Soooooo...The world has imploaded? Because that finale is still hardcore messing with my mind? Can someone confirm - is it for real cancelled? Like no one else is even gonna pick it up cancelled? Like I have to go out and buy the books cancelled? I'm dead anyway. Because [SPOILERS!] THAT KISS. DUDES. I CAN'T. IT CAN'T BE OVER. NOOOOOOOOOOO.

Anyway... onto fanfiction where it's NEVER over because the fans are writing. Boom. Here's my next chapter. Please review with ideas/suggestions! (Or PM me!) Thanksssss!

Benvolio

I awoke with a face full of hair. Thick, curled hair which tickled my noise and nearly suffocated me. Her hair. I took stock of the situation without moving, a skill I had picked up after years of waking up in strange beds.

The hair belonged to the Capulet. We lay upon her bed, sideways, her nestled in my embrace. CLothes fully on. (Unfortunately) but in one another's arms none the less. Light peaked in from the balcony and the night came rushing back to me. We had talked. Just talked. And yet I had never been so vulnerable. I told her things... I didn't just tell people that. And she reciprocated. We spoke of our dreams, our passions, our secrets, and we laughed and even cried when we spoke of our parents, I knew Rosaline better now than I did most of the friends I'd had since childhood. And as the torch burned low, my eyes had struggled to stay open. Her speech had slowed and eventually just stopped. And in the silence, I let myself close my eyes for just a second. And in that second I had fallen asleep. And now it was daybreak. And we were still not in our beds and the servants would know soon enough. I sat up slowly, carefully shaking the Capulet's shoulder.

"Rosaline. Wake up." I murmured. She groaned in her sleep and I would be lying if I said I didn't find it wildly attractive. "It's morning. Come on."

"Five more minutes." She muttered, turning over happily.

"Five more minutes and you won't make it back before someone realizes you're gone." I nudged her tersely, wishing desperately that we could succumb to our tiredness, curl up in bed together, and fall asleep with her wrapped in my arms. Although while I was wishing for things that couldn't happen, perhaps I could throw in a quick coupling before we went back to sleep.

"What?" She mumbled, sleepily.

"Rosaline. It's morning. You are not in your own chambers. Your family will wonder where you've been and when a Montague escorts you home, fiance or not, there will be-" She suddenly sat up straight and gasped.

"We stayed out all night!" She put her hand to her mouth and looked at me in shock. That horror turned to vague amusement as she let out a single, quiet laugh. "I stayed out all night with a Montague." She repeated. "Well that will amuse Juliet to no end from her lofty perch up there." She said. "Come on. I know a shortcut back." She said. We found our horses and it took all my might not to stare at her legs as she swung up, exposed from the knee down due to her improvised torch last night. Her cloak covered her legs as soon as she was firmly in place and my focus improved once more. Still... she had very nice legs. I shook my head to clear it and swung up upon my own mount.

"Lead the way, Capulet." I said. She grinned and took off like the wind. I would be lying if I said I wasn't working hard to keep up. She was a brilliant rider and her courage never seemed to falter, even as we leaped a stream at full speed or as we dodged low hanging branches, or darted through a thin fence gap that seemed like it would never fit us through, and when it did, it was astounding at how well the word 'barely' applied to the situation. We ran. All the way home. Smoke wasn't even exiting the chimneys when we arrived in the back, slowing as we reached the servants entrance so no one would hear the horses hooves. The fires hadn't been lighted yet. She could likely sneak in without notice. "Will I see you today?" I asked, before I could stop myself, hearing the desperation in my own voice. She didn't seem to notice however.

"I'm not sure. I was planning on spending the morning with my sister and then my aunt demanded my presence this afternoon for some nonsense or other." She bit her lip. Was I fooling myself to think she looked disappointed? "I guess tomorrow then?"

"Perhaps. Or perhaps I shall stage a dashing rescue of you this afternoon to keep you out of your aunt's clutches." Her face lit up.

"I would be eternally grateful."

"You'd owe me a favor." I replied, leaping off my horse and hurrying to help her down. She slid down her horses flank gracefully, my hands guiding her hips as she did so. She quickly turned around to respond to me but paused, a bit unnerved at our proximity.

We were quite close.

Quite.

"What kind of favor?" She asked quietly.

"You'll have to wait to find out." I murmured back. We stood that way until a bang in the kitchen alerted us to another person nearby. I stepped back and took the horses' reins. "Hurry. I'll away before anyone sees me. Until we meet again, Capulet."

"Until we meet again, Montague." Pulling her cloak around her to hide her disheveled and torn nightgown, she hastened off towards the house, quickly slipping inside. True to my word, I led the horses away a distance before hoping on mine and leading hers back to the Montague stables. My riding was easily explainable, an early morning adventure! I was a young man, it would hardly be questioned as improper. But the second horse... I would have to think awhile to explain that to the grooms.


Rosaline

I was pacing the floor when Livia found my nearly an hour later. The fact that I had been pacing this entire time was not lost on her as she took in my flushed appearance, and unkempt hair.

"I thought perhaps you might have begun getting ready, sister?" She questioned, her eyes betraying her and showing that she expected no such thing and that she was merely teasing me.

"I have to tell you something." I blurted out. Wait. No! I had been expressly planning on not telling Livia this! No! Stop speaking, now!

"What is it?"

"I snuck out last night." She gasped.

"With who?" No. No. Don't say it, Rosaline, dear God don't say it!

"By myself." I sighed. Thank God. I had that much control over my own mouth at least.

"What were you thinking going out alone?" She scolded. "It's been so dangerous lately, especially as a Capulet, and you went out by yourself? What was so pressingly important?!"

"I went home, Livia." I said. "I wanted to see home. I wanted to see them." She softened at that.

"What for?"

"To ask them if I were doing the right thing."

"The right thing, by what? What are you scheming over there, Rosaline?"

"What on Earth do you mean?!"

"You're always scheming. But when you get nervous about what mom and dad would think, it means your schemes are particularly drastic. So spill."

"It's nothing like that."

"Oh really?" She asked, not believing it for a minute.

"I'm telling the truth!"

"What did you wish to discuss with them, then?"

"Benvolio Montague." Livia's eyes always were windows to her emotions. One could read her like a book. She was surprised at that. She was bordering on shock.

"Benvolio Montague? What are you doing in regards to him?"

"I think I'm falling in love with him." Well there goes the idea that I had any control over my mouth.

"You're what?!?!"

"Nevermind. I take it back."

"You can't take that back! I will never be able to unhear that? What... how? Just months ago you were still pining over Escalus."

"At which point he betrothed me without my permission to a man I hated for his own benefit."

"The man you hated being Benvolio..." She pointed out wryly.

"Exactly! I had no reason to think well of him and he proved me wrong! He treats me with respect and while there have been plenty of moments where he could take advantage of our situation and bend it to his own benefit, he always defers to me, and treats me well. He has earned my trust time and time again and even so, ensures that I feel comfortable and am shielded from whatever is making me uncomfortable. He pushes me to think, not just cast aspersions, and he... he makes me better. Escalus was... a dream. And it was so lovely I didn't see the harsh realities of the situation. Escalus has to put Verona first, he always will, and in an already unequal relationship I can't afford that. But Benvolio... he doesn't even love me and he still puts me first! Who does that? Montagues, apparently. That's probably why all the Montague women always look so damned happy and our own aunt looks like she's about to murder someone." Livia let out a giggle.

"Rosaline. That sounds like exactly the sort of person mum and dad would have liked you to end up with. Why on Earth do you seem so conflicted?" I bit my lip struggling to find the words.

"It's not just that he's a Montague. I remember what father used to say. It's that... he's a Montague. Even though I have feelings for him, whatever they may be, Livia, he hates me."

"The man you just described most certainly does not act like someone who hates you."

"He doesn't love me, anyway. There was a girl... I met her. She was everything lovely, and he cared for her. Not me."

"There was Escalus. You loved him. And yet you now love Benvolio, so-"

"Maybe. I said I might be falling for him. I don't know."

"Well maybe he has let go of her, and his heart is leading him to you." I thought about all of his actions over the past few weeks, about our time together last night, about the kiss... all of it.

"No. I'm sure. He is a good man, and he considers me a friend. That's all."

"If you say so. But you never know, Rosaline, his feelings might change!"

"It's too late for that, Livia. We are to be married. And a forced wedding isn't exactly the sort of thing that leads to happiness."

"Not usually-"

"Forget I said anything Liv. I just had to say it out loud once. Now I will forget about it and focus on being his friend. That at least, I can do."


Livia

My sister. The a-romantic. Sure she had been a bit more butterflies and rainbows when Escalus had been paying her court, but even then, she was more headstrong and matter of fact than she was romantic and softly pining for a man. But now... she was in love with Benvolio. It was clear to see that he cared for her too, and maybe she was right, and maybe that caring was only in a friend sort of way but that was a better chance at happiness than I'd hoped when Escalus had made his proclamation. She trusted him, that much was clear, and she had always claimed that as the base of her happiness in marriage. I thought about the words she'd said, the way her eyes lit up and how she seemed to glow when she spoke of him. I thought about the man locked away in our basement, the one who said he loved me.

He didn't light up like that.

I didn't light up like that either. It was nice, being in love. Maybe that was the part I liked, the fact that I thought myself in love... but it didn't feel like Rosaline looked, and he wasn't... the things she described to me, that was the sort of man I wanted, and the more I thought on it, the more I realized that Paris wasn't quite that. There was always something hungry in his eyes, and for a while, I had thought him hungry for me... but I wasn't so sure that was what it was anymore. I wasn't about to abandon the man over this, but I would certainly have to tread more carefully around him.


Rosaline

He didn't come rescue me. It was stupid. A girlish fancy. We'd been teasing one another and he'd joked about a dashing rescue. Obviously we hadn't been serious. I had known that then and I knew it now.

.

So why had I been jumping and looking to the door at every noise in the outside hallway?

Because I was a foolish, love struck idiot, that was why. I thought I had heard his voice at one point, speaking to my uncle a few rooms away, but later my uncle denied having seen any guests enter at all. I was imagining him now, inserting him into reality when he was not there at all. Dear God I was helpless.

I was going to have my heart broken and I had best start to guard it before it reached that point. I was falling in love with Benvolio Montague. And now I needed desperately to fall out of it.


Benvolio

Convincing the workmen had been hard enough, and getting years old gossip on servants was proving to be even harder. But I had to find them. I had to do this for her. I had to make things right for her. She was being forced to marry me and while it made my heart leap a bit to think of her as my wife, I knew that she... well that wasn't important now.

She was my friend. My best friend, these days. And her being my friend made me so happy. And if this was something I could do to make her happy, then you could bet an entire bank that I would do everything in my power to get it done.

Within a few weeks, her home would no longer need repair. There would no longer be cracks in the walls, or overgrown gardens, with weeds choking out the flowerbeds. It would be just as she remembered it. And the servants, the ones who had been her family when she needed them most... they would be back too. She would see them again, and be there mistress as she should be and maybe then... with what was left of her childhood family around her in the place she truly called home, she could be happy. I thought of what Lord Capulet had said to me this afternoon, the price he had quoted. He hadn't understood the question, but I had asked it anyway. I had to go to the bank and see what my parents had left me. Would I be able to access enough of it immediately to pay Livia's bride price? Or would it take some time? My banker could tell me tomorrow. My uncle had been doing my banking for me, but as a man about to marry, it was high time I took that over myself.

A/N: Please review or PM with ideas/suggestions! xoxo - E