Stranger on the Cliff (ONC 2021)

Believe in Beauty

A/N: thanks for joining me on this strange little adventure. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as  enjoyed going 'eh, it's fantasy, that's allowed'

They were reluctant, at the hospital, to let him out so soon. The doctors were as insistent as they could be that he should stay and have a barrage of yet more uncertain tests. But when he questioned them pointedly, they had to admit he was (almost freakishly) healthy or someone who'd been in a week-long coma and, technically, there was nothing stopping him from just getting on with things.

When Sam drove him back to the university, he tried to stay calm. He refused to ask Sam questions about the world. He figured he'd have to look dumb for a while as things started to make sense – that an open mind about the truth would put him at least halfway to where he needed to be, information-wise. Though he knew he'd at least need to pick up a history book sometime soon.

What he couldn't help noticing was the country roads they were travelling to get back – lined with heavy, old trees and flanked by rich, fertile countryside. He tried to think if he even knew the way to the hospital – if it had looked this way before – and had a feeling he'd been expecting a multi-lane freeway type of road. When they reached the city it was even more apparent. It was a small city famous for its history anyway, but Tav knew that there hadn't been this many old buildings and quaint side streets when he'd known it, in his old reality.

His room wasn't the same either, he thought, though that brief certainty – that they'd gone up a different stairwell the reach the rooms – was unsettled when the room they entered looked very similar, down to the cushioned window-seat. But larger, maybe. And the bed looked comfortable, not rickety like the old one. And his desk was a huge sturdy thing, not something he knocked together himself out of a flatpack.

But: the window seat. And there, on the floor, open where it apparently fell (when he collapsed? Or when he was hurtled into an alternative dimension?) was a copy of Pride and Prejudice. He bent to rescue it, tutting as he straightened the pages out.

"Will you rest?" Sam asked, fussing, but then their face lit up, and Tav turned to the still open door of his room to see what was making them so happy.

The woman was unmistakable, and Tav dare not glance down at the back of his now-closed book to see her name. Tall, with deep and dark hair cast in light curls around a regal head and a face that could only be described as handsome. Strong jaw, and mesmerising brown eyes – bright and clear and intelligent.

"You have to be Eliza," Tav said with a small smile, filled with warmth at how happy Sam looked.

"I am. And of course you are Octavius. I am quite ecstatic to see you so well after Sam's worry over these few days."

Tav wondered only for a moment if there was something strangely old-fashioned about her cadence. Only for as long as it took her eyes to flick to the book in his hand and her to give him an encouraging little nod.

He finally looked at the blurb. Read it. Made a weird noise of confusion in the back of his throat and read it again. But it was certain. There was no mention of Elizabeth Bennett. Or Mr Darcy. There wasn't even a mention – as Tav had half suspected – of Mr Darcy proposing to a man called Octavius. This was a story of a boy called George Wickham, who grew up poor but honest (somehow) and had his heart broken by a wealthy landowner, before he met his true love when he joined the army and they married and led their battalion to great victory. Or something. On a last attempt to make sense, Tav flicked until he found the landowner in the book, and discovered he was resolutely not called Darcy, as Tav had slightly feared.