A/N: GreenField here. I'm sure you're all sick of George/Elizabeth, but I love this song and I couldn't quite resist. Song is Red by Taylor Swift.

Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead end street
Faster than the wind, passionate as sin, ending so suddenly
Loving him is like trying to change your mind once you're already flying
through the free fall
Like the colors in autumn so bright just before they lose it all

"What is it like, Mama?"

Elizabeth looked up from her lap, where a pair of torn breeches lay. She was mending them for her young son who, in his usual devil-may-care way, had gone skidding into a pile of brambles the previous day and shredded the breeches to pieces. Alice, a lovely young woman of seventeen years old and her eldest child, was supposed to be helping, but she had been ditzy and distracted all day, frequenting longing glances out the window. Margaret had been scheduled to help too, but she was off somewhere with some boy from the village. Elizabeth dared not ask too many questions of her frivolous, stunning second child.

"What is what like, darling?"

Alice sat with her face cupped between her hands, as though to cover up a blush. Her eyes were dreamy, wistful.

"Being in love"

Elizabeth laid down the needle and thread, looking over at her daughter, "That depends on who you fall in love with"

Alice laid down her needle and thread, mimicking her mother's actions exactly, even pausing to smooth out her skirt as she did so, "What was being in love like for you?"

Elizabeth smiled; dreaminess had now entered her own gaze, the memories flashing through her mind, tinged with a desperate longing for the past that she could never have, "Wonderful"

"Tell me about it"

Elizabeth looked over at Alice with unfocused eyes. She could not see the present. She could only see the past.

She saw George – his laugh, his smile, his dancing eyes, the way a curl of dark hair flopped stubbornly over his forehead no matter how often he pushed it away. She felt him twirling her in a dance, tasted his kisses, felt the swooping sensation in her belly that had arrived on the occasions when he picked her up and flung her onto their bed. She saw the two of them in her mind's eye, twirling through the Great Hall, a dozen Great Halls, in a blur of different colours – emerald green, royal blue, butter yellow, rose pink...blood red.

"How can I?" she murmured, mostly to herself and only partly in answer to her daughter's demand, "How can I ever hope to put it into words?"

Losing him was blue, like I'd never known
Missing him was dark gray, all alone
Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you've never met
But loving him was red
Loving him was red

"Try" Alice pleaded.

Elizabeth tried to hold onto the colours, tried to hold onto him, but already her mind was descending into the darkness of losing him, into the abyss left by his absence, into the dull grey world that he had left for her. She remembered sitting in the dark, not wanting any colour if she couldn't have George, trying to forget him. Trying to forget everything about him. But how can you forget everything you've ever known? How can you forget the other half of you?

Touching him was like realizing all you ever wanted was right there in
front of you
Memorizing him was as easy as knowing all the words to your old
favorite song
Fighting with him was like trying to solve a crossword and realizing
there's no right answer

She thought of the feel of his hands on her skin, his lips on hers, his fingers brushing through her hair, the way her blood fizzed and bubbled in her veins whenever he put his hands on her waist to dance.

"Sensual" she said, without thinking about the fact that her daughter was right there with her, "Passionate"

Alice kept quiet, waiting for more, letting her mother think. Because of course, Elizabeth could remember him so well. Better than anyone else who had known him. Better than his own sister, even. Because she knew every inch of him, inside and out, always had done, always would do. By the time he was gone she had even known how to win a fight with him, knowledge she had never hoped to gain. They fought in riddles, fire in their voices, ice in their eyes. Their fights burned. Their nights burned. Everything was fire, with them.

"Fiery. Angry. But...knowingly"

Regretting him was like
Wishing you never found out that love could be that long
Losing him was blue, like I'd never known
Missing him was dark gray, all alone
Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you never met
But loving him was red, oh red, burning red

She remembered trying to regret him, in the dark days after his death. Regret and forget, that was her aim. She thought of all the bad times they had been through, to make her regret the relationship, but she could not regret loving him. The good times so far outweighed the bad. For every row there had been a night of lovemaking. For every week they stopped speaking had been a day holding their children in her arms. For every bit of bitter envy and searing rage there was pure happiness and unadulterated love.

"Perfectly balanced"

Remembering him comes in flashbacks and echoes
Tell myself it's time now gotta let go
But moving on from him is impossible when I still see it all in my head
in burning red
Burning, it was red

"You don't forget him, do you, Mama?"

Elizabeth pulled out of her reverie with effort, "No. Surely you don't?"

"Of course not"

"Then why did you need to ask what love feels like?"

"Because the love I have for my father is different for the love I would have for my husband" Alice tilted her head to one side, "What was loving him like, Mama, in one word?"

Elizabeth looked out of the window into the garden. She could see Margaret walking hand in hand with a boy from the village. From a distance, they looked like her and George had when they were young, walking in the fields of Hever. She could see her young son George playing with Eric and Elena, the three of them looking a little like George, Thomas and Mary. She closed her eyes and pictured her lover's face one more time. A little smile curved her lips.

"Red" she told her daughter, opening her eyes and smiling, "Loving him was red"

Losing him was blue, like I'd never known
Missing him was dark gray, all alone
Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you've never met
Cause loving him was red, yeah yeah red, burning red

And that's why he's spinning around in my head
Comes back to me in burning red

Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead end street