Author's Note: This is a story for LucaBeth fans. Others may certainly read, but please respect many of us are feeling heartbroken right now and refrain from negative comments. For those who have not seen episode 11, there will be spoilers within.
The purpose of this one-shot is to depict what would have happened after Lucas left Elizabeth's side and boarded the train to Capital City. What would have gone on in his mind? While there is much about this episode and season I loathe, this is not a feel good or fix it fic. You may cry (I did, connecting with our character). It is merely my attempt to show what might have happened after Lucas let down his emotional shield.
October 1920 - Train to Capital City. Lucas sits alone.
So, what happens now? What happens when the one person that I have looked for all my life, the one I'd hoped to raise a family with, the one I'd hoped to grow old with, the one whom I dreamed of waking up next to each morning and lying down with each night in our town where everyone knows us by name, the one I thought could at last give me that one thing that I've always wanted - unconditional love that I would give in return - extinguishes every hope and dream I've ever known as she bids farewell to me in middle of my darkest night?
I should have known it was coming. Isn't that the way it's always been? Never fitting in. Never. Not even as a child. Always alone. Noone to call my own. Never accepted. Never deemed worthy of love. Moving from place to place, town to town. Always on the outside looking in - longing for that joy which ever eludes me.
Why should this have been any different?
Surely, there is something inherently wrong with me that keeps people away. I must have some defect, some ever-present shadow that follows me and repels love. What other explanation could there be?
I tried to do everything I knew to do to make her happy. I tried to be who she needed me to be. It just wasn't enough. It's never enough. I'm not enough.
Curses! I knew something was on her mind, but I didn't want to pry. I could tell she was working through something, and I offered my listening ear, but she never opened up. I'm a worthless coward, afraid of her answer. I should have been more proactive. I knew my love was hurting, but I trusted when it was time that she'd….I trusted that... I trusted her.
I suppose I feel foolish now. How ridiculous! What folly! What man knows his soulmate at first sight? Mother always chided me for being too idealistic. She was right, I suppose. Is there even such a thing as a soulmate, or is it all fairy tales and pixy dust - remnants of youthful exuberance that fade away when reality arises?
Is this burning pain in my chest to be my reality?
There is no fairy tale. There is no dream. There is no hope. I've deceived myself. How foolish was I to think that this magnificent Queen, this treasured jewel more lovely than Tiffany's diamond, could love a broken gambler such as I? Or to believe that she, along with my buddy….
Oh... Buddy. That precious boy. I will never be his father now. I won't know the joy of guiding him through life as my father showed me or watching him grow up and teaching him how to be a man.
What was I thinking?! Detestable man! I deluded myself. I deluded myself into thinking we were a family – that somehow, I was his father and Jack was my son. But it wasn't true. None of it was. She promised I could be. It was a day I'll never forget, for every hope and dream I'd ever had came true when she said 'yes – yes to it all.' But now...Now it is painfully apparent it was merely a dream. And now it's over.
Where did I go wrong? I pride myself on being good at reading people and anticipating what they will do, but I must confess I did not anticipate this. I never even saw it coming.
Just weeks from the culmination of our love...my...love...Elizabeth, the love of my very life, has given me the news I never hoped to hear – that I don't have her heart. SHe has sent me away to search for another who can give it to me not knowing that for me to even consider another is impossible. She was my one and only, and now she is not.
I thought she was happy. I believed so, but suppose I deluded myself in even that. And now I'm on this rickety train bound for Capital City to accept a nomination I do not desire while my heart lies crushed in a million pieces on a train platform miles and miles away.
How am I going to do this? How can I live, eat, breathe without the one in whom my every joy was fulfilled? I told her maybe these paths were meant to be, but even as I spoke those words, I wished inside that I could excise my tongue as punishment for saying such a cruel, stupid, heartless thing. What a fool I have been.
It is late, and as my tear filled eyes and weary soul gazes at the darkened countryside, I wonder, am I ever to have love?