The King's Speech ficlet: After the Speech [Bertie, general]
Title: After the Speech Author: celandineb Fandom: The King's Speech Character: Bertie Rating: general Length: 250 words Summary: Bertie reflects. Note: For cruisedirector, who suggested the prompt "tease," although it's not a proper drabble.
His Royal Majesty George VI, by the grace of God King of the United Kingdom and the British dominions beyond the seas, King of Ireland, and Emperor of India, reclined in his bath. The hot water lapped around his shoulders as he let the thoughts that had teased at his mind for hours come to the fore.
Tonight he had given a speech to stir the nation to war. He should be thinking of the solemnity of the occasion, of the danger, no, the certainty of death and destruction that lay before them all. He remembered the Great War all too well, as did millions of his subjects. What madness in Hitler's psyche led him to draw Europe, perhaps the world, into another such dreadful conflict? Or did he think the memory of war would frighten them so much as to give him whatever he wanted to prevent it happening again?
But these facts, though essential to be contemplated, and soon, were not the ones to occupy his mind now. He remembered the pride in Elizabeth's eyes after the speech, the shiver of desire that ran through him to know that he had lived up to her expectations. Alongside that was the memory of a similar pride in Lionel's eyes. What disturbed Bertie now, so that he held his breath and ducked under the water for as long as he could stand, was the realization that he felt the same need for the man as he did for his wife.