DISCLAIMER: Sound of Music isn't mine

ONE: CHARADE

Taking a trip to town had never felt more tiresome as it did today, Georg thought. The heat had gone from intolerable to extremely intolerable this summer, and just when the heat was becoming just a little bit more bearable, the heavens decided to punish Austria by making it rain impossibly hard.

All he was tasked to do for the morning was to pick up Elsa's new gown, but it was now nearing mid-afternoon and he still wasn't home. He somehow felt that she would be furious when he got home, and somehow knew that she was going to bombard him with questions about his whereabouts. It wasn't as if she didn't trust him, no. It was because she was, if he may, hopelessly in love with the dress. You see, Elsa had been raving about that dress or gown, whatever, for months now—it was the one that she said she was going to wear to the wedding of this count to some woman named Agnes or Alicia, (or something similar to that), and she claimed that it would be the wedding of the century, so she had to dress extravagantly. Georg hadn't bothered to listen to the story, just saying "yes dear," or "sounds lovely" in all the right moments. He seemed somewhat uninterested in it, but was left with no choice when he was politely asked by Elsa to pick it up. So him, being a proper gentleman, had done just that, and now he was stranded in a café, waiting for the rain to at least mellow down a little bit before he started to drive home.

He hated being helpless in situations, feeling as if he had no control over the circumstance, for example, what he was feeling at the moment.

Staring at the raindrops falling on the pavement, he listened to the somewhat calming sound of the rain falling against the glass. Thunder boomed, and he almost jumped from his seat. He wasn't scared, no, far from it, actually, but he knew that the fear of thunderstorms had left its mark on his two youngest daughters. Now, he wondered if they were singing that song about—

Cursing himself for still going to town even if the skies were a rapidly-darkening grey, now winding up stranded in a café that was jam-packed with people, and him starting to feel as if he were mad, Georg cracked his fingers and downed the last of his coffee to somewhat calm his nerves (or make it worse). His eyes roamed around to look for a waiter so he could order another cup (or do they have a mug?) of coffee, but suddenly, he stopped, he froze, and the world around him simply dissolved yet seemed to be louder than it was before.

One would think that after five years, his heart would stop pounding at the mere thought of her, or in this case, at the mere sight of her. Obviously, at first he thought that he had been delusional—suddenly seeing her in places that he never really associated with her, or something like that. Besides, he thought, she was meant to be in the abbey. That was the reason she had left all those years ago, anyways.

"I shall be returning to the abbey, which I miss dearly, because though I love the children very much, I highly doubt that my assistance is needed any longer," she had said in her letter all those years ago, then she packed up her bags and left, dissolving into the shadows as if she were a thief in the night. A thief indeed, he thought bitterly. She had stolen his children's hearts, he reasoned with himself, and then broke them because of some silly notion that her assistance is no longer needed. He shook his head as the surge of another thought spoke in the back of his mind, yet he quickly dismissed it.

"Only until arrangements can be made for another governess," she said then. After a week, she was gone, and that was the last time he ever spoke to her. The last time he ever saw her—though he would rather forget it—was around two months later, then for a while after that, all his dreams revolved around her, and it came to the point that he had felt as if he were seeing her everywhere.

He would see her in the library, or in the ballroom, dancing without permission (again), or in the gazebo, or staring out the lake, and then he would start seeing her in places. He had seen her in the lobby of the hotel he stayed at on a business trip, he saw her roaming in the streets of London, he saw her in the playground with three children with mops of dark brown and bright reddish blond. He would see her everywhere, and it was driving him mad that five years after, she was still haunting him.

But his eyes weren't fooling him at all. He knew that no matter how much he conjured her in his mind, he wouldn't—couldn't be able to replicate that sparkle in her eyes. So it meant that it was her, sitting across the room, surrounded by women who once mocked her, tagged her as the unruly governess, now praised her, unknowing who she really was. She could fool them all she wanted, dressed up in society clothes and masked with make-up. She could fool them all she wanted, but he knew who she was. No, he wouldn't mistake that face, that smile, those eyes. He would never, yet he somehow wished that she weren't real.

"Raindrops on roses. I used to sing about raindrops on roses when I was scared of thunderstorms," the lady laughed lightly, and his worst fears were confirmed.

Biting the inside of his cheek and digging his fingers into his palm to stop himself from doing anything that he would regret, he hurriedly paid for his coffee, stood up, and left despite the heavy downpour outside.

Walking to the car, he spotted a couple, fighting, he guessed (he couldn't see much because his sight was being blurred by the heavy rain). The woman was hitting the man with a bouquet of roses, and he wondered why—had he been unfaithful to her? Had he insulted her? And as he walked nearer, he realized that dark drops of blood were rapidly falling onto the floor, but when his eyes flitted to the bouquet, he realized that the color of the roses had turned from a beautiful red to a soft pink to pure white.

Raindrops on roses.

"You're a fraud!" she cried. Then throwing the bouquet at the man and trampling on it, the woman left, tears mingling with the rapidly-falling rain.

He watched as the man stood in a pool of blood that turned into a transparent red tinge, until it was all gone. The man shrugged his shoulders, and left.

The drive home had been one of the most difficult ones of his life. The heavy rains were constantly blurring the glass, and he could barely see a thing, and the thought of the couple, and the thought of her were haunting him. Fraud, he thought. They were all frauds. His mind was reeling, suddenly playing and replaying vivid memories that stabbed through his heart, yet he couldn't bring himself to want to forget.

He shook his head as he pulled up the driveway, slightly stunned himself, that he made it home whole and unscathed.

Taking the box containing Elsa's glorious dress from the seat beside him, he grumbled as he sprinted inside the house before the box and his suit got ruined. Seeing as the hallway was empty, he closed the doors with a soft thud and leaned against it, hoping to gain at least some semblance of composure before anyone caught him in this destabilized manner. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, biting the inside of his cheek. Too soon after he got into the house, he heard the clack, clack, clack of heels on marble, and he sighed. Here we go.

"Georg, darling! You're home," she smiled, leaning in to kiss his cheek, which he half-heartedly offered her.

"I have your dress," he tried to smile.

"Oh," she simply answered, then an awkward silence overcame them. She cleared her throat and smoothened her dress, smiling sweetly. "Well, guess what? We've been invited to a party of the Count, and Lady Grey, and I was wondering—"

"Elsa—"

"Wouldn't it do us some good, Georg? We haven't been out in months, and people have been—"

"I was going to say that we're going," he swallowed the lump in his throat, staring at her evidently-shocked face.

"We are?"

"Yes," He nodded. Anything. He would do anything to keep his mind off today.

"Are you sure? I know what you feel about these… things."

"Certain, darling," he ran a hand through his very slightly damp hair. "When is it?"

"Wednesday lunch. It's a garden party, it says."

o0o0o0o0o0o

"Have you met this Lady Grey anyways?" He asked Elsa, who was brushing out her hair at the vanity table.

"No, but everyone's been raving about how charming she is. Honestly, I was quite shocked that she invited us to the party, considering neither of them have actually met either one of us. She even wrote this note to us wishing us well," she glanced at the note, raised an eyebrow at it, and placed it inside the drawer. Sighing, she moved onto the bed, and allowed herself to lean onto the pillows. Looking over to the side, he could see him propped against the pillows, an old leather-bound journal in his hand, his reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose. "Well, coming to think of it, we might have met her in one of those little soirees in Vienna, and just forgot her name, but surely, darling, if she is really as charming as they all claim her to be, I'm quite sure I would remember her," she huffed.

"Well, perhaps her picture is in the papers?" Georg suggested distractedly, flipping through the pages of the worn book.

"No, Florence says that she simply refuses to have her picture publicized, so I doubt that it would be in the papers."

"Then we will have to wait and see until Wednesday," he sighed, closing up the journal and removing the glasses perched on his nose. Placing the journal on the bedside table and folding up the glasses, which went on top of the journal, Georg fixed the pillow behind him and began to slowly slide into the covers.

I simply do not understand why she would have left. It was not fair to the children, and it was not fair to me, obviously. Then she comes back, pretending as if she hadn't changed, singing that happy song about raindrops on roses, even if her eyes are rimmed with red and her skin was paler than it had been, and I can see that the sparkle from her eye has gone missing. Then she wished me happiness. Happiness! For God's sake, happiness! What a mess I've made of everything.

His own incoherent, drunken words echoed in his mind, his heart hammering against his chest as he willed himself to stop being haunted by the memories of so long ago. He wanted it to disappear, dissolve into thin air. He wanted to stop the knife embedded in his heart from twisting and causing him further pain.

Sad little serenade
Song of my heart's composing
I hear it still, I always will

"I'm sorry, what was it that you said?" he gulped as he dimmed the lamp on his bedside table.

"Georg," Elsa started softly. "You're far away. Where are you?"

He merely sighed and shook his head. Turning over to his side of the bed, facing away from her, he closed his eyes.

Only one thought floated to his mind before he drifted off to sleep:

They were all frauds, and so was he.

Best on the bill,
Charade

Hello!

Eek, I don't want to say I had fun while writing this (because angst), but I kind of did. While writing this, I listened to the entire Charade soundtrack, composed by Henry Mancini for the 1963 Audrey Hepburn film, then I found this one version by Jack Jones, and I absolutely adore it! Adding the lyrics towards the end was more of an after-thought, but I think it summed it up nicer than when the exile lyric was in there (oops).

Also, please don't be fooled AHAHAH. I just happened to finish this one early, but I'm actually really, really, really slow with updating :')

I also wanna thank you all for the wonderful reviews and DMs you left me. I don't check them in between posting chapters anymore, so imagine my surprise when I came here to post this. I was, in a sense, shook by the love this thing was getting (esp because I wasn't confident with this), and I'm really, really, really soft rn. I'll try to respond to all of them when I do get the time, I promise!

I hope you liked this one hehe, and that it lived up to the expectations of the prologue, and if you did, please leave me a review/fave/follow (or all three, but that's up to you!)

Stay safe,
Hope