The Only

"How could I forget you?"

And in it's way it is a promise. The only one she would keep.

Not like:

"Be back before you know it."

For there is no way back. She knows that now, far too late. The first of many she couldn't keep. But she still remembers Him.

She promised herself that she would never, ever forget Wonderland.

But the wonders of China seemed so much truer, nearer, than the fantastical dreamscape of her childhood. Slowly, softly, her life leached away that promise, till Wonderland fades into the fondly remembered imaginings of a girl.

But she still remembers Him.

She promises The Other that she will love and honor him the rest of her life.

She promises herself that she will never again lose her muchness.

And for a while those promises are kept. When she returns from her success in China (the trading posts established in the remote provinces regularly shipping teas, silks, and porcelain to England) she is introduced to The Other. The Other is witty, charming, perhaps a bit mad... Everyone she encounters mentions how like her father he is. But those promises are broken, slowly, over time. Her heart shatters with the first Incident, cheap perfume and lipstick on his collar. It shatters again with the second Incident, with the governess. It hurts less with the third, and, after that, she finds that she no longer cares. At every Instance she compares The Other to Him, and always finds The Other lacking. Every night when she goes to bed she hears His voice, asking where her muchness has gone.

And so she remembers Him.

She promises herself that she will always be there for her children.

She whispers this, silently within herself, while holding her firstborn son in her arms. It is a promise repeated two more times. It is a promise she again breaks, relinquishing her sons to nannies and governesses, while she loses herself within The Company. Yet, He is there in her middle son's dreamy expressions. He is there every time she calls her youngests' name: Tarrant.

And so she remembers Him.

She promises herself that she will never again have nightmares, that when she dreams it will only be of wildly impossible things only she can accomplish.

When she dreams it is of a room filled with dresses and hats, all made for her. And He is sobbing in the middle of this room, asking her why. Why she never kept her promises. She shouts that she is here, she kept it. Shrieks it. Screams it. But He cannot hear her. So she wakes, throat sore, limbs shaking, tears drying.

She remembers Him.

She wishes that she never left, that day on the chessboard.

But, most of all, she wishes she could forget.

Thank you for reading.

Reviews are appreciated.

For those of you interested this one-shot was in part inspired by Manniness and the idea that broken promises have very real and lasting consequences. I highly recommend One Promise Kept. Quite Epic.