One-Two-Love-You
one is the loneliest number that you'll ever do
She was waiting, waiting, waiting. Crouched behind her fence day after day after day. She watched him ride by, aching eyes wide and yearning. The bottle she held, under her tatty jacket tightly pressed between her tiny hands. Some days she almost despaired that its contents might have expired--separated and become ineffective-- and that even if he did stop, even if he did drink, all her waiting would be for nothing. There was no way she'd ever be able to get the ingredients again-- just the first time was dangerous enough. It had to work. It would work and then they would run away. She could find more ingredients away from home. It would work.
She watched the road even when he wasn't on it. Toward the horizon when he went to town; toward the house after he'd gone back home. Morfin laughed at her from the window. Said she was a stupid little squibbity snip and didn't she want to come back in?
No, no, no. She shook her head. No. She was waiting. When her mother was still alive, she'd taught Merope to read from a book that had pictures in it, of handsome men on horses and beautiful princesses. The princesses were often locked away in terrible cottages, with terrible fathers or mothers, and they were always saved by the princes. Always. Princes who looked just like Tom only with yellow hair. Who were the most beautiful things you'd ever see.
Merope was beautiful. Her mother had always told her she was such a very beautiful person. Morfin and her father called her ugly, but they were ugly, ugly people and of course everything they saw was ugly. They even thought Tom was ugly.
He wasn't. He was just bewitched so that he couldn't see how beautiful she was, but with her bottle...
She waited.
two can be as bad as one
He loved her. She knew he loved her. He couldn't stand to be apart from her, told her he loved her a thousand times a day. Would tell her a million times if she wanted him to. That woman didn't know what she was saying-- that awful ugly woman.
I know what this is for, she'd said, in her stupid, ugly voice. It's dangerous. You've been coming here for months now, don't you know? You're just bewitching him, darling. It's not real. You should let him go.
And Merope got angry. So angry she almost spit in that woman's face. Almost stormed straight out of the shop-- straight out of Knockturn Alley itself, just like that. But she kept herself in control. She paid, she took her things, she left.
Her potion wasn't bewitching. Her potion was the only thing fighting off the bewitchment. The only thing.
When she first saw herself in a mirror, Merope was surprised. Horrified. She looked positively witchy, beastly, like something evil from one of her stories, but Tom told her, gently pulling loose strands of hair away from her face and tucking them behind her ear, you are beautiful, you are beautiful, you are beautiful. If the mirror says you are ugly the mirror is lying. It's bewitched-- it's evil, you should never look in one again, my love. You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
Merope believed him. He loved her and wouldn't lie to her and they were perfect together. Perfect, perfect, perfect, but...
She was going to have a baby. She told Tom that: We are going to have a baby. And he was so happy. He picked her up and whirled her around the room and said I love you. They were so excited. A family. They were going to have a family, be a mum and a dad and a little girl or boy, bundle of joy.
For some reason, she couldn't place, that ugly, ugly woman stayed in her brain. Merope never wanted to see her again. Merope had a brilliant thought, then: Why should I see her again? She and Tom had lived together for months and months and months.
For months and months and months he'd been taking her protective. He should be cured by now. Fixed. Well enough to see her for what she was even without the potion. To love her still. So she made the last of it, gave it to him until it ran out, and then didn't make any more.
And then... and then... one day he woke up. And he screamed and he screamed and he screamed. Merope had to cover her ears, she couldn't take it. What's wrong, she asked, what's wrong. He looked at her, looked at her stomach and his face twisted into something so... so ugly she almost couldn't stand to look at it. But he was still him, still beautiful. She still loved him even as he bounded out of bed and ran out of their little flat, not even bothering to get dressed up all the way. Loved him even though he didn't stop running when she tried to follow, screaming Where are you going?
He outpaced her. There was nothing she could do but go home. So she went home. She told her little baby that it was all right. Daddy would be back soon, he was just bewitched right now.
And they waited.
And they waited.
And they waited.
And he didn't come back.
it's the loneliest number since the number one
AN: Sorry for this. Inner Dementia totally sent me this link for a really bad crack fic and I was like, "Hey, that looks fun! I wanna do one!". So I did. And it was fun. The writing is pretty bad, but I'm going to just tell myself that it's from Merope's point of view and I don't care, because it was fun.
One is the loneliest number belongs to Three Dog Night. I do not own it, but I think it sort of adds a much needed note of dark humor.