She is not afraid and he wonders why he ever thought she would be. His bride bends down to pet Cerberus's middle head, while the left snuffles her ear, and the right investigates her skirts. She laughs and the sound brings light and hope to this dark domain and warms his heart.

"He's beautiful," Persephone says over her shoulder, giggling when the middle head licks at her neck, almost knocking her over in his enthusiasm.

Beautiful. No-one has ever said that of the guardian beast before. But then before she spoke the words, no-one had ever told Hades they loved him.

They’d done this dance a hundred times before. Klaus would get mad at one of his siblings and decided to ‘teach’ them a lesson. It just happened to be her turn. She had seen it coming this time. The way he huffed at her in response to something she’d been saying. Now, she couldn’t even remember what it was. It could have been that the sky was blue Klaus took offense to that. In the end it didn’t matter what the reason was. Sometimes she welcomed the dagger to her un-beating heart. The chance to lay back and let the world move around her, without her.

She was tired. So tired of this world. They were so far removed from their initial life. One that was fraught with hardship but so much easier in its simplest form of survival. Stay alive from one winter to the next. Easier than the minefield she danced around, the one she called brother. You never knew what his mood would be from one moment to the next. That was beyond tiring. She’d sigh right now at that thought if she could. The funny thing was, their lungs didn’t actually work. She heard the giggle at that in the back of her mind. Being daggered was slowly driving her insane. Well, they were all insane for wanting this immortal life. Dealing with Klaus was ripping her sanity away, strip by strip as if it was an old worn piece of cloth.

At one time she’d been in love. Had found a man she wanted to settle with, have babes with. She’d wanted to be a wife, to be loved and cherished. She’d wanted to be a mother, to feel the life of her child grow within her body. To hear her child’s voice call her mother. That had been taken from her when the blood ritual had been performed. It was supposed to protect them. It had done more than that.

Now, they were immortal and if one of them died, their entire bloodline died with them. She thought it over in her mind. It wasn’t like she had much else to do. Laying in the coffin didn’t really do much to keep her alert mind entertained. If she could move, she knew her eyes would be rolling in disgust. But, really aside from a few she had created herself she didn’t know the others. They weren’t her concern just like she wasn’t theirs. They didn’t pay tribute to her as they had when she and her brothers had been considered Gods. She was overlooked, forgotten. By them and her own family. So really, what was the point to this endless life? One she no longer cared for. Maybe it was time. Maybe when this dagger was pulled from her body, she would seek out the only means that could end her and her family. Maybe it was time for her stop existing because really, she was no longer living.

The wording of the marriage vows makes it clear: Til death do us part, and Thomas Sharpe is unquestionably dead. Now Edyth is free to follow her heart, to embrace her childhood friend as a woman, moreover a woman of substance who no longer needs to worry about what people will think. She marries Alan without a qualm, returning to the safe, comfortable haven of Buffalo.

Her hometown is almost as she remembers it…save that now she lives in Alan’s tidy pied-a-terre, his family becomes hers (This is not a benefit, but it is inevitable.), and her father no longer occupies his office in the firm he helped build. There is a new managing partner, and the name of the firm has changed.

Fair enough--she’s changed too, in many ways. Writing is no longer an amusing diversion, it is a burning need, and the ghosts in her tales are no mere metaphors. She is at her desk one afternoon, penning a story of black moths which are spinning a cocoon around an unwary sleeper, when she glances up to see her first husband gazing down at her. A drop of ink forms a blot on the page as her hand trembles. She didn’t expect to see him here, so far from his ancestral hall.

“Hello, my darling,” he says softly, lips curving in a familiar smile.

Edyth smiles back. Even after the malevolent spectres she’s encountered, her late husband’s shade provokes no terrors. Thomas was always kind to her. Then her breath catches and she looks about wildly. “Is she here?”

“No. She is…elsewhere. She won’t bother you.” He’s studying here, eyes tender. “You’re looking well. Marriage seems to agree with you.”

A flurry of responses come to mind: “So does not being poisoned by my sister-in-law.”---“I know I’m safe here, which is more than I could say last time.” And most heartfelt, “I would have been your wife if only you’d let me in!” But he had, hadn’t he? It just hadn’t been enough to overcome the indomitable Lucille Sharpe. And now death has parted them, or has it?

“It’s good to see you, too,” she says at last. “Everything happened to suddenly at the end…I never had the opportunity to say thank you.”

“Don’t! Don’t thank me!” he says with some vehemence. “I was an unconcionable coward, and I allowed Lucille to do terrible things on my behalf. But…I couldn’t hurt her. And I couldn’t hurt you.” His voice is mournful and tears glisten in his pale eyes.

“In the end, you saved me,” Edyth reminds him.

“I suppose that’s the important thing. He’s a lucky man, that McMichael.” Thomas looks distracted for a moment. “I’ll be seeing you, sweetheart.” Then he’s gone before she can protest.

The door to her study opens, and Alan strides in, presenting her with a striped bag from the candy shop near his office and kissing her cheek. “How is my fair bride this afternoon?”

Edyth smiles and feeds him one of the chocolate creams from the bag. She banters with him, as if she’s spent a perfectly ordinary afternoon writing and hasn’t been chatting up her deceased first husband. Seeing ghosts is nothing new, really--not for her--and thankfully this was a peaceful discourse. Even if death hasn’t entirely parted her from Thomas, she thinks with a wry smile, it would be nigh impossible to prove bigamy.

..

oh i love this a lot