talk about it. And, if I can talk about it, then it doesn't scare me anymore."

"Ok, Bess," her friend is saying a year and a half later. "I'm scared as hell and I don't know if I'm ready to joke yet, but if you're listening…I can try to talk." Taking a deep breath, Margaret Hale starts to untangle the mess that her life has become. She must decide, here and now, if this most recent straw will be the one that breaks her back.


AN: This is the start. I should mention that this version of the story is taking place in America. It was too difficult to update the plot and set it in an unfamiliar country. Hope this was enough to get you curious.