Disclaimer: I do not own any part of The Corpse Bride. This fanfiction is for entertainment purposes only.
Chapter Seven: Hit In The Head With A Hammer
Victor didn't know how long he had wandered the streets this time. Several hours he supposed.
Victoria was now probably getting ready to marry whomever her parents had replaced him with.
True love, it appeared, didn't guarantee a happily ever after.
Had he caused her more problems by visiting her when he snuck away from Emily? Had his words only given her a false hope? Made it all that much crueler when she was forced to marry the Lord her parents had chosen?
His wanderings had brought him to the coffin supply behind the Ball and Socket Lounge. He sat down on one of the coffins, idly wondering why doing so didn't frighten him or make him feel uneasy.
He supposed when one has been surrounded by the walking dead for well over a day, one would get a little desensitized to matters of the grave.
It probably didn't help that he hadn't slept in going on forty eight hours, since the night before he met Victoria.
He was exhausted.
Victor closed his eyes, leaned back against a coffin, propped his head against another, and was asleep before he even realized it.
For the first time in four years, he didn't dream of the crying girl.
Instead, he dreamt of Emily.
He woke with a start, wincing at the crick in his neck from falling asleep in such an odd position. He rubbed at it, trying to ease the knot that had formed in his muscles when he heard Emily.
"Oh, Miss Plum, what am I to do?" she asked. "He just walked off without saying a word. Are all men like this?"
Victor sneaked up to the door to the kitchen, where her voice seemed to be coming from, opening the door a little so he could see what was happening inside.
It was Emily, speaking to Ms. Plum who appeared to be wiping down some kitchen utensils. Another cook with knives sticking out of his back was stirring a pot over the green fire.
"Well, I'm afraid none of them are very bright," Ms. Plum commented. "They get something stuck in their heads and you can't do a thing with them," she remarked, pulling a knife out of the other cooks head and wiping it off with a rag.
Victor wondered when that knife had gone through that particular cooks' head, since the last time he had seen him, he was pretty sure it hadn't been there.
Then he wondered why seeing a knife through someone's head no longer seemed strange.
Elder Gutknecht came into the kitchen from what Victor assumed to be the bar, carrying an open book that was big enough to look like it was going to break the old man's thin bones.
"My dear," he said, setting the book on the table, "we have to talk."
"Let me tell her, please. Let me tell her," the maggot said, popping his head out from the pages of the book and laughing an evil sounding chuckle.
"What?" Emily asked.
"There is a complication with your marriage," the elder told her.
"I don't understand," she said softly.
"The vows are binding only until death do you part," he informed her.
"What are you saying?" Emily inquired in a soft voice, obviously not understanding what the elder was trying to tell her.
"Death has already parted you," the elder stated.
Emily gasped, looking like she'd been hit by a wagon.
Victor appreciated how she felt, as he was feeling the same.
He could go home. Nothing bound him here anymore.
But… did he want to?
He was happy here.
It was like suddenly realizing you didn't have to hit yourself in the head with a hammer.
Why should he go back?
To listen to his parents bicker and complain, listen to them trying to claw their way up into high society no matter whose life they ruined? Or to that dull world where everything in life was predetermined by your place of birth?
"If he finds out, he'll leave," Emily said to herself, making Victor feel ashamed that that had indeed been his first thought on hearing the news.
"There must be something you can do," she pleaded with the elder.
"Well, there is one way," the elder hedged.
"Oh, please, please, let me tell her," the maggot begged.
"It requires the greatest sacrifice," the elder continued, like he hadn't really noticed the maggot.
"Go on, get to the good part," the maggot said.
"What is it?" Emily asked.
The maggot laughed again, telling her, "We have to kill him!"
"What?" Emily gasped.
Victor did as well, making sure to keep it silent so as not to alert them to his presence.
Deciding to stay in the Land of the Dead was one thing. Being forced to die was another.
"Victor would have to give up the life he had forever. He would need to repeat his vows in the Land of the Living and drink from the wine of ages," the elder continued.
"Poison," Emily gasped in a light sob, turning away from Victor's view to face the fire.
"This would stop his heart forever. Only then would he be free to give it to you," the elder finished, walking around the table
He pulled back, edging away from the door, but paused. For some reason he felt he needed to hear a little more. What would Emily say?
"I could never ask him," she said sadly, collapsing to her knees in dejection.
If she had said anything else, Victor was sure he would have run.
But she didn't. She was willing to give up her chance at happiness for his.
It was that very moment that Victor realized he loved her.
He opened the door and walked into the room.
"You don't have to," he told her.
She gasped, looking up at him in shock.
"I'll do it," he whispered to her.
"My boy," the elder said, drawing his attention, "if you chose this path you may never return to the world above. Do you understand?"
Victor took a breath, turning to Emily and helping her up.
"I do," he said softly, clasping Emily's hand.
He had never realized he'd never been happy until he saw her smile.