His Crimson Rose

Disclaimer: I do not own Crimson Peak nor any of Guillermo del Toro's wonderful characters. However, I do claim all the original ideas shared within this fic. That said: Enjoy!

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Synopsis: Though lovely, every rose has its thorns. Alan and Edith return to America in hopes of a fresh start, while Allerdale Hall sits (mostly) vacant for the first time in decades with only the wind rushing through its ramshackle walls. Even for ghosts, there is life-both bitter and sweet-after Crimson Peak.

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Through the broken front door; up the dust-blanketed grand stairwell; down the drafty upstairs hallways with their peeling, faded wallpaper; at the end of one, dreary, long corridor through a bedroom door covered in cracked paint and omnipresent spackles of red clay, Sir Thomas Sharpe perched vulture-like atop a rotting rosewood dresser.

Given the dark stain that stretched across the ceiling, which sloped where the roof angled down, Sharpe presumed that melting snow had weaseled its way in through some invisible crack in the wall. More than just the finish on the dresser had suffered for the leak. Depressed by the ever-present dinge and dank that surrounded him, Sharpe sighed heavily.

Now, you might ask yourself why a titled man such as Sir Thomas Sharpe would ever choose this particular piece of furniture, this dilapidated dresser in this dilapidated house, on which to sit? Moreover, why would such a one sit atop a dresser at all?

Well, Sir Thomas Sharpe, for one could not technically answer this question if he tried, for he could not actually sit down. For in fact he was dead, and upon dying he had learned that the dead, specifically ghosts, did not sit.

Rather now, he hovered. So it was that he was hovering, lost in thought, when a certain stern voice, further accentuated by a strong continental lilt, disturbed his potentially infinite, ghostly mediation.

"Can you make her stop?"

Sir Thomas Sharpe focused his eternally sad, hollow gaze on the spot where his second-to-last wife, Enola, had materialized. Like a wave breaking on the tide, suddenly the cacophonous clang of un-tuned piano keys collided with the late baronet's eardrums (that is, if sound waves did in fact penetrate the ectoplasm of a ghost's inner ear at all; uncertain, Sharpe mentally filed this question away for later contemplation…)

Damn it, he cursed a particularly nerve-shattering F-note. And he had so nearly successfully drowned out his horrible sister's maniacal playing.

"And what makes you think I can do that?" he asked, his voice soft with its noble accent perfectly, quizzically aloof.

"You certainly—ah, come si dice?—had a way with her when you were alive," Enola replied pointedly.

Ouch. Thoughts of his unique relationship with Lucille only stung Thomas all the more. And his equally dead wife only knew it too well.

"And let me ask, do you recall the identity of my murderer?" he asked sardonically.

Clearly, seeing that she was getting nowhere with her waste of an ex-spouse, Enola turned her nose up in the air with an icy "hmph" before disappearing through the ancient, dirt-caked floor. In a dark humor, Sharpe wondered how even a ghost could fit through the cracks between the wood with so much filth around, though he knew very well that was probably not how it worked.

Then, again, Sharpe could not say that he really knew how these "things" worked at all. Listening to Lucille terrorize her piano keyboard and, by extension, the rest of their ramshackle abode, Sir Thomas Sharpe allowed himself to drift upward into the attic.

Arriving in the middle of the room, mid-torso into his old worktable, he looked around at his once beloved workshop. His many trinkets and small inventions now slept beneath a thick, dull layer of dust. Ah, how he wished to wipe the dirt away, pick up his creations, turn them in his hands. Alas, it seemed he would never do so again, for since he had died and awoken on the "Other Side", so to speak, Sir Thomas Sharpe had found himself entirely unable to manipulate even a single object.

How deeply unfair, he thought, feeling especially mopey at the moment. Honestly poltergeist-like, his sister had been able to bang away at her piano almost non-stop from the moment she had met her grisly fate. She had even been able to torture every other soul in the house with whatever make-shift weapons she so chose, wildly flinging about everything from kitchen cutlery to heavy chandelier chains. Yet, he was allowed no solace in being able to move the items that were most dear to him.

Really, what good was the life of an inventor such as himself if he could not actually construct the flights of his scientific fancy, or at the very least, share his ideas with others?

Feeling utterly bored and ineffectual for the millionth time since his demise, Sir Thomas Sharpe floated over to the window. He tried to imagine the feel of the ambient chill emanating off the smudged glass, but he found himself already forgetting the memory of such sensations…

His mind wandered: how long had it been since Edith had escaped from Crimson Peak? Already a few months, he realized as he noticed patches in the red-muddled snow where it had begun to melt in the spring thaw. Were those even a few blades of witch grass coming up beside the stone wall at the end of the drive?

Just barely audible over the strains of the piano now paired with his sister's wailing song (if it could be called that), he believed he heard Papillion's barking below. With nothing else to do, Sharpe apathetically let himself be drawn through the thick wall of the manor down into the yard below.

As he settled a few centimeters above the frozen, red slop that covered the earth, Papillion rushed across the yard toward him. Smirking, the baronet thought of how the little mutt would have drown in the red mud had he not been already dead too. Somewhat sickly, Sharpe then deduced that Lucille had done the small beast a favor.

I suppose I always did enjoy the macabre, he noted, hoping humor would ease some of the pain, as he guiltily recalled standing by while his sister snapped the silly creature's neck.

"Sorry, dog: If I do not laugh, I shall certainly cry," Sharpe told Papillion, as the toy spaniel danced around his legs, it's butterfly wing-like ears all aflutter. Clearly, the dog too was happy for some company in this dreary Purgatory that they all seemed to share.

Before he knew it, Sharpe soon found himself following the dog to the edge of the property. Now, only several feet away, he saw clearly that a small cluster of slightly green weeds had indeed taken root beside the wall. Even in the most inhospitable reaches of the earth, he supposed, something must grow. He was inspecting the tenacious weeds when suddenly, and with no apparent cause, Papillion leapt up in Sharpe's face, yapping loudly.

"GAH! Dog, what in Hell's name are you doing?" Sharpe exclaimed bitterly, his arm still raised to his face in shock. However, the little dog had already bounded away, easily passing through the heavy, black iron bars of the chained and locked gate. Unthinkingly, he followed the dog immediately, but on the other side of the gate, he saw mischievous canine spirit nowhere.

"Where the devil-?" he scratched his head, unable to understand how the mutt had simply vanished. It was then that Sharpe turned and discovered the partially obstructed view of Allerdale Hall through the thick, twisted rungs of the wrought-iron gate.

Disoriented momentarily, Sharpe soon settled upon the realization that he had wound up outside the property. He had not even gone beyond the manor walls for months! Now, he couldn't help but marvel at how malevolent the place looked from outside at such a distance. If Allerdale Hall had looked even a fraction as horrible as it did now when he brought Edith home from America, he wondered how she could have agreed to stay with him and Lucille at all.

Edith. Turning away from the dilapidated shack to which he had dedicated his entire life, he imagined how for the last time she must traveled this road that stretched into town, only too relieved to still be in possession of her life as she left Crimson Peak behind once and for all.

To leave Crimson Peak behind once and for all. The words echoed in Sharpe's mind. He had considered doing so several times over the years that he and Lucile traveled back and forth in search of rich heiresses to swindle and kill; however, it was Lucille who always ensured that they returned to the family home. So now, standing (well, technically hovering over) the red slush outside the manor's gate, it occurred to Sir Thomas Sharpe that for the first time ever, he had successfully left Allerdale Hall with no real compulsion to return anytime soon.

"Well, if the dog can do it, so can I," he said to no one in particular and began a determined drift down the lane into town, away from Allerdale Hall and Crimson Peak.

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Note: Finally had time for another installment! Most likely this fic will be woven from more-or-less a collection of scenes I have imagined unfolding after the events of the film. Hope you enjoy! Don't forget to read and review. Follows and favorites are really great, but reviews, even short ones are super appreciated! Thanks to those of you who already have left reviews - they really provided the encouragement for me to come back and write another chapter! Hugs - Origamikungfu.