This little ditty was my response to Indigoblue's call for 'material' (short stories, etc.) to celebrate the SofM discussion forum's TENTH anniversary! It's not an anniversary-themed story, but it is about a wedding, and that is kind of the same thing!
I thought I would post it here as well.
ooOoo
He'd been here before.
Georg had stood on this very altar almost 20 years ago. He vividly remembered waiting patiently - but nervously - looking out over the sea of heads in the crowd. Waiting...craning his neck looking for a glimpse of her. His beautiful Agathe. If he closed his eyes, he could see her as if it were yesterday…
But today was different. He was waiting for Maria. His beautiful Maria who gave him his children back, who gave him his life back, and gave him an unheard of second chance at happiness. She had freely given him her love, even when she didn't completely realize what she was doing. She single-handedly stitched his shattered heart back together again.
As he fidgeted with the gold buttons on his uniform, he could not help but glance over at Max stroking his moustache, his energy almost equal to that of the children who were so full of joy that they might just pop. They all looked the way he was feeling inside, but his Captain's mask would not permit him to act out in that way. As a distraction, he looked out over the heads in the cathedral, taking in every detail so he could remember it forever.
Indeed, he had been here before, standing before God to accept the sacrament of marriage; but also, he had been here.
On the stairs. So many times. With her.
As he looked back on memories of this past summer, he could now see clear junctions that had put him on another path. Climbing stairs...opening doors. Both he and Maria; all at once alone and together. There were some days when he found himself spiraling completely out of control and out of his element, mostly because he had long believed he was devoid of any feelings apart from profound sadness or extreme anger. Love, joy, happiness all but extinct; they were cruelly snuffed out that terrible day when his beloved wife died in his arms.
Although he knew there was something about her the day they first met, it wasn't until that day that he realized he was changing because of it. Smiling to himself, he realized it might as well have been him who was tossed into the lake, even though it was she who had went ass-over-teakettle with the children! On that very afternoon he had found himself thrashing and blubbering, gasping for air until he got his head above water and only then had he begun to see everything clearly.
The day of their argument.
Memories of that day seemed so vivid to him now that it was almost like he was watching those moments in a silent picture...
Outwardly he had been angry, but on the inside, he was hurting. At the same time, however, he also wrestled with feelings of unbridled joy in hearing the laughter of the children, of humour in the way that she had clasped her hands together before pointing her skirts to the sky and landing in the lake, and feelings of desire so strong that they threatened to undo him.
Even in her drenched state, he had found her a formidable opponent. She went toe-to-toe with him that day. The drowned rat: soaking wet and utterly bedraggled, yet enticingly beautiful and fiercely passionate. How was it possible to feel so many emotions simultaneously?
She was right, of course, and he was wrong. But, Georg Von Trapp was never wrong, so he fired her on the spot. He was about to return to the house to stop the nonsense, to get a hold of his raging emotions that pulled him in so many directions that he was certain he was being drawn and quartered...
Mounting the stairs, he heard them: was it the voices of the angels?
The children?
ooOoo
Moments later, he had re-united with his children.
He caught Maria's dripping figure in the foyer. Her pride evident until she knew he was watching her. Then she fled.
He knew right there and then that he had made a terrible mistake.
Leaving everything behind in the sitting room, he found her on the stairs, fleeing to higher ground. Climbing the stairs to her room and out of his life. Water dripping from her hair and down her nose.
A vision.
The high priestess.
God's own messenger.
Guiding his way, lighting his path.
He just had to stop her.
"Fraulein..." ...he grimaced. It had come out of his mouth a bit too gruffly.
She stopped dead on the stairs.
"I behaved badly...I apologize."
Georg Von Trapp was never wrong, and he never apologized.
She stood above him, not giving any indication of the hurt in her heart. She was strong and selfless. She was responsible for making him see what was good in his life. Was she an apparition, or a miracle?
No, she was real.
Stepping closer to her, the high priestess on her altar.
"You were right, I don't know my children"
Even today, he could still feel the energy inside of him, his left-hand flexing. Stepping closer again.
"There's still time, Captain..."
Time was a gift, and he chose in that moment to grab on tight and never let go.
"I want you to stay...I, uh, ask you to stay".
I need you to stay.
It's been such a terrible climb, Maria. Please stay and show me the way?
Little did he know, but as the days passed and slowly turned into weeks, there was growth; both personal, and between them. She shared her wisdom by being herself, she shared her love, she gave without asking.
She made him laugh, he made her smile.
Oh, that smile. It would light up a room, and for so many days, it was his life's mission to make her smile. Not at the children, not at Max, but at him.
But then he danced with her. He saw her in that moment as the one thing in life that could make him whole again.
But it was not to be, for she fled to the Abbey. She climbed its hundreds of steps, and he could not reach her. She was too high. Like the balloon that floats up, up, up and up out of the reach of the small child. Tears streamed down his face once he realized what he had lost.
Days of pain and soul-searching. Wondering what had gone wrong. He stood in the foyer and remembered the day he had said he was sorry. His feet climbed the same set of stairs to her room; he opened the door slightly and then peered into the gloom. The off-white and gold drapes were closed and choking out the sunshine that she had brought into his life. Opening the wardrobe, he saw dresses: beige and practical, floral and Austrian, blue and gauzy. Running the blue silk through his fingers, he was struck with the same intensity of feelings, of sadness, of despair, only rivaled by those that he felt the day Agathe had died.
Hoping to drown his sorrows, he decided to do what society suggested was the right thing. He proposed.
But then she came back.
Only then did he realize the gravity of his decision to propose marriage to a woman that he did not love. Maria had saved him yet again. Saved him from making a terrible mistake. As much as he owed Elsa and enjoyed her company, she was not what he needed. Not what he wanted. She wasn't even right for the children.
Maria had returned and his whole life stopped short. He knew in that moment what he wanted to do...what he needed to do. He was on the edge of something, perhaps the greatest scandal to hit Salzburg in years, but he was beyond caring at this point. Not when he realized that she was his entire world.
After he dismissed the children to the villa for their dinner, he was left alone with her. This time it was she who looked up at him standing tall and apparently unaffected on the steps, while she fought back the tears that threatened to escape.
He descended the stairs...
...so...painfully…slowly...
One…
...Two…
.-.-.-Three…
.-.-. …Four...
With each step, he realized with clarity that her status...his status...the world of a Baron and Knight, that absolutely none of it mattered in any of this. Not when his world would stop turning if she left him again.
He loved her. He needed to come down to her level and to make her see. Just like when they had danced a peasant's dance of courtship instead of an intricate society waltz.
He could be hers. She could be his.
"Why did you?"
"Please don't ask me. Anyway, the reason no longer exists."
In his heart, he knew the reason; it was crystal clear. He could see it in her eyes. If she would not admit it, then he would have to tell her the reason.
But then Elsa appeared, and the bubble had burst. In a fit of possessiveness, Elsa had grasped onto his hands, hanging on to what was hers as she backed herself into his chest, trying to become one before it was time.
ooOoo
Inside Elsa fumed. Had she not already rid herself of this pest? She glared down at Maria. Her lowly position was as plain as the nose on her face. As much as it's clear he is infatuated with you, he would never lower himself. It's too late now, Maria. I am sure you will make a fine nun!
ooOoo
Despite Elsa's sudden appearance, he needed Maria to stay. He needed to tell her why she came back even if she would not admit it to herself. He needed her to know how complete his life would be complete if she stayed.
He just needed to clean up this damn mess he had made in a fit of despondency. He had convinced himself that his high priestess, his gift from God, had done her job – had reunited him with the children, prepared them for a new mother - and then left.
But really, she was their mother...she just had to stay.
He could not let her climb those hundreds of steps to the Abbey and out of his life.
Maria's eyes met his with a steely stare, and it was obvious that she had noticed he was still wearing his wedding band. Her eyes burned him, silently scolding him in disgust: how could you? And then she pushed her shoulders back and walked by them both, offering hollow wishes of congratulations.
ooOoo
Maria was certain that the Captain did not love Elsa. Even a blind man could see that! Seeing her ring still on his finger proved it. But that was his business. What hurt her the most in that moment was not her broken heart, but the fact that he would settle for someone who didn't love the children, that he would settle for a life of half-bests.
Her soul ached for him, because she loved him with all her heart.
ooOoo
He knew that she was heartbroken, but he could still see her love for him in her eyes despite that steely stare. That same look that had cut him like a knife on the landing the day she had laid his faults at his feet.
Don't panic, Captain! Hold yourself together!
Maria, Please don't go!
Georg released his hand from Elsa's grasp, and he turned, stepping towards Maria once more. Her relative position on the stairs made him realize she was the only thing that was right in this world. He needed to reach up to touch what made his life complete even if it meant leaving Elsa behind.
Money didn't matter. His life would be much more rich with Maria than with Elsa.
"You are back to stay?"
I want you to stay. I need you to stay. Please say you will stay?
Climbing the stairs toward her made her feel closer somehow, but in reality, he knew that the gulf that separated them in that moment was wider than the Atlantic. Regardless, Georg reached for something indescribable that he saw in her eyes.
His future.
She made him a better man. She alone turned his life around; away from the hurt of the past, and that meant he had to turn away from Elsa.
"Only until arrangements can be made…"
Not so long ago, he was the one who had apologized to her on the stairs, and it was he who had to flee from his feelings to the safety of the salon. Today it was the opposite: he was the one left behind. She had fled. Again.
What a damn mess!
All through dinner he charted a course.
Elsa would be hurt, but it was impossible to avoid.
Tongues would wag. But he did not care.
When had he ever hunted a ship in a conventional fashion? Why the hell did he decide that now, when the future was so painfully clear, that he needed to follow the rules?
Elsa saw the writing on the wall and gave him the greatest gift she had ever bestowed. Not a fountain pen, not a villa in the south of France, and most certainly not a yacht. She had given him his freedom.
As the sound of Elsa's heels disappeared into the night, he looked out over the lake. Looking down at the gate by the landing where Maria had just stood moments before, her delicate shadow now distant as it wove itself between the trees. From his position on the balcony, he wanted to reach out to her, to cry out to her from his pulpit.
I will make you happy. Please let me love you!
ooOoo
And she did.
The morning after her return, merely hours after he had proposed, this time to the right woman, he and Maria had met on the steps coming down from their respective wings of the villa. At that moment Georg was struck by the symbolism of their very different backgrounds and positions in society. It was a beautiful mélange, a coming together. Where the mountain met the sea and created something entirely new and beautiful. At that moment, they left what had separated them behind. Together forever. The past was an integral part of them both, but it mattered far less than their shared future.
ooOoo
At that moment, he was snapped out of his reverie by the sound of the cathedral organ.
He had been here before at the altar. But today it was different. Today he understood that life could be cut short. He knew that love could be fleeting. He realized that his happiness, and the happiness of his family, could be finally and thoroughly restored after four years of sadness. He knew that he had been blessed.
He waited patiently as he looked over the crowd, waiting, craning his neck, looking for a glimpse of her. His beautiful Maria. He stood waiting for her to climb the steps into his life as his wife and life partner.
He knew he would see her soon as the sisters gathered into the vestibule. The gate opened slowly, and his eyes met the smiling faces of his three children. They began their slow climb towards the sanctuary. Gretl and Marta beaming like the sun.
Then he spotted her. That dress – he could not have imagined anything or anyone more beautiful. And her eyes – they locked with his immediately. She smiled widely at him with only her eyes, and he at her.
Apart from the procession of his three daughters, she walked alone. No man on her arm to walk her down the aisle and pass her into her new life. It was purposeful, however, for both Max and Friedrich had offered to give her away, but she refused. She had told them that she had already picked someone to lead her. Raising his eyebrows in shock, Georg could not fathom who she knew well enough to ask to take on this role.
He remembered her words as clearly as it was yesterday.
She had looked up at him, her eyes shining with unshed tears. A soft smile gracing her beautiful face.
"Agathe, Georg. Agathe will walk me down the aisle. I want her to be the one to give me permission to be your wife and their mother. I will gather my resolve and bravery from her to do this alone. I will show them in the crowd that this is my place. That my place is with you. With the children. As a family."
And so, he watched them both. Together. Liesl and the littles leading the way, but Agathe was holding the hand of his bride along the very steps she herself had once taken. Fulfilling her promise that she would send someone to him one day.
He realized that he was not smiling openly at that instant, but it was not for a lack of joy and love in his heart. The moment was just too profound to assign a singular emotion. When Maria reached the bottom of the stairs, he felt it all through his body. Life had come full circle; the mistakes of the past had been forgiven, if not forgotten. He breathed deeply as Agathe disappeared from his mind's eye and he locked eyes once more with his Maria.
As she climbed the stairs, edging so painfully slowly towards him, he moved his hat to his left hand, and held out his right. Reaching, grabbing on, and never letting go. Together, her hand in his, they walked towards their new life with the strength, love, and joy that they had found in each other.
Climbing to the highest heights, farther than they ever thought possible.
Together.