• Romeo kneeled before Friar Lawrence. Just a few hours ago Romeo had married Juliet, killed Tybalt, and now he was waiting to hear his fate. The friar looked at him saying nothing right away.
    “End this torture my dear Friar. What is my fate? Am I to die as the law says?”Romeo asked clasping his hands together as if praying as he looked up at Friar Lawrence.
    “No, my son, the prince has pardoned you and you are only banished.” The friar said happily taking Romeo’s hands in his own.
    “How can you be so happy?” Romeo questioned angrily.
    “You shall live boy. What more could someone in your position ask for?”
    “Juliet, my Juliet. Oh Friar Lawrence, you could not understand my pain unless you were me.”
    “It is not quite so bad.” Friar Lawrence consoled.
    “Oh, you could never understand. Perhaps if you were as young as I and had a lover as fair as Juliet then perhaps you could understand my pain and sorrow of being banished. For without my Juliet there is no point in life and death would be a more welcome guest than banishment.” Romeo proclaimed as he lay down on the floor.
    “Stop this grumbling of yours and get off the floor.” Friar Lawrence scolded trying to pull Romeo up. Just then there was a knock on the door. “Hide Romeo, get out of sight quickly. Just one moment please!” The friar called out to the door pushing Romeo out of sight.
    Friar Lawrence looked behind him making sure Romeo was out of sight and hidden. Slowly he reached out to the door placing his hand on the knob. With a silent prayer he opened the door, and with a flurry of movement in walked Juliet’s nurse.
    “Blessed Friar where is Romeo? I know he is here. Tell me quickly where he is for I bring news from my young mistress.” The nurse said quickly breathing in large breaths of air.
    “Oh sweet nurse, what news do you bring from my beloved?” Romeo asked coming out from the spot where he had been hiding.
    “My young mistress has told me to come to you and deliver a message. Her message to you is that she shall leave the ladder down for you and she shall be waiting for you. You are to come to her room by night and be with her.” The nurse said to a now joyful Romeo.
    “Thank you nurse, you have brought me great joy.” Romeo said taking the nurse’s hand and kissing it lightly.
    “The pleasure is mine.”The nurse said before taking her leave.
    “There you are boy, the girl still wants you. Now than, after you have spent your night with her you are to leave the town immediately. Go to your family’s summer home and wait till I send word. When the time is right I will send for you to come back and make your marriage to Juliet public. Do you understand what is to happen?” Friar Lawrence questioned sternly.
    “Oh, yes, Father. I will do as you have said. Oh, thank you.” Romeo said before returning to a hiding place to wait for night to fall.
    After Romeo went to Juliet he left the town he had grown up in and went to his family’s summer home in a nearby town. He waited there for a few days with no news of what was happening back in Verona. It worried him that neither Juliet nor Friar Lawrence had sent word. All day he waited for someone to bring him news but to no avail, but little did he know that what was happening in Verona at that very moment would change his life forever.
    The morning was bright and beautiful. Juliet did as her parent’s demanded of her and there she was at the church. She wore the gown of a bride and the sadness of a mother who had just lost a child. Tears rimmed her eyes thickly and would not leave only lay there and grow larger. Juliet stood next to Paris, a man she barely knew and was to marry, while standing before Friar Lawrence and God.
    “Although you have gathered here today there shall not be a marriage.” Friar Lawrence pronounced holding his hands above Paris and Juliet’s heads.
    “What? Why not?” Lord Capulet asked angrily.
    “Just a few days ago I preformed another ceremony that prevents Juliet from marrying Paris.”
    “What kind of ceremony?”Lord Capulet then asked.
    “A marriage ceremony. In the name of God I married Romeo and Juliet.”
    “You what?” Lord Capulet roared.
    “I married Romeo and Juliet to end the feud that you and Lord Montague have continued for so many generations.” Friar Lawrence retorted.
    Lord Capulet looked at the friar. He then turned his gaze to his daughter, his sole heir to his throne that he had held for so many years. Finally he looked at Paris and the look on his face. Lord Capulet walked up to the altar.
    “Because of you sir I shall no longer hold back on the Montagues. They have now tarnished the name of my family, tainted my blood line, and destroyed my happiness. Never again shall they be given the courtesy I have for so long given them.” Capulet declared loudly. “And you Juliet shall never see that boy again. If you ever see him again it will only be his head served to me on a silver platter. There it is. I have declared this before witnesses and the Lord. Nothing shall stop me except the wrath of my Father in heaven or the raging fires of hell.”
    With no stop or pause Lord Capulet left the church with his men and wife following close behind. Paris stood from where he had been kneeling just a moment before and looked at Juliet. Shaking his head he walked out of the church as well tossing a ring at her feet. Now alone with the friar Juliet dared to look up at him.
    “What have you done?”She groaned throwing herself at his feet.
    “I have insured that you and Romeo can be together without the need to hide. I could not marry you since you were already married to him.” Friar Lawrence said not understanding why she was upset.
    “Did you not hear what my father declared? Now he shall kill the Montagues. Every last one of them until all have been slain and done away with.”
    “How can he? Like you the Montagues are many in number and will not give up easily. Now, if you want I shall send for Romeo to come back. Unless, you object.”
    “Oh, yes, send for him. Please my dear friar. I am sorry for my childish pains. Send my Romeo back to me.” Juliet begged her worries forgotten.
    “I shall my dear child. Now go, go to your father and tell him that if he does as he has declared than God shall frown upon him and he will never see the gates to heaven.”
    Juliet stood and left quickly a smile lingering on her lips. It was early in the day and neither Capulet nor Montague was out yet. She ran as quickly as she could to her father’s house to deliver the message that Friar Lawrence had given her. Upon her arrival she was quickly taken by three serving men to her father’s chamber.
    “How could you daughter? How could you betray your mother and me so?”Capulet asked.
    “I love him father. I love him so.” Juliet said coming to her father’s side.
    “Love? You speak of that which you do not know. You are but a child who knows nothing of the world.” He snapped at her sharply.
    “Oh don’t I? For the moments I spent with him were the best of my life.” She said sitting by him. “With Romeo was when I felt the most alive!” Juliet declared.
    “I’m sorry daughter, but your marriage cannot be just accepted. Now I must fight Montague and reclaim what is ours. Now go. Men, take her to her room and make sure she does not leave. Juliet is to stay there until I summon her. Now go.”Lord Capulet said dismissing his daughter and serving men.
    Juliet lay in her bed furious at her father, at Friar Lawrence, at Montagues in general. She bit her lip and thought of the rope ladder and its many other uses including one to cause her own demise. She stood and took the ladder in her hands. A fleeting image of Romeo crossed her mind and she put the rope down.
    “How could my only love bring so much hate?”She asked aloud to no one other than herself.
    With a sigh she fell back on to her bed. Shall this be my deathbed? She thought to herself. Juliet closed her eyes thinking of the moments she had spent with Romeo. A single tear fell down her face sliding down and disappearing into her bed sheets.
    “Father forgive me.”She said softly.
    The next morning Juliet woke to quite a surprise. Sitting on her balcony was Romeo. She sat up quickly rubbing her eyes. Seeing him still there Juliet pinched herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.
    “Are you going to sit there pinching yourself or come and invite me in?” Romeo asked with a smile as he stood from where he had been sitting.
    “Oh, Friar Lawrence must have sent for you.” Juliet said wrapping her arms around Romeo.
    “That he did. He also told me of what has happened since I left.”
    “So than you know that my father has sworn to kill your whole family? Our family?”
    “Yes, and I do not really see him changing that plan any time soon, do you?”
    “No. My father is stubborn, extremely stubborn and age has only made him more so. Oh Romeo what are we going to do?”
    “We must try and stop both of our parents. Perhaps if they see us getting along they will forget this feud.”
    “We will need more than just us. Why Romeo, do you think that some of your close relatives and friends might help us? Perhaps if we group together and become neutral they will listen. Oh Romeo, what do you think?”
    “It might work, but we will need more than just a few. We will need to get as many as possible to help us. It might even take two thirds of each of our families.”
    “Than go, Romeo, go and talk to your kinsmen and ask them to help us. Tell them of our love and persuade them. While you are gone I will do what I can here.” Juliet said letting go of Romeo a determined look on her face.
    “Meet with me in two hours at Friar Lawrence’s cell and there we shall talk in safety of what we have accomplished.” Romeo said turning towards the edge of the balcony. “Until then.” He added kissing Juliet softly.
    Juliet watched Romeo go. Once he was gone and she could no longer hear him below she returned to her room. Quickly Juliet dressed and then descended to the main part of the house to begin her mission.
    For the next hour and a half the two lovers scoured their houses looking for people who would help them. They asked their family, friends, and anyone they happened to come across. Up and down the halls of the houses and streets of Verona they searched. Soon the time they had agreed to meet had come. With heavy hearts each teen headed to Friar Lawrence’s cell.
    “Friar, where is Romeo? It is the time he had said is it not?” Juliet asked quickly as she paced.
    “It it and I am sure that he shall be here shortly.”Lawrence said assuring her just as Romeo walked in.
    “Oh Romeo, I am so glad you are here. I thought something might have happened to you.”Juliet said embracing her husband.
    “As am I,” Romeo responded returning her affection. “Now than wife, tell me what you have accomplished.”
    “I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I fear no one would join me. My family is loyal to my father and cannot understand why I would ask for their help. Many of them feel that I have betrayed them. As for my friends, I had few and those few said I should be loyal to the family of my birth.” Juliet said sadly releasing Romeo. “Tell me you have fared better.”
    “No. My luck was just as good as yours. No one was willing to join me. Everyone thinks that I was wrong to be ruled by love.”
    “What are we to do? No one will help us and my father is stubborn and will do as he has sworn.”
    “Together we shall remain neutral. Perhaps if they see that we are strong and how strong our love is than they will stop the fighting.
    And so that is what they did. Both teens moved out of their parent’s homes and into a small house that Romeo had acquired. Not long after they had done all this, Lord Capulet led the first attack on the Montague house. For days the battle raged. Both sides suffered several loses and many wounded Capulets and Monatuges came to Romeo and Juliet for help. Those days soon turned into weeks and those weeks into months. The battle was killing more than just the two families. It was killing innocent peasants and the town of Verona in general.
    “Romeo, we have to do something. We can’t let this continue. If we let this battle continue than it will be our fault when the town is gone.” Juliet told Romeo one day as she folded a basket of clothes.
    “We shall do nothing. If we get in it than all that we have been working for will have been a waste.”
    “But Romeo,” Juliet began.
    “There shall be no buts about it. You shall do as I say. You are mine now.” Romeo ordered angrily.
    Juliet sat quietly. What was she to say to that? Ever since the deaths had begun to pile up Romeo had been changing. He wasn’t as she once remembered him. No longer was he as kind and gentle. Now he was much harsher and less free spirited. The more she thought about it the more Juliet realized that Romeo was becoming like her father, like his own.
    The war between Lord Capulet and Lord Montague raged on for one whole year. In that time Romeo and Juliet had their first child. The child was a baby boy whom they named Romeo Jr. Montague. Juliet had requested that the child be named after someone in her family as well, but he would not listen. Just a few months later the Capulets launched their last great attack. In the process Romeo Jr. was killed. When the battle was finally over and Romeo buried the once young and happy lovers went into the remains to look for survivors. To both teens dismay no survivors were found. Gathering their things the new Lord Montague and his wife the young Lady Montague went to the family’s summer home to live what was left of their dismal lives. The End