Archive of Our Own ^beta

Life had its ups and downs, very much like the waves at sea — never-ending and so frighteningly sublime in their unpredictability that one had no choice but to pause and admire beauty in its most terrifying and raw form. But no matter how sublime and alarmingly pretty — every wave found its end one way or another. It was always an up and down. Up and down. Up— and down. 

There was always an end. For some, it arrived quick and painless and for others, it prolonged to the point where you had to ask yourself why you had been chosen to bear and endure such pain. But of course, there was no answer to that question — or perhaps the answer was that there was nothing special about you. Maybe you weren’t chosen and things happened without a reason after all. Thousands of people lived unhappy and tragic lives and it was hard to believe that all of them were chosen ones, divine souls that had to endure great pain to make their way to heaven eventually. 

Colin’s fingers curled into a tight fist as he stared down the aisle to the altar. The groom, Earl of Hartfell, had already taken his rightful place, his back straight, posture emanating pride and that aura of haughtiness only a man of his status could allow himself to carry on his skin. With his hair slicked back and face freshly shaved, he looked very much like the trim and clean Nobleman he was, a man who — from a completely objective point of view — was worthy of Penelope. She deserved a man like him, but he didn’t deserve her. No. He didn’t. Neither did Colin but he was certain that if he didn’t try — that if he didn’t bare his heart to her at least once, he would die a broken-hearted man, swallowed up by darkness and despair. 

He wondered if this was fate or destiny or the so-called future God had chosen for him. But thinking about God and all that divine absurdity in a church — on Penelope’s wedding day was ironically cruel. 

And it was nonsense.

The blame lay with him and Marina — but Marina wasn’t here any longer to see all of this unfold. It was awful and terrible and so, so selfish of Colin to find relief in the fact that she wasn’t here anymore to stop him. To be an obstacle. To keep him from the person he had been yearning for all this time.

Five years ago he had agreed to marry Marina. Even after finding out about her pregnancy out of wedlock. It wasn’t love that had led him to make a decision he would regret for the rest of his life. It was curiosity. And pity. Heartbreaking pity for a girl who had been abandoned by the love of her life. But never love. Colin had never loved Marina, and Marina had never loved him in return. And yet he had agreed because back then he believed that one could grow to love someone in time. But he had been wrong. Not even an entire year after their union what had been creeping up on him for years caught up to him. That wonderful thing all poets called love slipped under his skin, wiggled its fingers under his ribcage and seized his heart, and its touch was so painful that Colin believed to have fallen into the wide and endless sea, slowly drowning. And there he remained, sinking, his heart desperately trying to keep beating while his lungs filled with water. He was barely functioning anymore because the sight of Penelope haunted him at night behind closed eyes. She was a dream and nightmare at once, torturing him every minute he was awake and every second he was asleep. 

And then came word from Sir Phillip Crane. George had never abandoned Marina. He had fallen during a battle. And suddenly — they were equally unhappy, mourning a reality that could’ve been if life hadn’t been so cruel to them.

But while Colin hadn’t loved Marina, he had loved their children, even if he wasn’t their biological father, and he was heartbroken and devastated for them when Marina fell victim to a fever from which she should never recover again. 

That had been six months ago. By that time Arthur Hartfell had already shown interest in Penelope. Colin couldn’t recall when exactly they started courting but he remembered hearing about the engagement and wishing for the ground to split and swallow him whole. He had no right to think such selfish thoughts but he didn’t want to exist in a reality in which Penelope belonged to someone else. To someone that wasn’t him.

As he got up from the pew, heads turned and eyes followed him, wondering silently where he was headed. But his expression raised no suspicion since it was his well-controlled self, it was the charming smile and the nonchalant behaviour that was so him — or that used to be him before fate had taken away the only thing– the only person he had truly ever wanted. 

Colin felt broken beyond repair, like a shattered mirror, all crooked and wrong. He could see his reflection but he was unable to find his real self amid all the sharp edges — edges that cut him to the bone whenever he tried to regain an ounce of happiness. For the longest time after Marina‘s death and Penelope’s engagement, Colin strongly believed that he would die—that his heart would simply give out on him and he would fade into nothingness. And perhaps it would. Perhaps he would cease to exist after today. The only thing binding him to this cruel world were the children. He couldn’t abandon them.

Colin exhaled sharply as he hurried down the hall, long legs carrying him to the room that he knew hid away Penelope from him. He reached the door, his hand already curled securely around the knob when hands reached out, yanking him back with surprising force, stopping him from entering. He turned his head, his lifeless eyes lighting up with burning fury until his gaze fell upon Eloise.

“You can’t be here, Colin,” she said, voice far less steady than the expression on her face. “She is getting married today. You can’t– You shouldn’t–“ Eloise pressed her lips to a thin line, looking at him knowingly. 

Colin eased his arm out of her now loose grip and stared at her for a long moment before taking a deep breath, the look in his eyes determined. “I shouldn’t but I can. And I will.” His grip around the knob tightened as he shook his head. “He may have money and a title but he will never – not in a million lifetimes – love her as much as I do. He will never adore her the way I do, worship her with everything he has, kiss the very ground she walks on.” Colin exhaled, his entire chest shaking. “She does not have to accept my feelings, nor allow them. I simply need her to know about these feelings for I will cease to breathe if she marries this man without ever hearing me say these things to her.”

Eloise's lips parted but the words got stuck in her throat, tears welling up in her blue eyes.

“I need her to know. I need to,” Colin added, now whispering. 

When she said nothing in return, he turned away and entered the room, and when he did, he found her already looking in his direction, eyes wide and unblinking.

She had heard everything. Everythingeverythingeverything. Every single word. His heart skipped a beat, it stopped moving for such a long moment that Colin believed this moment to be the one in which he ceased to exist. He brought a hand to his chest, fingers clenching around the dark fabric as he fought the pain. 

“You cannot do this to me,” she whispered, voice trembling. But when he approached her, his eyes just as wide as hers, filled with both fear and anguish, she didn’t retreat. Instead, she held out a hand, allowing him to come to her. And he did, Colin reached for her hand as if it was the only thing able to keep him afloat. 

It was.

It was the only thing, and yet he fell on his knees, hitting the ground underneath with a heavy thud, his lips pressed to her hand. “I am sorry. I am so terribly sorry, Penelope,” he breathed out, eyes closed so he didn’t have to glance at the dream of white she was dressed in. It was for another man, he couldn’t bear looking at it any longer. The pain it released within him went straight to his very core, settling in his bones, hurting him. 

“Colin,” she mumbled, reaching down to brush her other hand through his hair. He released a shaking breath, his throat tightening as if an invisible force was tightening a noose around it. “Colin, I am getting married,” she said then but it sounded so hollow, uncertain and sorrowful that it sparked hope in him. So he looked up, past the shimmering white of her dress into the ocean blue eyes he had been drowning in for the past four years.

“Don’t marry him,” Colin said, his grip on her hand tightening ever so slightly. “I am halfway gone, Penelope. A shadow of my former self.” He squeezed her hand. “I do not deserve you. I do not but – I am burning out, the light is lost on me. I have loved you for years. I was a fool, blinded by curiosity and guilt to do such a mindless thing when– when it is your smile that echoes through my mind and your laugh that haunts me day and night.”

A tear hit his face, rolling down his cheek, and it was only then that he realized she had been crying – silently, until her sorrow quite literally fell upon him. He raised to his feet, still holding her hand with one of his while reaching out with the other to wipe her tears away. 

“I am a terrible man. Selfish and undeserving. I have lost everything and I can’t blame anyone but myself. But I need you to know that I have never loved her. Never. Only you. I’ve only loved you all these years.” He released her hand and cupped her face instead, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead. “Only you,” he repeated, quietly and so softly, the words left his lips like a whisper. She started trembling in his arms, crying softly, her fingers digging through his clothes into his skin. “I cannot lose you as well.”

Colin held her while she cried, and he was sure that when she was done, she would leave the room and marry the man she loved. The man he was not.

But she didn’t. Penelope looked up instead, face flushed and eyes red from all the crying, and the only thing Colin could think about was that she was still the most beautiful woman walking this earth. 

“I love you, Colin,” she whispered, more tears welling up in her eyes. “I have loved you for an eternity and I will love you for another eternity.” Then, she shook her head and his heart stopped beating. “I cannot–“ She paused. 

“Take me away. Take me away from her and make me yours,” she said, her glistening eyes wide and hopeful, filled with love. Love for him.

And so he did. With his hand tightly intertwined with hers, he took her away. Because she was his, he was hers, and they deserved their true happy ending.

This – This very moment in time had been fate’s plan for them all along.