Chapter Text
“Anne! Come on! It’s time to go!”
“Coming, Kit-Kat!” Anne replied, throwing her phone into her newest tote bag and grabbing the car keys from the hook by the door. She ran outside, finding her cousin standing by the car door, hands on her hips as she waited. There was a pile of baked goods next to her feet, all carefully wrapped and placed in containers.
Anne reached the car and opened the door, sliding inside and unlocking the rest of the doors. Kitty quickly placed the food in the backseat and came to sit next to Anne in the passenger seat.
“You ready?” Anne asked, blowing a bubble of gum and turning the key in the ignition.
“Yep. It can’t be that hard, right? We just go, teach the kids a little bit about our old lives, but leave out the nasty bits.”
“Then give them cookies so they like us, chat up a few of the little monsters, and head out. We’ll be fine, Kit. This is good for you. Gets you out in the world and all that.” Anne said, pulling out of the driveway and turning onto the road.
They pulled up in front of a nearby primary school. Jane had booked this gig with Anne in mind, but Kitty had been a last-minute addition, once they realized everyone else was busy.
Kitty wasn’t bad with children. She was quite good with them, actually. But she had a hard time speaking in front of large groups of people who she didn’t know. Jane was slightly worried about her, but Kitty had said very firmly that she would be fine.
They’d be teaching some of the children in the school about what life was like back when they were alive, the first time. She was pretty sure she could handle that, and if she clammed up, Anne could easily command the whole thing by herself.
Once they pulled into the school parking lot, the day was a flurry of blackboards, papers, little hands waving in the air, and talking. Lots and lots of talking, about fashion, food, houses, and general lifestyles of when they had lived long ago. It was slightly overwhelming to discuss that many details of a time that was still so vivid to Kitty, and she felt a little lightheaded by the end of the day, and the fifth question about her beheading. The teachers had shut down every question deemed inappropriate, and that subject was, of course, off limits. But the simple words had made Kitty sway slightly every time they were said. Anne had looked a little pale as well, but she’d easily jumped back into the fray, captivating the children with her silly tales of adventures with George back at Hever. The students had been especially interested in her time in the Netherlands and France. No one asked about Kitty’s childhood, and she was glad about that, not wanting to dart around the uncomfortable topics that would be sure to come up if they brought up her tender years.
They were walking back to the car, Kitty drinking quickly from the water bottle Anne had packed her (“I know you get light-headed, Kit-Kat, and I couldn’t have you fainting in front of a bunch of ten-year-olds!”), Anne chattering a mile a minute about their day, when it happened for the first time.
“I think we should stop for a treat on the way back, we definitely-”. Anne stopped abruptly and grabbed Kitty’s forearm tightly.
“Kitty.”. Her voice was shaky, tight, and sad. Kitty looked at her older cousin.
“What’s wrong, Anne?”
“I saw her.”
“Who?”
“Elizabeth.”
When they pulled into the driveway of home, Anne’s hands were shaking so badly on the wheel that Kitty almost made her stop driving. She carefully unbuckled her cousin’s seatbelt for her, and led her to the door. Anne was shaking with silent tears by the time they got inside, and Kitty led her to the living room, where Jane was sitting reading a book.
“How was the school, girls?” she said, without looking up.
“Um, Anne had a little scare, Jane.” Kitty explained quietly. Jane immediately glanced up at them, putting her book down quickly when she saw the state Anne was in. Standing up and moving over to the cousins, she carefully took Anne into her embrace.
“Love, what’s the matter?” she asked cautiously, rubbing Anne’s back and trying not to wince at the sheer amount of vibrations she was feeling from the girl’s shaking.
Anne said nothing, continuing to cry into Jane’s shirt.
“She-she thought she saw Elizabeth.” Kitty murmured. At this, Anne looked up.
“I didn’t think I saw her, Kitty. I saw her! Really and truly!” she cried. Jane shook her head sadly.
“Anne, I know you’re hurting, but you need to be rational, honey. Elizabeth is gone, Mary is gone, Edward-” her voice broke slightly, “Edward is gone. We aren’t getting them back.”.
Jane led Anne over to the couch and sat her down in her lap, stroking the top of the other woman’s head in circular motions. Anne continued to cry heavily, and Kitty stepped out of the room quietly, going to put away the things from their day that had started so well but ended so terribly.
“Anne, would you like me to put on a movie?” Jane asked softly. Anne nodded soundlessly. “Alright, which one would you like?”. Anne responded with an unintelligible murmur.
“Okay, I didn’t quite catch that, but would Sound of Music be alright?”. She got a nod in return, and so Jane grabbed the remote and put on the movie. They were soon lost in the hills of Austria and Julie Andrews, and Anne eventually calmed down enough to watch the movie without many tears.
Once it finished, though, she began to quietly cry again. Jane hadn’t ever stopped her stroking, but she hugged Anne a little tighter to her and let the other woman cry. Anne wasn’t usually much of a talker when she was sad, so Jane was slightly surprised when her mouth opened and she began to speak.
“Do you miss him all the time like I miss her?”
The question was so full of hurt and pain that Jane almost began to cry at the sound of it. But her heart clenched slightly, and she nodded.
“Every minute. I-I don’t even really know what he looked like. I mean, I know there’s that portrait of him as a baby, and the other ones, but I never watched him grow up, you know?”
“I know.” Anne said softly. “I’m lucky that Elizabeth inherited the vanity of her parents. She has so many portraits. And I watched her grow up for the first two and half years. But it’s not the same, portraits.”
“No, they’re not.” Jane agreed. They sat in silence for a short while until a small movement from behind made them both look on the other side of the couch.
Catalina was standing there, tears in her eyes. She had evidently not meant to let them know she had been there, but once she realized they had noticed her, she took a step towards them.
“I miss her too.” she said, her voice trembling. Jane patted the empty space on the couch.
“Come sit, Lina.”. It wasn’t really an order, but Aragon came quickly and sat facing the other two. The words came pouring out of her much faster than the other two.
“I just-I just look at portraits, and I read about my Mary, mi preciosa. I cannot help but feel that I failed her as a mother. She looks so sad. Like the whole weight of the world is on her shoulders. It breaks my heart to see my baby looking like that.”
Both of the others nodded. Their children looked like that too. So much had been placed on their little shoulders before they were even old enough to talk, to read, to even know what shoulders were.
“She loved you, Catalina.” Anne said softly. “You can’t help the other things, but you know she loved you. She loved you so much it made her hate me, but those were the things she knew most strongly. Her love for you and her faith. You did what you could.”. Catalina took Anne’s hand gently and squeezed it tight, knowing that Anne would get the meaning she was trying to convey.
“And Elizabeth loved you, Anne. Our children loved us. I just wish we could see them one more time to tell them how much we love them.” Jane said sadly. The others nodded, and soon they lapsed into a comfortable silence. That was how Kitty, Anna, and Cathy found them the next morning. Sleeping comfortably, but with tear tracks etched into their skin.
Kitty was practising pirouettes in the living room, confident in the knowledge that Jane and Aragon weren’t home to scold her. She wasn’t supposed to dance in the living room, simply because there were plenty of breakables everywhere and sometimes she got a little carried away. However, Anne, Aragon, and Jane had gone out for coffee, presumably to have a discussion about their children. She was pretty sure that’s why they’d all been curled up on the couch together last week. They’d all been acting strange since that day Anne thought she’d seen Elizabeth, and Kitty was glad they were getting out of the house.
Music was blaring in her headphones as she carefully spun around, glad for the fact that Cleves had convinced Jane to purchase a dancing floor mat to put over the carpet that covered the floors of their flat. She was doing great, until she knocked over the giant white vase Jane loved more than organized kitchens. And Jane really loved organized kitchens.
“Shoot!” she whispered, checking her language even though she knew no one who was home would tell her to mind it. Tiptoeing over to the mess, she sighed in relief. Only one piece was knocked out, and she was pretty sure that it could be glued back in. With no Anne around to accidentally glue her fingers to the roof of her own mouth (long story), Kitty could have this easily fixed before the first three queens even finished their coffee.
She was carefully picking up the large shard with the tips of her fingers when a tentative knock sounded on the front door. Grabbing the vase, she walked to the door, curious. No one ever came to visit them, not really. Who was it? All their friends just came right in.
Opening the door, Kitty’s jaw dropped.
“Um...hi, Katherine. Is my mum home?”
Kitty dropped the vase once again.