A/N: Wrote this one during history class! It's historical, right? Anyway, this is just a thought-driven drabble of Matthew reflecting on home when he's away, and when he returns. I hope you enjoy!
Words: 514
Characters: Matthew, Mary, others
Time: Season 2 when he's in the war and coming home
Genre: Angst
Disclaimer: Everything you recognize belongs to Julian Fellowes, not me.
Blissful silence, well, as silent as the trenches ever are. The silence is perhaps more terrifying than shells, because in silence, anything could happen. Matthew sits alone near the radio, fiddling with the dials.
Disjointed voices, snippets of speeches, fuzzy songs. Singing, dancing… His fingers pause on a waltz he's heard before. At Downton Abbey, he danced to this song with Mary. Unconsciously Matthew slips his hand into his pocket to touch a little toy dog. Mary's charm. Mary's thoughts, Mary's care, Mary's love.
He sighs. When it's light and soft and quiet, it's easy to believe he loves Lavinia. That's what she is. Light, soft, quiet. Beautiful, of course. Wonderful.
But here, it is dark and hard and loud, and his lies ring harshly in his heart. This is reality. Here he loves Mary, for she is sharp and imperfect and lost to him, but she is real.
If he closes his eyes, he can almost see her, lose himself to her. Her sharp gaze and sharper tongue, her gentle heart that perhaps only he knows she has. Her soft skin and delicate hands. If only he had not been so proud, so scared, he could be holding those hands for the rest of his life, once he returned. If he returned.
Is she perhaps thinking of him? She said she would. But she said she loved him once, too, that maybe she'd marry him, and that never happened. Things have changed since then, though. Yes, they have. I've gotten engaged. To Lavinia. Lavinia, Lavinia, Lavinia.
Her name doesn't fill the silence like Mary's does.
The waltz ends, replaced by radio static. But Mary still lingers on in his mind. Does she miss me as much as I miss her?
If only she did.
Sometimes in the trenches he would rather die than see what he sees, do what he does. But then he remembers her last words to him.
"Come back safe."
How he wished to go home…
Music. Again there is music. But it is no half-broken radio this time, buzzing into silence or drowned by a sudden mortar blast. He is not in a dirty, dark trench anymore either, with his only comfort a toy dog. No - now he is home. He is returned to Downton Abbey, and the music he hears is an angel's song.
"If you were the only girl, and I were the only boy."
Mary.
In that moment, when her eyes are the first to fall upon him, when her song catches in her throat, she is the only girl and he is the only boy. He does not see Lord or Lady Grantham, not even Lavinia, sweet Lavinia. The hushed room is empty; the past is unimportant. For one breath, he sees only her. He finds himself wishing he could sweep her away and dance, hold her like he once did, his cousin, his friend. But before he can, he remembers, and she smiles, and that is enough. It has to be.
If you were the only girl, and I were the only boy.