Disclaimer: Corpse Bride belongs to Tim Burton. You can't trust me with a property like this.

Continuity/Spoilers: Set after the end of the movie, with reference to Emily's final fate.


"It is an unusual purchase for newlyweds," said the stonemason's clerk.

"Yes, i know," replied Victor. "We recently lost someone to whom we owe a great deal, and we wanted to honor her."

The clerk stared at them impassively. Victor fought the urge to squirm. "Very well." He gestured with one hand to the door in the back. "I have here samples of the various stone types we work with. Templates for grave markers are outside, along the far wall."

"Thank you," said Victor, and took Victoria's arm. She lifted her skirt with her free hand as they crossed the room, to ease the step down into the back garden.

Their footsteps crunched on the gravel that covered the ground. The garden, if it could be called that, was filled haphazardly with statues, benches, and all sorts of other stone carvings. Victor hardly knew where to look.

"What do you think?" Victoria prompted gently.

"I think . . . the shopkeeper seemed very unfriendly," Victor replied.

"I meant for the monument."

"Oh . . ." Victor surveyed the garden. One rock looked much the same as the next to him, and yet there were a dizzying array of options to choose from. When he suggested putting up a marker for Emily, he hadn't realized it would be so complicated. "Ah . . . this one?" He waved a hand at a block of black and grey-flecked stone that had yet to be carved.

Emily looked at it and nodded. She looked just as bewildered as he was. "It's nice," she said.

"Yes, i agree." Victor cast around. The man at the desk had mentioned templates for headstones, but he couldn't see any beyond the crowds of statuary.

"He said the gravestones were at the back," said Victoria hesitantly.

"Right! Right." Victor offered her his hand. "Shall we go?"

Victoria took his hand, though they soon had to release each other in order to weave around the stone figures of great heroes of the past, duck under the arms of dancing women, and step over hounds close to the ground.

Victoria navigated the maze without complaint. Victor couldn't do any less, though he had no idea how the stonemason managed to work in such a crowded environment. More to the point, he didn't know what Victoria must be thinking.

She said that she was grateful to Emily too, but Victor couldn't tell if she meant it. Maybe she was simply indulging him, and wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.

"Victoria–" he started to say, but she didn't hear him. "Here they are!" she exclaimed, cutting him off. She twisted in a surprisingly fluid motion around a bench; Victor lost sight of her. He climbed over the bench after her and was confronted with an angel flung over a stone bier, sobbing into its arms.

"Not very subtle, is it?" he observed.

"It is rather dramatic," Victoria agreed. "Did you want a statue, or a simple marker? They're behind . . ." She gestured at the back wall, which was indeed lined with standing headstones.

Victor didn't think that Emily would want the weeping angel to mark her resting place. He could imagine her making mock of it to shock a laugh out of him.

For a moment, it hurt how much he missed her.

"One of the simple ones, i think," he said. "Something elegant." He eased around the grief-stricken angel and gave Victoria his hand so she could follow. Together they surveyed the options available.

The array wasn't so dizzying as the rest of the yard, for which Victor was grateful. It didn't help him to make up his mind. He saw the standard toe-shaped model, but didn't want to choose that one. It was too plain, too simple for someone like Emily.

She had moved on, but her memory deserved the best to make up for all she had missed in life.

Perhaps he should look at this as an artistic endeavor. There was no right headstone, only one that he felt suited Emily. He didn't know which she might like, and he simply could not ask Victoria, so he would instead have to trust his instinct.

He selected a stone, a tall slab as was traditional, but topped with a tiered cornice like a Greek column. It was beautiful without being over the top, elegant without being elaborate.

"What do you think of this one?" he asked Victoria.

"I think she would be very happy with it," she replied.

"Thank you," he said, and meant it. It was nice to have a woman's input, even if she must surely resent Emily's influence. This was the right marker.

Victor was unsure what to do next. If he were an expert in stonework, he could go back into the shop and tell the man at the desk that he wanted this shape of headstone made from that kind of rock, but he wasn't. He was a dreamer, an artist, a musician, but no geologist.

"Shall we sit down for a while?" he ventured.

"That sounds lovely," Victoria replied. They returned to the bench beside the weeping angel. She sat looking about her with an air of faint interest, somehow managing to look right at home while Victor searched for something to say. He was not nearly so comfortable. Not when he had no idea what she might be thinking.

"Tell me–" he blurted, only to falter when Victoria looked at him. "What do – what do your parents think of–" he gestured uselessly – "all this?"

"I doubt they approve," Victoria admitted after a moment of thought. "But after the debacle with Lord Barkis . . ." She trailed off. "I think they're rather embarrassed by the whole thing. They want to put it behind them as quickly as possible without causing any more fuss."

Victor attempted a smile and a shrug. "Mine may have written me off entirely as an eccentric. As long as the two of us are married, and i don't cause too much of a commotion, they'll overlook it. As you said, they got what they wanted,"

"Oh yes, it's all according to plan," Victoria quipped, and it was so unexpected coming from her that Victor laughed. Victoria smiled then looked back at the shop, unexpectedly close above the forest of statuary. "I suppose we should go back in and speak to the man."

Victor couldn't let on that he didn't know what he was doing. "Yes, i suppose so." He rose and held out his hand. "Shall we?" He helped her to her feet and was relieved to see the clerk on his way to join them. It was a simple matter to point out his selections on their way inside.

At the desk once more, the clerk noted down their order in a language that only those of the stonemason's profession could understand and looked up at them. "And what shall we carve for the epitaph?"

"Emily. She was . . ." Victor's throat seized up. How could he ever explain what she meant to him? Reduce her essence to a few words on a stone marker?

Victoria came to his rescue. "Say that she was a loving bride, and that she had a generous heart. She will always be remembered."

Still unable to speak past the lump in his throat, Victor nodded. He suspected those words meant something different to Victoria than they did to him, but they would do. He could not phrase it better.


The day came. With Emily's headstone carved, the stonemason had it loaded into a cart so he and some laborers could set it up in the woods that had been her final resting place. Victor and Victoria followed in the Van Dort coach, as far as the terrain would allow. Beyond that, Emily's marker had to be transferred to a wheelbarrow. The party progressed on foot. Victor and Victoria had discussed setting the marker in the town cemetery, but it simply didn't feel right. Emily had never been buried in a grave. Better to put the marker up in the forest where she'd waited until Victor disturbed her. Though Emily had certainly passed on, she deserved to be remembered. Here, where she had died and Victor had met her.

The gravestone looked lovely, trucked under the tree that had held her body in its roots. Spring was coming soon, and signs were beginning to appear wherever Victor looked. Reddish leaf buds were forming at the tips of bare, skeletal branches. New shoots of green growth showed in patches on the black soil. It made Victor's heart ache in a strange way. Even the Sun was shining.

Beside him, Victoria clutched the bouquet from their wedding. She had saved it instead of tossing it among the attendees. Now it was dry and crinkly, but not unpleasantly so. Victor had thought she was mad when she hung it upside-down, but the flowers had kept their shape nicely.

The newlyweds lingered there among the trees as the stonemason's crew packed up their tools and departed muttering among themselves about the strange ways of those who had more money than they knew what to do with. The Van Dorts' new driver, hired after Mayhew's sudden and unexpected arrival down below, waited with the carriage back where the forest had become impassable.

Victor was keenly aware of Victoria's presence as he approached the headstone and dropped to his knees in the freshly-turned soil. She had asked to be here, and he could not deny her, but he knew what his position was. He had married Emily while engaged to Victoria, and even now that Emily was gone and he was with Victoria a piece of his heart still belonged to Emily.

"Emily," he said softly, and his voice stopped again. He cleared his throat. "I had this made for you, to remember you by. Wherever you are now, i hope you like it. I don't know where you've gone, but . . ." I miss you. But that wouldn't be fair to Victoria. "I will never forget you," he murmured instead.

Heedless of the damage to her dress, Victoria knelt on the other side of the tombstone. She laid her dried bouquet at its foot and sat back. "We never really . . . got to know each other, you and i, did we?" she asked. "I wish we could have spoken to each other properly. I think . . ." She glanced sidelong at Victor. "I know we had some things in common. I would have liked to know you, i think. We'll never know now, so all i can say is thank you. Thank you for allowing me the marriage you never had. I hope you're in a better place."

Victor had not expected Victoria to say anything of the sort. He stared at her from the corner of his eye as it occurred to him he didn't really know her at all. He would have to try harder to understand her.

The two sat there, each with their thoughts, for some time. Finally Victor stood and drew his wife to her feet. They cast one last look at the headstone.

"Goodbye," said Victor. For the first time in a very long time, he felt at peace.

As they departed the spot Victor would forever think of as Emily's grove, a butterfly fluttered up to his nose, then Victoria's – the first butterfly of spring. Victor smiled. He thought that perhaps Emily had heard them, and wished them well.

It was time to live.


A/N: I never shipped him with Emily, but i didn't realize until i tried to write this just how little respect i have for Victor. Makes me want to see if anyone's written any Victoria/Emily fics.