Chapter Text
2024
New Years’ Eve, roughly 3pm
It had to be you, it had to be you,
I wandered around and I finally found somebody who
could make me be true and could make me feel blue
And even be glad, just to be sad, thinking of you
Every year since the Millennium’s Rockin’ Eve Party of 1999, the Bridgertons had thrown a New Years’ Eve party. And every year, it was the day the Bridgertons, and their respective partners, relatives and friends, looked forward to the most in the calendar.
It was why, on a day usually reserved for rest, relaxation and the consideration of New Years’ Resolutions, Colin Bridgerton, third eldest of the clan, found himself on a ladder, toying with the fifth set of incredibly large fairy lights in their back garden. Adorned in a grey knitted turtleneck, gifted to him from his mother just a few days prior, he was still shivering on the ladder.
His mother had already made her signature paper hats for the children, Daphne and Frannie had been hard at work on the food in the kitchen while Hyacinth was taking her responsibilities as DJ very seriously, as usual. Anthony and Eloise had yet to arrive, both in their respective homes until this evening, while Ben and Colin, the least fortunate of the bunch, had been roped into decoration duties.
Namely, the tall stuff that none of the girls could reach. Their mother had been following them around all afternoon, pointing, and complaining when they routinely failed to understand that when she said left she meant her left, or that when she said up she actually meant down .
Still, Colin couldn’t exactly complain. He’d managed to get out of this for the past few years, having been away, and arriving usually well into the festivities. He was well into his way of making up for his absenteeism in a big way.
So, there he stood, freezing his bollocks off on a rickety ladder in their garden, him on one side of the bushes and shrubbery, Ben on the other, and a long trail of fairy lights in between them. Their mother stood right in the centre, surveying.
‘Up a bit!’ she called, and they raised their arms as high as they would go. ‘Down a bit, Ben!’
Colin heard his brother sigh and stifled a snort from where he stood, swaying on his own ladder.
‘Perfect!’ their mother’s voice exclaimed, and Colin was just wrapping the lights around the shrubs, some sellotape on hand, when she tutted. ‘Colin, yours fell slightly, it needs to be up more.’
This time, Ben’s irritating snort could be heard and Colin turned to scowl in his direction before fixing it for her. Anything for their mother.
‘I’m sure it’s all going to look perfect, mum,’ Ben was saying, fondly. ‘Everyone will be too drunk to notice anyway, they always are.’
‘That is true,’ she said, with a heavy sigh, her hand pressed to her head. She was in her sixties now, a grandmother to far too many grandchildren, and still doing too much. ‘Talking of guests - did we hear back from Penelope?’
Colin’s head shot up, and he immediately lost balance, swaying dangerously on the ladder and ending up clutching the bush for support, his body at an odd angle as Benedict cackled beside him.
Swiftly, he managed to right himself again, and straightened out his jumper with a clearing of his throat as his twat of a brother looked away, his shoulders shaking.
‘Penelope’s coming?’ Colin asked, his brows furrowed at his mother, and the chill suddenly not so effective.
His mum blinked at him for a moment before shrugging. ‘Why wouldn’t she be?’
She was right. Penelope had been a staple at their New Years’ Eve parties since the very first one, when she’d turned up in that yellow dress and had been abandoned by her parents in favour of the liquor cabinet at the tender age of four. They’d taken her under their collective wing immediately.
Colin’s mum, and now Benedict, were now both staring at him, confused. He cleared his throat and hoped his blush wasn’t too evident. He looked away and straightened out his glasses.
‘Oh, I just - um,’ Colin shrugged, attempting to seem nonchalant about the whole ordeal. ‘I figured she’d be doing something with …’ He swallowed, unable to bring himself to say it. ‘Her family.’
His mum surveyed him for a moment, and he shied away from her ridiculously perceptive stare, busying himself with pretending to check the strength of the fairy lights, twanging them for a moment.
‘Right,’ his mother said. ‘I just needed to know what she’s bringing food wise, but yes, she is coming.’
‘Happy about that, Colin?’ Ben was saying with a raised eyebrow. Colin shot him a glare before beginning to step down from his own ladder, not justifying his joke with a retort.
‘It’ll be so lovely to see her, again,’ their mum continued, much to Colin’s dismay. ‘You know she’s barely been round since … well, since last New Years’ Eve!’
Colin closed his ladder swiftly with a snap and his mother jumped at the noise, scolding him. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘Are we done, then, mum?’
Violet rushed forward with a shake of her head, running her hand through the air. ‘I can do anything below the ladders, myself, just - if you don’t mind - the gazebo.’
Colin’s blood ran cold. His eyes remained trained on his mother.
‘The gazebo?’
Their garden was quite large for London. It was home to a miraculous number of flowers, unevenly spread and pretty, a small fish pond, and some higgledy-piggledy stepping stones dotted around the place. Bushes and benches aligned the place and even a large oak tree in what their mother had lovingly called their fairy garden when they had been little, creating stories of the creatures that lived in their shrubs and grass and poked their heads out during the spring.
At the very back, with a few stepping stones leading up to it, too, was the gazebo. Put up when Colin had been a little boy by their father, he recalled many happy memories watching his dad paint there, then later instructing Ben on how to catch the light best, his mother using it as a makeshift greenhouse and keeping plants there during the springtime, his sisters stood outside its doors with their hands over their eyes as they played hide and seek, darting away into the rose bushes and behind the hedges where the fairies dwelled.
Now, as his head turned to look at it, his heart raced at the memory that came to the forefront of his mind. The memory he hadn’t stopped thinking about for a whole year. The memory that had had him darting out of the country come January 2nd, deleting social media from his phone and lying awake at night staring at his ceiling for twelve months.
‘There are already fairy lights up, Mum,’ Ben was saying. They kept them up all year round. It made for a nice spot for drinks outdoors in the summertime.
Summertime. Penelope in gorgeous sundresses, her hair free and curly, her cheeks bright and her freckles vibrant. Colin closed his eyes, sharply, attempting to stop the onslaught of memories that had flooded him at that moment.
‘Yes, but I like to have tinsel around it, as well,’ their mum was replying.
Colin’s eyes opened to train on the gazebo in front of them. His brother was already stepping down from his ladder and starting to make his way towards it.
‘Colin?’ his head shot round to meet his mothers’ concerned gaze. ‘Is everything alright?’
She was warmth and softness, her hair starting to grey, wrinkles visible on her face, and a scarf Daphne had knitted her a few years ago (fraying at the ends) wrapped around her neck. He nodded, blinking harshly at her.
‘Yeah, sorry, mum,’ he said, moving past her with a thankful hand on her arm, and towards the back of the garden where Ben was now waiting.
Fortunately, he managed to distract himself with thoughts of the previous year by wrapping tinsel around the edges of the gazebo. He even managed to laugh at some of Ben’s jokes. Not heartily, of course, but it was Ben .
‘Did you see Cressida Cowper’s gotten engaged?’ Ben was asking from the other end. Their mother had left them to it, now, trusting them to be able to manage tinsel alone. ‘It’s all over her Instagram, as if she needed more reason to talk about herself.’
‘I deleted Instagram, remember?’ Colin reminded him, surveying his work before moving along to the next part.
‘Oh, yeah,’ Ben was saying, his nose scrunched. ‘And FaceBook, and basically anything else anyone could use to keep up with you.’
‘You could always … you know, ask?’ he said snarkily, and Ben, at the mature age of thirty-four, stuck his tongue out at him. Colin, thirty-one, returned it in kind. Obviously.
Colin took a deep breath, the cold air filling his lungs. Perhaps everything was alright. He’d made it at least ten minutes without thinking about it all. That felt like some kind of a record.
But then, finally finished, he looked down as he was exiting his ladder to find Ben slumped against the other side that he stopped in his tracks.
A pale blue, floor-length dress. Auburn curls piled up onto the top of a round head, adorned with little pearls. Tears streaming down his face, and her blinking hers away.
Colin cleared his throat and closed his ladder without a word, throwing it back into the shed as quickly as he could before making his way back indoors, not answering Ben’s calls for him.
His breathing was shaky by the time he was inside the house, making his way into the entrance hall, desperate to go up to his old room for a moment alone. Only, there, in the hall, was his mother, setting out the things for the children by the door.
‘You alright, love?’ she turned to look at him. In her hand was a yellow paper hat. He couldn’t stop staring at it.
Colin cleared his throat. ‘I just - I didn’t realise you still made those.’
Violet looked down at the hat in her hand, smiling. ‘Started when Augie was born. Cute, don’t you think?’
He had mumbled something in agreement, but his eyes remained trained on the object in her hand. On the little yellow paper hat.
1999
New Years’ Eve
***
Dear Portia, Archie, Prudence, Phillipa and Penelope
You are invited to:
The Bridgerton’s Millennium’s Rockin’ Eve Party!
Formal wear required, come ready to party and bring in the new year!
***
‘Tell me again why we have to go to this thing, Portia?’ Penelope’s father was asking her mother as they concluded the short walk from their house to the Bridgertons.
‘ Because , dear,’ Her mum replied, ushering her and her sisters through the gate. ‘They invited us, and its New Years’ Eve - we never do anything on New Years’ Eve and I’m sick of it - no, Phillipa, stop it!’
‘But did we really have to come to this -’
‘Yes, Archie,’ Penelope’s mum exclaimed in a harsh whisper. ‘We did.’ And without a final word, she rang the doorbell.
It took a fair few minutes, and another ring, for the door to open, but when it did, it was the lady of the house herself. Violet Bridgerton looked positively radiant, even with her pregnant belly.
‘Portia!’ she exclaimed happily, welcoming them in with open arms. ‘Oh, so glad you could all make it.’
The Bridgerton house was bigger than Penelope had originally expected. From the outside, it was truly a sight to be held. An old, gorgeous building, there were flowers arranged outside, neat Christmas ornaments struck up all over the place and their mailbox had ten painted handprints scattered upon it. The place had been aglow from the outside, and now, within, having already been abandoned by her parents and sisters in the entrance hall, she could see why. It was a cacophony of noise - both music and voices - and her little brown eyes were aglow from the brilliant lights.
The interior of the home was somehow even more magnificent than the exterior, as they were welcomed inside a gorgeous entrance hall, fit with a large staircase and flowers and lights adorning every surface.
Penelope didn’t think she had seen so many people all at once in one spot before. They mingled, they chatted, they drank . A lot . And they seemed genuinely very merry. Now that she’d seen real happiness like this she was certain she could never accept the falsities she’d received beforehand.
Penelope was adorned in a sparkly yellow dress, with her hair in pigtails, courtesy of her older sister, and she felt strangely as though getting lost here wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
Only, she was found just moments later, by none other than the lady of the house.
Mrs Bridgerton was a radiant woman, even with her pregnant belly. She was adorned in silver and blue, her eyes sparkling and her hand clutching a glass of sparkling cider, and now, looking down at Penelope with kind blue eyes.
‘Oh, hello,’ she said, kindly, placing her glass down to the side. ‘You must be Penelope?’
‘Yes, Mrs Bridgerton,’ Penelope had replied, quietly, her hands placed neatly in front of her, twisting together. Mrs Bridgerton held her belly, rubbing it tenderly.
‘How old are you Penelope?’ she asked, her eyes narrowed slightly, as if she was calculating something.
‘Four,’ Penelope replied, holding out her fingers to show Mrs Bridgerton. The woman smiled, nodding, but the girl was suddenly concerned that she might be too young to be at the party. After all, everyone she had seen already had been a grown-up. ‘Is that alright?’ she added, nervously.
Mrs Bridgerton smiled down at the young girl fondly. ‘Penelope, it is just perfect .’ She held out her hand for the young girl to take and grinned. ‘Do you mind if I introduce you to some people?’
Penelope toyed with the bottom of her dress. ‘Who are they?’
‘They’re my children,’ Mrs Bridgerton replied. ‘And they’ve gotten rather bored of each other. I think they’d like to meet someone new.’
‘Are you sure?’ Penelope asked, her eyes wide as saucers.
‘Oh, absolutely,’ she replied. Penelope nodded. Holding back some sense of excitement, Mrs Bridgerton left her for a moment to move to a side table, where a few paper hats sat, adorned with glitter and glue. Her hand roved in the air over the top for a moment before settling on a little yellow one. Not a moment later, she was jostling back to Penelope with a smile on her face.
‘It might have to be adjusted,’ she said, before placing the little crown on the top of her head where it sat perfectly. Mrs Bridgerton’s smile widened. ‘Like it was made for you. To match your dress, Miss Penelope,’
Penelope beamed at the woman before taking her hand. She followed Mrs Bridgerton into the main room where everyone seemed to be situated. Together, they weaved through the bodies of people, towards the Christmas tree and the window at the back. There sat a whole gaggle of children, all giggling and joking, play-fighting and arguing.
They looked ludicrously similar, all with long Roman noses, elegant, rosy cheeks and round, perceptive blue eyes. Aside from one girl with softer brown hair, they were all brunettes, their hair of varying lengths but all smooth and done in pretty styles.
‘Boys! What have I told you about fighting?’ Mrs Bridgerton asked as they arrived, directing Penelope’s attention to the two eldest boys. They looked to be around ten or eleven by her estimations. ‘Especially not in front of such esteemed company.’
The two boys looked up, along with the rest of the children, to stare at Penelope, their large eyes blinking at her.
‘Mum gave you the yellow hat!’ one of the girls exclaimed. She was very skinny, with lanky legs and knobbly knees and a fringe that covered her forehead. It was only in that moment that the girl realised that all of the children were wearing similar ones as her, and she immediately rushed to take off hers.
‘Oh, I’m sorry -’
‘No, no!’ the girl exclaimed. ‘Keep it - I made that one.’ She grinned proudly. ‘I’m Eloise.’
Penelope grinned as the other girl extended her hand out towards her and she took it. ‘I’m Penelope.’ The small girl’s brown eyes scanned the rest of the crowd, to find all of their eyes on her.
‘Oh, these are my stupid brothers and sisters,’ Eloise was saying to Penelope. ‘Ant, Ben, Daphne, Frannie - where’s Col?’
‘He was trying to steal a different hat,’ The oldest boy - Ant - was saying. He was about twelve, by Penelope’s young guess, and felt distinctly more mature. And he seemed it, too, bossing around the others, ordering them to play his different games in his ways. Ben, a year younger, was the only one he seemed to really listen to. Or, at least, Penelope had that impression before Daphne, the oldest girl, joined in, ordering both of them around despite being only two years older than Pen, herself.
Somehow, the hats had become part of some ridiculous swatting game, and before Penelope knew it, her hat had been stolen off of her head in order to whack someone else with. She turned to apologise, despite having not done the hitting herself, only to be met with the one Bridgerton she hadn’t been introduced to yet.
This boy, at the age of six, was a lanky, gross looking thing, in Penelope’s opinion. He had a bowl haircut and overly dark blue eyes behind round, unfashionable glasses. In that moment, he looked slightly disoriented, her yellow paper hat in his hands as he blinked.
‘We never have yellow - who’s is this?’ He asked then, and Penelope suddenly became shy as all eyes fell on her, once more.
‘Mum made more this year for the Featherington girls,’ Ant said, looking towards her. ‘This is Penelope.’
The boy smiled at her, then, and she supposed he didn’t look that bad at all. ‘Nice to meet you, Penelope. I’m Colin.’