Fic: It's so Quiet Here (Downton Abbey)
Title: It's so Quiet Here
Fandom: Downton Abbey
Rating: T (canonical character death)
Genres: het
Summary: Lavinia is dead and you are weeping. She shuddered away, one last breath ridden with fever and then she was gone. You weep.
A/N: So. Uh. Virgin fic in this fandom. I started watching it on Monday and am nearly through. I, uh, hope I'm doing this right...
It’s so Quiet Here
“It's so quiet here
And I feel so cold
This house no longer
Feels like home.”
Ben Cocks, “So Cold”
Lavinia is dead and you are weeping. She shuddered away, one last breath ridden with fever and then she was gone. You weep. You weep because you should have never brought her here. You weep because you should have never accepted her back as your fiancé. You weep because you never should have asked her in the first place. You weep because you never should have met her.
She loved you, more than you loved her. Somehow, somehow you always knew. You always knew that she was your safe way out. You always knew that she would never give you pain like Mary did. You didn't know that you were oh so wrong. Lavinia gave you pain beyond imagination and the worst thing is that it's the pain of guilt, not loss.
You will miss her and in a way you might have loved her but the guilt, the guilt that engulfs you when you think of the kiss in the hall and the feelings that led to it, that are still there, the guilt hangs over everything. Like a great big bird of prey's shadow over Downton’s wide, wide fields.
When you will go in mourning, you will mourn Lavinia, your future with her, your future without pining for Mary because you are too busy making up for your feelings for her to Lavinia. You will finally make true on your promise and you will steer clear of Mary, maybe even go back to Manchester or go to London or East Africa. Just far away.
You will bury your feelings for Mary or maybe lock them away and lose the key, anything to get rid of the thing that took away Lavinia's will to live. You will forsake yourself any chance to be happy again, because the last moment you were made the dead girl in front of you so unhappy her heart broke.
In a way, you want to believe that this is what Lavinia would have wanted. For you to realize that you don't deserve to be happy and to live accordingly. That she would have wanted for you to be punished for wanting Mary, always Mary, Mary that you could not, cannot have, never Lavinia who wanted you, even when you could never give her what she wanted, what she deserved.
You want to believe that she hated Mary, believed Mary deserved to be with Carlisle, deserved to be imprisoned in a horrible marriage, a loveless marriage, deserved to be unhappy. You want to believe it's what Lavinia wanted so it doesn't look like it's what you want, what you believe.
You are weeping and you are grieving and you will probably be grieving for the rest of your life. You are ashamed that you are grieving for what you never had with Mary, never will have with Mary, never will have with anyone else when you should be grieving that you will never have it with Lavinia. This is why you don't deserve to be happy. This is why you will tell Mary so and this is why you are weeping at the side of a dead girl that never had an unkind thought in all of her short life.