A/N: Hello! I'm honestly not sure where this story came from. It poured out of me in basically a day and a half. I wrote it in a different style than I usually do, as a sort of self-imposed writing exercise, and it was really fun.
Note: I'm not abandoning Safe Haven! I just wanted to switch things up a bit. I've been feeling a bit un-inspired with that storyline and things like this help ignite the spark again.
Anyway. Hope you like it!
It was ridiculous, really, the way his heart thrashed in his chest as he watched her dive headfirst into the water. Soon he would discover that she had been diving to find a toy that Gretl had thrown into the lake. A silly little pony his youngest daughter had, in a fit of rage, flung with all her might into the murky water. He really couldn't blame a five-year-old for not considering the repercussions of her actions, but he feared that Gretl was becoming too much like her father.
That morning, Maria had pleaded with him in his study. She was awake uncharacteristically early – it was the first thing he had remarked after she thumped two perky knocks on his closed study door. Before he knew it was her, he knew it was her. Even her knocks sound jolly he thought, and when her face appeared after he gave a loud come in, he had to smile.
"You're up early," he assessed, his voice sounding cheerier than he expected it to, perhaps brightened by the air that suddenly felt lighter with her in the room.
She answered that the sun had woken her up early, which made her realize that it was going to be a beautiful day, and so she just had to get out of bed early to ask him, beg him, to allow the children to skip their lessons to play outside.
He surprised himself when he said, without even thinking, "Yes, of course." How could he deny her when she was looking at him that way? Her mouth was smiling, but there was a tinge of fear in her eyes that probably would have gone undetected had he not been, well, himself. He had been diligently trained to sense even the slightest bit of fear in his fellow crewmates, and he had become so good at it that he hardly needed to glance at someone to see it. It manifested differently in everyone – some people fiddled with their wedding rings, some people crinkled their eyebrows, some people chewed their bottom lip so incessantly they seemed hellbent on gnawing right through it. Maria was astonishingly easy to read. Was it because he had practically scared her straight out of the boots that the poor didn't want on her first day that he knew her fear laid in her eyes? He couldn't quite describe it, but when she was afraid, her eyes looked different than they normally did. Usually they were shining, beaming, twinkling like the stars on a summer night. But when she was afraid they grew darker, like the stormy seas he had sailed as captain. Which was a good analogy, he supposed, since her eyes were as blue as the sea. As big as the sea, too. Big, blue, and beaut - Christ, what was he thinking?
Was she scared of him? She certainly didn't seem scared of him the night before…
She thanked him and, with a look that lingered just a little too long, bowed her head and scurried out of the room. He stood up and shut the door behind her, and then leaned his forehead against the wood. He was feeling something in the pit of his stomach at the sight of her smile, at the feeling of being alone with her, no matter how brief an interaction it was.
He knew this feeling. And he was utterly perplexed by it.
And so that's why Maria had been the one to jump into the lake to retrieve the pathetic toy. Because Georg proceeded to lock himself in his study for the rest of that morning, shuffling papers and fidgeting with his fingers and trying his best to will that funny, familiar feeling away. As if he could distract himself into forgetting the way her eyes gazed into his as he sang Edelweiss the night before.
He had bought the children a slew of new toys after he had returned from Vienna three weeks earlier, when the sounds of their singing voices melted the seemingly impenetrable block of ice that had grown around his heart. No, money couldn't buy forgiveness, but it certainly couldn't hurt, could it? He bought Gretl a new pony, and he bought Louisa a new jump rope, and he didn't realize that he had gifted the ingredients necessary to ignite a bomb.
After Maria had paraded the children outside to play on that beautiful summer day, Louisa asked Brigitta and Liesl to jump rope with her. Gretl insisted on joining her older siblings, but when they reminded her that she was too young to jump rope, little Gretl became so incensed that she pitched the poor, undeserving pony into the lake. And the moment she realized what she had done, the wailing began, reverberating even through the thick oak of Georg's closed study door.
Georg sprang out of his chair and sprinted out to the terrace. He counted seven little heads from the distance. They were all safe and fine, gazing wordlessly out at the ripples emitting from the drowning pony.
"I'll get it, Gretl, don't worry!" He heard Maria yelp, and suddenly an eighth head came into view, and he was watching Maria kick off her shoes and dive headfirst into the water.
And that's when his heart began pounding.
Was she mad? She could drown in that dress of hers!
He knew he was running, because the children and the lake came increasingly into focus, but he couldn't quite feel his limbs propelling himself over to the lawn. All he could feel was paralyzing fear when she didn't emerge from the water for what felt like an eternity.
He was worried about his children being around someone as flighty and carefree her, he told himself, because it was an easier thought to have than what he was really thinking. And what he was really thinking was that his children were perfectly safe around her, because it was clearer than the diamond engagement ring he had bought Agathe that she loved his children as her own. What he was really thinking was that he was worried about her, because some way, somehow, the poor postulant from the mountains who had waltzed her way into his house had also weaseled her way straight into his heart.
Into his heart?
It was ridiculous, really.
It was ridiculous that he had sung Edelweiss for her last night, instead of for Elsa.
It was ridiculous that he was having these thoughts at all. The woman had sworn herself to a cloistered life of religiosity and chastity. Though he couldn't think of a person less suited for such an existence, except perhaps Max.
It was all ridiculous.
But that didn't matter right now, because it had been precisely ten seconds since she had dove into the water, and if she didn't come up in the next three seconds, he was prepared to jump in there after her.
He and the children watched with breath hitched in their lungs as bubbles began forming on the surface. He was nearly kicking off his shoes when her strawberry head popped out of the water. She was gasping for air and the children were hurrying over to the water, and he was leading the charge.
She limped over to the edge of the lake and he was already there, extending both his hands to her. She wiped droplets out of her eyes and stared at his hands for just a moment before taking his left hand in hers. Her right hand was occupied by the salvaged pony, and Georg would have smiled at the sight of it had he not been shaking with worry.
"Are you all right?" he asked as he hoisted her up onto the land, and he nearly turned bright red because his voice was quivering just like his legs were. He cleared his throat and said, more steadily this time, "It's dangerous to swim in a dress like that." He held her hand until she was stable on the grass, and then he held it for just a moment longer before letting it go. And if she had been aware of that extra moment of contact, she didn't let it show.
"Yes, but this is a new toy," she countered with that mischievous defiance he once loathed (once), and he knew she was all right, and he felt like he could breathe again.
"I can buy her a new toy. I can't buy her a new Maria," he answered, using the same chastising voice he typically reserved for Marta when she cried over something that wasn't particularly worth crying about. His tone was vaguely-annoyed but mostly-gentle, and it was only after the words had left his lips that he realized he had used her name, not her title.
But she didn't have the chance to answer, because the children had reached them now and were flinging themselves on her as if she had just returned from war. After she had ruffled their hair and kissed their foreheads and the six older children had run back to the lawn, she crouched down to Gretl's level and held the pony out to her. Gretl snatched it out of her pruned hands and clutched it close to her chest. And then, in a tender yet firm voice only Maria could emit, she said, "Gretl, we don't throw our toys into the lake, now do we?"
Gretl gave a laboured shrug, as if Maria had asked her an exceedingly difficult question, and Georg stifled a laugh.
"Your father has worked very hard to earn the money to be able to buy you a toy like this." She tapped the porcelain body of the pony. "It's not respectful to throw it in the lake, is it?"
Gretl looked up to Georg, clearly hoping that he would have the answer to this question. He had been biting back a laugh, which had morphed into a sort-of adoring smile, but when his daughter's eyes met his, he pressed his lips into a firm line and nodded in agreement with Maria.
"No," she said in a small voice through a remorseful sigh.
Maria rubbed her shoulder. "Next time, let's practice using our words instead of throwing our precious belongings in the lake, all right?"
Gretl nodded, fiddling with the pony's sopping mane. And then she said, unprovoked, "I'm sorry, father," and it nearly fissured Georg's heart right into dust.
He crouched down beside Maria and pressed a kiss to Gretl's forehead. "It's all right. Now, go run off with your brothers and sisters."
Gretl grinned and turned on her heel, scampering back to her siblings. Georg and Maria stayed in their crouched positions side by side and looked at each other.
She was soaking wet, just like the day of the boating incident. Her hair was slicked against her head, her makeup was smudged, and she was wearing a white floral dress with a blue bodice that, when drenched, clung to her every curve. It was a new dress she had made from the material he had bought her earlier that week. He had run into town to begin separating his finances into various bank accounts in various countries, because the Nazi threat was beginning to loom over his beloved Salzburg, and though he knew he would probably never use the money, he had to do it just to be safe. He walked by one of the women's clothing stores in the town, saw the material in the window, and thought of how pretty it would look on her. He bought it without contemplating the fact that he had just used Maria and pretty in the same thought. He wasn't good with words; he wasn't able to tell her how grateful he was for the way she brought his family back together, he wasn't able to admit how utterly lost they all would be without her, so he did things like this instead. He ensured the chef made strawberry pie for dessert because he knew strawberries were her favourite fruit, he let the children miss lessons on warm summer days because he knew how much she loved the sunny weather, and he bought her pretty material because he knew she had never had such beautiful clothes before.
He smiled at her now, crouched on the lawn as her dress dripped lake water onto the blades of grass, because what else was there to do in that moment? He was happy to be next to her. It was as simple as that.
She looked back at him with those piercing blue eyes that he could have swum in. She wasn't smiling, but she wasn't frowning, either. She appeared to be searching for something in his face, in his smile, in his eyes, and he wanted to ask her what it was, he wanted to smooth the crease between her eyebrows with his thumb, but then Max's voice rang out from the terrace and both their heads snapped in his direction.
"Is everything all right down there?" he called.
They both sprang to their feet and blushed guiltily, as if they had broken the law.
"Yes, all right," Georg replied, feeling his fingers begin to twiddle by his sides. He looked back to Maria and said, "You can go change, I'll stay here with the children until you return."
She nodded, gave him a little smile, and ran off without another word. He stayed still, watching her go. And there it was again in his stomach, that feeling.
That feeling was love, and though he knew it was, he wasn't remotely ready to admit it to himself that day. The truth is, he loved her from the very first night they met, from the moment she sat on that ridiculous pinecone. She sat on that pinecone and her eyes brightened and her throat yelped, and he felt a flutter in his stomach. It was such a gentle flutter that he hardly noticed it. It was a flutter he hadn't felt in a long time, it was a flutter he never dreamed the new governess would produce within him. It was so jarring of a feeling that he ignored it altogether and chalked it up to the surprise he felt at her crying out in such an uncivilized manner at the dinner table. But that was the thing about Maria – she was clumsy and graceful, she was passionate and timid, she was saintly and naughty, and for that, she was endlessly fascinating to Georg. Georg, who thrived on logic and order, who needed everything in his life to make sense, never more so than after the senseless loss of his wife. But Maria didn't make one bit of sense. How could a woman as lively as her become a nun? How could her smile, as radiant as the sun, hide behind the Abbey walls?
The flutter grew stronger as the weeks passed by, until it became impossible to ignore on that particular day, when she dove into the water to retrieve that stupid pony and for a moment he feared he had lost her forever.
His voice echoed through his mind as he laid awake in bed that night. I can buy her a new toy. I can't buy her a new Maria. Like he hadn't replaced eleven governesses before her at the slightest indication of deficiency. At the subtlest reveal of a human flaw.
He groaned and turned over in bed. Was he unwilling to admit these feelings to himself, or was he unwilling to let himself hope that perhaps, just perhaps, she felt the same way?
He vowed to park the notion altogether, but it was even more futile than Max's two-day attempt at abstaining from dessert. Because there it was again, the next morning when she arrived late to the breakfast table, breathless and apologetic, mumbling that she had overslept. Flutter, flutter, flutter. Had she overslept because she could still feel his touch burned into her skin, too? Or was that just him?
It was ridiculous, really.
Eventually, he would succumb to the feeling, because in the end there was nothing he could do about it. The following week, he would step forward at the ball (thrown for his soon-to-be fiancée, or, depending on how one looked at it, soon-to-be-ex-fiancée) and offer her his hand to dance the Laendler. He would twirl her around, he would cup her tiny waist, he would hold her so close that her breath would tickle the skin of his cheeks. It was the most senseless thing he had ever done, dancing like this with her at a party he was throwing for Elsa, but that was the thing about Maria – when you were with her, somehow the senseless made sense. Nothing had ever made more sense to Georg than dancing with her that night, actually. They eventually stopped twirling and just stood there, hands over heads, gazing into each other's eyes. He knew his children were watching like seven wide-eyed hawks, but he couldn't find it in himself to care. He couldn't hear anything over the blood rushing in his ears and he couldn't feel anything other than the fluttering in his stomach. Flutter, flutter, flutter.
Nothing would make less sense than the note he found from her the following morning. But that was the thing about Maria – when she was gone, nothing made sense anymore.
He hadn't bothered to take his car; he had run to the Abbey as soon as he read the note. He needed to move his legs, he needed to think, he needed to fix this. Why had she left? How could she do this to the children? How could she do this to him?
His breathless pleadings with an unfriendly nun at the gates of the Abbey fell on deaf ears. Maria was in seclusion, and she wasn't coming out for anybody. "And in any event, she was beside herself last night. She was crying and saying something along the lines of I can't see him again before she locked herself in her cell." The nun then gave him a deadly look, and if she hadn't been a nun, Georg might have been worried for his life.
I can't see him again. He had pushed too far; he had scared her away. The dance was absolutely inane – she was a postulant for God's sakes! He slumped back home and vowed to never think of her again. Because in the end, there was nothing he could do about it.
Of course, his attempt at never thinking of her again was as absurd as the dance had been. She invaded his every thought, morning, noon, and night. Her eyes, her smile, her laugh, her voice, the feeling of her in his arms…
Even when he finally managed to squeak out a half-hearted proposal to Elsa, all he thought of was her.
And then, one afternoon, she came back.
She was wearing a turquoise dress that clung to her waist like his hands had the night of the Laendler. God, she was beautiful. He wanted to fall to his knees at the sight of her because he was that relieved she was back. He didn't know how long she would stay, and in that moment he didn't care. One more second with her was better than the anticipated tortuous lifetime without her.
From his planted position on the terrace, with his fingers wiggling at his sides and his stomach fluttering in his core, he noticed the sadness in her eyes. And so, on wobbling legs, he tottered down the stairs, sent the children inside, and walked up to her. This was it; this was the moment he was finally ready to admit to himself that he loved her. Because she looked so sad, and suddenly, he felt her sorrow in every fibre of his soul.
Later that night, under the dim glow of the August moonlight, sheltered in the glass of the gazebo, he would finally tell her. He would ask her to marry him, and she would say yes, and he would kiss her and pick her up and twirl her around. He would swear he had never felt so happy before, because he hadn't. He would confess that nothing made sense when she was away. He would tell her about the pinecone incident, about the first flutters of love he felt as he watched her adorable yelp from the far end of the table. And he would remark on that summer day, when she had dove into the lake to retrieve that ludicrous pony. He would admit with a tremble in his tenor that he had been terrified when she didn't emerge from the water. She would roll her eyes with a loving smile and say that she had swam in her uncle's pond a million times fully clothed, and he would silence her with a kiss and tell her that he would never stop worrying about her. She would laugh and say that's ridiculous, really, and he would laugh, too.
It was ridiculous, really.
It was ridiculous that it took him this long to admit it to himself and to her. Because it had been in him the whole time. And it would remain there for the rest of their days, through their hellish escape in the mountains, through their brief stint in Switzerland, through their new life in America. He loved her every day; he loved her more when he thought he couldn't possibly love her more.
That funny little feeling never faded, even when he was eighty years old with a cough that couldn't seem to go away. She would prop him up on their bed and administer him medicine that tasted like bananas, and he would feel the flutter in his stomach as she held his hand when he swallowed it back.
He promised her on their wedding night, when they were finally alone in the candlelight of the honeymoon suite, that he would love her forever. They were standing by the balcony, gazing out at the twinkling lights of Salzburg. Tomorrow they would depart to Paris, but for now they were home. He kissed her temple and wrapped his arms around her waist and whispered in her ear, you know I love you, right? She nodded, and though he knew she was trying her best to put on a front, he could feel her trembling in his arms. He turned her around so he could look at her face. Pushing a strand of hair out of her eyes, he said, in the truest way possible, I'll love you forever, Maria, and it was the only thing that finally stopped her trembles. She said it back, with tears in her eyes and a lump in her throat, and then he kissed her.
Flutter, flutter, flutter.