Chapter Eleven

A/N: Here goes the last chapter. Thank you to daydreaming87 and GaspILostATooth1 for reviewing the previous one.

Finally, it was all over. A year and a half had passed since the terrible incident of Elizabeth's shooting, and in the first week of May, 1945, Germany declared their surrender, meaning that, for the British fighters at least, the war was well and truly ended.

She still could not quite believe that it had all ended, as the war had taken over their lives for the last six years, never leaving their minds for a single moment in all of this time. It had been far worse than the Great War, in her opinion at least, and had lasted for two years longer. The number to fall had been enormous, and they would never be forgotten in all of history. That much was certain for Elizabeth, and the woman was glad of some confidence in her life, after all the uncertainty of the past years.

As the war had ended at last, Margaret and Lillibet had brightened no end, though their mother was sure that they had not forgotten their ordeals and would not do so any time in the near future, and therefore she was far more content, and so was Bertie, who walked around each day with a smile on his face, despite the weight of sovereignty still resting on his shoulders, precisely as it had done before and during the war.

His work had long since ceased with the man named Lionel Logue, the speech therapist who had made such great accomplishments with her husband that she now called the man by his given name, something that she had been taught never to do, except with her family, of course. However, her husband still remained great friends with the man, and they still met up on occasion, to discuss how his condition was progressing, among other things. Though she had not known him well, Elizabeth liked to think that she had become a friend of his also, and most certainly of Mrs. Logue, who she found to be a very interesting woman, and a brilliant companion when the two of their spouses were off discussing model airplanes together.

The girls had also begun to grow up, Elizabeth being of an age when she would come with them on a great deal of their royal tours, and not being far from being able to do so either. Sometimes, their mother would wonder where the time had gone, where all the years remaining of their childhoods had disappeared to, but each time she found that she knew the answer. She was losing her children to themselves, to the years and to time itself. But that did not matter. Everyone must live their own lives someday, after all, as she had done, and as they would do now.

It was rather odd to think that, one day, when her Bertie was dead and gone, little Lillibet would be the queen, the position that she had held herself for the near decade that had gone by, the only difference being that her daughter would be the monarch and her husband the consort, a situation which had not occurred since Victoria, the girl's own great great grandmother. But, although it would most certainly be a brilliant experience for her, Elizabeth wished with all her heart that her daughter would not become queen for years and years to come, as her doing so would mean her father being lost to them, and if there was one thing that she was certain of, it was the fact that she could not survive for long without her Bertie at her side, and she prayed every night that she would not have to do so, as she did not even wish to try.

A pair of arms wrapped around her waist reminded the woman that she was not alone in the room, and she turned to face her husband with a smile on her face, one that she saw he mirrored, once she had turned to face him. As she always did, when in private at least, she greeted the man with a peck on the lips, rather than a kiss on the hand as George and Mary had used to do, as was fitting for a king and a queen. But the truth was that, unless they had to, the couple did not think of themselves as King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, nor did they think of their daughters as Princess Elizabeth or Princess Margaret. At home, away from the crowds of the public, they were just Bertie and Liza, Lillibet and Margie. They were just an ordinary family at heart, and that was what they would always remain to be.

When they were together, as a two or as a four, Elizabeth knew that her family still thought of what they had almost lost in the war, not from the forces of Hitler, but from a single Nazi gunman who had almost taken it all away. He had shot at her, while trying to get to Bertie, and that had destroyed the girls' spirits, and her husbands, or so she had been told. He had kidnapped Lillibet, and she had almost died, something that would have near killed her mother to be told. He had tried to take it all away from them, to make them feel that they were trapped, surrounded, alone.

But they had never been alone, and never would be. They had stood strong through all the terror, purely because they had stood together. The Windsors had held strong through times of trouble, and she hoped that they always would, even after she and her husband were dead and gone.

There were times when Bertie looked at his wife, and he saw the fragile woman laid abed, clinging desperately to life itself. Those images haunted his nightmares, they were his greatest fears, along with the same happening to Lillibet or little Margaret. But the majority of the time, when he saw his wife, he saw the strong, brave woman that he had married, the mother of his children, the queen of his country.

Once, she had been shattered, but now, and forever more, his darling stood strong.

A/N: And there is the end! I'm quite sad to have finished this story, but it is done. As I said, keep an eye out for the Elizabeth and Bertie story I'm going to do. I'm not sure what it will be called yet, but it is the only King's Speech I'm planning, so it shouldn't be hard to spot. For the last time, please review!