Chapter Text
Happy Valentine’s day! A day early, but hey actual Valentines day:3 I kind of had a long week, just you know life and just been sad a bit. At times, fanfic my outlet, which has helped a ton. Heh, ton, the ton. I am seeing wuthering heights with my one friend on Valentines day and Sunday brunch with my other friend. I think in their own way they know I needed some girl time. If ya’ll need a chapter just for self-care or just need a distraction I am here to deliver!
Anyways, enjoy!
As always thank you to my bookmarkers, kudos, the extra hearts I’ve been seeing in the comments. I see you and appreciate it, and my lovely dearest readers of course!
And I’ll respond to last chapter reviews as soon as I can!:3 They're much appreacited.
NExt update: early wednesday or thursday. Since for some reason I tend to do a day before my actual update but hey it’s a vibe.
Important notes: At the end of the chapter I have ‘notes’, there’s a certain part with benedict with heavy implied, it suicide, it’s not graphic, just very heavy-tone and wanted to be mindful for triggers. So I have a little warning I’ll put in bold when that part comes and when it’s safe to proceed and notes are just the gist of what happened. The other note is a passage of a story, I can’t reveal yet because it will give something away, so that’s what my second note is. And the third note is about birthdays. But yeah, just wanted to let ya’ll know.
Chapter 5
The ballroom felt different when she returned.
Not physically, per say. The same chandeliers dripped crystal light, the same orchestra played from the gallery, the same crush of bodies swirled in elaborate patterns across the floor. But something had shifted. Fractured. Like reality itself had cracked down the middle, and she was standing in the space between what was and what should have been.
Penelope stood at the edge of the dance floor, her heart still racing from the garden. From Benedict's flirtation. From the weight of the pistol she'd felt beneath his coat. From the way he'd looked at her like he was trying to remember something he'd forgotten.
'Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.'
The phantom sound was louder now. Insistent. It echoed beneath the music, beneath the laughter, beneath everything. A countdown to something she couldn't see.
The air tasted wrong. Metallic. Like the moment before lightning strikes.
She scanned the crowd, cataloging the differences from her first timeline. There: Daphne and Simon, standing together near the refreshment table. They were laughing, heads bent close, but the sound was sharp. Cutting.
"Absolutely insufferable," Daphne was saying, her smile bright and false. "The way you monopolize every conversation-"
"Says the woman who cannot go five minutes without correcting someone's grammar," Simon shot back smoothly, offering her his arm with exaggerated gallantry.
They were working the ruse. Playing their parts. To anyone watching, they looked besotted. But Penelope could hear the edge in their voices, see the calculation in their eyes. They were roasting each other while the ton saw only chemistry.
Because of her. Because she'd suggested it.
The thought should have filled her with satisfaction. Instead, dread coiled in her stomach like a living thing.
'What else have I changed? What other house of cards have I knocked over without realizing?'
"Well, well. The wallflower returns."
Penelope turned to find Cressida Cowper standing behind her, resplendent in pale pink silk. But there was something different in her expression now. Not just disdain, but fear. Barely concealed, but there.
"Miss Cowper," Penelope said, her voice carefully neutral. "Still recovering from your earlier... mishap?"
Cressida's jaw tightened. Earlier in the evening, she'd tried to "accidentally" spill champagne on Penelope's dress. Benedict had intercepted the glass with impossible timing, as if he'd known it was coming. As if he'd been watching for it.
"That was no mishap," Cressida said, her voice low and venomous. "And you know it."
"Do I?"
"You moved." Cressida stepped closer, her eyes searching Penelope's face with an intensity that made her skin crawl. "Before I even lifted the glass, you moved. Like you knew what I was going to do before I did it."
Penelope's blood went cold.
"And then Mr. Benendict-" Cressida's voice dropped to a whisper. "He was across the room. I saw him. But somehow he was there, catching the glass, looking at me like... like he'd been expecting it."
"Perhaps you're simply not as subtle as you think," Penelope said, forcing her voice to remain steady.
"No." Cressida's eyes narrowed. "Something is wrong with you. With both of you. You're moving through this evening like you've already lived it. Like you know what's going to happen before it does."
The words landed like blows. Penelope felt her carefully constructed mask begin to crack.
"I don't know what you mean-"
"Don't you?" Cressida's voice was sharp. Frightened. "I've been watching you all night, Penelope Featherington. And I've seen things that shouldn't be possible. You're different. Changed. Like you're wearing someone else's skin."
Before Penelope could respond, Cressida swept away, but not with her usual confidence. She looked back once, her expression caught between calculation and genuine unease.
'She sees it. She sees that something is wrong.'
The realization sent ice through Penelope's veins. If Cressida could see the fractures, who else could? How long before the entire illusion shattered?
'Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.'
The ticking was deafening now. Penelope pressed her hand to her chest, trying to steady her breathing. The ballroom felt staged suddenly. Like a play between acts, with all the actors frozen in place, waiting for their cue.
The chandelier above her head flickered. Just once. But at that moment, she saw it. The crystal drops weren't quite right. They hung at impossible angles, defying gravity, as if reality itself was struggling to maintain the illusion.
"Miss Featherington. A word, if you please."
Penelope turned to find Lady Danbury standing a few feet away, leaning on her cane. The older woman's sharp eyes were fixed on Penelope with an intensity that made her want to run.
"My lady," Penelope said, curtsying.
"Walk with me, child."
It wasn't a request.
Lady Danbury led her to a quiet alcove away from the main ballroom. The music was muffled here, the laughter distant. They were alone.
But the ticking followed.
'Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.'
"You're an interesting creature, Miss Featherington," Lady Danbury said without preamble. Her voice was different now. Heavier. As if weighted by knowledge she shouldn't possess. "I've lived a long time. Long enough to recognize when the natural order of things has been... disturbed."
Penelope's mouth went dry. "I don't understand-"
"Don't you?" Lady Danbury's eyes were ancient. Knowing. "Time is not a river, child. It's a tapestry. Pull one thread, and the entire thing begins to unravel."
The words pierced through Penelope's own sense of time.
"You've been pulling threads," Lady Danbury continued softly. "Changing things. Small things, perhaps. But small things have consequences. Ripples that spread farther than you can see."
"I'm just trying to help-"
"Are you?" Lady Danbury leaned closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Or are you trying to change what was always meant to be? Death has a way of asserting itself, Miss Featherington. Fate does not take kindly to interference."
Penelope's breath caught. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that some things are fixed. Written in stone. And when you try to change them-" Lady Danbury's expression was grave. "Time finds another way. A worse way. The cost is always higher than you expect."
"But if I can save-"
"Can you?" Lady Danbury's voice was sharp now. "Or will you simply trade one death for another? One tragedy for something worse?"
Before Penelope could respond, Lady Danbury straightened, her expression unreadable. "I've said my piece. What you do with it is your choice. But remember, child, every choice has a price. And time always collects its debts."
She turned and walked away, leaving Penelope alone in the alcove with her racing heart and spinning thoughts.
'She knows. She doesn't know what, but she knows something is wrong.'
Penelope pressed her hand to her chest, trying to steady her breathing. The ticking in her mind was deafening now.
'Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.'
She needed to find Benedict. Needed to make sure he was all right. Needed to-
Around her, the ballroom continued its dance. But she could see the fractures now. Small things, wrong things. A lady's fan moving in reverse. A gentleman's laugh echoing twice, as if reality was stuttering. The musicians played notes that didn't quite match the melody she remembered.
This wasn't just her perception. This was real. Time itself was breaking.
And she was the one breaking it.
A scream cut through the ballroom.
Penelope's entire posture straightened like a suspect herself. She then ran toward the sound, her skirts tangling around her legs. The crowd was parting, people gasping and pointing toward the terrace.
As she broke through the crowd, her heart was in her throat when she saw him.
Benedict, standing at the edge of the terrace. His face was white as death. His hand was pressed to his coat to where the pistol rested beneath the fabric.
And at his feet, crumpled on the ground, was Lord Berbrooke.
Blood pooled beneath the man's head, dark and spreading. His eyes were open, staring at nothing.
Dead.
The world tilted. Penelope's ears rang. She couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't-
‘This is wrong. This is all wrong.’
Benedict's eyes met hers across the crowd.
And in them, she saw something that made her soul scream.
Recognition.
Not surprise. Not a shock. Not the confusion of a man who'd just witnessed something terrible.
Recognition.
His expression was hollow. Resigned. Like a man who'd been here before. Who'd stood in this exact spot, with blood on his hands and horror in his eyes, and watched it all play out exactly as he'd known it would.
Like he remembered.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
His lips moved, forming words she couldn't hear over the screaming and chaos. But she could read them:
"Not again."
The clock was counting down.
And Penelope realized, with a horror that stole her breath, that she wasn't the only one caught in the loop.
The edges of the terrace began to blur, colors bleeding into one another like watercolors left in the rain. She tried to move forward, tried to reach Benedict, but her feet wouldn't obey. The crowd around her moved in strange, jerking motions. Too fast, then too slow, like a music box winding down.
'I'm not just watching time. I'm breaking it.'
The thought crystallized with terrible clarity. Every choice she'd made, every warning she'd given, every moment she'd tried to change. They weren't corrections, but they were fractures. Cracks spreading through the fabric of reality itself.
The ballroom sounds distorted. Screams stretched into long, warbling notes. The music from inside twisted into something discordant and wrong. And through it all, that relentless ticking, growing louder, faster, more insistent.
Tick-tick-tick-tick-TICK-TICK-TICK
"I'm so sorry, my Lady Red."
Benedict's voice cut through the chaos, clear and devastating. He was looking directly at her, his hazel eyes filled with a grief that transcended this moment, this timeline, this life.
The crowd shifted, and suddenly there were guards everywhere. The Queen's guards, their red coats bright as blood. They swarmed the terrace, their boots thundering against the stone. The Queen herself appeared, her face a mask of fury and shock, her jewels catching the lamplight like shards of ice.
"Benny!" Penelope screamed, finally finding her voice. She lunged forward, but something caught her: not hands, not fabric, but something else. Something invisible and inexorable, like being pulled backward through water.
The scene before her flickered. Changed.
This wasn't right. This wasn't how it happened.
In her original timeline, Lord Berbrooke had simply disappeared. There had been whispers, speculation, but no body. No murder. No public execution of a Bridgerton brother. He'd slunk away in shame after Daphne had punched him, humiliated by Lady Whistledown's column, destroyed by gossip and servants' tales.
Not this. Never this.
Anthony appeared at Benedict's side, his face gray with horror. He reached for the pistol, his hands shaking. "Benedict, give me the gun. Brother, please-"
"She's gone."
Benedict's voice was defeated. Empty. He wasn't looking at Anthony. He was looking past him, through him, at something no one else could see.
"She's gone," he repeated, and then his eyes found Penelope's again across the impossible distance. "My Lady Red is gone."
The words hit her like a bullet.
He knew. Somehow, impossibly, he knew.
The invisible force pulling her intensified. Penelope felt water closing over her head, cold and suffocating. Her lungs burned. The terrace, the guards, and Benedict's face. All of it began to dissolve into a wash of crystal-lilac light that hurt to look at.
She tried to scream his name again, but water filled her mouth, her nose, her lungs.
'I'm drowning. I'm drowning on dry land.'
The light grew brighter, more intense, until it was all she could see. All she could feel. The pressure in her chest built and built until she thought she would shatter-
And then she was gasping, choking, her hands clawing at nothing.
Penelope found herself standing in the middle of an empty ballroom.
Not the Queen's ballroom. Not Lady Danbury's. Some other space that felt familiar and foreign all at once. The chandeliers hung dark and lifeless overhead. The windows showed nothing but gray mist. The floor beneath her feet was polished to a mirror shine, reflecting a ceiling she couldn't quite see.
The silence was absolute. No music. No voices. No ticking.
The absence of sound was somehow worse than the noise.
"Hello?" Her voice echoed strangely, as if the room were both too large and too small. "Is anyone there?"
The ballroom didn't answer. But it felt staged, somehow. Like a theater set between performances, waiting for actors who would never arrive.
Penelope turned in a slow circle, her heart hammering. The walls seemed to shift when she wasn't looking directly at them. Doors appeared and disappeared. The windows showed different views each time she glanced at them. A garden, a street, a cliff, an ocean.
"This isn't real," she whispered. "None of this is real."
But even as she said it, she knew it was a lie. This was real. Just as real as the ballroom she'd left behind, as real as Benedict's face, as real as the blood pooling beneath Lord Berbrooke's head.
It was all real. And none of it was.
A sound broke the silence. Soft at first, then growing louder.
The rustle of fabric. The whisper of silk against silk.
Penelope spun toward the sound.
A woman stood at the far end of the ballroom, where no one had been a moment before. She wore a gown of silver that seemed to shimmer and shift in the non-existent light. Her face was hidden behind an ornate mask: white porcelain decorated with delicate silver filigree.
And in her hands, impossibly, she held a kite.
The kite was made of rice paper and bamboo, painted with swirling butterflies and one slice of a crescent new-moon. It floated above the woman's head, bobbing gently despite the complete absence of wind. The string in her hands glowed faintly, as if lit from within.
"Soph?" Penelope's voice cracked. "Sophie Baek?"
The woman tilted her head but didn't speak. The kite dipped and swayed, its tail trailing ribbons of red and blue.
As Penelope watched, the ballroom began to change.
The walls rippled like water. The floor beneath her feet shifted from polished wood to grass, then back again. The chandeliers flickered to life, their candles burning with flames that cast no heat. And the windows now showed scenes that Penelope recognized.
Her first ball. Her second season. Colin's wedding. Benedict's funeral.
All of it playing out simultaneously, overlapping, bleeding into one another like a fever dream.
"What is this?" Penelope demanded, her voice rising. "What's happening to me?"
Sophie, if it was Sophie, raised one hand. The kite responded, diving and swooping through the air with impossible grace. Where it flew, the scenes in the windows changed. Shifted. Rewrote themselves.
And Penelope understood.
Memory. This was a memory. Not hers alone, but something larger. Something that encompassed all the timelines, all the choices, all the moments that had led her here.
The ballroom dissolved.
Penelope blinked, and she was standing in a cottage.
Not just any cottage. Benedict's cottage. ‘My Cottage’. Well, more like estate.
She knew it instantly, though she'd only been here twice in her original timeline. The high ceilings. The stone fireplace. The windows that looked out over rolling hills painted in autumn colors: gold and crimson and burnt orange.
It was September. Her birthday.
The realization came with a flood of sensory details. The smell of wood smoke and baking bread. The warmth of afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows. The sound of someone humming in the kitchen.
And there, sitting at a table covered in papers and charcoal sketches, was Benedict.
He looked different here. Younger, somehow, though this was from at the end of her third social season. After Lord Debling changed his proposal to Cressida Cowper, Eloise found out Penelope was Lady Whistle-down, after everything had gone wrong. His hair was longer, falling into his eyes as he bent over his work. He wore no coat, just shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows, his cravat discarded somewhere.
He looked peaceful. Content.
Alive.
"You're thinking too hard again, Red."
Penelope startled. She looked down and found herself sitting across from him, a cup of tea cooling in her hands. She was wearing a simple day dress: green, her favorite color, and her hair was down, falling in loose waves around her shoulders.
This was a memory. A real memory, not a dream or a vision.
The best weekend of her life.
"I'm not thinking," she heard herself say, her voice lighter than it had been in years. "I'm observing. There's a difference."
Benedict looked up, and his smile was warm enough to melt her. "Observing what? My terrible artistic skills?"
"Your terrible organizational skills." She gestured at the chaos of papers. "How do you find anything in this mess?"
"I don't. That's the beauty of it." He leaned back in his chair, stretching like a cat in the sun. "Chaos breeds creativity. Or so I tell myself to justify never cleaning up."
Penelope laughed. The sound surprised her: genuine, unguarded, free.
When had she last laughed like that?
"You know what today is?" Benedict asked, his eyes glinting with mischief.
"My birthday," Penelope said, rolling her eyes. "You've only mentioned it seventeen times."
"Eighteen, actually. And do you know what that makes you?"
"A year older and no wiser?"
"A Virgo." Benedict pulled one of his sketches toward him, turning it so she could see. "The virgin. The maiden. Persephone herself, standing at the threshold between worlds."
The sketch showed a woman standing in a field of flowers, her face turned toward the sky. Half the field was in bloom, vibrant and alive. The other half was withered and dead, the flowers turned to ash.
Penelope's breath caught. "That's... dark."
"That's you." Benedict's voice was soft. Serious. "Caught between two worlds. The one you're supposed to inhabit and the one you've created for yourself. The dutiful daughter and the woman who speaks truth to power."
He referenced her as Lady Whistledown and still accepted who she was anyway.
All of her.
"Virgo bows to no one," Benedict continued, his finger tracing the outline of the woman in the sketch. "She's her own person. Her own power. She doesn't need permission to exist."
Penelope felt tears prick her eyes. "And what are you? In this constellation metaphor?"
"Pisces." Benedict grinned. "The dreamer. The artist. The fool who falls in love with impossible things."
The words hung in the air between them, weighted with meaning neither of them could quite name.
"We're opposites," Penelope said softly.
"We're complementary." Benedict pulled out another sketch, this one showing two constellations intertwined, Virgo and Pisces dancing across the night sky. "Earth and water. Logic and emotion. The maiden and the dreamer."
He slid the sketch across the table to her. "Happy birthday, Red."
Penelope stared at the drawing, her heart in her throat. They weren't lovers. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But the chemistry between them was undeniable, of course. Simmering just beneath the surface of every conversation, every shared glance, every accidental touch.
She wanted to reach across the table. Wanted to take his hand. Wanted to tell him that she loved him, that she'd always loved him, that he was the only person who'd ever truly seen her.
But she was afraid. Afraid of ruining this fragile, perfect thing between them. Afraid that if she spoke the words aloud, he would pull away, and would realize she was too much.
Too intense, too desperately in love with him.
So she said nothing. Just smiled and tucked the sketch carefully into her pocket.
"Thank you, Benny."
The scene shimmered. Shifted.
Penelope was no longer sitting at the table. She was standing in the doorway, watching the memory play out like a theater performance. And she could see what she hadn't seen then, what she'd been too caught up in her own insecurity to notice.
The way Benedict's hands shook slightly as he slid the sketch across the table. The way his eyes lingered on her face, drinking in every detail as if memorizing her. The way his smile didn't quite reach his eyes, as if he were holding something back, something painful.
And there, in the corner of the room, watching the whole scene with quiet approval, were Mr. and Mrs. Crabtree.
The cottage's caretakers. An older couple, kind and watchful, who'd served the Bridgerton family for decades. Mrs. Crabtree was plump and warm, with flour on her apron and laugh lines around her eyes. Mr. Crabtree was tall and weathered, with the steady presence of an old oak tree.
They loved Benedict. Penelope could see it in the way they looked at him: not as an employer, but as a son. As someone precious who needed protecting.
And they looked at her the same way. As if she were an answer to a prayer they'd been too afraid to speak aloud.
"She's good for him," Mrs. Crabtree whispered to her husband, her voice barely audible. "Haven't seen him smile like that in months."
Mr. Crabtree nodded slowly. "Aye. Not since-"
He stopped. Glanced at Benedict. Didn't finish the sentence.
But Penelope heard it anyway. Heard the words he didn't say.
'Not since the last time. Not since we pulled him back from the edge.'
The cottage dissolved.
Penelope was standing on a cliff.
The wind whipped her hair around her face, cold and sharp. Below her, the ocean crashed against rocks, sending up plumes of white spray. The sky was gray, heavy with clouds that threatened rain.
And there, at the very edge of the cliff, stood Benedict.
XOX implied suicide, nothing graphic just wanted to warn ya:3 in case
And there, at the very edge of the cliff, stood Benedict.
He was swaying slightly, his arms wrapped around himself. His coat was gone. His shirt was untucked, his cravat missing. He looked like a man who'd been wandering for hours, lost in his own mind.
"Just do it," he whispered to himself. "Just step forward. It would be so easy. So quick."
Penelope tried to scream, tried to run to him, but she couldn't move. Couldn't speak. She was a ghost here, a witness to something that had already happened.
"One step," Benedict continued, his voice breaking. "That's all it takes. One step, and all of this stops. The pain. The fear. The constant, crushing weight of being alive."
He took a step forward.
The rocks beneath his feet crumbled, sending pebbles tumbling down the cliff face.
"Mr. Benedict! No!"
Mr. Crabtree appeared from nowhere, running faster than a man his age should be able to move. He grabbed Benedict around the waist, hauling him backward with desperate strength.
They both fell to the ground, Benedict sobbing, Mr. Crabtree holding him like a child.
"I can't," Benedict choked out. "I can't do this anymore. I can't keep pretending everything is fine when it's not. When I'm not."
"I know, lad. I know." Mr. Crabtree's voice was rough with emotion. "But this isn't the answer. You know it's not."
"Then what is?" Benedict's face was wet with tears and rain… when had it started raining? "What's the point of any of this? I'm the spare. The extra. The one who doesn't matter. I could disappear tomorrow and nothing would change."
"That's not true-"
"It is!" Benedict pulled away, his eyes wild. "Anthony has the title. Colin has his adventures. Daphne has her perfect marriage. And I have... what? Art that no one takes seriously? A life that serves no purpose?"
He laughed, bitter and broken. "Do you know what the worst part is? I'm not even brave enough to do it properly. This is the first time I've come here. The first time I've stood at this edge and tried to make myself step forward. And I can't. And, I'm too much of a coward… even for this."
Mr. Crabtree's face crumpled. "You're not a coward, Mr. Benedict. You're in pain. There's a difference."
"Is there?" Benedict's voice dropped to a whisper. "Henry wasn't a coward. When society told him he couldn't love who he loved, when they made it clear his very existence was a crime, he... he found a way out. He was brave enough to end it."
The name hit Penelope like a punch. Henry Granville. Benedict's friend. The man who'd died because society had forbidden his love, had made his life unbearable.
She'd known Henry had died. Hadn't known it was suicide. Hadn't known Benedict blamed himself for not seeing the signs, for not being there, for not saving him.
"Mr. Granville made a choice," Mr. Crabtree said carefully. "A choice born of desperation and pain. But it wasn't brave, lad. It was tragic. And it left people behind who loved him. Who miss him every day."
"Like I would leave people?" Benedict's laugh was hollow. "Who would miss me? Really miss me, not just the idea of me?"
"Your family-"
"Would mourn the loss of the spare. The extra son. The man who secretly sleeps with other men. They'd be sad, certainly. But their lives would go on. Anthony would still be Viscount. Colin would still travel. Daphne would still have her perfect life. Eloise would still beat to her own drum. Francessca has found a man who understands her content with Silence. Gregory will thrive at Eaton. And Hyanich will debut eventually as a legendary sapphire.
"And Miss Penelope?"
The name stopped Benedict cold. He looked up at Mr. Crabtree, his eyes red and swollen.
Penelope's breath caught. The Crabtrees had never met her. Not in this timeline. Not yet. This was two weeks before her birthday visit to the cottage. The visit she hadn't known was planned, the invitation Benedict had been working up the courage to extend.
"What about her?" Benedict's voice was barely a whisper.
Mr. Crabtree's weathered hand gripped Benedict's shoulder. "The young lady you talk about constantly? The one who makes you smile when you tell us about her sharp wit? The one you've been planning to invite here for weeks now?"
Benedict flinched as if struck.
"You've been talking about showing her the cottage," Mr. Crabtree continued, his voice gentle, but relentless. "About drawing her portrait by the lake. About teaching her to see the constellations the way you do. You've been holding onto that, lad. Holding onto the thought of her visit like a lifeline."
"She doesn't need me." Benedict's voice cracked. "She needs someone stable. Someone who isn't-" His hands clenched into fists. "Someone who won't drag her down with him."
"Does she get to decide that?"
"No." The word came out fierce, protective. "Because I won't let her waste herself on me. She deserves better. She deserves someone like Lord Debling. Someone who could give her security, stability-"
His voice broke completely. "I ruined that for her too. I couldn't keep my damned mouth shut. Debling was at the club, going on about his expedition, his precious animals. And I-" Benedict laughed bitterly. "I told him Penelope wasn't some docile doe he could pet and ignore. I said she was a mongoose. Underestimated. Fierce. Beautiful and clever in ways he'd never appreciate if he couldn't see past her quiet exterior."
He pressed his palms against his eyes. "I thought I was helping. Thought maybe if he understood what he'd be getting, he'd treat her well. But he looked at me like I'd handed him a puzzle he didn't want to solve. Two days later, he was courting Cressida. Because Miss Cressida's easy. Predictable. A deer, not a predator."
Penelope's heart shattered. She'd never known. Never understood why Lord Debling had suddenly shifted his attention. She'd blamed herself, thought she'd done something wrong.
"So you see," Benedict continued, his voice vacant, "I destroy everything I touch. Even when I'm trying to help."
"Mr. Benedict." Mr. Crabtree's voice was firm now. "Mrs. Crabtree and I, we've been desperate to help you. We've watched you spiral these past months, ever since Mr. Henry-"
"Don't." Benedict's hands clenched into fists. "Don't say his name."
"Ever since you lost him," Mr. Crabtree amended gently. "We've been terrified we'd lose you too. That's why we've been so insistent you invite the Featherington lady. Why we've been preparing the cottage, making sure everything is perfect for her visit. Because we see what she does for you, even from a distance."
Penelope's mind was racing. The timeline. The dates. Benedict had befriended her at the end of her second season, right after Colin's cruelty. Right after-
Oh God. Right after Henry Granville had died.
She'd never put it together. Had never realized that Benedict's sudden, fierce friendship with her had come in the wake of losing someone else. That she'd been his second chance at salvation. That he'd been clinging to her as desperately as she'd been clinging to him, both of them drowning and trying to save each other.
"I found her in the garden," Benedict whispered. "The Featherington garden. At her own family's ball, can you imagine? My own brother had just-" His voice cracked. "Colin said something cruel to her. I don't know what, exactly. But I heard him tell his friends he wouldn't court her in a million years. Loud enough for half the ballroom to hear."
His jaw clenched. "I was there because I couldn't breathe inside. Because Henry had been gone for weeks and I was still pretending I was fine. Still smiling and dancing and playing the charming spare. And then I saw her. Penelope. Sobbing in the garden like her heart was breaking."
Mr. Crabtree's grip on his shoulder tightened.
"I sat with her," Benedict continued, his voice rough. "Didn't say much. Just... sat there until she could breathe again. And I thought-" He laughed bitterly. "I thought, 'This is what Henry needed. Someone to just sit with him. To not demand explanations or try to fix everything. Just to be there.'"
His voice grew stronger, more urgent. "I couldn't save Henry. But maybe I could be for her what Henry needed someone to be for him. Maybe I could make sure she knew she wasn't alone."
"And she did the same for you," Mr. Crabtree said quietly.
Benedict nodded, tears streaming down his face. "Last season. There was this man… Lord Thomas. He was trying to arrange a marriage with her. I could tell something was off about it. The way he looked at her or rather, didn't look at her. Like she was a convenient solution to a problem."
He wiped his face roughly. "I pulled her aside. Warned her to make sure she understood what she was getting into. That some men marry for... appearances. For heirs and respectability while their hearts lie elsewhere."
Penelope's breath caught. She remembered that conversation. Remembered the careful way Benedict had explained lavender marriages, his voice gentle but urgent.
"She looked at me," Benedict continued, his voice breaking, "and she said, 'Are you trying to tell me something, Benedict?' And I, God help me, I couldn't lie to her. Not after everything. So I told her. About the men I've drawn myself with. About how society would destroy me if they knew."
His hands were shaking now. "I was so afraid. Terrified she'd look at me differently. That she'd be disgusted or frightened or-"
"But she wasn't," Mr. Crabtree said softly.
"No." Benedict's voice was barely audible. "She just smiled. Took my hand. And she said, 'You sat with me in that garden when I thought I'd never stop crying. Did you think I'd do any less for you?'"
Penelope's own tears were falling now, hot and fast. She remembered that moment. Remembered the relief in Benedict's eyes, the way his whole body had relaxed as if he'd been bracing for a blow that never came. She'd thought she was just being a good friend. Hadn't realized she was giving him back a piece of himself he'd thought he'd lost forever.
"So you see," Benedict said, his voice breaking, "I can't invite her here now. I can't let her tie herself to someone like me. Someone who's one bad day away from standing on this cliff again. Someone who loves men and women and doesn't fit into any box society will accept. She deserves a man who won't make her worry every time he's out of sight. Who won't make her wonder if today's the day he doesn't come back."
"That's not your choice to make," Mr. Crabtree said firmly. "And I think, if you asked her, she'd tell you the same thing."
Benedict shook his head, but something in his expression had shifted. A crack in the armor of his despair. A tiny spark of hope he was trying desperately to extinguish.
"Come on," Mr. Crabtree said, helping Benedict to his feet. "Let's get you back to the cottage. Mrs. Crabtree's making your favorite stew. And tomorrow, you're going to write that invitation to Miss Penelope. Because she's waiting for it, lad. Even if she doesn't know it yet."
Xox it’s safe to proceed:3
They walked away from the cliff, Mr. Crabtree's arm around Benedict's shoulders.
And Penelope, trapped in her ghostly observation, felt her heart shatter and reform all at once.
She understood now. Understood why she'd snuck out of her family's country house that weekend, even though it had been reckless and dangerous. Her family's summer residence had been close to Benedict's cottage. Close enough that some part of her had felt it. Had known, with a certainty she couldn't explain, that if she didn't go to him, something terrible would happen.
She'd arrived to find him withdrawn, haunted, barely holding himself together. And she'd stayed. Had spent that perfect afternoon letting him draw her constellations, letting him call her Persephone, letting him show her the parts of himself he kept hidden from everyone else.
She'd thought it was the best weekend of her life.
She hadn't known she was his reason to stay alive.
The cliff dissolved.
Penelope was back in the empty ballroom, gasping for air. Sophie stood before her, the kite still floating impossibly above her head. The woman reached out and took Penelope's hands in hers, her grip surprisingly strong.
When Sophie spoke, her voice was like wind through leaves: barely audible, but impossible to ignore.
"This is not your first return."
The words settled over Penelope like a gust of a storm.
"What?"
"You have been here before." Sophie's mask tilted, as if she were studying Penelope's face. "Not at this exact moment. Not in this exact way. But you have walked this path before. Tried to save him before."
"That's not possible-"
"Isn't it?" Sophie's grip tightened. "You remember things that haven't happened yet. You know things you shouldn't know. You carry the weight of futures that may never come to pass."
She paused, and her voice dropped to barely a whisper. "How many times have you watched him die, Penelope Featherington?"
The question hit like a physical blow. Penelope tried to pull away, but Sophie held firm.
"I don't, I can't-"
"You can. You do. You have." Sophie's voice was relentless now. "Every time you return, you try to change things. To save him. To prevent the tragedy you know is coming. But time is not kind to those who try to cheat death."
"I'm not trying to cheat death," Penelope said desperately. "I'm trying to save someone I love."
"And what makes you think you have that right?" Sophie's voice was gentle, but the question was brutal. "What makes you think you can decide who lives and who dies? That you can rewrite fate itself without consequence?"
"Because I have to!" The words burst out of Penelope, raw and desperate. "Because I can't watch him die again. I can't stand at his grave and pretend I did everything I could when I know I didn't. When I know I could have done more, said more, been more."
Sophie was silent for a long moment. Then she released Penelope's hands and stepped back.
"There is a cost," she said softly. "There is always a cost. You know this, don't you? You've felt it. The ticking. The pressure. The sense that something is unraveling."
Penelope's hand went to her chest, where the phantom weight of the pocket watch seemed to pulse in time with her heartbeat.
"What cost?"
"That depends." Sophie turned away, her silver gown shimmering. "On what you're willing to sacrifice. On how far you're willing to go. On whether you can live with the consequences of your choices."
She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was sad. "There is a story. From a folktale my grandmother told me before I moved in with my father as his ward. Would you like to hear it?"
Penelope nodded, unable to speak.
Sophie's voice took on the cadence of a storyteller, rhythmic and hypnotic.
"Once, there was a princess named Bari. The seventh daughter, unwanted and cast aside. When her father the king fell gravely ill, and no physician could save him, she alone volunteered to seek the cure. 'I will go,' she said, though her family had never valued her. 'I will bring back the water of life.'
"She journeyed through realms of spirits and shadows, through landscapes that bent and twisted like fever dreams. She faced trials that tested her courage, her compassion, her cleverness. She negotiated with guardians and demons, offering pieces of herself for passage.
"At last, she reached the realm of Death itself. 'Please,' she begged. 'Let my father live. I will pay any price.'
"Death agreed. But the cost was this: Bari could return with the water of life, but she could never fully return herself. Part of her would remain in the spirit world forever. Her freedom. Her future. Her right to be wholly alive again.
"The king lived. But Bari became something between worlds: neither fully mortal nor fully spirit. One life was saved, but the ripples changed everything. Her sisters married and had children who would never have existed if the king had died. Those children saved others, created new futures, altered the course of countless lives.
"And Bari? She bore her burden in silence. The world saw only that the king had recovered. They never knew the full cost of what she'd sacrificed. They never understood that she walked among them as a ghost, paying the price for their happiness every moment of every day."
Sophie turned back to face Penelope, her mask catching the non-existent light.
"Love does not exempt us from consequence, Miss Penelope. It only makes the consequences harder to bear." She paused, and for a moment, the mystical aura around her seemed to waver, revealing the raw weight behind her dark brown eyes.
"I’ve paid the price for trying to rewrite love’s course… and it has left a hollowness I cannot hide."
Before Penelope could respond, a sound shattered the silence.
'CRACK.'
Smoke. Thick and steamy, burning her throat and eyes. The smell of gunpowder and blood and something worse. The copper-iron stench of death.
Penelope was no longer in the ballroom. She was somewhere else. Somewhere that smelled of mud and fear and desperation.
A battlefield.
She could hear screaming. Men crying out in pain. The thunder of cannons. The clash of steel on steel.
And through it all, one voice rising above the rest.
"George! No, no, no! George, stay with me! Please!"
Penelope's heart stopped.
She knew that voice. Had heard it in her mother's drawing room, bright with hope and love and the naive certainty that everything would work out.
Marina.
Penelope turned, and she saw them.
A young man lay on the ground, his red coat dark with blood. His face was pale, his eyes glassy. And kneeling beside him, her hands pressed desperately against the wound in his chest, was Marina Thompson.
But Marina looked different here. Older. Harder. Her face was streaked with mud and tears, her hair falling loose from its pins. She wore a simple dress, not the fine gowns Penelope was used to seeing her in.
This wasn't a memory. This was something else. Something that existed outside of time, outside of the neat timeline Penelope had been trying to navigate.
This was inevitable.
"George, please," Marina sobbed. "Don't leave me. Don't leave us."
The young man, Sir George Crane, Penelope realized with a jolt… tried to speak. His lips moved, but no sound came out. Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth.
"I love you," Marina whispered, pressing her forehead to his. "I love you so much. Please don't go. Please."
But George's eyes were already empty. Already gone.
Marina's scream tore through the battlefield, raw and primal and utterly broken.
And Penelope understood.
This was what Sophie had been trying to tell her. This was the cost. The balance.
If she saved Benedict, someone else would die. If she prevented one tragedy, another would take its place. Time didn't care about love or justice or fairness. It only cared about balance.
Save Benedict, and George dies.
Save George, and Benedict dies.
Try to save both, and-
The battlefield dissolved.
Penelope was back at the Queen's ball, gasping for air. The terrace. The crowd. Benedict standing over Lord Berbrooke's body.
But something was different.
The guards weren't swarming. The Queen wasn't screaming. The crowd wasn't panicking.
Instead, people were simply... leaving.
Penelope blinked, disoriented. She watched as guests filed out of the ballroom in orderly fashion, their faces carefully neutral. As if nothing unusual had happened. As if there wasn't a dead man on the terrace.
Lord Berbrooke was gone. No body. No blood. Just empty stone and the faint smell of gunpowder.
And Benedict-
Benedict was walking toward a carriage, flanked by Anthony and Colin. His face was calm. Composed. He was saying something to his brothers, something that made Anthony nod and Colin laugh.
He was alive. Breathing. Whole.
Penelope's knees nearly gave out with relief.
She watched as Benedict climbed into the carriage. Watched as he turned back to wave at his family. Watched as the carriage pulled away, disappearing into the London night.
He was alive.
But across the courtyard, she saw Lord Nigel Berbrooke. Very much alive. Very much humiliated. His eye was swollen shut, already turning purple. His lip was split. He was being helped into his own carriage by servants who looked like they'd rather be anywhere else.
He'd been beaten. Publicly shamed. But not killed.
The relief Penelope felt was tempered by a creeping sense of dread.
What had changed? What had she done, or not done to alter this outcome?
And more importantly: what would be the cost?
"Penelope?"
She turned to find her father standing beside her, his face creased with concern.
"Papa?"
"Are you ready to go home? Your sisters are already in the carriage waiting for you." He paused, studying her face. "You look pale, dear. Are you feeling well?"
"I-" Penelope's mind raced. " Yes, Papa, I’m fine.” It was a lie. She was definitely not well at all. “I just need a few moments. I’ll meet you at the carriage if that's all right?"
Her father hesitated, then nodded. "Very well. But don’t take too long."
"I will. Thank you, Papa."
He kissed her forehead and walked away, leaving Penelope alone in the courtyard.
She stood there for a long moment, her heart pounding. The pocket watch in her mind ticked louder now, more insistent.
'Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.'
She ignored it. Pushed it down. Focused on what mattered.
Benedict was alive. For now.
But somewhere in the country, Sir George Crane was writing letters to Marina. Letters full of hope and love and plans for a future that would never come.
Penelope closed her eyes and saw him. Young. Gentle. Hopeful. Sitting at a desk in his barracks, his hand moving across the page with careful precision.
'My dearest Marina,'
'I hope this letter finds you well. I think of you constantly: your smile, your laugh, the way you look at me as if I'm the only person in the world who matters.'
'The fighting has been difficult, but knowing you're waiting for me makes it bearable. I count the days until I can return to you. Until I can hold you in my arms again and never let go.'
'I love you. I will always love you.'
'Yours eternally,'
'George'
The vision faded, leaving Penelope with tears streaming down her face.
Marina's silence would kill him. Not the battlefield. Not the war. But the absence of her letters, the belief that she'd abandoned him, the crushing weight of thinking he'd lost the only person who'd ever truly loved him.
Silence could kill just as surely as a bullet.
Penelope opened her eyes, her jaw set with determination.
She would save Benedict. She would try to save George or her father. Even if it cost her everything. Even if time punished her for it. Even if the ticking in her mind drove her mad.
She would not let the people she loved die. Not again.
'I will save him,' she promised herself, the words echoing in her mind like a prayer. 'No matter how many times it takes. No matter what it costs.'
'I will save him.'
The pocket watch ticked on, counting down to something she couldn't see. Couldn't stop.
Not yet.
But she would.
She had to.
Even if it killed her.
Again.
Thoughts and thx for reading:3