Hello! Thought I'd do a one shot for Richard/Nell as I got a bit of inspiration. Please review if you can and hope you enjoy it!
The Grey Moon
Through the darkness of the room Richard could see the letter resting on the side table, the deep rooted folds in the paper had caused it to open up slightly of its own accord. The curtains were drawn, but out in the sticks like they were, the grey moons rays forced their way through the small gap at the top. That thin ray cut through the dark and illuminated the large bed and the two forms that lay upon it. Yet Richard's eye was first drawn to the letter, no words had been spoken about its contents but the retreat of his wife had led him to pre-empt the news contained within those pages.
For a moment he imagined he could hear the soft breathing of his sleeping sons in the adjoining room but it was only in his imagination, a strange soothing he had made up for himself to give him courage. The inside of his mouth was dry though his palms were moist, his body flushed with anxiety. Everything seemed to combine to make him fearful, the moons dull rays, the motionless persons upon the bed and that silence, that almost silence. A small movement caught his eye, the smaller of the two had twitched their arm. It barely moved yet it was a relief to see any motion in that moment. Richard took a silent step forward and gazed down at his daughter of fifteen months. Her heavy lashed eyes were closed and that one arm had broken free of its swaddling.
His mind was no longer on the letter, but of the mother of Thomas, Joseph and their newest addition Elizabeth (or Bess as they called her) was laid with her back to him, with her back to her daughter. Yet most importantly her back was to the letter that had brought her to retreat here. After six years Richard was still nervous when approaching her as she descended into blackness, most of the time any signs of it seemed like they had never occurred. Now however, it was all too evident. Seeing that Bess slept soundly he made his way around the bed until he stood facing her, not surprised to see her eyes were open. Two tears gathered in the corner of each eye yet refused to betray themselves to her cheeks, instead their glisten added only to the vacant stare the pupils held. Nell looked into vacancy whilst her body seemed pained, one arm was bunched under the pillow whilst the other was cross tightly over her chest. With her knees drawn up she almost looked like a child, but she was no child, she was something deeper and at this moment far more lost.
After daring to say her name softly her eyes focused on Richard, directly into his own eye surprising him.
"He died." She said faintly, emotionlessly.
"Hmm. I thought. So."
Richard moved a little nearer, her words softening his anxiety.
"Heart failure. No surprise, he was ever one for decadence."
"Hmm. Did Harriet. Write. The letter?" He asked.
"Yes."
"I imagine. Hmm. She is. Very broken."
"Only her at the end, only her after me. It would seem I broke his heart."
"Hmm. You did. Not. Stop it."
"No. I did not break it either, he did that."
"Hmm. It is. The past."
"He sent you to me and yet he could not forgive me."
"I don't. Hmm. Understand."
"Do you remember when he struck me? I didn't flinch. Do you know why?" Richard did not answer, Nell looked at him as one tear finally braved the curve of her cheek. "Because I knew that wasn't the hurt he wanted me to feel, that was only impulse."
"Was. Hmm. There a. Message. He left. For you? Something. To torment. You with. When you could. Not. Change things?"
"In a way."
The hand under the pillow emerged slowly and Richard saw a collection held there. Nell pulled herself up slightly so she was half seated against the headboard as Richard took the opportunity to sit on the edge of the bed near her. Slowly she placed down three photographs, each showing the gradual bloom of age of a young girl they both recognised. Elsa.
"The last one was taken 9 months ago, he wrote the dates on the back. Harriet says he asked for them for my sake, he asked Charlie to take pity on my plight."
"Hmm. Why were they. Never sent?"
"Isn't it obvious? He wanted to punish me, to have hold of something that meant so much to me. To know that somehow he was prolonging the pain of separation that I feel everyday since I left New York. He needed to know that wherever we were, I was still in pain."
Richard could feel something deep within him rise, it was that repressed resentment he had found building against Alec Hardiman from the moment he had asked him that day to 'help her' when what he meant was to help him. For a long time they both struggled to see the selfishness inside Hardiman's good deeds towards Nell, but as they found more happiness in their marriage they also became more aware of the deceit of before. Richard was angry, he would happily have put a bullet in Hardiman if he could and now all he had was the intense feeling choking him. Nell sensed this and gripped his hand.
"Harriet sent them to me the minute she could."
"Hmm. Did she. Know?"
"I don't know, I am deciding to think she didn't. In the end she loved me more than he did."
"Hmm. She was. A good. Woman. I shall always. Think well. Of her. And to stand. By him. Till the end. I think she loved. Hmm. Him deeply." Richard explained, trying not to let his anger choke his words but instead to revel in the warmth of their acquaintance with Harriet.
"She's very beautiful still." Nell said looking at the pictures and Richard could only agree as he gazed at the girl who was once his ally, the first child before his own who was not afraid of him. Nell watched as Richard examined them, seeing him smile at her subtle changes. "I needed you to come, I want you to burn them."
Richard's eye shot up to her face and he found only deep earnest in her expression. In truth he did not understand, how many times like that first one in the hotel had he caught her looking up at the moon, knowing full well of whom she was thinking. Yet had she not drawn the curtains tonight and shut out the moon?
"Hmm. Why?"
"Because I'll forever look back, I can't bear to. I remember Elsa with every bit of me, the little girl I loved and cared for but this… this is the not so little girl who lives without me now. It is not that I do not care but… to keep them is to take Alec's punishment and to cling to a past we have fought so hard to move away from. I have you, I have our children and our home. The rest of it and all the people are merely what caused us to meet. It's time to put it away, this is the final piece."
As Nell explained Richard watched how her eyes dried of the tears that had built and how her voice became steady and warm again. Her hand felt for one of his and soon he felt the photographs placed in it. In a sudden moment she leaned forward and kissed him, his free hand moved to her neck to bring her closer and her arm went about his waist. There they were joined for some moments in affirmation. When they drew away from one another they each instinctively looked to Bess and Richard saw his most beloved wife smile towards her.
"I shall settle Bess whilst you do that, then will you come to bed?"
Richard nodded but his hand touched her face.
"You. Hmm. Are not. Too sad. I hope?"
"Can you think of any reason I have to be?"
For another moment they looked to each other and then quietly they rose to undertake their separate tasks.
When Richard dropped the photographs into the fire he said a quiet goodbye to Elsa also, but with the last one two other words also escaped his lips.
"Thank you."
He watched the fire turn each to ash knowing that with it went any hurt that Hardiman wished to leave as a legacy. This time when he returned to his bedroom his wife was laid upon the bed facing him, waiting for him. Richard felt his heart backflip like it had done that first night he walked into that small room where she had laid waiting for him. The passion born which the uncertainty of their union had created had long worn away but in its stead it had birthed a deeper, darker passion and a wholesome love that no bitterness from the past could tarnish or crack. Too much had happened for it to do so. As he climbed in beside her this certainty stirred his body and cleared his mind and he saw only her, he no longer even saw the greyness of the moon, just her.
