A/N: This is a plotbunny (of sorts) that's been rattling around my head ever since I first read Romeo and Juliet, lo these many years ago, and I finally got it into a shape that vaguely did it justice. Enjoy! :)
DISCLAIMER: Clearly, I am not Shakespeare.
Inheritance
A long time later there is a fountain in that courtyard. There are pinstriped banners of red and blue that flutter in the high wind from the mountains, the salt breeze off the sea. In high summer there are revels in the square, dances under the bright pavilions, musicians and mummers come from Florence and Rome to play for the children of the town. The men and women follow, the fathers and mothers, to gossip cynically about the performers and sway their hands unthinkingly to the music; their faces, too, are turned to the light. Strange to think, he reflects, that some of them were not yet born when the fountain was raised, that is now timeworn and tangled in flowering vines. There are some that have known nothing but lights in the square, and flowers, and song, where not so long ago there was a different kind of dance here, and no music but steel and the sound of rain.
There is a new prince in the city, a distant relative of old Escalus brought in from the country. He has had a good time of it; but then, Benvolio supposes, these are good times. They respect each other cordially. The prince asks his assistance, from time to time, on matters only a man of the city would understand; Benvolio assists efficiently, and refrains from divulging that he was once asked to take over the old prince's office. They wanted someone level-headed and reasonable and fair, they claimed; no one mentioned that, as far as the old nobility went, he was one of the last.
Other things have changed, too. There are taller houses, for one, and broader streets than there were in his younger days. There are more women in the streets and more children at play, that would once have been confined for fear of crossing the wrong stranger. There are some days when it seems jarring, like some strange dream from which he will, soon and unwillingly, wake; and some days it is as natural as breathing. In the old days no one would have worn red or blue in the common market, lest they were a soldier, or a man of importance; and even then, not one of them went unarmed. But then, in the old days, no one would have dared to dream of love.
It's days like these that he feels his age.
It is not the process that troubles him. The lines on his face, the streaks of gray in his hair, come upon him so gradually that he hardly notices their arrival; and the pain in his joints is now an old, if thankless, friend. Romeo would have made much of it, he supposes, agonizing over every wrinkle; Mercutio would have laughed and taken it in stride. It is their absence that pains him, more than any disease or injury. Some days he even misses Tybalt and the other Capulets. Perhaps they could have learned civility towards each other; perhaps they might have even have grown old in turn, watching the seasons pass from rooftops and verandas, as old men will. But then, it would have been impossible. One cannot have old friends and new joys together, it seems, just as one cannot have both excitement and peace.
He visits the fountain on occasion, to think, to be alone. He joins the people in the square, the nobles and the common folk, the grown men and the children, the women of the city taking their afternoon nap in the sun-drenched steps below the pedestal. He climbs up the steps, to the lip of the fountain itself, tipping his head back to see their faces.
They are both smiling; of course they are. Their hands are joined and lifted towards the sky. Romeo looks blissful, Juliet serene. There is a certain unearthly beauty to them, as if the sculptor had lifted them from a dream; but no: the likeness is too uncanny for that. Perhaps it is only the way the light strikes the marble in the afternoon.
He brings a coin with him, always, on his journeys to the fountain: a tribute, or a memento, or a promise. Sometimes it is a florin from a local merchant, or a guilder or a franc from some foreigner; sometimes it is stamped with the face of a king too ancient or distant to recognize. The metal will be warm with the sun and heavy with significance, with the touch of many hands. It will arc, glittering, through the air, plunge through the rippling surface of the water, come to rest at last at the bottom of the fountain, all its travels at an end. Or perhaps not. Who knows who will reach in and lift it from the watery depths? Who knows whose hands will carry it, and trade it, and pass it on? Not his, certainly. But somebody's. That is the way of things. He does not mind so much, he supposes, not anymore: if there is one thing the years have failed to teach him, it is regret.