Well. Having done two alternate endings to S2 (Desert Secrets and Through Hell…) and getting a little depressed into the bargain, I decided to do one that didn't involve Marian dying in any shape or form whatsoever. So this is my idea for how S1 should have ended. A plot bunny jumped into my head and refused to leave, so I was up till two in the morning writing it!
Characters are not mine. Plot is.
For the good ship GuyxMarian. God bless her and all who sail in her.
If you love someone…
They say that if you love someone, you should let them go.
They say that if they don't come back again, then it was meant to be so.
That's all very well, thinks Guy. But what do you do when they don't come back?
Twelve long hours have passed since he let her go. He stood back and let her run out of the church, away from the sham of a marriage that she had consented to so unwillingly. He knows that she will not return. Why should she? What possible reason could she have for coming back to him? He lied to her, betrayed her, and he has always spoken so highly of trust and so disparagingly of betrayal. How could he do such a thing to her?
Guy is alone in the dark church, the peasants having scattered after his bride deserted him and the priest following not long after. He has been here ever since, apart from one brief moment, a few hours ago, when he quit the pews and cold stone to return to the manor, wrenching up the floorboards beneath his bed and pulling out the small box that he has kept so well hidden from everyone, even those closest to his mind and heart before stealing back to the church and kneeling in front of the altar, a position he retains now. The box is discarded by his side, its precious contents cradled in his hands as he repeats a process that he has not done since he was a boy. The last time he said his prayers, fingering his mother's rosary, was the night before he was taken into Vaizey's employ. He doesn't know why he does it again now, perhaps it is something to focus his tormented mind, but it is to no avail. His mind is not on the jumble of words that fall from his lips. His mind is many miles away, flying freely through the woods with Marian, the woman he let go; the woman he allowed to break free from the suffocating confines of his affection; the woman he spared from his web of lies and deceit.
They say that if you love someone, you should let them go.
He knew he had to let her go, almost before she was leaving, almost before she entered the church, even. He let her hit him and let her run, watching the distance between them increase further and further. He loves her, so he let her go. If he had gone after her, it would only have proved the opposite of what he had been trying to prove to her for so, so long now. He loves her, and he hopes that this last act of love will have given her irrefutable evidence so that she knows, wherever she is, whoever she marries now, that his feelings for her were genuine. He has given her his final gift, more expensive than thoroughbreds, more precious than jewels and more beautiful than silks. He has given her freedom, and with it he has given her his heart.
He has gone round the entire rosary at least twice now, but he doesn't stop. Here in the church he is protected by the cold stone. The empty pews mean that there is no one around to judge him. He prefers it this way; how many times has he sought out solitude in his most vulnerable moments, not allowing himself to return to the world until the cracks in his mask have healed themselves? And how many times were those cracks caused by the woman he loved, still loves, and who he let go?
He hears the soft tap of footsteps on stone. It is the priest, come to lock up the church, but Guy cannot leave now. He does not yet feel safe enough to face the outside world again. The cracks are still new, gaping, and they ache. He heart is no longer locked away.
"Sir Guy…"
"Please, leave me," he says, but the priest is persistent.
"Sir Guy."
He stands reluctantly and turns, head bowed, and it is not until a few moments have passed that he realises that the priest is not alone. He looks up and it finally registers that the footsteps he can now hear are lighter and accompanied by the scrape of fabric along the ground. Marian is hurrying down the aisle towards him and he takes a step back, grasping the altar for purchase, unable to believe his eyes. He cannot, he will not believe that Marian has returned, and he cannot and will not believe that he is allowing her to see him like this, so vulnerable and unsure.
She is nearly with him but she doesn't stop running. Her veil has gone, long since lost, and her hair is wild, windswept and full of leaves. Tears are streaming down her face and a lump comes to Guy's throat as he realises that she is just as vulnerable and unsure as he is. She finally comes to a stop when their bodies make contact, burying her face in his shoulder and speaking so quickly and in such a gulping, choked voice that her words fall over themselves in her haste to say them. She is apologising, over and over, each plea for forgiveness more heartfelt than the last. Finally, her voice wakes him from his petrified position and he envelopes her in his arms, soothing and calming her, and offering his own apologies. She is sorry for her earlier violence; he is sorry for the betrayal that deserved it. She is sorry for running; he is sorry that he put her in the position where she felt she had to. But, he thinks, he will never be sorry that he allowed her to make that choice to run.
"But why are you here?" he asks eventually, his voice sounding like a stranger's in his mouth. He has spent so long trying to come to terms with her loss and now she is suddenly back in his life. "Why have you come back?"
"I have come to finish our wedding," she says, and she looks up from his shoulder, her red-rimmed eyes meeting his dry grey ones. Her expression is hopeful but doubting at the same time, similar to the one he wears himself. "If you can forgive me for my behaviour earlier, of course."
Guy nods. She came back to him. Any wrongs have been forgiven with this single act. She came back to him. She wants to marry him. She is here willingly, no conditions to be fulfilled, no lies, no deceit between them. They are both at their most raw and open, souls laid bare.
"Why?" he asks. "Why do you want to continue it?"
"You let me go," she says simply. "You gave me a choice and I made the choice to leave. But now I am making the choice to return."
"I betrayed you."
"But you love me. That is what matters, Guy. You could have stopped me from leaving, made me finish the wedding and then taken me by force there and then. But you didn't. You let me go. And if you love someone…"
"You should let them go," he finishes for her. "And if they don't come back, then it is meant to be so."
"But if they do come back, is that not also meant to be so?"
A small smile twitches at the corner of Guy's mouth. She has come back to him of her own accord, because by letting her go and showing her the depth and truth of his love for her, she has realised the previously hidden depth and truth of her own love for him.
"My Lord? My Lady?"
The priest moves to the front of the church and Guy steps away from the altar to let him pass. Marian breaks away from him but as the priest continues from where he was interrupted in the morning, neither is concentrating on the words he speaks. Both are thinking of the same few lines…
They say that if you love someone, you should let them go.
They say that if they don't come back again, then it was meant to be so.
But sometimes, they do come back…
What did you think? The next chapters of 'Continuation' and 'Through Hell…' will be with you ASAHP.