True to Lucas and Elizabeth Shorts

by True2LucEli

This is a collection of short/one offs that I have written over time outside of my Conversations of the Heart series of letters and story. I always want to represent the wonderful characters that I have come to love so these, just as my COTH series, are True to Lucas and Elizabeth.

2. Chapter 2 How Do I Say Goodbye?

This brief short story imagines Lucas's thoughts as Elizabeth walks to the police station in the final episode of Season 8.

How Do I Say Goodbye

Coming out here on the balcony in the mornings with my tea to watch the day just beginning or in the late afternoon to watch life wind down again, has become a daily routine. Sometimes when I just need a short break this is my place. I have loved this perch above Hope Valley since buying the saloon three years ago

From here I feel like I am on top of the world, and most often I am. I find comfort in watching the shops open and townspeople off to their work or the passing of horseback riders or increasingly these days, cars going by. I delight in the children on their way to school laughing, skipping, and teasing one another. Or best of all to get a glimpse of their lovely schoolteacher. This isn't her regular path but on occasion, I see her as she comes through town on her way to some errand or another or to the library. And with time, as we began to see one another as friends and then romantically, she always glances up to see if I am here and gives a sweet smile if I am.

But today, this perch is no haven. She looks up at me somberly as I watch her walk to the police station and not only is my heart breaking, my soul is lost as well. How could I have gotten it so wrong? How could I misread all the clues that told me she had feelings for me? How could we have shared so many moments of yearning and she chooses now to go to another? I knew that she has needed time to work through her grief at the tragic loss of her husband, and I was more than willing to wait for her. But she hadn't resolved her loss or wasn't meant to be mine. Hence, I let her go so that she could find her true love, even though it killed a part of me to do so.

For weeks now, I have come to my spot to recapture some semblance of peace and comfort that my balcony perch has always brought me. But I feel hollow and lost and as if my heart and soul have been cut from me with a dull knife. But I know that the act wasn't entirely successful because they are still there and hurt so badly. What will I do without my soulmate because no matter what she chooses, my heart and soul are hers alone? I will have to leave Hope Valley and my dream of spending my life loving her and having a family with her. How could I possibly see her walking with him or their children playing?

All seems lost; but should I hold on to my dream until all hope is gone? This is Hope Valley, so I will wait until that last tiniest drop of hope has dried up before I say goodbye and move on somehow, someway without her.