#hubert forgetting his husband can easily lift him

[anophiles]

lift your husband!!

[fericita-s]

Beginning After The End (Part 3)

Part 1   Part 2

Thank you @the-spaztic-fantastic​ for your awesome contributions to this, including the whole framework for this chapter.  Her exact words were: “You really wanna f*** up some people, do a compare/contrast piece where it switches between her meeting Elias and her re-meeting Hubert and how she decides on both in scene by scene cuts.”  So, here it is, meant for maximum pain! 

***

Elias sent flowers to the print shop every day after their dance at the ball.  Thea’s parents were pleased, then amused, and then annoyed as every surface of their small store was covered and the fragrance made everyone who entered sneeze.

“Please tell this young man he may court you before people start thinking we’re florists,” her father said, looking up from his work with inky hands and a pleased smile.

***

“I hope you’ll stay,” Elias had said when she told him her parents approved the courtship but only planned to stay in Arendelle long enough to make the print shop profitable before they sold it and sailed back to their family land in Denmark. 

“I hope you’ll give me a reason,” said Thea before turning and walking further into Hudson’s, waving to Maddie and joining her at a table.

***

“If you’re leaving, don’t return here,” Thea told Hubert when he said he’d come back and visit.  “I can't bear it, waiting on a ship to come in.”

Hubert looked at her, steadily, and she didn’t see any anger or hurt in his eyes. Perhaps he understood.

“Then come with me.”

She began to cry.

***

“I love you,” Elias said, and it was like a groan, like a confession causing him pain.  His hips were flush against hers and she could feel the hardness there, could feel as well as hear his words as he half-whispered them into her ear. “I know we can’t get married right away but can we soon? May I talk to your father?”

She answered with a kiss, which was perhaps not what Manners Mistress had taught about courtship, but Thea didn’t see how she could respond any other way.  If she could melt her body into his, she would, and not mind one bit if she lost herself in the process.

***

“I know you don’t love me,  I know it's not love right now. You’re still grieving. We’re both mourning.” Hubert looked so earnest, so plaintive, and his kindness brought more tears to her eyes so that she wasn’t even looking at him anymore.  She covered her face and wiped at it with clumsy hands and then Hubert closed the distance between them and hugged her to his chest.

“Can’t we mourn together?  Make a new family?” Her ear was pressed against his chest and she could feel the rumble as he spoke. She took a few deep breaths and his hands dropped from her shoulders at this sign of composure. She drew back from him, but there were only inches between their faces and the space felt charged with a passion made from despair.

“Oh Hubert. If you want a family, find a young woman with child-bearing years ahead of her.  I’m sure mine are over.”

He shook his head. “I know they aren’t mine, but I could love Sasha and Vadik and Elias like they were.  Sasha could study music in Antwerp.  The Ecole speciale de musique is world-renowned! And you know Vadik would love to have an adventure in a new place.  Little Elias would get along fine, and you can bring as many of your own staff as you’d like. I won’t replace Elias. I won’t. But let me build a legacy.  Let us help each other.”

Thea shook her head and kept her eyes on the floor, on a spot just in front of him. “What you’re longing for, I don’t think I can give you that.  I think I don’t have any of it left.”  

“I meet plenty of young women and they make me feel like a lecher.  I could be their father in age and none will speak to me as easily about aquaculture and art. None could converse with dignitaries or business associates and help secure deals by virtue of her hosting.”

Thea gave a small laugh. 

Hubert smiled.  “We have a long friendship.  Is that not a basis for a good marriage?”

She began crying again but she put a hand up to keep him away. “Would you give me someone new to mourn?”

***

The first time they made love it was rushed and awkward and wonderful, desperation and longing finally fulfilled as Elias gently tugged at layers of clothing and pressed himself to her.  She sought the skin that had been hidden underneath his shirt and trousers and ran her hands along the hard muscle there, wondering if she would always feel this way, so urgent in her need of him. She hadn’t wanted to wait until the wedding and he had let out a sigh of relief when she told him, better than any marriage vow could be in her ears. Then, after the wedding, their nights together still felt like stolen time as his frequent expeditions made each leaving and each homecoming equally urgent and passionate.  Had she known even then their time would be too short?

***

The first time with Hubert was slow and unhurried. Like they had all the time in the world, and she supposed they did.  

Too much time.  

Hubert said he had been feeling the crush of time now that three dear friends were dead, that it would run out before he was ready.  But she felt cursed with it.  

All this time to survive. 

The elder Calders and the royal couple had died with their beloveds and she somehow had to make a life without hers. 

This would help her forget. 

It would feel good. 

She lost herself in his gentle and generous caress, his whispered words and his hands rolling down her stockings and pulling her body to his.  These were not frantic fumblings in the dark corners of a house between teenagers, ears alert to the movement of parents in upstairs rooms.  He took the dressing robe from her shoulders and she stretched her hands across the broadness of his chest, losing herself in the pleasure of his body against hers and the rhythm and heat they made together. It was a feeling of fullness, of pleasure, and it had been so long.

After, he pulled her trembling body against his and she cried, saying “I forgot, I forgot.” 

But even she didn’t know what she meant.  Did she forget what pleasure was like? Did she forget Elias? And was that a relief or tragedy? Hubert didn't ask and she was relieved he didn't. Instead his hands stroked her hair and pulled the coverlet over them as he murmured to her in a language she didn't know.  

In the morning when they awoke to the sound of Sasha practicing her violin and Vadik running down the steps and calling for Sara, Hubert pulled her tightly to himself again and offered new vows.

“I promise to help you forget when you want to forget and to help you remember when you want to remember.”

But she didn’t know which she wanted just then, so she tried to make light of it.  “Just promise me you won’t get on a boat.”

He lifted himself off of the bed and then lowered his head to kiss her firmly on the lips, more as a sign of agreement than a sign of passion but Thea felt the stirrings of desire at the sincerity and kindness in his words: “I promise.”

***

When Elias died, she was pregnant with their third child and it kept her alive, this remnant of her husband. She watched her body swell and grow in familiar ways and when the baby boy was born she saw his face and spoke the name of who she missed, who this baby looked like, who she wished could see what he had made and left behind. “Elias,” she whispered, as the baby grasped her finger with his fist. 

“What a lovely name, dear,” said the midwife. “It suits him.”

***

Hubert was the first to guess, even before Thea herself. His hands were on her breast and around her middle as they lay together in bed, the quiet of the house like a blanket of calm around them.

“No, I don’t think so. I haven’t had a cycle since little Elias was born, and that’s been over a year now.” She spread her hands over her middle where a roundness was evident.  “Perhaps you are just feeding me well.”

“Eat as much as you like.  More for me to love,” he said as he nuzzled his head into her neck and her heart sped at this declaration of affection and stuttered over the hope of new life.  Now that it was spoken, she wanted it.  But it was too dangerous to hope.

***

Elias was slightly drunk and reeked of cigar smoke when she placed Sasha in his arms for the first time, sleeping and wrapped tightly in swaddling.  Thea hoped to be sleeping soon too, every part of her felt heavy and tired though her joy at seeing their daughter in his arms was so wonderful, she closed her eyes, trying to commit it to memory so she could paint it later. The lines of surprise on his face, the reverence with which he held her. “Oh she’s beautiful,” he said. “Well done, Thea.”

***

Hubert was surprised, and Thea too, when a very tiny baby boy followed a very tiny baby girl after a mercifully quick labor.  Thea might have worried about their size but for the loud cries both made.  The midwife washed and wrapped them both quickly, placing one in her arms and one in Hubert’s.  Thea wasn’t even sure if she had the boy or the girl and the midwife was busy wiping her with a clean washcloth and only spoke Flemish so she didn’t ask.

Hubert kissed Thea’s sweaty brow, such joy in his face that Thea could feel it reflected back onto her. “I knew you were a remarkable woman. Two at once!”

 ***

“I love you,” Hubert said, and it was like he thought it a burden to her or an inconvenience, like he was worried she would feel obligated to love him too. He called her “dearest” but she only called him “dear,” and she knew he noticed the lack of the superlative when he dropped that endearment entirely.  He chose a new one each time he addressed her, mostly in the German native to his mother.  Liebling and Perle and Engel. Sometimes in French: Mon coeur, mon tresor, and even mon chou to make her laugh. 

She called him Hubert and that was enough for him, for now. At least she hoped. Too much of her was still faded and lost in grief. But waking up beside him every day in a new kingdom in a new city without the glare of the fjord and the creaking of boats, she thought she might not be faded much longer.  

The twins stirred in their bassinet and Hubert picked them up, cradling one in each arm.  He turned to her and smiled.