"Your Majesty, I do not mean to be indelicate or to pry," said Sir Robert Peel carefully from where he stood in Victoria's drawing room, "but... may I ask... is the Prince Consort quite all right today?"
Victoria frowned and looked up from her work. She felt a quiver of worry go through her, and she gestured for Peel to sit opposite her. She tried to hold the pen steady in her hand as she signed a few letters, and then she said,
"What makes you ask after him, Sir Robert?"
Peel hesitated for a very long moment, and then he said gently,
"When you and I first began our working relationship, Ma'am, things were... acrimonious."
"They were acrimonious long before you were Prime Minister, Sir Robert," Victoria reminded him, "but I think we are friends now. Are we not?"
"I should like to think so, Ma'am," Peel said. Then he cleared his throat and said in a quiet, regretful voice, "He did not know me this morning."
"I beg your pardon?" Victoria set her pen back in its inkwell and stared. At breakfast, her husband had been a little distracted, but he'd talked animatedly to little William, and he'd eaten all his sausage and egg. Peel had arrived only an hour after breakfast. Could Melbourne's demeanour have shifted so rapidly as that? Peel folded his hands in his lap and stared down for a moment, and then he murmured,
"He smiled politely whilst I greeted him, but there was a... a distance in his eyes, Ma'am. And then when I bid him a good day, he told me it had been nice to meet me."
"Oh. I see." Victoria felt abruptly like she'd be sick on the rug. She touched her trembling fingers to her forehead and whispered, "I am sorry that happened. I shall speak with him."
"Please, Ma'am," Peel said, the entreaty in his voice urgent, "do tell me if there is any way at all I might be of assistance to you or to His Royal Highness."
"I shall do that. Thank you, Sir Robert. Your discretion and your friendship are greatly appreciated."
"William." Victoria said his given name almost sternly as he came hobbling into her bedroom. He used the steps that had been put beside the bed to help him mount it, and he wryly shook his head as he settled against his pillows.
"I do not recall the last time a pleasant conversation between you and I began with the word 'William,' Ma'am."
"There are many things you do not recall, it seems," Victoria said, a bit harshly. Melbourne looked wounded then, and he muttered,
"I remembered who he was a half a minute after he was gone. I am sorry to have embarrassed you like -"
"Embarrassed me," Victoria repeated, shaking her head almost violently. She scoffed. "I am not embarrassed, Lord M; I am terrified."
"No, you needn't be frightened for anything," he said warmly, and he reached with his right hand to cup Victoria's jaw. His left hand dangled uselessly on the bed, and even his right hand trembled as he pulled in to kiss her. Victoria waited until he'd put his rough lips to her soft ones a few times, and then she asked him,
"What are we celebrating in a few weeks' time?"
"Oh, one of your quizzes." Melbourne tipped his head and smiled crookedly. "You know how I adore these quizzes."
He did not adore them, because over the last few weeks, his ability to answer her questions had been getting very rapidly worse. But Victoria did not care whether he liked her quiz or not.
"I am the queen of England," she said in a low, insistent voice, "and I have asked you a question, Lord M. Answer me. What are we celebrating in a few weeks' time?"
"Your birthday," he said, as though the answer were very obvious. He tried to smile, but then he looked a little confused again, and Victoria pressed him,
"Which birthday is it? How old will I be?"
He looked almost irritated then, and he shook his head as he mumbled,
"Oh, and now I must do calculations. Very well. Let me see. You were born in 1785, so -"
"No, Caroline was born in 1785." Victoria's eyes seared so badly then that she could do nothing to stop herself crying. She did not even swipe at the tears, nor at her messily running nose, as she found his glassy green eyes and reminded him, "I am Victoria. Your Victoria. I was born in 1819, remember?"
"Eighteen... nineteen. Hm. How can you be so very young as that?" He smiled and put his hand back up to her face and said gently, "Twenty-three, then. You shall be turning all of twenty-three, with your great long life still ahead of you."
"Lord M." Victoria let her tears fall, and he used the knuckles of his right hand to quickly brush them away as he said in a clearer voice,
"Please do not mourn me yet, Victoria. I am still here. I am still with you. At least wait until they put me in the ground to start the mourning."
"And when will that be?" Victoria's words came out in a growl, a bite that snapped at the air between them. She seized his face in her hands and wondered, "Will you leave me a widow so young as this, Lord M? You can not leave me behind. You must not. I forbid it."
His face went quite sad then, and he reached to cover her hand with his.
"I think, Ma'am, that perhaps once again you are overestimating your powers as queen."
"Make love to me," she said suddenly, and Melbourne's face twisted a little. It had been two weeks since he'd really touched her properly, and she had her suspicions that a certain body part was no longer functioning. She had that suspicion confirmed when Melbourne licked his lips and suggested,
"I could use my mouth, perhaps, to... to bring you pleasure, if that is what you -"
"Stop." Victoria shut her eyes, and hot tears wormed their way out, wriggling down her cheeks. She felt his lips on her skin, kissing the tears away, and then she started to shake. Her back heaved with sobs, and she found herself burrowing her face into the crook of his neck, horrifying images flooding her mind. She could see the state funeral. She could see herself years from now, trying to explain to the Little Lamb just what sort of man his father had been, the father the boy could not remember.
"Please," she cried against his neck, "Please do not go."
"I am still here, Victoria," he said, though his voice sounded more frightened than she'd ever heard it. Still, he used his right hand to rub at her back, and he kissed her sodden cheek as he pulled her back. She realised he was crying then, really and truly crying, and she'd never seen him do such a thing.
"I am afraid. I admit it," he said, "but I was never afraid to die until you gave me such a magnificent reason to live. So I am not going anywhere, Ma'am. After all, you forbade it. Didn't you?"
"Yes," she nodded. "Yes, I did."
"Your Majesty, His Royal Highness Prince William."
Victoria's hand froze where she'd been writing, and she looked up to see Melbourne come walking slowly into her drawing room. Penge looked worried as he shut the door behind him, and once there was quiet, Victoria stood and noted,
"You are in the Windsor uniform."
"Breaking protocol, I know," Melbourne nodded. "I wanted to be dressed properly."
"For what?" Victoria walked around her desk and approached him, and she was shocked to see him start to descend to one knee. She did not argue with him, despite the very obvious distress it was causing him to genuflect. She held her hand out, and when he leaned forward to kiss it, his lips shook almost violently against her skin. She helped him up then, holding his elbows and heaving up him up to stand. He stared down at her and looked for a moment as though he could not remember why he'd come. But then he whispered,
"I can hold... my left arm up a little today, Ma'am. I do not suppose I shall be able to at your birthday party. And so... I was wondering... if perhaps you might... if you might dance with me. Just one more time."
"Here?" Victoria looked around the room and tried desperately to smile a little at him as she pointed out, "We have no music."
"Do not worry," he said. "I have it in my head, you see, and I shall keep the beat faithfully."
He held out his right hand to her, and when Victoria took it, the corners of his lips curled up a bit. He slid his right hand around her back and she put her left hand up onto the shoulder of his gold braided coat, and then she seized his left hand in her right one. She helped him pull his left hand up, and though his arm felt limp and heavy, they were in something resembling a dancing stance. He stepped off then, and Victoria followed his lead as he began to waltz. He moved tentatively and conservatively compared to the way he'd always danced with her, but his beat was sure, and he was still elegant.
Victoria stared up into his green eyes, trying desperately to memorise every last part of them. The colour, the way there were little lines round his pupils, the bit of wrinkling beside them. She cast him into her memory, building a statue of him in her mind, and she whispered,
"Thank you for taking me from my work for a few moments."
"I ought not have interrupted." Melbourne's left side of his face was not moving properly, and so his speech was affected, but Victoria paid that no mind. He rubbed at her back a little, moving their steps toward an open part of the room, and he reminded her, "The work on that desk is the most important work you will ever do aside from being a mother to my Little Lamb."
"And a wife to you," Victoria choked out. Melbourne just nodded a little, his eyes suddenly looking as though he were pleading and searching for something.
"Ma'am, I must tell you a story whilst I can," he said, and Victoria just whispered,
"All right."
His dance steps faltered for a moment, but he quickly recovered, and he told her,
"The first time I saw you clamber up onto a throne that had been made for a large man, your feet dangled six inches from the ground."
"I remember," Victoria said, tipping her head and squeezing his shoulder a little. Melbourne smirked as best he could, and he said,
"You were very young, and you were very small. But you raised your eyes up to me and they were so full of hope. Swinging little feet and eyes full of magic. There had been difficult times for the monarchy, and I admit I was concerned... until I saw you on that throne. With your swinging feet and your sparkling eyes. And do you know what I thought?"
"No, Lord M." Victoria fought through her own tears. "What did you think?"
He shrugged with his right shoulder and murmured,
"I thought... Britain is saved, and she is our future."
His left arm started to feel perilously heavy in Victoria's hand, and after awhile, she could not hold it up on her own. Their arms slowly sank down, and whatever music had been playing in Melbourne's head stopped. He glanced at the clock on the wall, staring for so long that Victoria thought his mind had gone entirely from the room. But then he slowly turned his face back to hers, and he said in a serious voice, one untainted for a moment by his sickness,
"Victoria, you have opened my eyes, and you have opened my eyes, and far more importantly, you have opened my heart. And for all of that, I could never, ever thank you properly."
"Why does it sound like you are saying goodbye to me?" Victoria insisted. Melbourne shook his head and squeezed his right hand around her left one.
"No. I... I shall see you at dinner. I should leave you to your work."
"I love you," she told him firmly. "More than any woman has ever loved any man, I love you."
"And because of that, Ma'am, I am the luckiest man in all the world."
He picked up her right hand in his and kissed it slowly, and then he bowed and turned to walk on unsteady legs from the drawing room. Once the door shut behind him, Victoria lost herself. She leaned heavily onto the back of a divan and sobbed until she couldn't breathe, until her eyes went dry. Then, finally, she turned her swollen, sore gaze to her desk, to the work she'd left unfinished, and she forced her feet back over there.
Author's Note: Yes, we're starting to get into heartbreaking territory here. Sorry for that. We all know when the real Lord M lived and died, but obviously this story is operating with alternate timelines for all major life events. That does NOT mean, however, that he is on the verge of death. There is always hope. There must always be hope. I apologize for not answering all comments; I will do so as soon as my vacation schedule allows. Thanks for your patience, your readership, and your feedback.