would the people's fates around you change if your fate has changed too?
In another universe, Henry is kindly, but he could not save everyone.
Warnings; murder, death, beheadings
Henry was just a baby when he meets his caretaker- a stunning young woman, blonde hair and beautiful smile still stuck in his memory, despite the fact he is still a small infant with no mindset other than eating milk and babbling and cooing. He remembers the warmth of her smile, a smile that shines brightly like the warming suns in which he has basked upon whenever his mother takes him outside.
He remembers how she is so gentle, gentler than the way his mother handles him so callously to the point he has to cry to get the wants he desires.
This woman was a gift to he, sent by the god above, loving her and cherishing her, his grabby little hands yearning his warmth.
He remembers the lullabies he sings of all night; her voice so beautiful he remembers so vividly, as if she can - and will - put him to sleep no matter what the cost.
Then one day, when he turns just the age of one, the blonde, beautiful and kindly woman was taken away from him, putting him into various nurseries with the unjust tutors and impatient teachers, their tongues unleashing out a poison to poor and young Henry, who only wishes to play with his building blocks.
He asks his parents - in broken, misguided words - when the blonde woman will be back, but they pat his head and continue ignoring him.
(Later in his life, he learns of Jane Seymour; a kindly woman, with a familiar bright smile and the same crown of blonde hair he faintly remembers in his childhood. She had died giving birth to her first child, Edward.
He could not help but feel the irony of it, though; Jane Seymour was so kind and caring towards her children, but birthing one was the cause of her death.)
He meets the quiet and reclined Catherine - Catalina, as her Hispanic parents call her - in his years in elementary. She was holding a rosary and bible, silently praying in a lunch table, not eating unless the Lord hears her prayer and answers her calls. Needless to say, Henry is fascinated at Aragon's confidence to show her religion, to show how loyal she is to God.
Catherine looks away, cheeks tinged with pink.
Henry tries to make her notice him again- from casual waves in the hallways, to offering to carry her books (she awkwardly declines), to praying with her during recess or lunch or after class for the matter. Yet much to Henry's frustration, she pays attention to his older brother, Arthur.
He hates how his brother could make her blush, how he and she have so many hobbies - like speaking and learning Latin - how easily Arthur can make her swoon and with one finger she can lift her up, high, high into the skies with no possible way to come down unless Arthur lets her.
Meanwhile Henry watches them, stomach turning slightly, jealous green spread on the features of his face- Mary Tudor mocks him for it but he denies that he is jealous of them.
(A rather fateful accident occured- Aragon and Arthur had gotten into a car crash and unfortunately, the latter did not survive. No matter how many times Catherine prayed and sit on pews or clasp her hands closed in the hospital bed, ignoring the pain, Arthur's life has been snipped, his thread of life short yet meaninful. Henry did not like the way his brother stole Catherine from he, but he had cried at his funeral, with the same amount of grief as with Catherine.
After college, they both wed in a quiet church ceremony, attended by their family and relatives. Henry sees her smile shyly in her veil, and he smiles too, albeit just more confident than hers.
They have a daughter, Mary, and they could not have asked for anything else.)
Mary cries of a failing grade in school, and he comforts and hugs her, telling her what is bothering her of her failing grade. She recollects at how the teacher is always so horrible with her, treating her wrongly while she favors her other classmates, comparing them to her.
"Don't worry, I will talk to your teacher", he reassures his daughter, rubbing her back slightly to make her feel better. He can feel anger boiling inside of him- how dare that woman make Mary's life inside of the school miserable?
He calls the principal, and, with civil wording and the fake calm of his voice, ask for Mary's teacher, wishing for an appointment with the woman and complain of how he had treated their daughter. When they have both agreed on a due date, did his mind start to hum with thoughts on how to confront the teacher- some say he must be firm and stern to her, other voices tell him to just shout at her to the point he has all but used up his voice, and some tell him to just ask her politely to tell her why she is failing his child.
But as he faces the teacher, his throat starts to constrict around him, as he chokes on the words he was going to say. He remembers her face, oh so brightly, just in the days they had just met- a drop of green into his golden view, it is where everything had went wrong.
Anne Boleyn looks at him, with a calculating expression, smeared red lipstick and raven dark hair pulled up into two twin buns, holding a little girl - their daughter - in her arms. She glares at him with such intensity and he bites his lip.
Of course she would be angry with him, for leaving her alone after their one-night stand together.
(When Henry confesses to Catalina about his affair with Anne, she had dropped her teacup, sending it shattering to the floor, causing their daughter from upstairs to yelp and watch her parents. Henry did not fight back as Catalina hits him, book after book, trying to hit him in a hard blow.
Much to his surprise - but not that he does not deserve it, of course - she files a divorce and only lets Mary stay with him in the weekends, staying with her friend Marìa.
Mary cannot look at him in the eye ever again.)
He meets a lone, fifteen year old girl in the streets, starving and shivering in the park bench late at night. Henry has been given over time and he, relentlessly, accepted such jobs, leaving him exhausted and cold and tired and hungry, but all his thoughts and worries vanish when he meets the young and skinny girl.
"Are you lost?" No reply, just a chatter and a shiver.
He asks minimal questions, yet the girl did not reply to him. He sighs and gives the poor girl water she perhaps has not drank.
She mutters, "Thank you", and it is enough to make Henry smile and nod his head, as he gets up from the bench.
He continues to visit the homeless girl, give her warm clothing, food and drinks, never questioning her and vice versa. She did not speak to him at all, and it was only a matter of time will fate get their hands on her.
(One day he is walking back from his work, and - rather eagerly - runs towards the park, until he screams. He finds the body of the young girl he was nursing back to health, headless, the bench covered with blood and her neck looking absolutely shaved off; he investigates where her head must have gone and he sees it- on the alley walls, the young head of the girl, with a rather messy imprint on the walls used with her own blood.
Katherine Howard is mine.
Years later, he finds out it was made by a man named Thomas Culpepper; her cousin.)
He meets a young woman with a dark complexion in one of Elizabeth Blount's parties- she was wild, she was the life of the party, and everyone was vying for her hand to dance and waltz with she. Henry had his chance, as she clasps his hand, bringing him to the centre of the dance floor, their moves as smooth as the beat as they curve in just the right angles. Her moves were breath taking, and sooner they were at the gardens, smoking and away from the eyes of the party goers.
"A friend of Bessie?", she asks with a Getman accent as she puffs out smoke from her mouth, watching it disappear into the night sky.
"Yes- I was the one who match made her and her husband, after all."
She looks at him intensely, as if there was something wrong with his face. "The name's Anna. Anna Cleves."
(He and Anna would remain friends through the years- chatting through their phones or voice-chatting, but they did not explore the trials of love, just seeing them as good friends and nothing more. Henry had come to bid her goodbye as she leaves to go back to Germany to pursue her arts carreer with Hans Holbein.)
He knows that his life is now coming to a close, the monitor beeping slower and slower, matching the rhythm of his heart. He breathes for a moment, as he looks back at the people in his room, waiting for his final breath, hoping that it would not come.
There was Catalina, Mary, Mary Tudor and her husband Charles Brandon, Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth, Anna Cleves, Bessie Blount, Anne Hastings, Mary and George Boleyn, William Stafford, and so many familiar faces to the point he cannot pinpoint them all but he knows that they are there, they are hoping it was not his time.
He knows that it is his time to finally die, either to be sent to heaven, to hell, or to the purgatory.
His eyes trail towards a woman with curly hair, looking at him with a sad yet reassuring smile. Her name tag catches his eye; Kateryn Parr.
He opens his eyes, only to find the vast cosmics in front of him, and he sighs, wondering how beautiful the parts of this galaxy is, and why he is here and not in the mythical afterlife that was meant to be for him.
His eyes trail over a woman, all in white, shimmering and shining and seemingly buried in her work, sewing an embroidery, undecipherable in his bare eyes. The woman turns towards him, and he jolts backwards, but she just beckons him to come closer.
"You did good in this universe, Henry the Eighth."
Henry blinks, "I did good?"
The woman sighs, "You are not as cruel as your alternate versions, and for that, your six wives thank you."
