Disclaimer: I do not own any part of The Corpse Bride. This fanfiction is for entertainment purposes only.
Chapter Five: This Can't Work
The crows parted, revealing Elder Gutknecht's book filled study.
Emily looked just as frightening for another moment before her face relaxed into just being angry.
"You lied to me!" she accused him, pushing him back from her. "Just to get back to that other woman," she said jerking her up and to the side to indicate Victoria.
"You don't understand. She's just my friend. But even if she were more, you would be the other woman," replied, trying to make her understand the situation.
"No! You're married to me," she said, pointing to herself, then raising one arm to point up. "She's the other woman," she sobbed, turning away from him and bringing her hands up to her face, crying into them.
Victor reached out automatically to comfort her, halting when he heard Elder Gutknecht's slight cough.
"She's got a point," the old skeleton noted.
"And I thought…" Emily sobbed, dabbing at her eyes with a bit of her wedding dress, "I thought this was all going so well," she cried, her eye popping out.
It hit the ground and rolled down a crack to bump against his foot. He picked it up, wondering when he had stopped being creeped out by decaying body parts falling off.
"Look, I'm sorry, but…" he said, pausing as he polished her eye lightly on his jacket, "this just can't work."
He handed the eye back to her and she held it in front of her for a moment, still not facing him.
"Why not?" she asked, voice still broken, then sighing sadly. "It's my eye, isn't it?"
"No. You're eye is…lovely," he said, surprised to find himself meaning it. "Listen, under different circumstances, well, who knows? But we're just too different. I mean, you're dead," he explained, looking at her pointedly. She had turned around and was watching him, eye back in place.
"You should've thought about that before you asked me to marry you," she told him, seeming to have calmed down a little but still sounding depressed.
"Why can't you understand it was a mistake?" he asked, "I would never marry you."
Emily didn't cry at that, looking instead incredibly hurt.
Victor was startled at how much saying that sentence had caused his heart to hurt. Like he had just stabbed a knife into it.
Emily looked away and sighed, turning and walking silently away from him without another word and going down the steps sadly.
Victor wanted to run up to her and apologize profusely, but thought that it might be best like this, sighing unhappily to himself as he watched her disappear down the steps.