Fic: Time and Eternity
Title: Time and Eternity
Author: versifico
Rating: Maybe PG-13 for reference to sexuality
Pairing: W/E for now. Bear with me- will be J/E in a few chapters.
Disclaimer: They're not mine- I just like to play with them.
Summary: Elizabeth learns what it's like to live the fairytale.
First chapter of what will be a long, plotty fic. In which Elizabeth discovers secrets about her past, her mother, and herself. Angst, self-deprecation, and bad choices will ensue.
A/N: I am having loads of fun (and tears!) writing this, and I hope it's enjoyable. Many thanks to
writing_samsara and
djarum99 for beta & concrit and for generally listening to my rambling. *Squishes them both*. Title is from the Emily Dickinson poem, quoted within.
One need not be a chamber to be haunted;
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.
~Emily Dickinson, "Time and Eternity"
***
Elizabeth’s earliest memory of her mother is also her earliest of the ocean; she is almost certain it was her first encounter with the sea. She was very young then, so young that the memory is hazy and uncertain to her now. What she does remember are mere impressions- the impossible cold of the spray on her face, struggling to name the exact color of that water, the feeling that nothing could go on forever, could stretch as far as the sea. Her most distinct memory, though, is of looking up at her mother’s face; the familiar lines arranged into an unrecognizable expression, a strange and faraway look in her eyes as she stared, transfixed, at the horizon. As a child, she’d never guessed at her mother’s thoughts that day; as an adult, she knows the expression of longing.
***
She and Will marry on a Wednesday in a small church near the harbor. The ceremony is a simple, quiet affair; Will wears his best breeches and shirt, and she wears a simple blue dress she’d sewn mere days before. Her hair is caught up in tarnished pins, and her head feels too full and heavy with memories of their near-union months earlier. Imagining her father, dressed in his finest silks and powdered wig, nearly unravels her. Clutching at the tightly bound spray of wildflowers, she desperately tries to center herself in reality.
There is no family left for them now. The minister kindly tells them that his wife can bear witness to the union and her eyes grow so full that she has to look away from him. When she looks back he begins the ceremony. Will smiles at her and catches her hand in his. Time slows and she mouths words uncomprehendingly, and then Will is slipping the simple band onto her shaking hand. They sign the papers, and then he takes her arm and leads her into the blinding summersunshine. The breeze from the harbor sweeps over and around them. When Will asks, she tells him it’s merely the glare that’s made her eyes tear.
~
In light of his repeated and extended absences, Mr. Brown hired a replacement for Will. Will was, however, quite relieved to discover a smithy in Kingston that had need of a blacksmith’s apprentice. The pay is meager but adequate and, despite Will’s protests, she’s decided to take in sewing to help cover their expenses. The house they find is tiny but well-kept with charming whitewashed walls.
They make quick work of moving into their new home, considering that neither of them have many possessions. Will points out the work to be done: the overgrown garden, the windows in need of new curtains. She tells him, slightly embarrassed, that she does not know how to tend to a garden nor can she cook. What little she does know comes from haunting the kitchens during her first years in Port Royal, when she’d been bored and desolate and hungering for the cadence of feminine voices. But Will, bless him, doesn’t laugh at her. He explains that he helped his mother attend to many of these duties as a boyand thus he will, in turn, teach her.
When they make love for the first time Will’s hands shake so badly that he rips two buttons from her dress. His eyes are bright in the dim of the room, and she sees the wonder in them as he undresses her, layer by layer, searching for the promise of bare skin beneath. His palms are cold in the warm concave between her collarbones-and lower still, on the flat plane of her stomach. He whispers promises into the secret curve behind her knee, the dip at the back of her neck. She shudders at his touch.
“I love you,” he whispers when they’ve finished and he lies, sticky-sweet, on top of her.
“I love you too,” she whispers back, and means it.
She closes her eyes and breathes out a sigh and thinks that maybe, just maybe, she has made the right choice.
~
The first month of their marriage passes by surprisingly fast. Will works long hours, rising before the sky is newly pink and returning home at dusk. When he’s home they take advantage of the remaining light to work in the garden, where he instructs her how to pull weeds and plant new seeds. Not until the sky is onyx-dark do they retreat indoors. Will helps her to prepare the evening meal, teaching her at this as well, all the while teasing laughter from her to lift her spirits. He is kind and solicitous, sometimes overly so, and she’s ashamed in the moments when she wants to go into the bedroom and slam the door like some child in a fit of temper.
Her days prove more difficult than the quiet evenings they share. She’s never played this part before; she knows how to be the high-born lady and even the pirate, but not the poor smithy’s housewife. Her fingers itch for something constructive- a book would do nicely, but her beloved tomes are gone and she has no funds for replacements. On most days, she sets out to explore the town she’s seen only briefly since coming to Jamaica. She passes through the market, skimming her fingers lightly across the skins of bright fruits and vegetables, ignoring the contemptuous glares she is becoming accustomed to from the hawkers.
When she returns home she frequently takes to pacing, measuring the space with her footsteps, wall to window and back again. She can see the glittering line of ocean through the panes, just barely. The shoreline is dangerously beautiful, drawing her eye like a jeweled necklace dangling between sky and earth. On windier days, if she opens the windows just so, she can stand with her face to the gust and nearly taste the salt on her lips.But the horizon is farther away than ever, and she is just a foolish woman with her face turned to the sun.
She loves Will. She has chosen him, and he her, and he has come to accept in her what other men might find unseemly. But she is not dim-witted, and she knows that no respectable man’s wife wears breeches about town or sets out to seaat a moment’s notice. So she carefully sews her modest dresses, tries not to forget her hats when she leaves home, and she keeps a most vigilant watch over her impulses.
Because she loves him.
Because she is not her mother.
***
She is only a child of eight but she understands the nature of broken promises. She’s accustomed to the downcast eyes and twisting fingers hidden behind layered skirts; recognizes an oath splintered before it is even built.
Elizabeth is only eight when her mother tucks her in with too-calm hands, eyes clear and serene under delicate lashes. And there is her special, secret smile, the lovely crinkle of creamy skin at her temples.
“Tomorrow, my Bess,” she whispers, syllables rolling feather-soft across her skin. “Tomorrow we shall go on a special adventure. We’ll share our secrets and sleep in the sun. Just close your eyes for now, and when you wake I will be here, waiting for you.”
She is only eight and still young enough to hope, blindly and with abandon, that this time will be different. She is, after all, ever so tired, and it will be no hardship to let sleep come now. Another touch flutters across her check and for a moment there is nothing but the scent of her mother’s perfume. Then she sleeps, dreaming of sunshine and laughter, her mother’s hand held tight in hers.
She rises early the next morning, excitement and laughter bubbling in her throat. She jumps from bed, dressing gown forgotten, and her bare feet slap too loudly on the hard floors. The door to her mother’s room is open, thebed already made. She continues on, running until she reaches the sun-splattered kitchen.Her feet still, the long fabric of her nightdress tangles around her ankles; her breath catches and the silence overcomes her.
Her mother’s hat is missing from its peg, and the kitchen door stands wide open; it is a held breath, an unfinished sentence, a question that melts away in the back of her throat.
***
The memory haunts her dreams of late. Her own marriage brings thoughts of her mother to the forefront of Elizabeth’s consciousness, along with the painful memories of the months after she left.
She sees her father in Will, which is perhaps why it has always been impossible to let him go.
Author: versifico
Rating: Maybe PG-13 for reference to sexuality
Pairing: W/E for now. Bear with me- will be J/E in a few chapters.
Disclaimer: They're not mine- I just like to play with them.
Summary: Elizabeth learns what it's like to live the fairytale.
First chapter of what will be a long, plotty fic. In which Elizabeth discovers secrets about her past, her mother, and herself. Angst, self-deprecation, and bad choices will ensue.
A/N: I am having loads of fun (and tears!) writing this, and I hope it's enjoyable. Many thanks to
writing_samsara and
djarum99 for beta & concrit and for generally listening to my rambling. *Squishes them both*. Title is from the Emily Dickinson poem, quoted within.
One need not be a chamber to be haunted;
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.
~Emily Dickinson, "Time and Eternity"
***
Elizabeth’s earliest memory of her mother is also her earliest of the ocean; she is almost certain it was her first encounter with the sea. She was very young then, so young that the memory is hazy and uncertain to her now. What she does remember are mere impressions- the impossible cold of the spray on her face, struggling to name the exact color of that water, the feeling that nothing could go on forever, could stretch as far as the sea. Her most distinct memory, though, is of looking up at her mother’s face; the familiar lines arranged into an unrecognizable expression, a strange and faraway look in her eyes as she stared, transfixed, at the horizon. As a child, she’d never guessed at her mother’s thoughts that day; as an adult, she knows the expression of longing.
***
She and Will marry on a Wednesday in a small church near the harbor. The ceremony is a simple, quiet affair; Will wears his best breeches and shirt, and she wears a simple blue dress she’d sewn mere days before. Her hair is caught up in tarnished pins, and her head feels too full and heavy with memories of their near-union months earlier. Imagining her father, dressed in his finest silks and powdered wig, nearly unravels her. Clutching at the tightly bound spray of wildflowers, she desperately tries to center herself in reality.
There is no family left for them now. The minister kindly tells them that his wife can bear witness to the union and her eyes grow so full that she has to look away from him. When she looks back he begins the ceremony. Will smiles at her and catches her hand in his. Time slows and she mouths words uncomprehendingly, and then Will is slipping the simple band onto her shaking hand. They sign the papers, and then he takes her arm and leads her into the blinding summersunshine. The breeze from the harbor sweeps over and around them. When Will asks, she tells him it’s merely the glare that’s made her eyes tear.
~
In light of his repeated and extended absences, Mr. Brown hired a replacement for Will. Will was, however, quite relieved to discover a smithy in Kingston that had need of a blacksmith’s apprentice. The pay is meager but adequate and, despite Will’s protests, she’s decided to take in sewing to help cover their expenses. The house they find is tiny but well-kept with charming whitewashed walls.
They make quick work of moving into their new home, considering that neither of them have many possessions. Will points out the work to be done: the overgrown garden, the windows in need of new curtains. She tells him, slightly embarrassed, that she does not know how to tend to a garden nor can she cook. What little she does know comes from haunting the kitchens during her first years in Port Royal, when she’d been bored and desolate and hungering for the cadence of feminine voices. But Will, bless him, doesn’t laugh at her. He explains that he helped his mother attend to many of these duties as a boyand thus he will, in turn, teach her.
When they make love for the first time Will’s hands shake so badly that he rips two buttons from her dress. His eyes are bright in the dim of the room, and she sees the wonder in them as he undresses her, layer by layer, searching for the promise of bare skin beneath. His palms are cold in the warm concave between her collarbones-and lower still, on the flat plane of her stomach. He whispers promises into the secret curve behind her knee, the dip at the back of her neck. She shudders at his touch.
“I love you,” he whispers when they’ve finished and he lies, sticky-sweet, on top of her.
“I love you too,” she whispers back, and means it.
She closes her eyes and breathes out a sigh and thinks that maybe, just maybe, she has made the right choice.
~
The first month of their marriage passes by surprisingly fast. Will works long hours, rising before the sky is newly pink and returning home at dusk. When he’s home they take advantage of the remaining light to work in the garden, where he instructs her how to pull weeds and plant new seeds. Not until the sky is onyx-dark do they retreat indoors. Will helps her to prepare the evening meal, teaching her at this as well, all the while teasing laughter from her to lift her spirits. He is kind and solicitous, sometimes overly so, and she’s ashamed in the moments when she wants to go into the bedroom and slam the door like some child in a fit of temper.
Her days prove more difficult than the quiet evenings they share. She’s never played this part before; she knows how to be the high-born lady and even the pirate, but not the poor smithy’s housewife. Her fingers itch for something constructive- a book would do nicely, but her beloved tomes are gone and she has no funds for replacements. On most days, she sets out to explore the town she’s seen only briefly since coming to Jamaica. She passes through the market, skimming her fingers lightly across the skins of bright fruits and vegetables, ignoring the contemptuous glares she is becoming accustomed to from the hawkers.
When she returns home she frequently takes to pacing, measuring the space with her footsteps, wall to window and back again. She can see the glittering line of ocean through the panes, just barely. The shoreline is dangerously beautiful, drawing her eye like a jeweled necklace dangling between sky and earth. On windier days, if she opens the windows just so, she can stand with her face to the gust and nearly taste the salt on her lips.But the horizon is farther away than ever, and she is just a foolish woman with her face turned to the sun.
She loves Will. She has chosen him, and he her, and he has come to accept in her what other men might find unseemly. But she is not dim-witted, and she knows that no respectable man’s wife wears breeches about town or sets out to seaat a moment’s notice. So she carefully sews her modest dresses, tries not to forget her hats when she leaves home, and she keeps a most vigilant watch over her impulses.
Because she loves him.
Because she is not her mother.
***
She is only a child of eight but she understands the nature of broken promises. She’s accustomed to the downcast eyes and twisting fingers hidden behind layered skirts; recognizes an oath splintered before it is even built.
Elizabeth is only eight when her mother tucks her in with too-calm hands, eyes clear and serene under delicate lashes. And there is her special, secret smile, the lovely crinkle of creamy skin at her temples.
“Tomorrow, my Bess,” she whispers, syllables rolling feather-soft across her skin. “Tomorrow we shall go on a special adventure. We’ll share our secrets and sleep in the sun. Just close your eyes for now, and when you wake I will be here, waiting for you.”
She is only eight and still young enough to hope, blindly and with abandon, that this time will be different. She is, after all, ever so tired, and it will be no hardship to let sleep come now. Another touch flutters across her check and for a moment there is nothing but the scent of her mother’s perfume. Then she sleeps, dreaming of sunshine and laughter, her mother’s hand held tight in hers.
She rises early the next morning, excitement and laughter bubbling in her throat. She jumps from bed, dressing gown forgotten, and her bare feet slap too loudly on the hard floors. The door to her mother’s room is open, thebed already made. She continues on, running until she reaches the sun-splattered kitchen.Her feet still, the long fabric of her nightdress tangles around her ankles; her breath catches and the silence overcomes her.
Her mother’s hat is missing from its peg, and the kitchen door stands wide open; it is a held breath, an unfinished sentence, a question that melts away in the back of her throat.
***
The memory haunts her dreams of late. Her own marriage brings thoughts of her mother to the forefront of Elizabeth’s consciousness, along with the painful memories of the months after she left.
She sees her father in Will, which is perhaps why it has always been impossible to let him go.