Trembling

Summary: After a second incident at the royal palace, Drake realises that something’s not okay with Elizabeth.

The moment he heard the explosion, Drake immediately rushed towards Elizabeth, calling out her name as he jostled through the crowd to where she had been standing, talking to the royal family. She was his first priority, she always was. Ever since the attack at the Homecoming Ball, looking over his shoulder had almost become second nature, especially when Elizabeth was concerned. While he couldn’t protect her from everything, he would damn well try because he knew he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if something happened to her.

 Where was she? His eyes scanned the frenzied mass, frantically sifting through to find her bright orange dress.

‘C’mon, c’mon,’ he mumbled under his breath. ‘Richmond where are y-‘

Finally his gaze landed on her, standing unmoving, her back ramrod straight. The ballroom was utter chaos as the crowd around him surged, trying to fight their way towards the exit while he pressed onwards towards her just as the ceiling near Liam threatened to collapse. Soon he was close enough to hear her gasp of alarm as Constantine pushed his son out of the way, taking the impact of the ceiling. Shoving through the last few members of the crowd, Drake’s hand finally closed on her frozen figure, reflexively pulled her to him as he coughed in the dust from the rubble.

‘Elizabeth come on,’ he told her, looking into her unfocused eyes that were quickly filling with tears. ‘We have to get out of here now.’

‘Drake… H-he…The ceiling..’ Her voice was soft and breathy and he knew, he just knew at once she wasn’t okay. She’d just watched someone, Constantine, die, of course she wasn’t okay.

‘Drake.. I-‘

As much as he wanted to comfort her, Drake knew he had to get her to safety. The longer they stayed the more at risk they were and he wouldn’t have her in harm’s way for any longer.

‘I know, I know baby,’ he replied, his tone gentle but urgent, his senses dialled to eleven, painfully aware of the crumbling ceiling above. ‘But we gotta get out of here. You gotta come with me first. You can do that can’t you?’

Eyes brimming with tears, lower lip wobbling, she nodded vacantly and he arranged his features into an encouraging smile.

‘That’s my girl.’

–

It wasn’t until they were back at the safe house that Drake realised something was wrong. During their escape and for the entire journey from the palace, Elizabeth been deathly quiet. Her usual bubbly demeanour, one of the many things he loved about her, was replaced by a stark silence, hidden in the dim lighting of the car. He’d been so busy talking to Bastien on the phone, helping with coordination of the evacuation, getting instructions about the safe house that he’d missed how she had been staring blankly at the leather of the driver’s seat. At first he assumed, it was the shock after all and maybe she just needed a moment for it to sink in — she’d just seen the king get crushed by the ceiling of his own home, of course she wouldn’t be okay.

Liam was in the royal safe house with his mother, their friends had been taken to a different one to avoid suspicion so it was just him and Elizabeth that night. Mara and Bastien left after seeing them settle in, they had a million other jobs to do right now.

Wait here Drake. We’ll come get you two when its safe, they’d said.

Drake never could stand waiting. It ate at him, crawling under his skin until he itched to do something, anything that would give him the illusion that he was doing something useful. He was so preoccupied with his own thoughts —because a million of them seemed to be turning about in his head — that he’d completely missed Elizabeth. When Drake went into panic mode, he did things. When Elizabeth went into panic mode, it was like she’d completely shut down.

She was always there in his periphery and as long as she wasn’t saying anything, his mind reasoned that she must have been okay. A simple glance told him that she was seated on the couch but if he’d looked closer he’d have seen her eyes downcast, her movements were small and deliberate as she gingerly lowered herself into a chair, perched on the edge, unmoving, almost like she didn’t want to be noticed at all. Her silence stretched longer and longer and mistaking it for tiredness, he bustled through out the underground apartment, checking the generator, the fridge, food and water supplies, anything to calm his nerves.

After double — no, triple — checking the locks, making sure they enough bottles of water in the fridge, locating the first aid kit and spare changes of clothes, when he had done all he could, Drake finally turned his attention to Elizabeth. His thoughts quietened for a moment as he realised that this was just like that night after the coronation, it was just the two of them. He mentally shook himself, he didn’t want to think of that… It was simultaneously the happiest and scariest day of his life. She’d agreed to marry him, yes, but he’d also been on the brink of death, having the possibility of everything he’s ever known ripped from him to be abandoned to the great oblivion.

Elizabeth was the one thing that would always centre him, to pull him back from the edge and he swore to himself that he would do anything to protect her. Right now, he needed her. He needed to hold her, to feel her warm body in his arms, feel the beating of her heart pressed against his to reassure himself that she was okay. That they were okay. It was only when he sat down beside her, that Drake realised that something was desperately wrong. The air between them crackled with tension as he sank into the couch beside her, arms instinctively reaching for her but she shrunk away from his grasp. A cold fear clamped around his heart and he was unable to stop his mouth from dropping open. What had he done to make her pull away from him? Not knowing what to do, he just sat there, for a long time and he was quiet too, hoping she’d talk first and save him the misery of breaking the suffocating silence.

‘Richmond, whats the matter?’ He began tentatively, unable to take it anymore.

‘I’m fine Drake,’ Elizabeth replied, her tone unreadable, face turned away from his.

‘You’re obviously not, whats wrong?

‘Nothing.’ The same, closed tone again.

‘Bullshit, you can’t fool me Richmond.’

‘I said nothing Drake,’ she repeated, rising to her feet, eyes fixed to the carpet and he noticed she was trembling. ‘Can I just go to bed now?’

Every fibre of her posture was pleading for him to let it go, to stop talking but he couldn’t. He couldn’t stand to just remain silent while the woman he loved was obviously hurting.

‘No,’ Drake argued, desperation deep in his voice. ‘I’m not going anywhere until you tell me whats bothering you. And I know something is.’

‘I’m fine Drake. Just drop it.’ ‘No I’m not.’ He grabbed her arm lightly to pull her back to him. He wanted to hold, her to comfort her, to show her he was-

‘Fucking hell you just don’t know when to quit do you?!’ 

It was like a switch had been flipped suddenly. Eyes flashing with anger, Elizabeth wrenched her arm from his grip. ‘I said I’m fine! Leave me alone Drake.’

And Drake could do nothing but gape as she stormed off towards the small adjacent bedroom, the door slamming thunderously behind her.

–

Drake remained rooted to the spot long after the echo had faded, shocked to his core as emotions built in him, shock, alarm, sadness, confusion, guilt, some he didn’t fully understand, seeming to grow and grow until they were too much for him. He sank down onto the couch, as if overwhelmed by the weight of them all, head resting heavily in his palms. His mind raced, searching, thinking, contemplating where had he erred, what he could have possibly done to exact a reaction from his usually composed fiancee. He’d never seen Elizabeth like this… Usually their roles were reversed, that she was the one to pull him out of his bad mood, she would have detected that something wasn’t right, she would have known immediately that something was very, very wrong for her to snap like this. But what?

Eventually Drake eased himself off the couch and tiptoed towards the bedroom, wincing at the slight squeaking of the hinges as he inched the door open. Facing the wall, Elizabeth was lying on the bed, presumably asleep by the steady rise and fall of her chest but Drake didn’t trust himself to believe that she was really sleeping. After all he had misjudging everything else tonight so why should he trust his senses now? Still something tugged in his chest. He needed to be with her, to be next to her, to feel her warmth to reassure himself that she was alive and so was he. He gingerly approached the bed, lifted the covers and slid in beside her, the vast amount of space between them not lost on him. He wanted to hold her badly, so, so badly but he did not want to create another scene like before. Simply being next to her would have to suffice for now and though a thousand thoughts still swirled in his brain, Drake clamped his eyes shut and forced himself to get some rest.

–

His consciousness alerted him before his brain could wake up – something was not right. His eyes remain closed but his hand travelled over to her side of the bed, to make sure she was there, to make sure she was safe. When his fingers brushed on the empty mattress, his eyes snapped open and he shot up in bed, searching frenetically for her, heart stopping until he saw a crack of light spilling from the tiny space between the door and its frame.

Going out into the main room, he found Elizabeth standing with her back to him, silhouetted against the dim emergency lights, standing so still he could have mistaken her for a wraith in the night. He couldn’t see her face but her posture alone was enough of a warning. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to go back to bed and carefully he crept forwards, feet treading lightly as if the carpet were mad of eggshells, not wanting to break the fragile spell she’d wrapped herself in. He stood there at her side for a long moment, aching to touch her but at the same time knowing he shouldn’t lest he drive her off again. After losing count of how much time had passed, she turned to him. Elizabeth looked up at him and in the pain he found in her dark irises, something shifted in him. It was like he was looking at her with new eyes. For the first time he saw all of her: the foreigner, the duchess, the friend, the fiancee, the woman he loved was struggling and he had no idea.

Emotional connections had never been his forte and for the first time in his life he felt completely useless. He’d been so caught up in his own doubts and thoughts about the wedding that he’d failed realise she might have doubts of her own.  She was human after all and she battled with her own demons too, she was just better at hiding it than he was. She talked and laughed a lot but never once thought did Drake think that she talked to avoid talking, talking about the things that mattered, the things that really affected her, that kept her awake at night when all she wanted to do was sleep.

From the pain in her eyes, he realised that even though she put on a brave face every day. She bore the look of a woman haunted, haunted by things she should have never seen if he had any say about it. Drake was painfully reminded of his own mortality in that moment. This was the life she’d been thrust into, being a noble now had painted an angry red target on her back and try as he may, he would never be enough to protect her.

The concept of time was irrelevant as they stood side by side and when she eventually spoke, Elizabeth’s voice was little more than a haunted whisper.

‘Do you know what tonight reminded me of?’

Drake shook his head, not wanting to break the spell.

‘It felt like I was living through that  night of the homecoming ball.’ She clamped her eyes shut and swallowed hard, her voice wobbling just a little. ‘The explosions, the sounds, people scrambling over each other to get out, the panic… I don’t think I can go through that again. And I…’ She released a noise of frustration, as emotions built in her throat, rendering her unable to continue.

‘I’m here baby, I’m here.’ His arms surged forward, eager to comfort her, to hold her and reassure her that there was nothing he wouldn’t do to keep her safe but she shoved off his attempt at an embrace, her voice like ice when she replied.

‘Please don’t touch me.’

Drake recoiled as if she’d slapped him, feeling the sting of her words sinking into his skin. He swallowed hard, his inner stubbornness urging him not to give in while his conscience ordered him not to pursue it. Torn between the two, Drake finally choked out a desperate strangled response.

‘Don’t do that Richmond. Talk to me. I’m here. Don’t shut me out. Talk to me please.’

Her gaze strayed off into the middle distance, gaining that faraway look in her eyes. ‘I’m not sure Drake… I’m not sure about anything…’

That stunned him into silence. What did she mean anything? Even… them? He was about to open his mouth with a fickle response when she spoke again, her voice carrying louder against the winds that whipped loudly around their bunker

‘What if this is the universe’s way of telling us we shouldn’t be together?’

A cold hand of fear clenched around his heart as Drake struggled to formulate a reply, his mouth opening and closing over and over but no words came out. Elizabeth noticed his speechlessness and swallowed thickly.

‘Everything I’ve known since I’ve come here is chaos… The scandal at the coronation, the photos, the attack on the Homecoming ball, everything from schemes against me to assassins pointing guns at me, wanting me dead and then tonight… How can I ignore all of that? How many bad things need to happen before I realise what should have been glaringly obvious? I don’t want this life Drake. If it means I’m going to constantly have to watch my back, to look over my shoulder. If that is what life in Cordonia holds for me… then maybe I…’

She cut herself off and internally his mind was screaming at her to continue, to finish her sentence.

‘I should have never come to Cordonia…’ 

Her words hit him with a devastating finality as if it was the final nail in the coffin for him. At once his mind flashed to a possibility in which Elizabeth indeed had never come to Cordonia. Liam would have married Madeleine, Hana would still be under the cruel regime of her parents, tensions more fraught than ever between the Brothers Beaumont and as for himself. He’d come so far from that sullen, lonely bastard that sulked in the shadows, resenting the nobility in all its forms and if not for Elizabeth’s catalysing presence, Drake shuddered to think where he would be now.

Finally finding his voice, Drake surged forward, gripping her shoulders and making her face him, not caring if she struck him for real this time or not. He needed to say this and he needed her to hear it.

‘No. Don’t say that. I refuse to believe it. You took the country by storm, creating a change that no one else would ever be able to.Your presence in Cordonia has only made everyone’s lives infinitely better. Hell, you’ve made a better man of me when even I had given up on myself. Yes, terrible things have happened and there are some truly evil people out there trying to send us all to ruin but you are a shining hope to them. To us all.’

‘And I swear,’ he reached forward and grasped her hands tightly in his. ‘I swear on my life that I will do anything and everything in my power to protect you Elizabeth Richmond. Because I could never live with myself if something… if you were…’ His voice cracked and he dropped his head down.

Voicing it aloud only made the possibility more real and more painful to bear and right now he was scared. Drake was scared beyond words at the prospect of losing her. He knew his promises were nothing more than empty guarantees, like a straw house in the wind that was their enemies and the inevitable danger they were facing but he had to try, he’d try until his dying breath to protect her from everything that was to come and if it came to that, so be it.

‘Do you love me?’

Drake picked his head up at the sound of Elizabeth’s trembling voice. ‘O-of course. More than anything,’ he scrambled to reply, caught totally off guard by her question. ‘More than I’ve ever loved anyone before.’

She nodded, seeming to process the response and something in her eyes prompted him to turn the question on her.

’D-do you love me?’

At once her gaze dropped to the floor and his heart clenched tightly in anticipation and the knot of despair was just beginning to unravel behind his sternum when she pressed her lips against his and he could taste her tears in the desperate kiss they shared. Drake almost moaned at her touch, his hands coming up to finally embrace her the way he’d been aching to do so. He encircled his arms around her, rejoicing in the opportunity to just to be with her and hold her, to feel the steady beating of her heart against his chest reminding him that she was alive, that they both were.  It wasn’t until they parted and the breeze from the open window cooled the water from her tears that has fallen onto his cheeks that he realised she’d side-stepped the question..

Pulling back, he looked carefully into her dark eyes, hoping so ardently to find an answer to the question she was so obviously avoiding but Elizabeth refused to hold the gaze. At this, Drake knew this wasn’t over, that one kiss wouldn’t magically resolve all her inhibitions. The thought frightened him but still he allowed her to lead him back to the bedroom where they settled back under the covers. This time she allowed him to hold her, wrapping his arms around her slim form and as her breathing even out into soft deep breaths, he struggled with sleep.

As the sun rose on the horizon, Drake glanced down at the love of his life who lay sleeping in his arms. He knew he couldn’t fight her demons for her but he would never stop trying.