FIC: Five Other Ways Laurence Could Have Asked Jane to Marry Him
Title: Five Other Ways Laurence Could Have Asked Jane to Marry Him
Author: sahiya
Pairing/Rating: Jane/Laurence, PG-13
Word Count: 2600
Summary: Five other ways it could have happened, with mixed results.
Author's Note: Procrastinate on my ficathon fic? Moi? *shifty eyes* Thanks to fuzzyboo03 for the beta.
Feedback feeds the Muse!
Five Other Ways Laurence Could Have Asked Jane to Marry Him
I.
“Well,” Laurence said, leaning forward on the edge of Jane’s bed, his elbows on his knees. “Well,” he said again after a moment, simply for the sake of saying anything at all.
Fortunately Jane did not seem to begrudge him his sudden idiocy. “Yes,” she sighed and rubbed a hand wearily across her face. “At least it might not be for nothing. Temeraire is younger than is quite ideal, but if it is a boy - or even if it is not -”
“Jane,” Laurence said, raising his head, “will you marry me?”
Jane did not answer for a long while; nor did she look at him. Laurence’s heart sank. He had never asked before, and for good reason; he knew what she thought of marriage - succinctly, that it was for other people. It had bothered him, but never greatly, and he had seen that it would simply be unfair to expect an admiral of the Royal Aerial Corps to act the wife for him. But now, with fatherhood staring him in the face, it suddenly seemed rather more important.
“If it is a matter of my reputation,” Jane began at last.
“No,” Laurence said, and then was forced to amend, “Or not only.”
“If it is the child you are thinking of, being natural born is not thought ill of in the Corps. Only look at Emily -”
“No,” Laurence said again, firmly. “Jane, I wish . . .” Laurence drew a deep breath. “I wish to present you to my parents. I am not ashamed of you, or of us, or, God knows, of our child, and I wish to present you to my parents.”
“If you are not ashamed, my dear fellow,” Jane replied quietly, “then why must I marry you before you may do so?”
Laurence flushed. “You are not just, Jane. You know perfectly well how it is. My parents believe Emily is mine, did you know?”
“And so?” Jane said, raising her eyebrows. “Soon she will have a brother or sister who is yours. Pray tell me, Laurence, what does it matter what your parents believe?”
“It matters,” Laurence said, searching desperately in his mind for a way to make her understand. No reasoned argument he could think of would be sufficient, he realized suddenly, and so he offered up the only thing he thought might be. “It matters to me.”
Jane was silent again. Laurence saw her rest her hand on her stomach, fingers splayed, and after a moment he reached over and did the same, sliding his fingers in between her own. It was very flat still, but it would not be for much longer. She was nearly three months along, she had told him, but had not wanted to say anything before, because at her age it sometimes did not take.
“We must do something about the vows,” she said at last. “I cannot swear to obey you and then hand you your orders.”
Laurence felt his face fairly crack with his smile. “Thank you, Jane. Thank you.”
She shook her head, and moved her hand so that it covered his. “I think it’s foolish, but if it makes you so very happy - well, why not?”
He kissed her then. It was not perhaps the reaction Laurence might have hoped for to a marriage proposal, but it was in its essence yes, and it would do. It would do very well indeed.
II.
“Jane,” Laurence said, once he had recovered his voice; he thought he might lose courage if he waited much longer, “will you marry me?”
Jane, laying sprawled across his chest, her long hair streaming through his fingers, lifted her head, looked at him a moment, and promptly reached for her glass of wine by the bed. She swallowed half of it at once. “My dear fellow,” she said then, setting it aside and laying a hand on his chest, stroking lightly, “no.”
Laurence stared for a moment, certain he had misheard. He had waited two weeks now, for them to be alone and intimate and unhurried, so they might have time before and after he asked, to simply be together. He had thought there might be rather more negotiation involved than was quite normal, but he had not expected her to simply say no.
He could not quite think what to say. Why not? sounded petulant and complaining. He thought there was no use in asking if she were certain, or if she wished to consider it. After a moment, however, she took pity on him and handed him his own glass before resting her head on his shoulder. “Pray do not think it is because I do not care for you,” she said.
“But -”
“Hush.” She laid her fingers on his lips, lightly, and tilted her head at him. “Marriage, Laurence? For me? Oh, what a dreadful wife I would make you, only think of it. I am sorry if that is what you want, but you had best seek it with someone else.”
She said this very casually, but Laurence, watching her in the flickering light of the candles, saw the slight quiver in her mouth as she said it, and something eased in his heart. Of course they could not marry; what had he been thinking? But perhaps, if circumstances were different - she did care, and that was what mattered. The rest was merely decorum, and though he would be lying to say he did not give a fig for decorum - he had been a Naval officer for far too long - he could live without it, at least.
“No,” he said, managing a smile for her, “I only thought - but it does not matter.”
“No,” she said, her own smile far more genuine. She reached a hand down between them beneath the bedclothes. He gasped, pushing against her. “It does not, after all.”
III.
“Jane, will you marry Laurence?”
Jane paused, hand poised in the air to help illustrate a tactical point. Laurence buried his face in his hands and restrained the urge either to flee Temeraire’s clearing or murder his dragon.
“I - ” For once, Jane appeared entirely speechless. She looked from Laurence to Temeraire and back to Laurence, her face a frozen mask of surprise. “I did not realize Laurence wished for me to marry him.”
“He believes you will refuse him,” Temeraire said, nudging at Laurence. “I think the whole matter quite foolish, but it would make him very happy. Won’t you, then?”
Jane said nothing, though when Laurence finally managed to find the courage to glance at her face, she looked like nothing so much as though she were struggling not to laugh while she waited for him to either support or refute Temeraire’s claim. “Temeraire,” Laurence said, rather miserably, “I never - that is, I believe you misunderstood me.”
“You were perfectly clear,” Temeraire said, and Laurence reflected that someday soon he would have to explain to Temeraire the concept of subtlety. Not that he believed his beloved dragon would have any use for it. “You said you wished to ask Jane to marry you, but you believed she would refuse you. I cannot believe that anyone sensible would ever refuse you.”
Laurence did not remind him that he had, in fact, already been refused once by someone quite sensible and had not wished to repeat the experience. But as that was apparently not to be, he sighed to himself and turned to Jane with a sense of foreboding. “Very well then. Will you marry me?”
“I . . .” Jane looked at Temeraire, her brow furrowed. “I am very sorry to disappoint you both,” she said at last.
“Oh, but why not?” Temeraire persisted. “Laurence is very nice, and I believe he is handsome, though I do not quite understand how that is judged in a man.”
“Very nice indeed, and handsome as well,” Jane assured him. “I enjoy Laurence very much. It is not that I do not wish to marry him, it is only that I do not wish to marry at all.”
“Oh,” Temeraire said, appearing mollified. “That is all right then. I do not think I would wish to marry either, if I could.”
Jane appeared relieved. “Well, then,” she said, “that is that. I shall see you at dinner, Laurence?”
“Yes, of course,” he said, and watched as she took her leave. He could not sort out what he felt. He had known what she would say, after all; there was a reason he had never asked. But to be refused stung all the same.
“There now,” Temeraire said. He nudged at Laurence once more, causing him to stumble and nearly fall over. “Was that so very terrible?”
“Temeraire, my dear,” Laurence said with a sigh, leaning on his dragon’s foreleg and stroking his nose with rueful affection, “pray be so kind as to never help me again in such matters.”
IV.
They were both of them windblown and blood spattered when they met after the action; Laurence could feel yet the thrum of the battle in his blood and Jane’s color was high, her long hair escaping its plait to wisp about her face. He remembered the thrill of the sight of her, standing in place on Excidium’s back, sword in hand. She had seemed a living Artemis or Diana, and he had wondered how he had ever loved Edith.
He had made his decision in that moment; he had realized then that it was no matter of propriety, but rather a desire to have this remarkable woman with him in all things, which he supposed was, in the end, the only good and proper reason to marry at all.
He was forced to hold his tongue until the other captains vacated her office; when at last they were gone, Jane bent over her desk, her plait coming yet further undone, and wrote something before straightening. “Laurence,” she said with some surprise. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“Yes,” Laurence said. “Will you marry me?”
She stared at him a moment before her face broke into a wide smile. “Laurence, I have seen some strange reactions to battle in my time, but I do believe this is the strangest yet.”
“I am deadly serious, Jane. Will you marry me?”
She set her quill aside and came around the desk, drew him over to sit with her. “Laurence,” she said quietly.
He could not sit. He stood instead, though he kept her hands clasped in his. “I know it may be difficult -”
“Will,” she said, and he thought she meant his name - strange to think he was asking her to marry him and yet had never heard his Christian name from her lips - until she added, “Will be. Would be. Very difficult, indeed, and that isn’t the half of it. Laurence, I cannot -”
“Pray do not refuse me immediately,” he said, before she could finish. “Think on it at least.”
“Laurence,” she said again, and stood. “Laurence, why? Marriage is . . .” She shook her head. “It is not for me, it has never been for me. And I do not see why we should marry only to please others, when we may please each other just as well outside of it. It would only cause complications.”
Laurence could not quite understand this. To his mind, marriage would be a simplification, a reassurance. He was not quite so roused now from the battle, but he retained that remarkable image of Jane all the same and he wished fiercely to, to - he did not know what, and after a moment he was forced to admit to himself that perhaps it had merely been the battle in his blood after all. Why else would he have put himself forward so impulsively? Not that it mattered; there was no mistaking her answer for anything but a refusal.
“Very well then,” he said, and immediately felt the fool; but what else was there to say, after all?
“Now come then, my good fellow,” she said. “Pray do not be melancholy. I have some matters to attend to here and we both must see our dragons fed, but then we should retire to my rooms, I think, and celebrate the day.”
He agreed, of course, and went out to Temeraire. She was a remarkable woman; he had known that even before today. And though he felt a bit wounded, his pride rather the worse for wear, perhaps that did not mean so much after all. Perhaps he could be satisfied with however much she was willing to give him; with however much they were willing to give each other.
And he might always ask again.
V.
“Laurence,” Jane said, “will you marry me?”
Laurence looked up from his breakfast, his mouth gaping open in what he knew to be unflattering shock. Of all the things he had expected on this morning - which was a strange morning any road, the first morning in thirty years that he did not anticipate going out to see Temeraire straight after breakfast - that had most certainly not been one of them.
It was not, after all, that Jane and Laurence had never discussed marriage in their three decades of intimate friendship; Laurence had even asked once, and been gently refused. To be asked now, when they were both well on in years, to put it mildly, was frankly astounding.
To be asked at all was, for Laurence, rather astounding, but this was Jane and he had finally ceased to be shocked by her, or so he had thought. She seemed out to prove him wrong today, or so it seemed by the mischievous way she smiled at him over her cup of coffee, like a girl of twenty rather than a woman of sixty-five.
“You may think on it, of course,” she said, when nearly a minute had gone by no answer. She quirked her eyebrow at him.
“I - I - yes, of course,” he said. “Of course I will. But why now?”
Jane smiled and sipped her coffee. “Call me quixotic, if you like. But I thought, well, I know it meant something to you, once, and we are both of us retired now, and our dragons’ needs are settled. There is no reason we should not, if we wish to.”
“But I thought - that is, I was quite under the impression, Jane, that you quite emphatically did not wish to?”
She smiled and reached across to place her left hand over his own. She turned it over and rubbed her thumb across his palm. “It is not so much for me, my dear, only I thought you might appreciate it.”
He looked down at their joined hands and tried to imagine the glint of rings on their fingers after so many years. “Perhaps it does not matter to me as much as it once did, but all the same - yes,” he said, decisively. “I think I would quite like that. Only . . .”
“Yes?” Jane asked, withdrawing her hand to sip once more at her coffee.
“I know it is foolish, but I would like to ask you. The only time I ever did you refused me without a thought.”
Jane laughed - the same hearty, strangely masculine laugh that had so intrigued Laurence all those many years ago. Her hair was grayer, her body softer, but her laugh remained the same. “Very well, then, if you like.”
Laurence set his own coffee cup aside and reached across to take her hand once more. She allowed him, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes crinkling yet further when she smiled. “Jane,” he said, “will you marry me?”
“Why yes, my dear fellow,” she replied, fingers closing over his own. “Nothing would make me happier.”
Fin.
Author: sahiya
Pairing/Rating: Jane/Laurence, PG-13
Word Count: 2600
Summary: Five other ways it could have happened, with mixed results.
Author's Note: Procrastinate on my ficathon fic? Moi? *shifty eyes* Thanks to fuzzyboo03 for the beta.
Feedback feeds the Muse!
Five Other Ways Laurence Could Have Asked Jane to Marry Him
I.
“Well,” Laurence said, leaning forward on the edge of Jane’s bed, his elbows on his knees. “Well,” he said again after a moment, simply for the sake of saying anything at all.
Fortunately Jane did not seem to begrudge him his sudden idiocy. “Yes,” she sighed and rubbed a hand wearily across her face. “At least it might not be for nothing. Temeraire is younger than is quite ideal, but if it is a boy - or even if it is not -”
“Jane,” Laurence said, raising his head, “will you marry me?”
Jane did not answer for a long while; nor did she look at him. Laurence’s heart sank. He had never asked before, and for good reason; he knew what she thought of marriage - succinctly, that it was for other people. It had bothered him, but never greatly, and he had seen that it would simply be unfair to expect an admiral of the Royal Aerial Corps to act the wife for him. But now, with fatherhood staring him in the face, it suddenly seemed rather more important.
“If it is a matter of my reputation,” Jane began at last.
“No,” Laurence said, and then was forced to amend, “Or not only.”
“If it is the child you are thinking of, being natural born is not thought ill of in the Corps. Only look at Emily -”
“No,” Laurence said again, firmly. “Jane, I wish . . .” Laurence drew a deep breath. “I wish to present you to my parents. I am not ashamed of you, or of us, or, God knows, of our child, and I wish to present you to my parents.”
“If you are not ashamed, my dear fellow,” Jane replied quietly, “then why must I marry you before you may do so?”
Laurence flushed. “You are not just, Jane. You know perfectly well how it is. My parents believe Emily is mine, did you know?”
“And so?” Jane said, raising her eyebrows. “Soon she will have a brother or sister who is yours. Pray tell me, Laurence, what does it matter what your parents believe?”
“It matters,” Laurence said, searching desperately in his mind for a way to make her understand. No reasoned argument he could think of would be sufficient, he realized suddenly, and so he offered up the only thing he thought might be. “It matters to me.”
Jane was silent again. Laurence saw her rest her hand on her stomach, fingers splayed, and after a moment he reached over and did the same, sliding his fingers in between her own. It was very flat still, but it would not be for much longer. She was nearly three months along, she had told him, but had not wanted to say anything before, because at her age it sometimes did not take.
“We must do something about the vows,” she said at last. “I cannot swear to obey you and then hand you your orders.”
Laurence felt his face fairly crack with his smile. “Thank you, Jane. Thank you.”
She shook her head, and moved her hand so that it covered his. “I think it’s foolish, but if it makes you so very happy - well, why not?”
He kissed her then. It was not perhaps the reaction Laurence might have hoped for to a marriage proposal, but it was in its essence yes, and it would do. It would do very well indeed.
II.
“Jane,” Laurence said, once he had recovered his voice; he thought he might lose courage if he waited much longer, “will you marry me?”
Jane, laying sprawled across his chest, her long hair streaming through his fingers, lifted her head, looked at him a moment, and promptly reached for her glass of wine by the bed. She swallowed half of it at once. “My dear fellow,” she said then, setting it aside and laying a hand on his chest, stroking lightly, “no.”
Laurence stared for a moment, certain he had misheard. He had waited two weeks now, for them to be alone and intimate and unhurried, so they might have time before and after he asked, to simply be together. He had thought there might be rather more negotiation involved than was quite normal, but he had not expected her to simply say no.
He could not quite think what to say. Why not? sounded petulant and complaining. He thought there was no use in asking if she were certain, or if she wished to consider it. After a moment, however, she took pity on him and handed him his own glass before resting her head on his shoulder. “Pray do not think it is because I do not care for you,” she said.
“But -”
“Hush.” She laid her fingers on his lips, lightly, and tilted her head at him. “Marriage, Laurence? For me? Oh, what a dreadful wife I would make you, only think of it. I am sorry if that is what you want, but you had best seek it with someone else.”
She said this very casually, but Laurence, watching her in the flickering light of the candles, saw the slight quiver in her mouth as she said it, and something eased in his heart. Of course they could not marry; what had he been thinking? But perhaps, if circumstances were different - she did care, and that was what mattered. The rest was merely decorum, and though he would be lying to say he did not give a fig for decorum - he had been a Naval officer for far too long - he could live without it, at least.
“No,” he said, managing a smile for her, “I only thought - but it does not matter.”
“No,” she said, her own smile far more genuine. She reached a hand down between them beneath the bedclothes. He gasped, pushing against her. “It does not, after all.”
III.
“Jane, will you marry Laurence?”
Jane paused, hand poised in the air to help illustrate a tactical point. Laurence buried his face in his hands and restrained the urge either to flee Temeraire’s clearing or murder his dragon.
“I - ” For once, Jane appeared entirely speechless. She looked from Laurence to Temeraire and back to Laurence, her face a frozen mask of surprise. “I did not realize Laurence wished for me to marry him.”
“He believes you will refuse him,” Temeraire said, nudging at Laurence. “I think the whole matter quite foolish, but it would make him very happy. Won’t you, then?”
Jane said nothing, though when Laurence finally managed to find the courage to glance at her face, she looked like nothing so much as though she were struggling not to laugh while she waited for him to either support or refute Temeraire’s claim. “Temeraire,” Laurence said, rather miserably, “I never - that is, I believe you misunderstood me.”
“You were perfectly clear,” Temeraire said, and Laurence reflected that someday soon he would have to explain to Temeraire the concept of subtlety. Not that he believed his beloved dragon would have any use for it. “You said you wished to ask Jane to marry you, but you believed she would refuse you. I cannot believe that anyone sensible would ever refuse you.”
Laurence did not remind him that he had, in fact, already been refused once by someone quite sensible and had not wished to repeat the experience. But as that was apparently not to be, he sighed to himself and turned to Jane with a sense of foreboding. “Very well then. Will you marry me?”
“I . . .” Jane looked at Temeraire, her brow furrowed. “I am very sorry to disappoint you both,” she said at last.
“Oh, but why not?” Temeraire persisted. “Laurence is very nice, and I believe he is handsome, though I do not quite understand how that is judged in a man.”
“Very nice indeed, and handsome as well,” Jane assured him. “I enjoy Laurence very much. It is not that I do not wish to marry him, it is only that I do not wish to marry at all.”
“Oh,” Temeraire said, appearing mollified. “That is all right then. I do not think I would wish to marry either, if I could.”
Jane appeared relieved. “Well, then,” she said, “that is that. I shall see you at dinner, Laurence?”
“Yes, of course,” he said, and watched as she took her leave. He could not sort out what he felt. He had known what she would say, after all; there was a reason he had never asked. But to be refused stung all the same.
“There now,” Temeraire said. He nudged at Laurence once more, causing him to stumble and nearly fall over. “Was that so very terrible?”
“Temeraire, my dear,” Laurence said with a sigh, leaning on his dragon’s foreleg and stroking his nose with rueful affection, “pray be so kind as to never help me again in such matters.”
IV.
They were both of them windblown and blood spattered when they met after the action; Laurence could feel yet the thrum of the battle in his blood and Jane’s color was high, her long hair escaping its plait to wisp about her face. He remembered the thrill of the sight of her, standing in place on Excidium’s back, sword in hand. She had seemed a living Artemis or Diana, and he had wondered how he had ever loved Edith.
He had made his decision in that moment; he had realized then that it was no matter of propriety, but rather a desire to have this remarkable woman with him in all things, which he supposed was, in the end, the only good and proper reason to marry at all.
He was forced to hold his tongue until the other captains vacated her office; when at last they were gone, Jane bent over her desk, her plait coming yet further undone, and wrote something before straightening. “Laurence,” she said with some surprise. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“Yes,” Laurence said. “Will you marry me?”
She stared at him a moment before her face broke into a wide smile. “Laurence, I have seen some strange reactions to battle in my time, but I do believe this is the strangest yet.”
“I am deadly serious, Jane. Will you marry me?”
She set her quill aside and came around the desk, drew him over to sit with her. “Laurence,” she said quietly.
He could not sit. He stood instead, though he kept her hands clasped in his. “I know it may be difficult -”
“Will,” she said, and he thought she meant his name - strange to think he was asking her to marry him and yet had never heard his Christian name from her lips - until she added, “Will be. Would be. Very difficult, indeed, and that isn’t the half of it. Laurence, I cannot -”
“Pray do not refuse me immediately,” he said, before she could finish. “Think on it at least.”
“Laurence,” she said again, and stood. “Laurence, why? Marriage is . . .” She shook her head. “It is not for me, it has never been for me. And I do not see why we should marry only to please others, when we may please each other just as well outside of it. It would only cause complications.”
Laurence could not quite understand this. To his mind, marriage would be a simplification, a reassurance. He was not quite so roused now from the battle, but he retained that remarkable image of Jane all the same and he wished fiercely to, to - he did not know what, and after a moment he was forced to admit to himself that perhaps it had merely been the battle in his blood after all. Why else would he have put himself forward so impulsively? Not that it mattered; there was no mistaking her answer for anything but a refusal.
“Very well then,” he said, and immediately felt the fool; but what else was there to say, after all?
“Now come then, my good fellow,” she said. “Pray do not be melancholy. I have some matters to attend to here and we both must see our dragons fed, but then we should retire to my rooms, I think, and celebrate the day.”
He agreed, of course, and went out to Temeraire. She was a remarkable woman; he had known that even before today. And though he felt a bit wounded, his pride rather the worse for wear, perhaps that did not mean so much after all. Perhaps he could be satisfied with however much she was willing to give him; with however much they were willing to give each other.
And he might always ask again.
V.
“Laurence,” Jane said, “will you marry me?”
Laurence looked up from his breakfast, his mouth gaping open in what he knew to be unflattering shock. Of all the things he had expected on this morning - which was a strange morning any road, the first morning in thirty years that he did not anticipate going out to see Temeraire straight after breakfast - that had most certainly not been one of them.
It was not, after all, that Jane and Laurence had never discussed marriage in their three decades of intimate friendship; Laurence had even asked once, and been gently refused. To be asked now, when they were both well on in years, to put it mildly, was frankly astounding.
To be asked at all was, for Laurence, rather astounding, but this was Jane and he had finally ceased to be shocked by her, or so he had thought. She seemed out to prove him wrong today, or so it seemed by the mischievous way she smiled at him over her cup of coffee, like a girl of twenty rather than a woman of sixty-five.
“You may think on it, of course,” she said, when nearly a minute had gone by no answer. She quirked her eyebrow at him.
“I - I - yes, of course,” he said. “Of course I will. But why now?”
Jane smiled and sipped her coffee. “Call me quixotic, if you like. But I thought, well, I know it meant something to you, once, and we are both of us retired now, and our dragons’ needs are settled. There is no reason we should not, if we wish to.”
“But I thought - that is, I was quite under the impression, Jane, that you quite emphatically did not wish to?”
She smiled and reached across to place her left hand over his own. She turned it over and rubbed her thumb across his palm. “It is not so much for me, my dear, only I thought you might appreciate it.”
He looked down at their joined hands and tried to imagine the glint of rings on their fingers after so many years. “Perhaps it does not matter to me as much as it once did, but all the same - yes,” he said, decisively. “I think I would quite like that. Only . . .”
“Yes?” Jane asked, withdrawing her hand to sip once more at her coffee.
“I know it is foolish, but I would like to ask you. The only time I ever did you refused me without a thought.”
Jane laughed - the same hearty, strangely masculine laugh that had so intrigued Laurence all those many years ago. Her hair was grayer, her body softer, but her laugh remained the same. “Very well, then, if you like.”
Laurence set his own coffee cup aside and reached across to take her hand once more. She allowed him, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes crinkling yet further when she smiled. “Jane,” he said, “will you marry me?”
“Why yes, my dear fellow,” she replied, fingers closing over his own. “Nothing would make me happier.”
Fin.