Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Title: Perish in the Name of Passion
Summary: Shallow sorrows and shallow loves live on. The loves and sorrows that are great are destroyed by their own plenitude, Oscar Wilde. Henry had spared Anne from beheading. But on the last day, he had unknowingly let go of two lives. It will be six years later that they are reunited, but have their feelings changed enough to give them a second chance at love?
Chapter 2: Changing Times
"His Majesty is requesting my presence..." she repeated the words.
It sounded so hallow, almost like a child not aware of what is meant by that and only spoke what it had heard.
"What..."
"Anne, I know, it might come to you -"
"Don't," she cut in. "Do not say anything, please."
She turned her head away from him. Charles watched her, while both let themselves be swallowed by an eerie silence. He could only see her half-turned figure and yet, he had to admit, under the dim illuminated light of the candles, with those dark long tresses, she appeared ... dare he say... ethereal? Like an angel, albeit a broken one.
"Why?!" she finally asked, turning back to him, fury in her blue eyes and the light of the candle reflected in them, flickering like a flame.
But he could see past those flames, the burning and see what it really was. The reason that she was angry and she had every right to be angry.
Charles wanted to comfort Anne, tell her anything that would make the dead, pain filled eyes sparkle again with her natural contentment. Something that he tried so hard to keep in her through all that she had been through. But there was nothing, nothing that would not be short of a lie, and it would be even worse if he began to lie to her now, for she could easily detect his lies, hell, even the most uneducated person, with the smallest common sense could.
In the end, her despair would only grow.
And so, he said nothing.
Instead, he placed both of his hands on her delicate shoulder, gently pushing them down, careful enough not to push her too strong and then he took his place next to her on the bed.
"Anne, I am here for you."
This was the only solace he could offer her.
Instead of pushing him away, as she would usually do if he overstepped the boundaries and into an area which she considered to be inappropriate and far too intimate to be shared between friends, she put her hand over his chest and leaned into him.
"Thank you," she mumbled, letting herself, for one small moment, to be embraced and comforted by someone other than her own person, despite her reasonable mind and the defense force she had created since him, knowing better than that.
"Charles, please, answer me honestly, spare me of any lies," she asked of him.
"What is it?"
"Why? Why now? Up until now, he had never wanted- He had always avoided me and it is not as thought I can blame him. It was the best, I stayed away from him and he would leave me be as well."
Henry knew that. It was even thanks to him she was here. There had been no length Henry would not have gone, just to get her away from him. He had put her in the farthest corner of England, just so he would never see her again and now, suddenly, he asks for her to come to court?
"That is not true, Anne, do you not remember?" he countered. "This had happened once already." he reminded her. "It was only shortly after your divorce of the King, when he sent me here to collect you to court. It was the first time when we saw each other again." he smiled at the memory, just as Anne did.
"Yes, how can I have forgotten? I still recall the face when you saw first saw me and even more, the surprise on your face, after finally learning the truth behind my state."
Suddenly something clicked inside her head.
"Back then..."
"She had been pregnant... just like she is now.
Yes, she remembered. Charles was supposed to bring her back to court, in order to show people the amity and the absence of ill-feelings among the royal house. She was quite lucky in the circumstances, as she was already heavily pregnant at the time and Charles, having enough sense to realize how inappropriate, insensitive and most important, inconvenient it would be bring Anne back.
"It is always for the same reasons," she scoffed.
"No, Anne," Charles corrected her, surprising her.
"I do not understand..." she said, watching him critically.
"This time, it is different. He does not want to flaunt it in your face. It is important that you come. Back then, it had just been a gesture, but now it has become a necessity and Henry would not accept a no this time."
"You are telling me all this, but you fail to tell me the reason," Anne said, narrowing her eyes at him.
"You know the answer, Anne. I am sure you still have your spies in the court, people, maid, who are still loyal to their mistress."
"I have severed all ties to that place when I settled on a life on the country side." Despite her firm voice and strong voice, he doubted her words, but he decided to not elaborate this topic. Instead he carried on.
"The child they conceived," and no, he had not seen the way she flinched when he mentioned the words and it was not as though he had purposely chosen the vague description, since he had not seen how she still flinched at the name, no matter how much time had already passed since the birth, either. "Is very ill. The people are growing relentless over their constant fear of losing him. This instability over the future is almost like there was no heir apparent, along with yours and Elizabeth's growing popularity."
"My growing popularity, my Charles, you either spent too much time at the court, apparently, it has affected to you this manner."
"Or perhaps it is just you, who have spent too much time in the countryside," Charles argued in frustration. "I do not want to argue with you about this topic, it does not even matter, because the only thing that matters is that Henry wants you."
Anne bit her lip, saying nothing, because she knew what he said was true. What would it matter. If he wanted something...
"Can you not just tell him what you have said the last time?"
"He had already been suspicious when I claimed you were too ill to come, but since our feelings were still ill ones, he had not bothered to doubt the sincerity behind then, now however ..."
Like Anne had already mentioned earlier, rumors were flying around of them being together, there were accusations whispered among the court of being involved in an affair and surely, Henry had heard of them as well. He would not believe him and Charles was very well aware of it. Somewhere, he suspected that this was the real reason why he was sent here, instead of some other noble or whoever he could have sent.
It was a test of his true loyalty and although Charles was not sure himself where it lay, he knew that he wanted to protect Anne, as well as that it would only be wise for her sake to agree.
"I just do not understand..." she complained in frustration, placing her face in her hands.
"There is something else," he admitted, making her look up instantly. "There were rumors, different rumors, concerning their s- the Prince of Wales. Surely, you know that some illness had befallen him and that it would not be the first time that he had gotten sick."
"I have heard, but who has not? They were all other the country."
After all, he was the Prince of Wales. The first male-born son of Henry's with a proper royal claim to the throne. Well, if only they knew...
"But he became healthy again."
He had fallen sick before, however he had always survived. How much was a different matter, one of which she did not care about much.
Charles nodded.
"It is not the first time and... the people are getting sick of well, seeing their Prince getting sick. The uncertainty, the worry and they are growing relentless. They are very well aware how fragile Edward is and now, it has apparently gotten to the point where some are just waiting for his-"
He was just a child.
That was what Anne thought. Then, she remembered a time, when she had been Queen and her only child had not been enough...
They, all of them, were just a chess piece in a sick, twisted bloody game.
"What does this have to do with me?"
"Some of them... have started to doubt the union between the King and the Queen, whether this was truly a holy union, considering that his unions had never been actually clear. They-"
"Enough, I know."
Anne knew this topic just too well. After all, she was the one the people had grown up to hate, all in the name for a Queen who was not even born on English soil. But that did not matter. They did not want her and they had doubted their marriage and when she fell, they became right, whether it was right or wrong.
This was happening again, only that she was not the victim anymore, not that there was ever a victim in this game. Just losers and winners.
This time, Jane was the one who was about to lose. And Henry.
"He would benefit from my presence, because it will show the people my benevolence and good will towards their marriage. It will be a sign of acknowledgement towards their union," she concluded. "What a nonsense."
"Is it...?" Charles wondered.
"No one in this world would come upon such ideas... no one other than him it is! The most stupid ideas!" Anne seethed.
So she said that he would come upon ideas no one else will and it may be true, because somewhere, it did sound lacking of sense or at least of stability.
Yet then, it would make her the only one to deduce his most stupid ideas.
He was his best friend, he had grown up alongside this person and along with this, it would also mean that he would know his every thought and for a long time, he believed he did. But lately... actually for a long time, he had come to doubt this. Looking back, he would even daresay that there were a lot of decisions Henry had made that he failed to understand, had never done or just not anymore...
"What are these decisions?" Anne had once asked him. Charles had looked at her and giving her a wry, maybe even knowing smile, instead of an answer. And somehow, by seeing this, Anne had no longer felt the curiosity to know the answer anymore; rather she had preferred to have his answer unsaid.
It was for the best she did not as it would give him more time to think about the answer himself.
"So, what would the consequence be, if you were to arrive without me back to court?" Anne questioned.
"You do not want to come?"
"Why are you sounding surprised? After all, you are smart enough to know I can give you in this exact moment, pages of reasons why I lack of the desire."
Charles smirked and Anne could guess it was because he knew.
She had been tempted to go, after hearing him telling her the reasons.
She had never believed there would be a time when Henry and her, would need her.
It felt so good to know that he was dependent on her. This was her moment. Imagine what the they would think if she were to, with her head held high and her prideful and playful smirking smile, wish them congratulations. It would show everyone that she was the better person.
All of them.
The court.
Henry.
It would show him what mistake it was to leave her, to make her his enemy.
"I would rather stay here." she admitted.
Those were all the things the old her would have wanted. The malicious glee, the desire for superiority, the untamable urge for revenge and hurting everyone… If she wanted to show them she was better than them, she had to grow first and by desiring what she had earlier thought would rather be steps backwards.
"But it is not as though you have a choice."
"It is not as though he would order my death sentence if I claimed to be ill, either."
The Duke suspected it.
"Maybe not, but there are other things he can do. You know better than anyone else that Henry possesses this disgusting compulsion to control everything and if he does not get it, the person will be punished."
No matter how blameless the person actually is or was, and no matter how innocent, this compulsion could turn peace into trouble and out of an innocent man and woman a guilty one or dead.
"And worse, he could even come here himself."
The very thought that the King himself arriving to some far corner of his country, just to retrieve his subject to the court, would be inconceivable in every other country, but this was Henry the VIII. He was unreasonable, he was irrational, his actions were beyond comprehension and when concerning Anne, those words would not even suffice to describe his insanity, other than that.
Insanity…
"He has changed," Anne argued, being able to guess his line of thoughts. He was not the one she knew anymore. People change. She had changed. By just the choice of his partner, it was clear he was not the same anymore. Perhaps...
"How would you know?" he smiled wryly. She looked quizzical at him.
"What do you mean?"
She would never understand, he knew. But he, who had always been near Henry and who had known him far longer, and perhaps, if he dare to say, better than the most anyone else, that his relationship with Anne was more than just a flirt. Their relationship was much deeper, much more complicated and, if he was asked, more sickening to their mental health than anything else he had seen.
And even though they were divorced, even though they claimed to hate each other, at least from Henry's side, for he was not sure whether Anne actually believed in the falsity of her own words as Henry did, Charles was and will always be the one, who viewed the truth with clarity. It was possible for them to possess no longer loving feelings for each other, it was also possible that there was not amicable relationship between them anymore or possible, but he would never believe that there were no feelings at all.
That was plain impossible.
They had once loved each other with such a passion that goes, even now, beyond comprehension, boundaries, imagined and actual, and it even fought and won against all possible contradictions of the world. A love like this does not go away so simply.
Sad? No, perhaps it would be even better if it was to vanish silently, but those two were just not the kind of persons to retreat soundlessly. They were far too violent and attention-loving.
The saddest thing was that their love had turned into hate.
Or rather, it continued to live, just in disguise of hatred, because it knew that it would not survive in the daylight. It was never allowed to see the daylight again. And frankly, Charles was more than glad about this and silently, he prayed that it would stay this way.
"But you know the consequences if he were to appear here."
He could see what he had been deprived of for six years and surely, then there will nothing that can hold him back.
Anne was aware of that.
She knew that there was no other choice for her but to go. It was not fair, she thought, that she had always to be the one to leave the place where her heart actually resided. Why does he always have to rip her heart away so violently, leave her with no possibility to breathe?
"I am sorry."
She whipped her head into his direction.
"There is no reason for you to be sorry," she replied.
"There is," he argued. "I do not know... I feel like I failed you."
"Because you could not protect me? Rest assured, the only thing a man needs to protect is what is his."
And she was not his.
"But you are my friend, are you not?"
"He is your best friend."
"No," he disagreed "You are."
She ripped her hand away from his almost as if his hands were burning, whereas in fact only his words did.
"It would be wiser for you to stand by him," she stated, not bothering to look into his eyes.
"But what if I do not want to?" It was so quiet and he whispered to quietly and everything became too loud.
She pretended to have not heard him. That was fine with him. She was after all, a master in pretending, almost as good as Henry and perhaps, just like Henry, she would come to believe what she pretended was actual. And like these two companions, he would also pretend.
Change is never easy, you fight to hold on, and you fight to let go. - Wonder Years