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Remembrance

By Katie Campbell

Disclaimer: Jeff Singer and Hilary Booth will always belong to Hugh O'Gorman, Melinda Mullins, and Rupert Holmes. They also belong to AMC, and The Entertainment Group/Howard Meltzer Productions. "I'll Remember You" belongs to Sophie Zelmani.

Author's Note: This is my first RW fic, so please don't be too harsh. All comments can be sent to katy@gate.net

Special Thanks to Beth for putting up with my (very often) WENN-focused thoughts and for telling me that this story was "wow." And thanks to MB for the title. :-)

~ ~ ~

"She's returned all my letters unopened. She won't take my calls." Jeff Singer, "Happy Homecomings"

I'll remember you
You will be there in my heart
I'll remember you
And that is all that I can do
But I'll remember

It's back. My nightmare, that is. The same nightmare that has haunted me for months. The one real reminder I have from my first visit to London. The one which caused Hilary Booth to hold me every night for months. The one only she could chase away.

I sit up quickly, damning the dream as I have every night since I arrived in London. I crawl from the warmth of my worn comforter and pad quickly to the tiny kitchenette to fix myself a cup of tea. As I pour the tea into a mug I remember, not for the first time, a conversation with Hilary. I was right, Mittens. The coffee in England is terrible.

As quietly as possible I pull a chair away from the dining table and sit down, staring beyond the confines of my apartment, out a window at the war-torn city of London. Sipping at my tea, I then glance around the room, and notice the day's mail neatly stacked by my landlady on a corner of the table I reach over, grab the mail, and sort through it quickly. There isn't much, a bill from a shop that I frequent, a local magazine to which I have just subscribed, a flyer offering free ale at a pub on the corner, and then I see it. A white envelope letter with words "Return to Sender" scrawled across the front. Below the hastily written message is the address of the adressee, Miss Hilary Booth.

I pick the letter off the table and finger it gently. Oh, Hilary, why won't you read what I have to say? Would it hurt that much?

It's a stupid question, I know. Hilary has endured a lot of pain over the years, but I know that little could hurt as much as what I have done. I wish though that she would let me explain. I wish that I could say "I only did it to protect you Mittens," because I did. And I wish, no I need, her to forgive me. Because once she does I can start to have her back, and that, that is everything.

Great...I'm starting to sound like one of the characters from the soaps on WENN, but I can't help saying what's true. It's funny really, that two people, as strong as Hilary and I are, could be so helpless without each other, but that's the way it is for us.

We didn't know that at first, of course. The first time I saw Hilary I was an unknown actor who spent summers working in the mills, and Hilary...Hilary was still a shining star on Broadway. I've never told her, but I saw her in "The Rivals," her "Rivals." She was brilliant of course, and I wondered, for weeks after what it would be like to work with Miss Hilary Booth, but I never thought then that I would actually find out.

When, to my great surprise, I saw her again, it was to star in Razzle Dazzle. Things had changed drastically though, since I'd last seen her. Hilary Booth was no longer the toast of Broadway, and behind her airs and high strung attitude, I saw then, what I still see today. A very real, and often hurt person. There was no doubt that she could could still act, and still scare everyone from producers to busboys, but I saw something. Something besides the hardened person that everyone else saw. Something that, to my astonishment, I felt I needed to bring out.

It didn't take long to get into Hilary's good graces. A compliment here and there does wonders. By the end of our first week on tour we dining at a little place just outside Mexico and I, high on the good company and wine, proposed. By nine the next evening we were honeymooning in Matamoros.

Honeymooning...Matamoros...I look intently at a framed photograph on the counter and sigh. I brought very little on this trip, but one thing I could not leave was a photo of Hilary on our honeymoon. It's something about the way she looks that makes this photo so special. She is sitting on the balcony of our suite, wearing a simple sundress and smiling in a way I've only seen twice. On our honeymoon, and on the day I returned from London Both times she was looking straight at me, and both times I knew I was seeing a piece of her soul. And that, her soul, was what I felt I needed to draw from Hilary Booth.

It was never easy, but I knew that from the start. Hilary is one of the most complex people I've ever met, but that complexity makes her fascinating. And I spent several years trying to open the book that is Hilary Booth, but I didn't succeed till the night I came home from London.

When I walked in the door to WENN that day the first thing I saw was Hilary's face, and it was one emotion, pure joy. And it hit me then, that despite our arguments, my flirting, and her stage airs, that she loved me. Hilary Booth, once Broadway's Queen, was in love with me. It wasn't that I hadn't thought she loved me before, but this time it was different. This time we were both looking past the layers we'd built over time, this time we were seeing each other's souls.

The peace our admissions made didn't last of course. After we got remarried we went right back to bickering self's, but something had changed for good. At the end of the day, despite our arguments or moods over the day, we could hold each other, safe in the knowledge that we loved each other.

I glance down at the weathered envelope and sigh. That love, that look at Hilary's soul? I need that as much as she does. I need some one to look at me in that soulful way. I need some one to whisper "I love you" in the middle of the night. I need some one to love me despite my quirks and failings. I need Hilary Booth.

I once heard some one say that I married Hilary Booth because she helped my career. But that's not why. I married her, because despite her sharp verbal barbs, icy glares, and often unfriendly demeanor, I love her and she loves me. And that is why I need to have her back in my life.

I glance down at the weathered envelope and sigh. I'm going home in two weeks and then...then I'll get Hilary to listen.

I put the letter down and rinse my tea cup in the sink. As I walk back to my bedroom to try to sleep again I pass the photo of Hilary and I can think of only one thing as I study it.

"I love you, Hilary."

Fin.

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