Author's Note: FINAL CHAPTER!

Just wanted to say a quick thank you for the kind reviews, and thank you all for reading this story! I've really enjoyed writing it and may do another in the same kind of vein, so let me know if you'd be interested.

Hope you enjoy the ending!


"Rochester! Edward!"

The rugged, northern landscape, which had seemed so beautiful to me in my daily walks for the past year, now appeared to my wild and frantic glances the very essence of danger and cruelty. Each cliff face became a sure death sentence to the blind man I sought, each stone an torturous impediment. I called his name over and over until I had run myself hoarse. I pushed on, climbing through thicket and brush, always with my eyes trained on the ditches and crevices where he might have fallen. When I could call no more, I kept up searching, and when I could walk no more, I would lean against a tree for momentary respite, then begin again.

It was in one of these moments of rest that I set down on a stump by a small stream, breathing deeply, and pulling twigs and thorns from where they were trapped in my sleeves and petticoat. My beautiful wedding clothes were now completely ruined. If I had had room to think of them, I would have pitied Diana and Mary indeed.

I watched the stream run by as my breathing returned to normal, and my determination regrouped. At length, when I had almost recovered, I picked myself up to begin again, when suddenly I was rooted to the spot; a sound, like that of an injured animal, reached my ears and moved my pity, before I could fully comprehend it. The low moan filled the glen, tearing at my soul, and as I looked around to see the carcass of an injured wolf or a ravaged deer, I saw instead the shaggy mane of a fallen man, not beast. Sick with relief, though my concern was not fully abated, I made my way through the trees that remained between us, and beheld Mr Rochester at last, lying with his back to a fine old oak, legs splayed out in the grass.

He did not appear to have noticed my approach, so consumed was he in his own pain. The dusk was gathering now, but I could still see his face, and saw that he was weeping. Very softly, I spoke to him.

"Are you hurt?"

In spite of my delicacy, he started like a hunted thing, pulling back from me though I reached towards him.

"Who is there?" he barked.

"You do not know me, sir?"

I abandoned hesitancy, and reached out to touch his arm. The moment I made contact he grabbed the hand held him, as if feeling testing the veracity of my presence. I gasped at his touch.

"Sir, your hands are ice," I said. "Tell me what injures you. I must help."

The impatient command seemed to finally break through, and at last, he became sensible of me. He brought the fingers that he clasped to his face, and shaking slightly, kissed them.

I kneeled upon the forest floor to be nearer to him, a great change overcame his being. He calmed like an lake in the eye of a great storm, and my only hope was that it would not prove so transitory.

"Is that really you, Janet?" The ghost of a smile crossed his haggard features. "I had quite given you up to India."

"It is me, sir. You gave me quite a fright."

"Don't worry," he replied. "It is only a sprain, though I was beginning to fear how I might ever escape this wretched place. I always seem to have ankle trouble when you are near, do I not?"

It was my turn to calm my spirits then. I sat down beside him and rested my back against the same tree.

"You are not to be trusted on your own clearly," was all I could say.

"How did you find me, witch? Oh God," he moaned, remembering the real world now that his internal landscape had stabilised. "Tell me I didn't hurt John to grievously?"

"I think he is alright," I replied. "You shall have to give him a very good Christmas gift this year."

We sat there a moment in silence, enjoying our reunion, both afraid that the moment might escape us, like so many others had before it. Rochester held my hands in his larger grip, trying to warm them I believe, though I was in fact much warmer than he. When they were nearly of equal temperature, he spoke.

"May I have the pleasure of knowing who I'm addressing?"

I looked at him.

"You are serious?" I laughed. "I thought you were joking before."

"I know the person to whom I am speaking, of course," he replied, with a sense of caution that appear unfamiliar on his confident brow, "but not the name. Is this Miss Jane Eyre? Or Mrs St John Rivers?"

His face remained unmoved as he spoke, though in the dim light, I believe I saw moisture well-up once more in his good eye.

"You are speaking with Jane Eyre," I replied. "Though I hope that will soon change."

You must forgive me, dear reader, for this lack of specificity. I can only say that part of me had clearly not forgiven him for the role that Blanche Ingram played in our courtship, and I had half a mind to settle the score. I did not wish to see him in pain, of course, but I did not think a moment's jealousy would harm him so much, and I felt a certain thrill in using his own tricks against him for once.

For Rochester, the calm passed, and the storm returned.

"Leave me Jane," he grunted. "Go and be with your intended. You have youth and beauty to be your mate now, do not waste another minute with age and ugliness."

I bit back my smile, so the poor man would not see it.

"Oh, I am not going to marry Rivers," said I. "Surely you must see that."

"Why the blazes not?" He cried. "That fool wasn't put off by a puny interruption, was he?"

"Not exactly. But I do think he saw that the whole thing was hopeless. I demanded to see the letter, you see."

These words quietened him. I could see the furious calculations taking place behind that dark brow. He turned to me with such a look of vulnerability that I felt quite sorry for my earlier trick. When he spoke, his tone betrayed hesitancy, coloured by fear, and hope.

"You've seen it? Then… you did not know."

"About Bertha?" I asked. "No, and I am very sorry. And I am sorry for this –" I said, touching his eyes, "and for this," I continued reaching for his hand.

But before I could continue these caresses he stayed my hand with his good one.

"Jane, you must not trifle with me, I am afraid I cannot bear it." The lines of his former grief were etched into his cheeks once more, and I saw then that when I had discovered him, he had not wept for his ankle. He had been weeping for me.

Determined to get to the point quickly, I began-:

"You made two offers in your letter, if I am not mistaken. One I am quite without need of, for as I told you at church, I have inherited my uncle's fortune. So you may keep your money."

"And the other?" He asked, barely breathing.

"If you still desire it, then I will be Jane Eyre no longer. I will marry you, Edward Rochester, and take your name as my own."

With such effusions of joy as I had never heard, he pulled me close as our awkward positions on the ground enabled, and held me as though I might dissolve at any moment. I was overcome with joy myself, my own tears of laughter meeting Rochester's past grief and mingling on our cheeks. In another moment he pulled back from me, brow furrowing once more.

"A moment, Janet. You were going to this Rivers fellow this morning, what of that? Are you so changeable, you elf?"

I laughed at that. Everything which had that morning seemed so bleak and dire was now a comedy fit for the stage.

"It was foolish, you are quite right my darling. But let me assure you that you need not be jealous. It was for the sake of the mission to India that we were to marry, and nothing else. I did not love him and he did not love me."

Now it was his turn to be jovial.

"I see that you are having your revenge upon me, witch. If I did not love thee better than my own self I would go seek out Blanche Ingram once more, to serve you right."

"Be serious, Edward," I said, sobering up a moment. "Did you truly never stop loving me? I thought you had forgot me."

"How can it be possible that you still love me?" he countered, just as seriously. "I am not what I once was."

"No," I replied, gently brushing the wild hair from his face, which I cradled in my hand. This was not the man I had left behind after all. Tragedy had somehow softened him, and injury humbled him. We were now true equals, in this world as well as before God.

"No," I repeated, "I begin to perceive that you are far more."

With these words, I quelled any disagreement by bringing my lips to his. And for my reward, he kissed me back with a thousand stronger feelings, earnest and reverent, like one who has been given new life.

In a way, dear reader, I believe we both had.