This always seemed to happen, somehow.
"I want independence!" she said, so forcefully, eyes narrowed into a glare that hurt more than it should have. Like all of her outbursts, though, it was short-lived, and soon she was back to doe eyes and "I'm sorry."
He frowned, looked away from her. "…so you do," he said tersely, behind practiced formality.
Her hands went to tangle themselves in her pigtails. "…I did think maybe it was better to be even closer to you, for a little while," she admitted, which pulled his heart in a strange direction. "But now I think it's best that I be independent. I…" She huffed, toughening herself again. "I want to be able to change myself, and do things without your permission! I-it's not fair, I was a happy island on my own, with France teaching me things sometimes, and then…you came and just, just…!"
Olive lips turned themselves into a frown and she crossed her arms, her gaze falling to the floor. Some jaded part of him told him that he should really know better by now, colonies rebelled, it was just what they did, like rambunctious teenagers. Yet, still, that didn't make it hurt any less when they did -- and now every time just reminded him of the Revolutionary War.
He never wanted to relive that, and sometimes it felt like he'd come too close too many times.
She apparently grew impatient with his silence and barked, "Say something!", but shrunk into herself again quickly after demanding such.
"Please don't."
Concise, easy. This didn't feel like a repetition of that heart-rending war, not even close -- but maybe that meant he could convince her not to leave him too.
Those big, brown doe eyes bore into him further, but he did not break contact with them. She needed to know he was sincere.
Her lower lip trembled and she looked away again. "I want to be independent," the colony repeated in a soft monotone.
So he couldn't.
A slow breath in, and a slow breath out. "…fine." But that other side of him, that reminded him that this still hurt, couldn't leave it at that, and as she turned to leave the room-- "Wait."
She turned her head to look at him again, puzzled -- she was surprised, very visibly, when he got closer to her, much closer, as close as France, even. "Oui?" prompted the girl softly.
At first, he went for her hand; but quickly, he remembered his walls and instead changed course to her neck. She flinched, a little, and there was another little twinge in his chest -- but, when his fingers went for the buckle of her collar, he saw her relax. Slowly, with hands that he would not admit were trembling, he undid the collar and gingerly pulled it away from her neck, and he let it drop to the floor.
Her slender fingers came up to experimentally brush the skin at her throat. While her hands were distracted with this, he raised one of his own to gently ghost over her forehead, pushing back a few errant strands of hair and traversing the length of the side of her face, lingering along her jaw line. A part of her would still always be his. "…Will you join the Commonwealth?"
Her breath apparently hitched at this invitation, she had to swallow and take a moment in hesitation that made his throat constrict and his heart start to sink. Eventually, though, relief washed over him -- so much that he was sure he unconsciously allowed it to be betrayed in his countenance -- when she lifted a hand to lay atop his, smoothing his fingers out over her jaw. A smile curved her pretty tan lips. "Yes." And she stood on her tiptoes -- it was his turn to be surprised, now -- and he felt that smile rather than saw it, for the briefest of seconds in the tiniest kiss. "…Thank you."
She held his hand in hers for just a moment more, and ran her thumb affectionately over the top of it before releasing him and exiting the room without any further words and without looking back.
His gaze remained on the door shut in her wake.
Why couldn't every time be so easy?