Disclaimer: The following is a short piece of fanfiction created for the entertainment of fans by fans. No profits has or will be made by its distribution and no defamation of any sort is intended towards creators, producers or copyright holders of the works depicted in it.
She was in love... or at least she was kissing and holding and touching and... stuff... with a man who couldn't even see him.
The knowledge made him feel sick. It burned in his chest and he couldn't sit still, throwing his crook from one hand to another as he paced about the room. She wanted a husband. Someone other people could could see. Someone she could start a family with. Someone who would be there regardless of the season. Someone who would grow old with her. Someone who could stand beside her and hold her hand in public. Someone with whom she could carry on a conversation without looking like she was insane.
Well, now she had all that. She hadn't even told him. That was the worst part. He had been granted no warning. He had just swept through her bedroom window into the castle with a grin on his face, excited to see her, expecting her be glad to see him, expecting things to be as they had always been before... and he'd found her in her nightgown, curled up next to a sleeping stranger, the covers riding low on her heavily pregnant belly.
How much things had changed in a year.
They were in her sitting room with the doors closed and the embers of last night's fire almost dead in the grate. He did not want to think about the person with whom she had enjoyed those flames in their glory, but the image wouldn't leave him alone. The two of them cuddled up on the sofa, laughing and talking as they once had not so long before. She was trying to talk to him, trying to explain in hushed whispers so as not to wake her sleeping spouse... He wished she would stop. He couldn't hear her anyway.
All he could hear was the rushing in his ears and the pounding of his own heart. He caught a glint of her wedding ring on her finger in the tiny glow. The ground seemed to give way beneath him. His knees buckled and he slammed backwards against the side of one of the chairs, making it screech against the polished wood. His crook slipped from between his fingers. His head bowed, but he couldn't even cry.
"I love you," she choked out.
It was like she had slapped him. The way it hurt, she might as well have. Shock and betrayal coursed through him, making him want to cave inwards. His chest ached.. His stomach... He lifted his head... For the first time he stared at her face, noticing the way it was twisted and flushed with the unending stream of her tears. The way she was panting and gasping as if she had run for miles. The way her bare shoulders were shaking, her fingers trembling... The way her face was more much more lined than it used to be. The way age and loneliness had marked her. Her sister had grown up and married, leaving her behind. So had the few close friends she once had. Long trusted servants had retired. Her parents had died long ago. She had known too much loneliness, except for those short months when he could finally visit her... for a little while before he left again...
He on the other hand was just as he had always been. Ageless and unchanging. Swooping in and out of her life in his endless travels across the world with the changing of the seasons... but she had waited for him, every year, for so long, until he had become all she had left.
Now she had everything she wanted. The husband. The family. The companionship. The love. Everything she ever wanted. Except him.
He waved a hand loosely in the direction of her stomach, wetting his lips.
"Be happy."
The words were little more than a whisper, hoarse and broken as they left his throat. He watched the way those big blue eyes of hers widened in response, the way she clutched at her expanding waist, and then he clambered to his feet, pushing passed her, made his way to the window and flew out into the night.