Chapter Text
I Ask You To Be Mine
After they died, Victor and Victoria did not go directly to the pub. They needed some space first. The dead understood. They'd gone through it as well, the grief and adjustment, different for everyone. Worse for the young and untimely and violent. Grandfather Everglot had graciously offered them the family mausoleum to rest in. Victor had helped Victoria into a free sarcophagus and then climbed in after her. She'd held out her arms and he'd sunk into them.
Rigor mortis set in shortly thereafter. The two of them were locked in each other's arms.
They were quiet because their jaws had locked. But they had realized, as they lay together in their frozen embrace, still wearing their blood-soaked clothes, that they did not need words. They could not read one another's thoughts, precisely, but they could somehow communicate.
This was how Victor had explained what had happened to him. He recalled the way he'd passionately said his vows in the forest, his heart swelling with affection and anticipation. How his yearning for Victoria had made the dead rise. He thought of his devastation upon learning she was married. By way of memory and emotion he told her the story.
In return Victoria told him all that had happened to her. How she'd done her best to help him, had refused to call him lost. How she had been manhandled and called mad. The boards nailed over her windows. Her forced walk up the aisle because her parents required it of her. She let him see and feel her lack of control, her fear, her despair, her grief.
Physically they could not feel one other. All the same they took comfort in the embrace. The sense memory of closeness. The feeling of belonging completely to the other. The intimacy of sharing their minds and hearts.
Together they ran through all that their lives could have been, living whole lifetimes in images and emotions. What they'd hoped and imagined in their too-brief time alive together. Their longings and their desires. Their grief at the thought of never seeing a sunrise or sunset together. Never making love. Never having children. Watching each other decay instead of watching each other grow old.
And of course, unable to help it, they'd recalled their deaths.
Their reunion had been so briefly happy and hopeful. Lovers together again. Reality bursting upon them in the form of Victoria's husband. The duel. Victor kicked to the ground. Victoria stepping in front of the blade. She had raised her hand and two fingers had nearly been severed. The sword had plunged into her shoulder. Deep. Cold. Then pain. Pain that was worse when Barkis pulled the sword out again. Blood everywhere, gushing from her shoulder in rhythm with her slowing heartbeat. Victor had cradled her as the world went dark. Hildegarde had held her hand, smoothed her hair.
Then the cold and blackness. Victor had watched, helpless, as she'd gone white in the face and her blood slowed. He'd been trying to compress her wound with his bare hand. He was soaked with Victoria's lifeblood. So much of it. Dimly he'd been aware that some of the living had tackled Barkis. Had the man thought he could run someone through in cold blood and walk away? Probably he had. Emily must have been somewhere on the periphery but he'd lost track. All Victor could see was Victoria fading. He wasn't going to let her go without him. He'd groped and stretched and dragged them both across the stone floor until he'd been able to reach the goblet of poison. He'd drunk it all down in one go. Almost immediately his heart had seized and he'd gone numb.
Victoria had had just enough strength to try to push the goblet away from his mouth. But she'd been feeble and he'd ignored her. He tossed aside the empty cup and held Victoria close. Looking into each other's eyes. Eyes that went dim at the same time.
It was impossible to tell how much time had passed in this way, this melding, this mysterious intertwining of their innermost selves. When rigor wore off the both of them had tears on their cheeks.
"This is not how I imagined our wedding night," Victor confessed when he could speak again. All the time he'd been resting his head against her bosom. Something he'd desperately wanted to do while alive.
"We never married," Victoria reminded him, her voice small and sad.
"Yes, we did," Victor told her. He couldn't think of any more intimate a joining than what they'd just experienced together. Victoria caught his thinking.
"Yes, I suppose we did," she agreed, pressing her cheek to his hair, running her bloody fingers through it. How she wished she'd been able to do that in life, when she'd have been able to feel it.
It was quiet here in the grand mausoleum. Marble and stone and fine decaying linens. Little golden and green lights strung up between the pillars. The sarcophagus was only made for one but they were a cozy fit. Not that things like 'cozy' mattered so much anymore.
Victoria thought over all of what she and Victor had shared. So many thoughts and hopes that should have been played out over a lifetime of knowing one another. And she said softly, "Death has taken many things from us. But we still have each other. I can still be yours, if you want me. I think that will be enough for me."
Victor pulled up a little so that he could look into her face. She'd gone a very pale blue, almost white, the blue of ice and snow. Her eyes were the same as ever. He replied, "Yes, I absolutely want you to be mine. And I want to be yours. It's enough for me, too."
Death could not be reversed. It was permanent. For eternity. There was no going back. And so there was really no point in looking back, now that they'd had their time to grieve. They could go forward, together, into that undiscovered country. They had one another, which was all they'd really wanted anyway.
So both of them were ready, perhaps even optimistic, when Mayhew and Emily and Elder Gutknecht showed up to invite them to a wedding party. Their wedding party. The town square was decorated, a new cake had been made, Paul had finally had the opportunity to create a wedding feast, Bonejangles had already composed a song all about them. Victor and Victoria could still bind themselves to one another, be celebrated, if they still desired to do so.
They did. Very much.
Victor and Victoria helped each other out of the sarcophagus. Emily, kindly and wordlessly, handed Victoria her bouquet. Then she handed Victor the wedding ring. With a smile that was sad but sure she stepped to one side, nearest Victoria. Mayhew took his place beside Victor.
Arm in arm, covered in gore but cautiously happy, Victor and Victoria led their small wedding party to the square. Nothing like they'd imagined when they'd first set eyes on each other. Nothing like what they'd wanted. But it was what they had.
They belonged to each other, and would for eternity.