For All Our Sakes

-WARNING, NO BONDAGE AND QUITE SAPPY. DEAL WITH IT-

Elizabeth looked up from the fire at a gentle knock on the door. It was a light tap, such a soft double-rap that it could almost have been mistaken for her heartbeat. She rose slowly, frowning slightly, then heard another pair of beats on the door. Her long skirts swishing on the floor, she pulled peephole at the door open and gazed out.

His face was framed in the door, the shock of his pale face caught in the moonlight, framed by the dark shadow of his black hair, more shadows under his sharp cheekbones, making him look almost skeletal. His eyes, those dark eyes, so brown that they were almost black behind their long curled lashes gazed straight into hers, checking her motion as she went to slam the little door shut.

“Let me in,” he whispered, voice a low rasp through the air.

She felt a cold smile spread across her face, her deep Sargasso-sea blue eyes freezing over, those soft loveheart lips twisting into a bitter warped line.

“There is no power on heaven or hell that could incite me to open this door,” She returned, ice crystals crackling in her tone.

“Not even for what we once shared?” he raised one dagger-like brow. “Elizabeth...”

His voice tailed off, a longing whisper, and she felt her heart catch, just a little.

“We have shared nothing,” She almost snarled, eyes slitting. “What happened happened between two different people, so very different people, so very long ago.”

He raised a hand, leaning closer to the square trapdoor, his hand gliding across the woodwork, pillowing him against it as his eyes bored deep into hers.

“I didn’t kill him Elizabeth,” he murmured. “I didn’t kill any of them. I know that is what every-one wants to believe, wants to make you believe, but it was not me. If I could make any-one believe that, I would pray for it to be you.”

There was the sound of racing hoofbeats in the night behind him, but he didn’t look away, just rested his forehead against the door, his eyes semi-lidded now, voice lowering further until it was almost a prayer.

“If any-one could believe me, it would be you,” he murmured. “I honestly believe that you are the only one who has ever known me, known my heart, known my soul, and loved me despite it all. For that Elizabeth, dearest loveliest Elizabeth, I owe you everything. I would not harm anything you love, I would cut out my own heart first. You know what I am Elizabeth.” His eyes snapped up into hers, fixing her, transfixing her. “And you know that I am a better man than that, a better man than they want you to believe. My word is my bond. I promised your husband, and I promised you. You know me too well to think that I would renege upon that promise.”

There was a long silence, dispersed only with the closing hoofbeats, and the rattling of mailed gauntlets upon the front gate.

“I knew a young boy a long time ago,” Elizabeth said after a moment. “A young, kind, honourable boy, who sometimes wavered towards being somewhat naive. But I see nothing of him in you.” Her blue eyes seared into his. “We should have left our love in the gutter where we found it.”

His long pale fingers, those long tapered fingers with their carefully clipped nails, patterned with calluses and scars, caressed the ironwork that separated them, and he looked up at her from under his lashes, those long lashes, black tipped with gold.

“I could never leave that love,” He breathed.

“You did,” She countered softly.

“Only at your request,” He reminded her. “You must remember, both of us, stood underneath the willows, you perfect in white, barefoot on the grass slick with the morning dew, me stained with the smoke and blood of the battlefield.”

“Don’t...”

She tried to cut him off, but he just pressed on, his eager eyes searching out hers, trying to meet them as they flickered over the tiles beneath her.

“I’d ridden all night to get to you,” He continued. “But I was too late, you had made your choice, you had sealed your heart in bands of 24 carat gold, and had the proof of the confinement on your finger, the perfect realisation that I could never have you, that you would never be mine the way you had so earnestly promised me once, under those very same trees. You chose your cage, you broke your promise to me by making your vows to him. I have always stood by your decision.”

“Don’t...” she repeated, but he kept going, crash of the citadel gates opening underlying his words.

“You asked me to leave you, to let you love again, or at least do the best that you could, and I obeyed you,” his voice hardened slightly. “I am no saint Elizabeth, could you expect me to be chaste for a woman who I knew I had no chance of ever being with again? I left you and your choice, your precious lord, alone. I even defended him. Yes, I wanted you. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. But not like that. Not like this.”

He swallowed and pressed his forehead against the door again, closing his eyes.

“Please, for all our sakes Elizabeth, believe me, I did not murder your husband, I did not take your sons,” he intoned, voice seemingly as steady as before, but she could hear the desperation in his voice, as it sped up, words almost tripping over themselves in their fear and longing. “If you won’t let me in, then please, just believe. If I’m going to die for a crime that I did not commit, executed for some other traitor’s crimes, then let me at least...” his voice broke suddenly, and she saw him swallow hard.

He straightened up, taking a slight step back, and those obsidian eyes met her aquamarines through the thorns of the metal.

“Let me at least deceive myself that you do still love me,” He almost pleaded. “Please Elizabeth, even if it is a lie, let me believe that you even half believe me, that a shadow of your soul still has enough sympathy for mine to forgive me the way it did. The way it always did. Give me a lie if you have to Elizabeth. Consider it a dead man’s last wish.”

A tear slid down the porcelain white cheek beyond the peephole, and she took a long ragged breath, the air shuddering down into her lungs.

“Please.”

The peephole slammed shut and he closed his eyes, his head dropping forwards with a ragged gasp of pain. His pale hand splayed over his chest as a blade seemed to be driven through it, spiking deep into his heart... then he tilted his head back, the waves of his black hair cascading back, the silver stars reflecting in the deep pools of his eyes, and he gave a low laugh. A bitter, choked sound. He turned and pattered down the steps to her door, and drew his sword, twirling it with the familiar ease of long practice, the silver wire of the handguard glittering, the onyx in the pommel shining like his eyes.

He fell into his stance, sword at the ready, his back to the door, facing down the narrow street, waiting for the approaching footmen. A calm had fallen over him, the old, well known numbness before the storm, the serenity he had found on so many battlefields, only this time, it only felt more complete. He honestly did not care. He might die, he might not. Let them come, he had nothing to hope for or fear. He blew out one long breath, his breath misting in the moonlight, a fine cloud of silver, his heart loud in his ears.

And then came the soft creak of metal and wood.

He spun around. Golden light spilled onto the street, and there, holding the door open, pale as an angel, her long golden waves of hair kissing the alabaster skin of her neck and shoulders, a red shawl clutched close to her, her blue eyes found his, and the golden spear of her eyebrow cocked.

“Who am I to deny a last wish?” She demanded lightly, her voice so tender, then her lips quirked up at the very corner, amusement and chastisement filtering into her tone. “Now come in, before I let all the heat out.”

His dark eyes danced in the moonlight and his teeth gleamed as his lips stretched into a wild smile. Sheathing the sword, he sprang up the steps and over the threshold, bathing in the warmth on his night-cooled skin, and drew the door shut after him, slamming the bolt home. She tilted her head to one side, her hair a shimmering cascade, watching him. He drew closer and raised a hand, running his fingertips through it, feeling the familiar kinks and curls and almost jumped as her hand caressed his cheek.

There was an almighty crash from outside, the tramp of armoured feet. They both snapped apart, wheeling around, barely breathing as some-one tested the door vigorously. After a silence that lasted an age, the footsteps withdrew, then their solemn march continued past. He blew out a long breath, trying to steady his heart and felt it skitter again as her head gently rested on his shoulder.

“Is this real? Or are you only playing for time until they come to arrest me?” he asked, seemingly only half to her, then held up a pale hand with a wry smile. “No, don’t say anything. I do not want to know.”

Elizabeth looked up at him with a small smile.

“Then I will only say this,” She replied. “How strong do you think I am?”

“The strongest woman I know,” he responded honestly, and saw a flash of amusement cross her face.

“Not strong enough,” She reached up to gently stroke his hair, twirling it around the tip of her middle finger. “I’ve just lost my husband and both my sons. Do you really think that I would be able to lose the man I love?”

His eyes widened, his white sclera a shock against the piano black of his iris.

“Love?” He echoed in a tremulous whisper.

She gave a very small smile and lifted one shoulder.

“I knew from the day I first met you, you would be impossible to forget.”

He stared at her, then sank to one knee before her, looking up at her, drawing his poniard and holding it, hilt first, out to her.

“Then I give you my solemn oath Elizabeth,” he swore. “I will find your sons, I will avenge your husband, and I will prove my innocence. The next time we meet, I will come in through your front entrance, not beg admittance at your side-door.”

She took the blade and turned it over in her hands, then shook her head.

“No,” Elizabeth murmured. “I need more than that.”

He blinked at her.

“Then ask it,” he commanded her. “I am yours.”

She sank to her knees before him, her eyes on a level with his.

“I need your promise that, even if you fail, that you will come back to me.”

His mouth lifted at the corner, eyes lighting up like black diamonds, an almost roguish look flashing over his face and making her heart stutter, reminding him of that boy she had known so long ago.

“As if anything could stop me.”