Work Text:
Colin Bridgerton had a problem. It was a woman, of course. A little over five feet tall, red haired, blue-eyed problem. Penelope Featherington be thy name.
He had embarrassed himself horribly in front of her – he didn’t know how to recover from this, and he would blame the appendicitis for the rest of time.
Penelope was his friend, his neighbor, his pal, his confidant, his emergency contact…and his secret love for ten years and counting now.
She was beautiful, she was sweet, she was hilarious, she was caring, and she was not interested in him in a romantic way in the slightest.
He had known her since she was ten years old, they had one horridly awkward date when she was fifteen and he was seventeen and they decided that they were better off as friends…or rather she decided it and because he didn’t want to lose her, he had gone along with it and suffered in silence watching her date people that were not him.
For ten years now he had endured it. One would think it would get easier to bear with time – but it didn’t – if anything, she somehow became more wonderful with age, and he’d become even more totally ensconced in the friendzone.
Still, it was better to be Penelope’s friend than nothing at all, so they’d fallen into a familiar rhythm. Dinners, movies, tv show binges, Wine Wednesday, Sleepover Saturday, and theater productions.
They were best friends. She was his go to person. She was his comfort person.
When his appendix ruptured in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon during his workday, and he was carted off to A&E he was relieved that Penelope was his emergency contact – he was terrified out of his wits, and she would bring him peace and make him believe that everything would be well.
His mate, Will, called her from Colin’s phone while they were waiting on the ambulance, and Penelope arrived at the hospital only minutes after he did, staying with him while they prepped him for emergency surgery to remove his appendix.
He had moaned, he had groaned, he had cried, he had curled himself up into a ball from the pain until the medicines started kicking in.
Penelope reassured him, she had held his hand, she had wiped the sweat and his hair from his forehead, and she had swept the tears from his cheeks and stroked them comfortingly until the staff was ready to take him away.
“I’m not going anywhere, Colin. I’ll be right here waiting for you when you’re out of surgery and your family should be here too.” Penelope had called while they wheeled him through the doors.
To his detriment she was there and so was part of his family…detriment because that’s when it had happened. That’s when life as he knew it had ceased to exist any longer – though he didn’t remember it until hours later when Eloise oh-so-kindly reminded him.
His appendix had been successfully removed, and he been returned to his recovery room, still flying high on his anesthesia, to greet his parents, Eloise and Greg…and Penelope.
Though she had remained tucked in a darkened corner so he could be with his family. Bridgertons brought other Bridgertons comfort was a fact of being said Bridgerton.
“Mummy, Daddy, coming for thanks.” Colin said with a mumble and looking bleary eyed.
The room occupants looked around in amusement as he had not referred to either of his parents that way in a good eighteen years and his sentence made no sense.
“Daffy. Thank you.” Colin said to Eloise.
“I am not Daphne, you berk.” Eloise said rolling her eyes but pressing a kiss to his cheek.
“Who said you were?” Colin asked with puzzlement.
“Little man. Hell.” He said, continuing his tour around the room and using wrong words.
“Colin, you look terrible.” Greg volunteered.
“Thank you. As you do.” Colin smiled warmly as if he had been given a compliment and reached for Greg’s hand.
Greg snickered at him but gave him his hand affectionately.
"The purple is on shoe pillow?" Colin asked incoherently.
Everyone looked around in bafflement but he looked so concerned about his request that Violet spoke up to assure him.
"Yes, my darling, but I'll double check for you."
Colin nodded, apparently satisfied with that answer.
“Where is Polepen?” Colin inquired, trying to twist around as much as he could.
Again, the room looked around at one another in confusion until Violet called over to Penelope.
“I’m pretty sure he means you, sweetheart.”
Penelope scurried over to him, and Colin dropped Greg’s hand for hers.
“I’m here, Colin. Do you need something? How are you?” Penelope asked worriedly.
“Penelpole stayed for me.” Colin said, bringing her hand to his face to snuggle it.
Her eyes went wide, and everyone grinned at her in amusement.
She cupped his jaw then pulled her hand away from him, completely discomposed but hoping she hid it well. “Of course I stayed. I promised you I would be here when you got out of surgery.”
He seemed to forget that she was not the only one in his room, despite having just greeted all of them. He captured her hand again and tugged it back to him to brush his lips to the back of it.
“Beautiful Nelopen. Lovely Olopen. Pretty Penope.” He said, tightening his grasp on her.
She had been unaware there were so many ways to mispronounce her name until tonight.
“So.”
He yawned.
“Very”
Colin gave an even bigger yawn.
“Pretty.”
And then he was asleep, still holding her hand tight enough that she couldn’t step away from him.
Edmund moved forward to loosen Colin’s finger from her and she took five large steps back from him feeling panicked and sure she may look it as well.
“You must forgive him for any offense, sweetheart. He is clearly high as a kite right now.” Violet said apologetically. “Not that he is not right of course, you are all of those things, but I know he would not want to embarrass you.”
“Of course. I’m not offended, Violet.” Penelope said, taking two more steps to the side and snagging her handbag. “Well, now that I’ve fulfilled my promise of staying until he was out of surgery and I have seen for myself that he is alive and well…well, semi-well anyway, I’ll go ahead and head home so you can have your family time and Colin can sleep. Good night Bridgertons.”
She left with what could only be described as a literal run from the room.
Colin had slept on blissfully unaware of the massive faux pas his subconscious had betrayed while under the influence of whatever the hospital had given him.
He had remained blissfully unaware through the following morning and afternoon – all was right, all was normal…aside from his naked backside in a hospital gown anyway.
He continued to be blissfully unaware when his parents came to pick him up and help him to his flat late that evening.
It was when he returned home that it all fell spectacularly apart on him. Eloise showed up with a Get Well Soon balloon and a bouquet of daisies and all but informed him that his life, as he presently knew it, had ended.
“Thank you, Eloise. That’s very sweet of you.” Colin said.
“Eloise, very good! Right sister’s name.” She smiled and gave him a gentle golf clap.
“What does that mean?” Colin asked with a smile.
“Last night you called me Daphne.” Eloise said.
He chuckled. “Did I? That was some strong anesthesia. Knocked me right out of the loop. Sorry, El.”
“You’re going to be saying that a lot today, I think. Make sure Penelope is on your list.”
“Why? What did I do to Penelope?” He asked with worry. “I didn’t call her by your name, did I? How terrible would that have been!”
“Har har, no. You couldn’t manage to pronounce Penelope period. You mutilated it at least five times in five different ways. You kissed her hand like some man out of some Regency Era romance, then you told her she was beautiful, lovely, and pretty, then you fell asleep on her while still holding her hand. Dad had to loosen your grip on her and she practically tripped over her own feet as she ran out of the room.” Eloise said.
Oh cripes, no. Say it wasn’t so.
Colin tried to appear unruffled and like his insides were not dying a repeated thousand deaths within him at that revelation.
“I’ll call her later to apologize.”
“I talked to her earlier, she said she was going pop in on you later to check in and bring you some groceries for while you recover.” Eloise said.
“Oh, good. I can’t wait to see her.” Colin said, lying through his teeth.
Eloise stayed for another hour, but Colin didn’t hear a word she had said, replaying what she had told him that he had said and done and worrying about Penelope’s upcoming visit instead of listening.
Colin only had about twenty minutes to himself to continue his tortured agitation between when Eloise left him with a hug and when Penelope arrived laden with shopping bags.
“Pen! Come in. Let me help you.” Colin said.
“Don’t be silly, Colin. Sit. You cannot lift heavy things right now. I got it and I’ll put them away.” Penelope said, placing the bags on his kitchen table and pushing him gently into a chair before she started emptying the contents into his fridge and cabinets.
“How are you feeling today? You look much better than you did yesterday. You scared me. I’ve never seen you in such a state.” Penelope said, moving around his kitchen easily.
“I’m much better today, Pen, thank you. Thank you for coming yesterday and bringing me such comfort. I’m sorry I distressed you, in more ways than one I hear.” He said apologetically.
He watched her stiffen and busy herself in a cupboard for far longer than what was required for stacking three cans of soup on a shelf.
“Pen? I’m very sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”
“It’s fine Colin. You were highly medicated and meant nothing by it. Nothing more than drugged ramblings. I hadn’t thought a thing of it until you just brought it up again. I paid it no heed last night. I’m definitely fine. So fine. No worries here.”
It was spoken like someone who was quite the opposite of fine and it gave him the first shred of hope he’d ever had. His admittance had disturbed her.
“They weren’t drugged ramblings…more like thoughts freed by being drugged.” He said quietly.
She kept her back to him, but her hands lowered from the cupboard shelf to rest on the grey quartz countertop and her head tilted with interest, so he swallowed his terror and kept going.
“I think them daily, Pen. Multiple times a day. You are beautiful, lovely, pretty, warm, wonderful, smart.”
She turned around slowly until she faced him while he kept listing all her perfect attributes.
“Funny, sweet, caring, considerate and kind. I adore all those things about you…but I hate them sometimes too.”
Penelope raised her eyebrows at that and the fact that she hadn’t shut him down or ran from his flat gave him a fledgling courage to keep going.
“I hate them because they are all traits that I love, and desire and you possess them, all of them, but I cannot have you.”
He paused and allowed her to process what he was indirectly saying.
“Why can you not?” Penelope asked after a few moments.
“Because we are friends, and you do not want me.” Colin said, meeting her soul stealing aqua eyes.
“Why would you think that?” Penelope asked.
“Because you told me so, Pen.”
“Are you talking about fifteen-year-old me, Colin? I was an absolute idiot if so. I have been pining for you years now, wishing that you would see me, that you would want me, that you would love me. For years!”
“Pen! I have and I do. I have seen you and wanted you every day over the years and loved you ever since our very first day together.” Colin said emphatically.
“So have I.”
“Then what are we doing?”
“I have absolutely no idea. Wasting a ridiculous amount of time that we could have been happy together apparently.” Penelope said ruefully.
“I love you, Pen.”
“I love you, Colin.”
She hugged him carefully so that she didn’t disturb his incision, and he captured her lips a spellbinding first kiss.
“Perhaps it was destiny that you were my emergency contact, and I should thank the anesthesiologist. Who knows how long it would have been before one of us cracked and admitted it. Friend Penelope was more tolerable than the thought of no Penelope.”
“That is precisely why I said nothing too. Friend Colin was better than no Colin at all.”
He kissed her a second time, and it was even better than the first – toe curling, blood boiling, angels singing, sparks flying amazing.
“I think we are going to excite my parents with this news.”
Penelope giggled and it was music to his heart.
A third soft kiss, and he was left wondering if he was still high from the anesthesia because he was floating in the clouds above from kissing the woman he had loved since the moment they had met.