Disclaimer: The Secret Garden is not mine. It's all Frances Hodgson Burnett's. The only thing that I own is the fic.
Author's Note: This plot bunny did not turn out the way it was supposed to, that's all I can say. No sequel, sorry.
By "Mary leaving," I mean that she's going off to marry. Dickon is 18 in this story, while Mary is 16.
"He" is Dickon, "she" is Mary.
He watches her work diligently, pulling weeds from rich, fragrant soil and spacing bulbs out to help them "breathe."
Seeing her work is a temporary distraction, a reprieve from his despairing thoughts. Even if it's a disguised way of torturing himself.
Just watching her gives him relief that he doesn't have to think about her, and can for the moment study and memorize her movements, so he has something to remind himself of her when she leaves.
When she leaves. He feels sick to his stomach. He knows that he can't live without her - but he has to.
Because he can't be with her, he has to let her go and hope that she finds happiness. Most likely with a man of her class, not a common man like him. And common men don't deserve to be with angels. A grim smile crosses his features.
And he accepted that a long time ago, in his own polite, quiet way . . but it's still hard to face. He suspects that he will always have to face it, whether he wants to or not.
His eyes follow the gentle notions of her hands, noting with pride how far she has gotten from being a novice gardener to, with his help, cultivating the closest thing to heaven for them. The garden was their home -- a haven, whenever they wanted to escape from everything, even for a minute.
He savors this moment for everything that it's worth - that it's just the two of them here, with the company of the robin and his mate, and nothing but the earth, sky and air all around them. Like it's always been. And never will be.
And never will be. The words echo in his mind like never ending taunts to him.
And he realizes –
An unhappy ending is better than no ending for us.