Chapter Text
She looks at the face of the man that she thought she knew and on his face sees the face of a stranger. A familiar one, perhaps the face of one she may have passed in the street several times but not the one that she had been expecting to see on the face of the man in front of her.
They stand on the cliff facing each other and she fights everything within her to not go running to him the way she had on discovering he still lived, those many weeks ago. She cannot bring herself to pick up her heels and so she looks, and he looks back, and it feels simultaneously like a beginning and an end.
An end to the life they had known, the dream of the life that they may have known and the beginning of their new uncertain path. There had been too much deceit for them to continue as if nothing had changed but there was hope, and as he had said he would wait for her forever if that was what it took; wait he would, she was sure.
Whether she wanted him to wait, well. She wanted him to wait. She wanted to be able to forgive him, with every fibre of her being, but as of yet she cannot say that she does.
He is no longer king but she is still queen, as she was before him and will remain so long after him.
And so they stand on the cliff, and the wind rushes past them, and they look, and he waits.
“Are you planning to stand there forever?” she says.
“If that is what you desire,” he replies.
“What good are you to me on a cliff face?” she asks.
He is momentarily dumbfounded. He cannot answer her.
“I… suppose you’re right,” he says, pausing briefly. “I suppose I am no use at all.”
“You mistake me, John Silver,” she says quietly, “if you think that I have never needed you, for purposes either business or personal. I have needed you often and will most likely continue to do so.
The difficulty I have, is that I am unable to picture moving forwards without you and yet I do not know if I wish to move forwards with you.”
“But you will let me prove myself?” he asks, hesitating, unsure.
“I do not know. I would like to say that I will.” She does not react to the way he lifts his head, does not allow herself to feel the hope in his eyes. “I would like a lot of things. I would like my people to be safe and free, and yet that is something that you and your version of this war have squandered for me.
“You mistake, John Silver, that my love for you does not outweigh my love of my people, and my care of my people and it will never.”
Her voice softens as she continues, watching carefully as his gaze lowers once more. “This does not mean that I do not love you. Care for you. But only that you cannot make me choose between the two of you - you told me once you told Flint you would not choose between a war and a wife, and I will neither choose between a war or a husband.
I am to fight this war regardless of whether or not you stand beside me, but it would be much easier if you would.”
“This is where I first failed, is it not?” The ghost of a smile graces his lips. A pathetic, sad thing. “I chose. I chose what I thought was my wife; when in reality chose my war and in doing so… I have lost us everything.”
“This is what we must contend with,” she agrees. “And I need you aware of this, not blinded this time by him or by your ambition or whatever it is. You must be cognisant of the facts and the facts are that I cannot walk away and you will not ask me to do so. Do you understand?”
He looks up from where he had been studying his foot for the last few minutes. “I understand,” he says. “I will… wait for ever.”
“I do not want you to wait. I need you to work.”
“Then I will work.” His face is earnest. “Whatever you require, I will do.”
She doesn’t say anything, only stretches out a hand to him. Her face is impassive and he hesitates slightly before reaching for it, hobbling towards her. She locks their fingers together and begins to make her way down the hill, slightly ahead of him. Silent.
For now, this would be enough, she thinks.