Work Text:
[All events are the same up until after Romeo kills Paris]
Romeo falls to his knees beside the corpse of his lover. He leans his head against the stone and weeps. “Why!” He cries slamming his hands onto the floor over and over again. “Why oh why has thy forsaken me, Lord! I call for thee to answer me!” He pulls himself up to see the face of his Juliet. Her face was full of color and it almost looked as if she had never been dead at all. Romeo lifted her veil and caressed her face. It felt warm and full of life, not like the flesh of the dead.
“Oh Juliet, beautiful sweet Juliet. How is it that even in death thou looks so alive?” his voice wafers and cracks. He reaches to feel her lips, tears streaming down his face. “My last wish in life is to kiss thy lips, for nothing is more heavenly than thou. And if my soul shalln’t go to heaven I would die happily knowing I had already been.”
He places a tender kiss upon her lips, soft and slow to savor the moment. He reaches for the vial, shaky hands struggling to grasp it while he weeps. Romeo felt a hopelessness so strong he thought that would kill him rather than the poison.
He fell to his knees once more, yelling out in agony as he fell against the floor. All he could do was cry, from pain and grief.
As the pain subsided and he ran out of tears he once again reached for death. With the vial in one hand and Juliet’s hand in the other, he says his final prayers and then presses the bottle against his lips.
And then he felt it.
Juliet’s hand squeezed his.
Romeo drops the poison without a second thought as he jumps to his feet. “Oh Juliet, is thou art alive?”
Juliet stirs and her eyes open. She faces her lover and all feels well, “Romeo?” She croaks, “Is it thou? Has thou come to see me?”
“It is I,” Romeo says clutching her hand to his chest. “My love! Oh, how I wept for thee. I thought thou was surely dead!”
[They kiss the end]