A/N: Hi, GreenField here – I can't believe how long it's been since I wrote one of these! Sorry and all. Pairing is Anne of Cleves/Thomas Cromwell (a pairing that is impossible date-wise, but I still like it) to Tom Odell's amazing 'Another Love'. Reviews would be greatly appreciated.
I want to take you somewhere so you know I care,
But it's so cold and I don't know where.
I brought you daffodils, in a pretty string,
But they won't flower like they did last spring.
Cromwell has not seen Anne of Cleves since her divorce from the King. She has been relocated to Hever Castle, a beautiful structure of golden brick that had once belonged to Anne Boleyn. He has been almost frightened to visit her there – will the ghost of the first Anne dance around him, will she haunt him, wreak her revenge? He might almost understand if she did. She had not deserved her fate – but then, who did deserve their fate in this life? His Elizabeth had not deserved to die, either, yet she was gone, lost to the ground beneath his feet where her body lay buried.
If he is honest with himself – a tactic he often avoids – Cromwell would probably admit that the real reason he has not been to visit Anne sooner, despite his promise, is because of Elizabeth, not the lingering ghost of Henry's second Queen. He feels strongly about Anne, deeply protective of her – he dreams of her often, and often thinks that maybe – perhaps – his feelings are too deep to now be ignored.
This suspicion is what leads to him standing at the entryway to Hever castle, too scared to advance those few last, precious steps. Anne wrote to him, recently, sending a letter by the care of a secret messenger, asking why he has not come to see her. Asking if he has forsaken her, after what had passed between them.
They had been walking in the gardens at Hampton Court, just after Anne had agreed to the divorce, and Cromwell was in grave danger of losing his head. They sought comfort from each other – just through words, at first, of course; but the friendship between the Chancellor and the King's 'sister' was soon being whispered about, and rightly so. There is very rarely smoke without fire, and in this case, the fire was in Anne's lips the day that Cromwell kissed her in the rose garden, wondering why on earth Henry had forsaken such a beautiful, witty woman whose smile lit up the sky above them. The fire was within him when they fell onto the grass and pulled at each other's clothing with a hunger that neither of them had experienced for a long time – and the fire died when Cromwell pulled away and told Anne that he could go no further, that he could not damage her so, that he would not stain her honour.
She had not spoken to him for several days after the incident. Cromwell recalled something about his Elizabeth – the real reason he had gone no further with Anne. The guilt, the sense that he was betraying his wife despite her having been dead for over a decade, had prevented him from consummating his relationship with Anne, despite his strengthening emotions. Then he recalled the day he and Elizabeth had been walking by the River Thames, the way she had exclaimed over the brightly coloured daffodils – their yellow glow, she claimed, made her happier than anything else on earth, no matter what her worries were. So a week after their heated encounter in the rose garden, Cromwell presented Anne with a small posy of hand-picked daffodils, their golden heads reared high in greeting, tied with a pretty green ribbon. To his surprise, Anne had been delighted by the flowers; but her happiness had caused the guilt to rise in him again. He could not forget Elizabeth, no matter how hard he tried. And, although he was sure it was just a foolish imagining, he could have sworn that the golden colour of the flowers faded a little when Anne took hold of the simple bouquet.
And I want to kiss you, make you feel alright,
But I'm just so tired to share my nights
I want to cry and I want to love but all my tears have been used up.
He shakes his head, tries to forget the daffodils, to forget Elizabeth, but she and Anne are so very similar! How can he forget his first love, his wife, the other half of his soul, when her replacement only succeeds in reminding him of her predecessor at every turn?!
"Thomas!"
Anne's head hangs out of one of the windows on the upper floors; his heart beats a little faster at the sight of her dainty face, suffused with joy. He sees within her the beauty that the painter Holbein had seen, the subtle, natural beauty that the bullish King had not seen. Her dark golden hair hangs loose – she is clearly not expecting visitors – and what little he can see of her gown seems rough and homespun.
He forces a smile, waves in welcome, and she disappears suddenly from the window. Anne has none of the airs and graces of a courtier, none of the haughty distance of English women. She is natural, impulsive, excitable, and freer with her emotions than anyone he has ever met before.
She comes running, her feet sending pebbles from the pathway flying in every direction. One hits him hard on the shin. She halts just before him, beaming, beautiful, her face tilted up to his. She is angled in such a way that it would be so easy for him to kiss her, almost a natural instinct, an innate movement. He does want to kiss her, he wants to kiss her badly, but everytime she is this close to him he sees only Elizabeth's face in his mind; Elizabeth's rosy cheeks, Elizabeth's slightly parted lips, Elizabeth's eyes that simply dared him to just kiss her already. To kiss Anne was to kiss a ghost.
Several moments pass, neither of them moving. The smile on Anne's face slips.
"Thomas?"
He doesn't say anything – how can he begin to explain that when he looks at her, he sees someone else? How does he explain that he has no love left to give?
"Are you not going to kiss me? Like before?" she sounds hurt, like a child, even a little naive.
"I – I cannot"
On another love, another love,
All my tears have been used up,
On another love, another love,
All my tears have been used up,
On another love another love,
All my tears have been used up.
Her smile becomes a frown; she looks impossibly hurt now, as if he has physically injured her.
"Explain"
A demand that she has made of him many times before, usually when faced with traditional English customs that she does not understand. Never before has she asked him to explain himself, his feelings.
"May we not have a seat?"
Her eyes pierce him. He once thought that they were simply a muddy brown, but he now knows that when she is angry they are the most brilliant emerald green.
"The rose garden is lovely at this time of year" she states coolly, a hint of resentment in her tone. She lies, too – it is winter, the roses are covered in a thin layer of frost, spider webs of ice stretching from stem to stem. She just wants to make him suffer. Cromwell understands. In her position, he would want to make this difficult, too.
She sits down on a stone bench, smoothing out her grey woollen skirt, "You told me that you loved me"
He flinches, startled, "Did I?"
She gives him a withering look, but he sees behind that to the dampness in her eyes, "When you had your hand up my skirts, yes, you told me you loved me. Or is that something all men say, when in that position?"
It probably is, he thinks, but he feels that it might not be a prudent time to agree.
"Anne..." he begins; every word is torture, they will hurt her, each word will sting like a slap, "Anne, I owe you the deepest of apologies"
She looks cold; he wants to hold her, "I suspect that you do, Thomas"
"I cannot love you" he blurts it out – to her credit, she does not flinch – "I cannot love you, because I have no love left in me. I cannot love you truly because I am in love with a woman lost to me. I cannot love you because I see in you the ghost of her. And I cannot weep for her anymore"
And if somebody hurts you, I want to fight,
But my hand's been broken one too many times.
So I use my voice, I'll be so damn rude.
Words they always win, but I know I'll lose.
And I'll sing a song, that'll be just ours,
But I sang along to another heart.
And I want to cry I want to learn to love,
But all my tears have been used up.
Anne has stiffened, tensed – he tries to touch her, take her ice-cold hand, but she pulls it away and tucks it inside her ermine muff instead. A tear trickles down her cheek and she swipes it away, angry at her body for making her seem weak.
"You have always acted as though you love me"
"That is because I want to love you, I do, desperately, but you remind me so much of – of her. My wife. Elizabeth"
"Your wife has been dead for years"
"You don't stop loving someone simply because they no longer exist"
"Perhaps not, but you ought to be able to move on"
"It's harder than it sounds"
"After a decade I should think it would become much simpler"
They fall silent for a few moments. When he chances another glance at Anne, her face is set like stone and damp from tears that she desperately does not want to shed.
"You always acted like a lover"
"In what sense? Anne, I never took advantage of you – "
"Do you remember when the King called me a Flanders' mare? In front of you?"
Cromwell's fists clenched at the memory, "Vividly"
"I thought that you might hit him there and then, the King of England! Your face, it was mottled red with rage, and your fists were balled up, so hard that the knuckles went white...no-one had ever defended me over my beauty before" her eyes met his and she stated, almost conversationally, "That was when I fell for you"
He didn't know what to say, so he said nothing.
"You used your words instead, you're very good with words. Something about it being diplomatically disastrous to insult me within my hearing, not to mention extremely unchivalrous. He didn't like that much, but he listened to you. He listens very closely to you"
"When he wishes to" Cromwell cuts in, the merest hint of humour. Anne does not smile.
"And you ordered that page to sing for me. The Holly and the Ivy, he sang, do you remember? At Christmastide. I was lonely and you could tell I felt quite uncomfortable being around the King and that Howard gi – the Queen. You told me of this romantic English song, often sung at Christmastide, and seemed quite scandalised that I had not heard it yet. So you got that page to sing it for me – though of course, I knew, that it was you singing for me. Really" she hesitates, "Wasn't it?"
"Yes" he admits in a low voice, "It was. Anne, I...I am so deeply sorry"
"I, too. My feelings for you are clear, unfortunately, beyond denial or pretence. And I am angry with you for denying me. And I love you"
She seems not to have wanted to say that last sentence; her cheeks colour, a woman usually so difficult to embarrass.
"I had another love, once, Anne; a love who meant the world to me. And I wish that I could forget her and love you with my whole heart. Because I do love you – yes, Anne, don't look so shocked! – I just do not love you enough. And I think it is time you stopped being second to everyone else in this world"
Anne rose slowly from the stone bench, tears standing out on the end of her eyelashes. She leant down to him, and kissed him lightly on the forehead, the kiss of a sister or an unloving wife. A goodbye.
"Perhaps, then, I shall have to settle for being your sister too" she murmured, soft as the breeze against his skin – and she was gone, gone like Elizabeth before her, like the last Anne who had temporarily enchanted him, gone.
All he had left, now, was his other love. His ghost.
On another love, another love,
All my tears have been used up,
On another love, another love,
All my tears have been used up,
On another love, another love,
All my tears have been used up.