"I do hope you intended to say goodbye to me." Eliza was standing outside my door when I opened it. Her hands were linked together and she wore a deep, wine colored red dress that was dangerously well-fitted to her form.

It was evening, and a mere few hours before Ser Dalton, Linen, and I were set to leave for Chalke. At least a four month journey, I was told. I had hoped its length would provide me some solace for what I would have to do that night.

She'd never come to my home without my personal escort. It wasn't an easy trek for a lady, let alone the Queen, and with all the guidelines in place, I could only gather that she had gone through great lengths to get here, to see me. I had to steel myself against the flattery that brought on.

In her defense... I blew her off for our weekly rendezvous that was due that afternoon. Given the complete bashing I had taken from His Majesty's news of a child, and the argument with my uncle, I felt spent. Too drained to visit her; to pretend. Too entitled to the hours in solitary here. I used them to construct the words I might say to this woman... To end our relationship with as much respect to her as I could, but I... I'd lost track of time, brooding. And when the hour had grown too late, I resorted to packing my things, and I accepted I would have to leave her a note.

It was lying open on the table, a clue not lost on her. She noticed it, and the quill next to it, right away. "Is this for me?" she said.

Eliza's face paled, and she took a deep breath, heels snapping by me as she reached for it despite my protest.

"My Dear Eliza," she began, her jaw locked. "Ah, yes. It would appear so." She frowned, skimming over the remaining words. "What is this? This is what you give to me? 'Sorry I must leave you this letter?'" she read from it.

I tore it from her hands and crumpled the page, chucking it into the trash. "What are you doing here?" I managed.

"What am I doing here, he asks!" She crossed her arms. "So what? You get promoted and that's it? You're done with me? Got what you want? Now you'll vanish in the night and maybe die before you say 'farewell, Eliza, have a great life,' to me? You think the King didn't tell me where you were going? You thought you'd just... sneak away from me?"

"What are you talking about, you mad woman!" I spat. "You're the one with secrets!"

Instantly, her hands flew to her belly and she gasped.

"Yes, His Majesty was so kind enough to share that one with me. So don't," I gestured passively. "Don't complain about letters. At least I was going to tell you."

Suddenly the whole room's mood shifted, like a ship crashing into the sea. "I..." She breathed. "I don't..."

"Know what to say?" I nodded. "Sounds eerily familiar."

"It was an accident," she whispered. "I am just as careful with him as I am with you!"

"You're sleeping with him!" I said. I spun on my heel, back into the bedchamber. She followed, watching me, the embodiment of guilt as I gathered my clothes.

"Yes," she confessed. "As his wife, there are things I am required to do."

I cast my hand through the right side of my hair.

"You're hurt?" she worried, reaching for my battered knuckle. "Did he do this to you? Did the King–?"

"The King knows nothing of us," I said. "Which is more than I can say for your Ser Erik."

Eliza shrank. She fell onto the bed, her eyes sad and hazy, unable to stay in any one place upon the mattress. "...You know about Ser Erik. I see... A bad day for you."

"A bad day?" I parroted. "Aye, an understatement. The woman I've wanted more than life itself since I met her, is pregnant. I'm leaving for the start of a probably war, and I'm not even the first man she's lain with outside of–"

"I told you that," she cried. "I told you I had been with another man. You said you didn't care!"

"I assumed he was before your wedding vows. Not... days, weeks, maybe hours before you took me to your bed!"

She scoffed. "You cannot have it both ways, either you do care or don't!"

"I do!" I declared. "I do care about you." I stalked closer. "I care about you, Eliza. So deeply, that it pains me to know these things. That you felt like you couldn't tell me. That this! This honesty isn't mutual."

She rolled her shoulders, fleeing from the blanket, and whipping her skirt around. "And you know this as fact!?"

"Yes!"

"Why? Because you know everything there is to know about everything?" she spat. "Can you read minds now? Hearts?"

"Becuase you kept it secret! You kept this... this pregnancy hidden from me!" My uncle's accusations reseeded in my head. "Am I a game for you? Rather fitting. Sword," I pointed to myself, "And horse. Don't you think?"

"Oh, the drama!" she spat. "If you're going to insult me, find a better analogy. I am not a horse and you sound like an idiot!"

I was ashamed that I let his words shape my own. "You might not be a horse; but you don't mind carrying one."

Eliza tempered, like a blade. I could see the heat explode from behind her eyes, but instead of taking it out on me, she steeled. A respect for me she never gave the King.

"I'm sorry," I said, heeding it. It was an apology I'd meant. "...You charge in here, with the nerve to accuse me of leaving you in the night, of indifference, and you cannot tell me– You don't even try to tell me– You're with child! You weren't going to tell me, still."

"I was scared," she whined.

"Scared of what?" I urged. "Of me?" By now I had used my height against her, and she looked up at me with an innocence in her eyes.

"Yes." It was near a whisper, barely heard.

"You insult me now. You think I would ever harm you?" I hurt.

"No." Her eyes were swelling before mine. "I thought... I thought... I... I didn't want to lose you. I know you wouldn't ever harm me. I know you're good. Too good for me for someone as rotten as me, and I knew this would hurt you and I just wanted a little longer to have you before I ruined everything."

I closed my eyes, then pulled away, sitting on the bed.

"I love you," she said quietly.

It was the first time either of us had dared to string those words together, at least out loud. Saying it was too much of a risk. We'd called each other pet names. We'd expressed our unwavering devotions, but never had either of us tried to...

"I love you, Gregor," she said. "And I don't know if this... child, is yours. Or his. Or if you even want anything to do with me because of it... I am ashamed for my role in this conundrum. I wish I could be only yours. I'm sorry if that's what you thought was happening. I didn't mean to hurt you."

I let her honesty marinate in the air.

"Will you not say it, too?" she asked. "Will you not say you love me?"

I brewed about it, settling on; "Did you tell Ser Erik the same? Did he tell you?"

"No!" she cried, falling to her knees in front of me. She rested her hands on mine. "Never! I never felt that way with him."

I wanted it to be true. "What was your plan? What would have happened should he have come back to your side? What was my fate? Would you have us both? Hide him from me as you have so much else?"

"You must believe me," she sighed.

I begged; "Eliza," another time.

"Ser Erik chose not to come back. He wrote me a letter saying as much. You can read it, if you like." She wiped another tear. "But even if he hadn't... I would have turned him away. It was never love with him. It was only ever a remedy. A temporary fix for the emptiness inside of me. It is only you I could ever... ever love. I do not love anyone but you. Not even His Majesty! I swear. I swear it to God! The only man I love is you. The only man I could ever love is–"

I pulled her into a needy sort of kiss. We made our way back over the sheets, and she was adamant to stay above me.

"I love you," she tried again.

"I lov..." But the final word still caught in my throat. A cowardly pause, if any.

"Allow me to," she started to unfasten my pants. "To show you," she said. Now she was the nervous one of us. "Men like to be shown."

"Stop," I said. "I'm more injured than you give me credit for. I'm not some brute. A dick with legs. Sex will not be enough to–" I moaned as she touched me. I had to truly fight the urge, to take Eliza's hand off of me. To bring her shape into the space next to me. I longed to hold her; smell her hair, one final night.

"You don't want to be with me?" she asked. There was an inky darkness to her voice. "Do I repulse you now?"

"Don't be stupid. I would hold you for tonight," I said. "I thought you liked me as the kind of man to hold you."

"But you leave me, potentially forever tomorrow. What if you die? What if you find another woman? What if–?"

"Neither of those things will happen," I assured her... but as I gave it some thought... "I mean, you do have a point, about the time... I will be gone for months..."

She was timid to move closer, brushing my jaw with her kiss.

"To Hell with it!" I cried, rolling her to her back and sending my hand beneath the ruffles of her skirt.

Eliza giggled past tears, and for a time we just existed in each other. No pain. No lies.

I remain adamant that Eliza and I never 'fucked' as anyone else might call it. We only ever made love to each other. She'd confessed, that night, to sleeping with Ser Erik as a means to feel after her husband's infidelity first came to light. That Ser Erik was aware of the arrangement, and it had sparked as a sort of curiosity from both parties who liked to play with danger and fire. But this? This was... a type of closeness that's ever-deepening roots had yet to be discovered, and I knew that even the world's finest writers would struggle to bind the phenomenon to words.

My favorite thing about my Queen was how full of life she was during her highs. She had a way of infecting you with her happiness. Especially when you delved down inside of her or spent the entire night, her legs coiled around yours.

"Ahhh, ha," I started to moan. I was close to finishing for the final act that evening, when I felt Eliza's knees rise on either side of my ribcage. "Ugh, God. You feel so good," I told her. "I'm close."

I paced my breathing, and—

"Gregory," Eliza looked me in the eyes. "Don't pull out this time," she asked. "Stay inside of me."

"Inside?" I lowered my brow. "But?"

"But what harm could it do?" She grinned, weakly. "Please." I felt her legs dare tighter to my torso.

"No man has ever been inside of me like that. Not on purpose, not all of their... What I ask. I was so careful but... I want this. I want you. I need to... I would wish to have you entirely, before you go."

"I..." I slowed down to relish in her warmth.

"I don't want you to go," she whispered.

"I do not wish to. To leave you," I sang back. "For it will be a very long journey, I think."

Eliza sighed. "Can you not stow away somewhere?"

"I ...feel as though I may go missed. There's only three of us."

"But I will miss you here. What will I do...if... if you do not come back?"

"I will come back," I said. "It's just an intelligence trip, Uncle said. And even if it weren't, know that I will always come back to you. To this. Even Death could not stop me."

"Dramatic," she spat. "Don't say that too loud, she'll test your might."

"I am not superstitious," I dared. After another gentle thrust, I could bear it no longer. "Eliza..."

"Do you promise it to me? Swear it? You'll come back to your Queen?"

"Yes," I hadn't missed a beat. "I swear it. I will come back to you, I ...Are you sure? I need to know. You want this? Me? ... Inside of you?"

"I do, Gregory. I do."

I'd stirred Eliza awake about an hour before it was time for me to leave. I hadn't slept, I'd only watched her rest upon me, only stroked her long hair.

She tried to insist that she did not care about the effects, should we be caught. She wanted to spend what time we could together, but it was a futile pursuit. When I had returned from escorting her back to the castle, I sighed, defeatedly, as I sank to the ground beside the foot of my bed.

The blankets still felt like her; I touched them from where I sat, carefully. Her perfume lingered in the air of my room, and as I looked around I started to stew. I did not have much, but I had her, and that was enough for any man to fear loss.

Come Hell or high water, I did not want to wager Eliza. Be it as her Blade for an eternity, her lover, or nothing more, to be in her light was... enough. As her heart worried for my unnatural death upon this mission, mine worried for her well-being and matrimonial happiness in my absence.

It was a fear I had never anticipated having in my life. Here I was, a young man. I was full of zest and devotion to what I thought was something much larger than myself. To God, to His Majesty; the Crown. I'd won the Knights' Games my very first year as Kingsguard; already an impossible odd, and now I possessed a knowing that I bore the love of the most handsome entity on Oreian soil. No, the world. No man would ever surmount to, or surpass my success.

I would never be happier.

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