Romeo and Juliet: How It Really Ended

Romeo kneeled beside Juliet's cold body and wept for the loss of his true love. Without her, life would not be worth living. He slowly reached for the bottle he had purchased from the apothecary, and, saying his last goodbyes to her, lifted it to his lips. He hardly noticed how warm her hand had become in his, or that the color had returned to her cheeks, or even that her eyes had slowly begun to open.

As her eyes opened, she saw him about to consume the vile poison and used what strength she had to knock it out of his grasp. He started and jumped across the crypt. "What's this? Alive? My love, can it be?"

She slowly raised herself up and replied, "It can. The essence of death cannot stop true love, it was indeed all that could save it." Then she explained to him how the Friar had aided her with the draught that would see her nearly to death's door before turning and leading her back. She told him of her plans and of how the messenger was supposed to arrive so that he would come to take her home, wherever that might be.

He rushed to her and pulled her into his arms as they both wept for joy at being alive, and being together. But then, a strange thought occurred to him: what if she hadn't woken up just then? What if he HAD taken that drink? Resentment and even bitterness began to seep into his mind; he had nearly killed himself for her!

Romeo pulled away from her and spoke these thoughts aloud: "But Juliet, if you had not awakened, I would lie dead here at your side! Your messenger never came! For all I know, you never sent him, for the only word that I received of you was that you had died. My heart was torn into a thousand pieces at this thought, but now I think perhaps this may have all been a clever ploy..."

Juliet was shocked and confused at his words. "What?! I know not what you mean by this. My messenger WAS sent to you. My whole life have I given for up for you, everything that I hold dear, and now you accuse me of some manner of plot against you? You, my husband, the man to whom I have sworn my life?"

"Yes but what life would you have to swear were I unto Hades' Home already gone? How can I know that you have given anything away? Perhaps you have conspired with your father to finally rid your damned house of the Montagues. It may well be that he put you up to this, had your soul's departure a conspired facade that in so he could take the only child my father has to carry on the Montague line. In doing this, the Montagues would die with my father!"

"How dare you make such claims against me!" Juliet cried. "You know well enough what I have given up. And if you remember properly, I too am my father's only child. Were I to be gone, so would the Capulet line. Treacherous Montague, it would seem that yours is the heart that is untrue!"

Romeo was enraged by this accusation and raised his hand against her, sending her sprawling to the floor. "Do not mock me woman! I have loved more deeply than a WOMAN like you could obviously ever imagine!"

As he spoke, she ripped his sword from it's sheath upon his hip and stood to face him. "You made a mockery of my love, the sacred vows which we have taken, my family, and my faithfulness. And now you make a mockery of my womanhood by raising your hand to me? Perhaps you would like to test whether you are man enough to face a woman then? I'll show you exactly my beloved Tybalt, whose soul you stole away from me, dueled when at his best. For there was no better teacher than he."

With this she tore a sword from the armaments upon the wall and tossed it into her husband's hand. "Very well, my wife. We shall see who is man and who is not!"

They battled with an unsurpassed fury as steel clashed with steel. Montague clashed with Capulet. On and on they fought, neither willing to let the other win, both hearts bleeding for the imagined unfaithfulness of the other. As Ares smiled upon the marriage, the two lovers held true to their family lines.

Suddenly, Juliet dropped to the ground! The sword clattered on the ground next to her, resounding the ebbing life forces of these two lovers throughout the crypt. Romeo was shocked and tossed his weapon aside to scoop her into his arms. "My love, my love.... What have I done? Have I pierced your perfect breast and stolen my only cause for living from myself?"

Juliet smiled up at him and raised her arm as though to caress his face, and as he leaned down to kiss her, she opened her hand to reveal the vial within. Quickly she poured it into his open lips and pushed him away from her! He choked on the unsuspected poison, but swallowed much. "Juliet, what have you done?" he cried, reaching his hand out to her.

Juliet backed away from him, smiling. "I have only done what you would have done to if I had given you the chance. How swiftly your quickness is taken from you, my husband!" she exclaimed as she watched him beging to convulse on the floor. "Perhaps, I should hold you, kiss you one last goodbye? Ah how I wish our hearts could still be one! But no, they cannot. For you are a deceitful Montague, and I, a mighty Capulet. What fools we were to think that we could change that!"

She looked down at Romeo and noticed him fumbling in his pocket, desperately trying to reach something. "Romeo? Romeo? What are you searching for? Do you have an antidote? Oh gods... What shall I do? Montague, Capulet, now one and the same. Words harshly spoken, and minds to swiftly made up, with weapons to swiftly drawn! On my life, he is my husband, and love him do I still! What torture is this? I cannot watch him die!"

With this proclamation she rushed to his side and pulled a new vial from his pocket. Pulling him into her arms, she slowly poured the life back into his dying body. Once the vial was empty, and she knew he would soon be well again, she wrapped her arms around him and wept. "I could not have borne your loss! It is I who is treacherous, for I nearly murdered my own husband, the only love that I have ever known. Forgive me my love!" she said as she wept uncontrollably, clinging to his slowly reviving body.

Slowly his arm moved and embraced his wife. He ran his fingers through her hair and smiled as he gazed into her beautiful, weeping eyes. "Until death do us part..." he whispered into her ear, pulling her closer to him. Pulling her closer to him... and his dagger, driving the steel into her heart.

Juliet cried out in pain and anguish, releasing Romeo from her grasp and falling back. He smiled as she bled across the floor, and laughed as she tried to stand. But he did not laugh when she succeeded, nor did he laugh when she ripped the dagger from her breast and placed it in his.
"And now your treacherous weapon finds its everlasting sheath, dear husband," she said as she collapsed into a pool of her own blood and breathed her last.

Romeo fell next to her and gazed at his wife and imagined what life could have been if she had been anything but a Capulet, and he not a Montague. Then he took her hand and closed his eyes and let his soul follow hers, knowing that they would continue to feud even in death. Just as their families had feuded in life, so must they for eternity, for the poison of hatred that spreads without understanding is everlasting. No peace will be found until each Capulet and Montague lies with Romeo and Juliet, until blood mixes with blood and none is left clean.