Author's Note: What a warm welcome back. I suppose I should explain my absence, I've been trying to work on something original the last little while. I'm kinda having some writer's block with that project so as always I like to return to Mary and Matthew. I can't say when I will update but I haven't given up on Stars and Lights or The Collected Letters but right now I'm feeling Hot Soup. So this story is a sequel to the events of that story. Feel free to reread those chapters as a refresher plotwise. This is going to have a more slice of life feel to it, the stories arcs will necessarily feel less focused and will drift in and out. I will try to update regularly but not at a breakneck pace that I used to. That said, I have no idea where this is going beyond the first few stories I have planned. Hope you guys enjoy.

Prologue: Difficult Things

She looked at herself in the mirror of his bathroom. The harsh florescent lights above the mirror did not paint a flattering picture of her. But what was she to do? Matthew had no mirror in his foyer. But it wasn't just the light. She had been crying and shouting and… cumming all night long. She was exhausted and numb.

Mary ran her fingers through her hair and tried to loosen the knots that had formed. She remembered the way his fingers had tightened around them and forced her head down, as remembered drowning into him. She had given herself to him that night, utterly and completely. And in return, she brought him back. She had brought him back from the brink of permanent despair.

She wiped the lipstick from her cheeks and cleaned her face of the smudged eyeliner. Her thumb removed the few droplets of excess cum on her lips from earlier in the night when he had branded her to be his once again. Nothing ever felt so right.

She could still feel the heat of his skin, the crevices of his war torn body, hardened by battle, exhausted by loneliness. She was his loneliness. But she didn't want to be anymore. She wanted to be his happiness. Because in the end, he had always been her happiness.

She had always been a kind of a fuck up. She was just good at covering her tracks, tricking people into thinking that she had it all put together, that she had control of her life. That was a lie. That was a lie she had been living for so long that she almost believed it. The truth was the only things she ever did, she did out of pure emotion, or in some misguided attempt to avoid it. Her pain fueled her but it also consumed her.

It was hopeless. Matthew had nothing but shampoo and soap. Not even conditioner. There was no way to hide the fact that she had been freshly fucked. If Henry was a keen observer, and in her experience, he was, he would immediately notice the redness on her elbows and knees, the puffy eyes of a woman crying, but mostly the ineffable but entirely unmistakable glow of her sexual energy. He loved that about her. It would crush him to know that Matthew did this to her. The ultimate betrayal of the worst kind. What she had done to Matthew, she was going to do to Henry. How many men has she destroyed in her wake? She only ever came back for one of them. He was downstairs waiting.

But she had to face Henry, one last time, to tell him the truth. He deserved that much. However much it was going to hurt him. However much it was going to her hurt her. Some things in life were difficult and avoidable. She had spent her entire life avoiding such things. And look where it had gotten her.

She turned off the light as she left the bathroom, hopefully looking a little more presentable. Matthew greeted her downstairs with a consoling smile. She was off to do battle with her own sins. Silently, he wished her luck, helped her put her coat of mail (her wool jacket), her gauntlets (her leather gloves), and her sabatons (her heels). She turned to him and looked deep into his endless blue eyes.

"You know I'm coming back right?" she whispered. Her voice was nearly gone from the night's passion.

He nodded, almost convincingly.

"This isn't goodbye," she insisted. "This is where we begin."

"I know," he lied. She knew that. He was protecting himself, it was understandable. How many times had she abandoned him before. How many times had she driven that stake through his heart? Now she asks for him to present it again, promising mercy, tenderness. It wasn't cowardice, it wa self-preservation.

She reached up and pulled him in for a kiss. Long and passionate, a kiss with meaning and intent. He could feel her tears touch his cheeks, he could feel her trembling breath upon his lips. She was trying. A temporary salve until the real healing could begin.

"I've hurt so many people…" Mary said, her voice on the edge of breaking. "I don't want to hurt anyone anymore…"

"You don't have to do this," Matthew said tenderly. "I will tell him."

Mary's furrowed her brow affectionately. "You can't shield me from everything, Matthew. Try as you might. Especially from my own decisions."

He let her go. Putting what little faith and love he had left in him into her hands once again. She had the power to crush him, to break him. But then again, she always did.


Al Maalim as he was known was a gentle man. But of course commanders could afford to seem gentle and reasonable. That was their right for having committed horrors in their past. The butchery of torture was left to his underlings. For he was once such an underling.

He had taken a liking to Matthew, something about his refined English accent drew the elderly Mujahideen's attention. He had many prisoners but most of them were locals, defenseless women and children of local tribal chiefs, used for the sexual pleasures of his men or for purposes of ransom. Matthew was once up for ransom but Aegis took the American stance of not negotiating with the Taliban so for the first 18 months of his captivity he was used for live combat training for young recruits. During these 18 months he lost a tooth, fractured several ribs, had his right leg broken, and was stabbed several times.

It was his resiliency that first garnered the attention of Al Maalim. The Westerns, particularly the English, with their reputation for manners and taste for gentler things belied Matthew's resolve. They knew to fear the SAS and the SRR, but Matthew was neither. He wasn't even a soldier, just a contractor for a private security company, tough and fearsome with the latest weapons and technology but easily broken once cornered and alone. Or so they thought, until he survived three days of bleeding from a knife wound to his left side.

Al Maalim patched him up and forbade any more contact between Matthew and anyone who was Al Maalim or his most trusted guards. The man was evidently bored and needed someone to talk to, between now and Yawn ad-Din was a long time and the forests and hills of Afghanistan, while beautiful could only offer so much amusement.

He was sadistic, though rarely violent. He enjoyed the suffering of others and found joy in turning a blind eye to the crimes being committed by the men underneath him. The screams and torture of men being beaten and women being raped seemed to have no effect on him. Matthew often wondered if he even heard them. He enjoyed torturing Matthew as well but in more artful ways.

"I had a dream last night," Al Maalim said in his heavily accented but nevertheless well spoken English.

Matthew didn't answer. He never engaged the man unless asked a direct question and even then, only in the most curt way possible.

"You are a paradox, Matthew Crawley," Al Maalim said as he pointed his finger at Matthew. "Yes? That is how you say it?"

Matthew did not answer. That wasn't a real question.

"You act as though you are unafraid of death, my men have beaten and stabbed you to the brink of death, several times," Al Maalim said. "You never beg. You never ask for mercy."

He took a sip of his tea and poured some for Matthew.

"That's normal," Al Maalim remarked. "Men die with honor everyday. It's no secret. We all have that which we are willing to die for. But what's curious about you is that you keep living. You refuse to die. But you refuse to live. Explain this to me."

"You just haven't tried hard enough," Matthew answered dryly.

There was a moment's pause before Al Maalim bursted into a hearty laugh. "You, you know my pattern. You know that I enjoy your wit. And you are witty. But tell me, what keeps you going?"

"One day I will see you dead, that's what keeps me going," Matthew replied.

"Hmm, don't do that," Al Maalim said as he put down his tea. "The threats, they do not suit you. I understand you feel a duty, perhaps a… a… moral obligation? Yes? To defy me constantly. I understand, I am your enemy. I take no offense, this is a war after all. But wars are fought for something. Do you still fight for something? Or do you just hate to lose?"

Matthew didn't answer.

"You know your silence tells me more than your words do," Al Maalim said. "I know that my guards torture you with such thoughts and it is clear that they have taken hold. Crude as they are, they are effective. You know why? Because they most likely true. You are a forgotten man, Matthew Crawley. Your wife will probably remarry, if she hasn't already. Your children, if you have any, will one day forget you. As will the world. It is not such a sad thing. We all come from Allah and we all go back to him. Understand this and you can truly be free. The western world seduces you with women and money and materialism. It is a difficult thing… letting go. But what we have out here is much more pure. My guards… they torture you with such words. I… I come to comfort you."

"You know nothing of my life," Matthew replied seethingly.

"Fine, maybe I'm wrong, maybe you have some great love that will hope against hope, but I suspect not…" Al Maalim said as he took another sip of his tea.

What Matthew hated most and what haunted him for years to come was that in the end, Al Maalim was right. And even as Mary closed the door behind her, to end things with Henry, he still believed it. He still believed those words.


He lay there on his couch, staring up at the ceiling for hours on end. He couldn't sleep. He was too anxious and even as he resigned himself to the idea that Henry had convinced Mary to stay with him, he still could not bring himself to drag himself up to the bedroom and admit that he had lost the war. Perhaps, he was starting to believe again.

At exactly 5:02 in the morning he heard the door click. He immediately sat up. It was Mary. She stood there silently just looking at him for a moment. She had been crying. Again. Her expression was steady but it was breaking and he could feel it. And before the first tear rolled down her cheek Matthew leapt up and rushed to her, catching her just as her knees gave out from underneath her.

Her hands gripped the collar of his shirt. She buried her face into his chest. The silent quake of her breathing, the intense grip of her hands, the moisture of her tears, he could feel it all. She had done it. She had done that difficult thing, that most dreadful thing. She told Henry what she had done with Matthew and what that meant. She must've have broke him, and in turn, broke herself.

She kicked off her shoes as they sat there for a few minutes. His back against the front door, her hands hanging onto him for dear life. His heart ached for her. It broke him to see her in so much pain. But he knew suffering and knew that nothing fixes that pain but time, not even him. So he held her, it was as much as he could do in that moment. It was all she needed.

She reached for words but found only whispers. "Never let me go."

He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly. His hands placed firmly on her back, feeling the syncopated rhythm of her breathing.

He kissed the top of her head. "I promise."