The Creature POV

We had been on the run for four months when it came to an abrupt end. Though the fear of discovery had been intense, and we had been constantly on the move – I wished to settle back into my home but Elizabeth feared discovery of we stayed in one place for too long. Why her fear was so powerful I didn't know at the time, though I could hazard a guess – but it had been the best time of my life, with someone I loved, and who finally shared my feelings, at my side.

Though we slept in abandoned huts outside of towns, or in attics and old lodgings, staying hidden away, never staying somewhere for more than a day, I had never felt happier or more loved. I was used to sleeping in bed filled with God knows how many lice, in freezing cold rooms or under the stars, but now I did not just tolerate it... I revelled in it. For every sleepless night was shared with another, spent with her in my arms, without fear of her being taken away and that was better than the comfortable bed back home. Occasionally, we were able to find some money - it was usually through pickpocketing, as we never stayed long enough to work and no-one would hire us without references and with an appearence such as mine, and I had light hands and the ability to remain unnoticed as I stuck to to the shadows. The money that we didn't use for food went into staying in half decent lodgings, where they often asked of our relationship - many wouldn't give a room to an unwedded couple, or at least not a shared room - and it always made my heart feel a little bit warmer when we told them we were newly-weds. Well, she told them, I stayed out of sight... otherwise priests had a bad habit or turning up on our doorstep to exorcise the monster, this had happened more than once, I thought it was a slight over-reaction.

But, in many ways, we were like newly-weds; we were as passionately in young love as any couple in their honeymoon period. I adored her, she was like the sun rising on a very long night, through which I had suffered alone. She was my present, my future, my hope, my love and my joy in one and when I was with her, I didn't feel hideous. I didn't feel dark and hateful, I felt like I was perfect because that's how she saw me. It wasn't even that she ignored my scars; she saw my scars for exactly what they were and thought that they were beautiful, and I often woke to her pressing her lips to my scarred forehead or fingertips brushing, as light as a feather, down my face.

I knew I would never love anyone more than her, it just wasn't possible; I would have made her my wife in an instant… except I was afraid that she was blinded by young love, she was so very young. She had told me when we met that she was twenty two, not much younger than my thirty years, though I felt much older, but I suspected that she had lied so I would not think of her as a child. I would never have looked at her as any other than the beautiful young woman I saw but I could understand her worry... but I also knew that age could be an issue, she might just be too young to know what she was letting herself in for.

But I did not want to tie her to me if - in a few weeks or months or years - she would turn around and realise what she had done, with no hope of turning back or escaping me. She begged me to believe that she would always love me and never regret her decision to run away with me. There was another reason I didn't want to tie her to me for life; I was terrified that we could never have a family. I was different, anatomically I was the same as any man but my chemistry was different. I healed and lived but I didn't age, what if I also couldn't have children? I couldn't put her through that. One day we would grow old and as an old woman she would realise that she had traded a happily married life of stability and children, with a husband who could work and make money and support her, for a young affair and a life constantly on the run with a man who couldn't work, couldn't provide, and couldn't give her children, and maybe I wouldn't even grow old. Maybe I wouldn't even be able to give her the gift of growing old together, I would have to watch her wither and die as she hated me for an eternal youth I never wanted. She said it didn't matter but I knew that it did, or at least one day it would.

It was an early October morning that our 'marital' bliss ended. We had hired a cottage from an old couple, for the weekend, spending the whole time just lying in bed, wrapped in each other's arms. It was just after the crack of dawn light had first appeared through the curtains, illuminating the pile of pale skin that was our entwined bodies, gradually waking us. She tilted her head back, looking up at me sleepily through her loose curls,

"Morning, love." We hadn't found a name for me yet, it was on our list of things to do. Every day, after she had gone out to fetch the shopping, she would tell me the names of the people she had met, what they were like and what they looked like, as we tried to find something that fitted. But nothing seemed right – she wanted something different, something interesting and uncommon, and she wouldn't settle for anything less. So she usually just called me by pet names.

"Good morning, Elizabeth." She curled in tighter to my chest,

"What are we doing today then?" I pretended to consider and then replied,

"Lying in bed, whilst I ravish you and treat you to a full display of my affection." She chuckled,

"Sounds wonderful to m-" She was cut off my a short rapping knock on the front door, making us both frown, "who on Earth could that be? I don't remember inviting anyone to here. It might be the old couple I suppose but at this time in the morning?"

"I'll get it, stay here." I reluctantly unwound our limbs and pushed myself onto my feet, pulling on the first pair of trousers I could find and frantically half tucking in and half buttoning the nearest shirt, venturing out with bare feet and chest, my tufts of slowly growing hair rumpled and my eyes still unclear from having only just woken. The knock repeated itself, more impatiently, "wait a minute, I'm coming."

I unbolted the door and pulled it open, only for it to be thrown open as soon as I opened it a small crack to have a look round. The intruder bodily shoved the door open, knocking me back and into the wall. The man sneered down at me, his strong jaw reminding me of Ernest and the tousled red curls frighteningly similar to Elizabeth's,

"You're as ugly as I thought, you'd be." I stared him for a second, completely dumbfounded by his statement, before shakily pushing myself up and growling,

"Excuse me? You cannot just burst into my home and insult me, get out of- what the Hell are you doing? GET AWAY FROM THERE!" The man was storming off down the corridor in a blazing whirlwind, to the room I had just emerged from where the rumbled bedclothes and one slender foot were just visible, before spinning on his heel and spitting,

"I'm going to fetch my twin sister, if you don't mind." I stared at him in shock,

"I beg your pardon."

"Elizabeth Holmes, the now infamous acrobat who murdered her boss and ran away with her circus freak lover, bringing shaming to - and shattering - my family. You two are the talk of all the upper circles, you've ruined her, and I'm here to take her back. It's taken me this long to track you down – the police seemed to have given up." A tiny voice gasped out, as she appeared in the doorway with rumbled hair and a hastily pulled dress and nightgown,

"William, what are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing but I think I can tell, harlot." She shrank back as the man bore down on her, a hand raising to strike her. That single movement ignited the rage inside me as I grabbed his wrist and twisted it behind his back, dropping him to his knees with a bellow,

"You dare call her that again or lay a finger on her and I'll rip your throat out. Say whatever you like to me but you leave her alone." I shoved him away from me, wrapping her up in my arms and shielding her against my chest, her brother snarling,

"I call her that because it's the truth. An unmarried young girl living in sin with a demon, you're coming home now Elizabeth-"

"I will do nothing of the sort. I love him, William, and that's more than I can say or you and Jane-"

"My marriage is not what I'm here to discuss. You're coming home with me, we're going to beg the police to understand and tell them that he-" He jabbed his thumb in my direction of that point, "made you kill Albert." I glanced down at her, my suspicions finally confirmed,

"You killed Albert." She looked at me pleadingly,

"I didn't want to- p-please believe me, I never wanted to kill him." I her tighter, pulling her shaking body closer to mine as she sobbed, ignoring her brother's protest and slapping his hand away when he tried to part us,

"Hush, Elizabeth, I know you didn't. I will admit I had my suspicions, but I never knew what exactly had transpired on that night-"

"I just wanted to steal the keys off his bedside table but he woke up and- and he took me outside. He tried to- he tried to hurt me, to ra… to rap-"

"To make you suffer as I made Victor's Elizabeth." She nodded, going to wipe her tears away with trembling hands, only for me to beat her to it, cupping her face in my hands and wiping them away with a brush of my thumbs,

"I picked up a nearby mallet, it had just been abandoned after one of the men finished constructing the big top for the circus and I- I hit him. I didn't realise how hard it was but then- then there was so much blood and he wasn't moving. I panicked so I stole the keys and ran back to get you. I knew the police would come after us, so I made sure we kept running – I was worried that a rumour would spread if we settled anywhere and they would catch me and take me to prison."

"That won't happen."

"No, it won't because I'm taking her home and away from you. You're coming back to your real life."

"I am not!" He seized her wrist as she went to turn away,

"Elizabeth, listen to me! You cannot stay here, think about your future-"

"My future is going to have the one man I love, who I will always love, in it. I don't care what you say, he is going to be there." I couldn't help nodding along, kissing her forehead as she leant into me. The look of disgust told me what he thought of that. He pushed his head of curls – so similar to hers – back out of his face in frustration and asked politely,

"Could you let me speak with your… creature alone for a minute?"

"What are you going to say to him?"

"I'm going to be civil. I'm going to make him see sense, and if you are so certain that he will not because he loves you then you will not be worried about leaving him for a minute. Just a brief talk and then I'll leave here, whether you come with me or not is up to you two. Just a couple of minutes, and then it'll be over."

She glared at him defiantly but he didn't make any move to step down, so she sighed and took my hands in hers, clutching them to her chest, as she kissed my cheek and whispered in my ear,

"Don't listen to him; he will not part us, no matter what he says. I want to be with you, so take no notice of him." Then, with a final kiss, she left us alone, going back into the bedroom to dress more presentably than the rumbled old dress she had grabbed off the floor. He watched her go for a second, waiting until the door closed and then turned to regard me coolly, taking a step forward and speaking in hushed tones, so she would not overhear us,

"Are you really going to keep her here? Trap her with a monster for a husband? At the moment it's new and exciting, she still has that buzz of young love – she's eighteen years old, she has her whole life ahead of her. Do you really want her to go through life as a social pariah, with a beast for a husband, and God knows if you can have children. One day she'll be old and withered, stuck next to you – as young as the day you met – with no legacy left on this Earth, yes I know you don't age. My father told me that you are as young now as the day he first saw you, on the day of my brother's death. She doesn't belong here, with you, she belongs with her family."

"She belongs with me for as long as she wants to be here, she loves me-"

"But how long will that last? She doesn't know what she wants; she left her fiancée behind to go running after you, curious about the creature our father told us about, desperate to find it and make it feel loved. She went to a ballet school for most of her life, stuck in a boarding school, and then she ran away to seek freedom and found you. She's had that thrill, now she needs to go home to her real life, marry a normal man who can provide for her and give her children, you can't be the man she deserves, so just let her go."

How could I argue? It broke my heart a thousand times over but he was right, I'd known all along that it couldn't last, my happiness never did. She was to be torn from me, just as my first love – my first bride – had been. But it was only fair on her. If I loved her I had to let her go.

If I truly loved her, I had to tell her to leave.

And she knew when I opened the door; she knew the decision. She'd always known it was the decision that would inevitably be made at one point, but had hoped to delay. But at least now she could go away, young and fresh, and start anew with her whole life ahead of her.

But that isn't to say she went easily; she screamed and begged and pleaded, getting down on her knees and clutching my leg, sobbing as I refused to yield, as I made it clear. She understood, she always would but she called me a fool, told me it didn't matter, screamed that she loved me and she would never love another, and I parroted back the words through my own silent tears. But I stayed straight backed, staring ahead as the tears rolled down my face and she shook me and hit me, trying to get a response. But if I responded, I knew I would never be able to turn away from the best thing that had ever happened to me, I would crumble and the decision that needed to be made would be ignored.

And with a final kiss, one last declaration of love and the promise of hundreds of letters, she was gone, leaving nothing behind but the tear tracks drying, cold and sticky, on my flushed skin. As I sunk back into the bed, put my face in my hands and sobbing through my broken heart, I knew my final hope of love had been snatched out from beneath me. I felt like a rug had been pulled out from under my feet, sending my flying back into the pits of despair, in the throngs of that uncertain and stomach dropping feeling of not knowing what would happen whilst suspended mid-air, before your fall.

And I had fallen.