Chapter Text
“I did not ask to sit at the helm of the world. I did not ask for a husband. But if I must have one, if I must leave my home, my family, my language, my life…” Charlotte’s voice was frustrated, almost cracking.
“What, Charlotte? What?” Princess Augusta asked.
“It cannot be for a man I do not know. A man I am not allowed to know.”
“You know him now,” said the princess.
“You fed me a lie!” Charlotte barked back.
George’s mother’s voice was almost smug, “And you ate it willingly.”
Neither woman saw him standing there in the hallway. Neither woman heard him leave in a rush, making his way back to the carriage.
“To Kew,” the words left his lips as if an impulse. Reynolds nodded, a strange look in his eye that George did not care to dwell on.
Back to Kew. Back to Doctor Monro. Back to the darkness. Back to the chair .
He could do it. He would have to do it if he had any hope of getting better. For Charlotte. For the baby they were going to have. George remembered it - Dr. Monro had told him about the pregnancy the night before and it had spurned on his episode. George would not let that man anywhere near Charlotte. But he could go back to Dr. Monro for the sake of Charlotte and that of the baby.
George lost his own father long before and had been left with a mean violent grandfather to raise him along with his conniving mother. He could not - would not - be so unwell that he couldn’t be a sufficient father.
George sat in the carriage, wringing his hands and contemplated what fatherhood might look like for him. What if he got lost in the heavens more often? What if he scared his own child? He’d clearly already scared his own wife. The thought alone made his stomach turn.
His wife. Charlotte. Beautiful, kind, intelligent Charlotte. Sparkling like a star. Like Venus… Venus ? Why did he…
And then he remembered a few more bits and pieces of the night before. He’d known he had an episode but he couldn’t remember anything more than the frenzy he usually felt. But now he recalled more - Dr.Monro telling him that Charlotte was pregnant, being afraid that Dr. Monro would do something awful to her, getting lost in his thoughts, Charlotte following him to the garden, him being taken with her and convinced she was Venus before him, Charlotte trying to help him, Charlotte getting him inside when Reynolds could not, Charlotte and Reynolds washing him, Charlotte crying.
She saw it and she stayed. Yes, she’d left early in the morning to fight with his mother but she argued about truth and honesty - about needing to know whom she’d married. She’d been afraid and for good reason.
Maybe…
The night before at Danbury’s ball they’d spoken about being a team. They had only had “just days” for a short time and George didn’t want to be separated any more. He wasn’t sure that he would survive it if he had to be away from her.
But Dr.Monro was so sure that the treatments would work.
What if he told her? What if… what if he spoke to her about how it felt in his mind when the earth and the heavens collided? It might be a weakness but it was already a weakness to be a mad king. The biggest weakness of them all.
And he loved her. If he was honest with himself, he’d loved her that very first moment watching her try to climb the garden wall. She was immediately the most extraordinary person he’d ever come across.
The thought crossed his mind that his madness might take him over completely someday and if that were the case, he needed as much time with Charlotte as possible before he was lost. He needed to be a good husband to her, at the very least to leave her knowing how much he loved her.
Maybe she was angry with him for not telling the truth but perhaps he could salvage things if he just shared the truth now. The full truth. The truth he’d never spoken aloud, even with Dr.Monro.
“Stop the carriage!” He called and the carriage stopped abruptly.
“Your majesty?” Reynolds appeared in the window.
“I have changed my mind. I must be with my wife.” George felt a tremble in his hand as he spoke the words but he knew it was what needed to be done. His marriage would not survive if he could not share his burdens with his wife. Charlotte had shown him up until now that she was a rare woman - one who could change the world. Maybe she could change his world as well if he let her.
The look that had appeared in Reynolds’s eye when George asked to go to Kew was gone now, in its place appeared to be hope.