A/N: Hello people of fanfiction! After almost a year of nothing, I am finally returned! I have so much to post. I'm going to post the short fics that I've already finished first, but once I've gotten back into the swing of it I will start posting a fic for the Percy Jackson world that I've been working on for a while now and I am really excited about. So stay tuned!

I hope you enjoy this piece. Please leave a review and let me know what you think!

:) TheEagleFeatherQuill

Estella places one trembling foot in front of the other, grateful that at least the horrid bridal dress she was wearing hid all signs of fear. She has the rest of her body under control with her head held high, shoulders down, and back straight, just as she has been conditioned. Her mother would be proud, she thinks wryly. As long as no one can see how scared she is, it will be alright. She will have accomplished her mission. And so even though her legs shake with each step she takes, Estella keeps walking towards the monster that waits for her at the altar.

She can't bring herself to look at Drummle. She has read so many stories set in places like this, of blushing brides and tearful grooms, but this is nothing like that. There is no love here. Drummle thinks of her as a beautiful doll with money, and Estella sees him as the target she has to break that could very easily turn the tables and hurt her instead. So instead of gazing at the man she is about to promise to love until she dies, she finds herself look at the crowd waiting to see a great act of devotion take place in front of them.

The first group of people her eyes fall upon is a group of women about her age, dressed up in their finest frocks in bright colours, with similarly bright smiles on their faces. Estella watches how they glance at each other and share their happiness wordlessly in a way that speaks volumes of the closeness between them. A closeness that her mother never allowed her to have with anyone. Miss Havisham always told her how she was better than girls like them, smarter, more beautiful, destined to have a better life, but in this moment Estella would have given anything to be one of them instead.

Soon the feeling of exclusion is too much, so she averts her eyes. Besides, Estella has walked too far past them to keep them within sight. She focuses on a couple in the front row, trying to block out the thought that she is too close to the end now and she wants to turn back and not take another step.

The man has one hand on the woman's back and the other cradling the head of the baby that she is holding. The woman is looking at the approaching bride with a soft smile on her face, but the man hasn't spared Estella a glance. He gazes instead at his wife and child with more love than Estella has ever seen. It makes her want to call out, to stop the wedding, to point the attention of the crowd to the real source of true love here. Though that kind of love is foreign to her, something of it reminds her of the way that Pip looks at her, and that thought more than anything today tugs at her heart. What she would give to be the object of that love.

As she passes by, Estella looks at the baby that is lucky enough to be in the embrace of a loving mother's arms. She wonders if she has ever experienced that. She can't remember. She knows Miss Havisham would never have held her like that. But what about her real mother, her birth mother? Though, Estella can't imagine that someone could hold a baby with that much affection and then give them away to a stranger. A stranger that would raise the baby to be a weapon, to be used for her own purposes, and not allowed to live a full life. An action that lead Estella to where she is today.

If it hadn't been for that, maybe Estella could have grown up to be the woman that was the object of so much love, standing in the crowd to witness what she believed was someone else being fortunate enough to love someone as she did. Maybe Estella could have been someone that believed that love was inherently good and true.

More than anyone else that she had seen today in her walk to the end of her freedom, the baby was the one that she was the most envious of. How blessed it was to be in the arms of a loved one. How untainted it was with the worries of life, and how carefree - that was something she wished she could be. Estella had dreamed her whole life of being able to start over again.

But that has never been an option for her. Estella just has to travel down the path that she was given, without retreating or turning back. She has to take one step after the other down the dreaded aisle without looking behind her, and now she has run out of time. Estella forces herself to ascend the steps and take her place at Drummle's side where she will now belong. She tunes out the words of the priest and instead thinks bitterly of the fact that here she is, becoming a wife, when all she wants in the world is to become someone new.