A/N: I started this a long time ago. Maybe six months ago...as a short story in the Grace Universe. I just revisited it and polished it off. There will probably be 3-4 chapters. If you haven't read Grace, this will not make any sense. Original characters play a major role in this.
Mary couldn't cry. Though Grace taught her to love and Jack taught her to hope, though she learned to trust because of Matthew, she had no tears. Her heart was more tender now than it ever was–maybe because of the children or the baby she carried, perhaps because of the man beside her in the bed in the brownstone in New York, where she decided to let herself love him completely–maybe not completely but to at least practice loving him. This was the place she gave herself to him for the first time, on her tiptoes, the whisper of silk–his hesitation, her certainty. She could remember the first time he held Gracie, the way she curled into him, head against his shoulder, as if she knew he was her father in every way. As if she knew, even before Mary and Matthew, that they were meant to be a family. Yes, Mary's heart softened, a tight bud unfurling here. Yet, she knows she still doesn't tell Matthew how much she loves him often enough. She finds the more her heart grows, the more there is to choose to give.
"Mary," he whispered in the dark as he reached for her hand. "You aren't sleeping."
"No," she admitted. "How could I? After today?"
She had gone to see Mrs. Larson–the reason for the unexpected trip to New York with two young children and Mary still early in her third pregnancy. But when word came to them, Mary and Matthew only knew they must go, return to New York, to the Brownstone they realized they were a family, to the woman who his lineage and candle in the bedroom on their wedding night. She was too young. That's all Mary could think in the time it took to buy tickets and board the ship, even as she picked Jack up to carry on her hip or pushed back Gracie's curly hair from her face. As she ticked off lists of things they needed to bring–which was quite long with the children's things–and asked, "Isobel, have you seen Jack's rabbit?"–she was all the while thinking the same thing. She was too young.
"I'll never be able to repay you," Mary told Mrs. Larson this afteroon. The women's once black hair was thinning and gray. Bedridden, a single sentence could lead to a coughing fit nothing could soothe.
They said it was in her lungs. Well, first Mrs. Larson said it, waving her hand in the air as if it didn't matter, but then Mary demanded to speak to a doctor. He too said it was her lungs. And when Mary insisted he do something, Matthew cupped her shoulders in his hands as he stood behind her, as if he could hold back the fierceness she felt for anyone she loved.
"You did pay me," Mrs. Larson replied in her still throaty voice. "Every week."
"That was my grandmother," Mary snapped even as she sat in the chair next to the bed. "And we both know that I am not referring to anything as simple as money."
"Don't go soft on me now, Lady Mary." Mrs. Larson tried to wiggle her eyebrows as she always had done when using Mary's title. But it was a lame attempt and then she was coughing.
It was the worst sound in the world–not the end, but the end waiting sinisterly to swoop in.
"Promise me," Mrs. Larson said before Mary left for the day. "You'll never smoke a cigarette."
"I promise," Mary replied easily. "Tomorrow, I'll bring the children and Matthew."
"No child should see me like this, Mary," Mrs. Larson insisted. "I'm not even wearing lipstick. I'll give them nightmares."
"I didn't ask if I could bring them," Mary snapped. "I don't understand why you are always so difficult."
"We always did get on that way, didn't we?" Mrs. Larson smiled. "Dying is difficult, dear. Don't let anyone tell you differently."
"I believe that this is difficult." Mary nodded. "But how do you explain how difficult you were all the years we lived together in the brownstone?"
Mrs. Larson cackled and something inside Mary cracked in half at the familiar sound. It could have been years ago. She could have been rocking a newly born Gracie at her breast. "You saved me, you know," she told the sick woman. "I don't know what Grace and I would have done without you."
"I may be dying." Mrs. Larson struggled to hold back the next coughing fit. "But do not even consider rewriting history. You saved yourself. And when that doll baby was born, you two saved each other."
Now, Mary turned to Matthew in bed, her small belly brushing against their joined hands in the small bed. "Do your remember the day you came here and Mrs. Larson told you to go right up to my room? And when I woke up, you were sleeping with our Gracie on your chest?"
"Of course," Matthew replied, turning as well. Moonlight shivered in through the curtains, lighting parts of her face, leaving parts in shadow. "You were less than pleased to find me here. And later that day, I bought you the ring that you wear today." His thumb turned it back and forth on her finger.
"It's frightening...to wake up and see your future right beside you. To see the man who will be your husband holding the baby that is already his. To have your family unexpectedly in your bed with you, when only days before I thought I was perfectly fine alone." Mary closed her eyes as she spoke. She could remember it so clearly–the fear, the knowledge that she must leap, terror that she would fall, fright that she wouldn't be able to leap at all.
Matthew's free hand cupped her face. "I love you, Mary." In the moonlight, his eyes never looked so blue.
She blinked and focused on his face. "I love you. More than I thought I ever would or could." She released his hand, turned on her back and then her side again.
"Is it the baby?" Matthew asked a bit helplessly. This was the part of pregnancy he dreaded–the inability to soothe the woman he loved while she carried their baby. It wasn't her favorite part either. Mary, of course, liked to sleep and sleep well.
"No." Mary squeezed her eyes shut. She felt the surprise lump in the back of her throat. Suddenly both of her hands grasped the his pajama top as tightly as they could. "Don't leave me," she whispered, tucking her chin, embarrassed by such an outburst. "And don't ever smoke a cigarette. And no more cigars with Papa. I couldn't bear it without you."
"Mary." He reached for her. "I–"
She shook her head, her hair falling away from her face. "I don't want to talk." Her hands softened and snaked up around his neck and into his hair. Her belly touched his as she hooked a leg around his hip and nipped at his upper lip. "Don't let's talk," she whispered against his mouth, teasing him with quick little bites until quite helplessly–he should talk to her about all this–his hand slid up her thigh, under her nightgown, to her hip and around to grasp, pulling her closer, as his mouth devoured hers, urgently asking for more, lips and teeth and tongue demanding relentlessly
She met him, beat for beat, as was their way. She pulled his hair before her thumbs found the spot on the back of his neck that always made him moan and pressed. Sure enough, a sound escaped his mouth and slipped into hers before she realized her nightgown had been pushed up around her waist and now his hand was at her breast, gentle because of the pregnancy, but insistent, brushing his thumbs over her nipples over and over again. Though it wasn't as if some of their times together weren't quite vigorous (against doors and walls and such places) the quiet desperation was somehow more pleasurable in a way that made her ache nearly to the point of pain–like the way his lips moved to his neck, his mouth open, tongue flicking. She cried out when his lips left her so he could blow lightly on the spot he'd just suckled.
She lifted her arms for him to help in removing the nightgown while he was able to do that and also lowered his mouth to her breasts. Again, the gentleness devastated. "Matthew. Matthew. Matthew," she chanted, begging wantonly and not caring one bit. She unbuttoned his pajamas, fumbling over familiar buttons. She leaned forward, mouth to his ear: "Please."
While her hands slipped to his hips, he slid into her and she moaned, one long note in the night. His teeth found her collarbone. His lips moved against her skin as if he was saying something and soon enough he said it loudly enough for her to hear it: "Love you."
One of his hands moved lower, between them, and pressed against her, even as he continued to move inside her, even as her heel at the small of his back urged him on. She cried out. And it wasn't long after until he did the same, cheek pressed against her breast as they both sucked in air.
At the nape of his neck, his blonde hair was dark with sweat. Her fingers wove through it.
"Would you like to know a secret?" he asked, after a long while of silence, the kind that only came from knowing someone as well as they did, the kind that was as soothing as words themselves.
She smiled and he lifted his head. "A secret?"
He tried to lift an eyebrow but failed miserably. "I never told you."
Once upon a time, her heart might have frozen. Fear might have bit at her throat. But now she only raised an eyebrow at him. "Never told me what?" Their baby moved inside her. She could feel it but Matthew wouldn't be able to for a week or two.
"Why I came to New York the second time, after I'd come with your mother only a year and some months before that."
"You told me you had friends in New York, from the war. You told me it was a kind of wanderlust," she said softly, stroking his back.
"It was you, Mary. It was always you, Mary. And it will always be you." He kissed her, long and languidly, a single kiss in a lifetime of kisses, even as he raised the covers and tucked them around the both of them.
"You never told me."
"Well..." he began. "You were my friend, weren't you? And didn't we have our own little version of war between us?"
"Are you saying I was your friend, not from the war, but from our war?" Her eyebrow raised further.
"It was always you," he repeated. "I was sure you were here. Nothing else made sense. I was prepared to do anything to win you over. Imagine my surprise when Gracie would be the one to win both of us over."
"I don't think I could have ever admitted to loving you if I hadn't seen how much you loved her, apart and separate from me."
He leaned forward to bite her lip gently. "Aren't you angry?"
She shook her head fiercely. "No...because in the end, it doesn't matter why you came to New York, only that you did."
Earlier that day, when Matthew and Mary switched places so Matthew could see Mrs. Larson, and Mary stayed with the children, the woman lifted her head from her pillow. "You should tell her."
"Tell her what?" he asked, genuinely confused. He knew she spoke of Mary but there were no secrets between them.
"Why you came to New York in the first place," Mrs. Larson grinned.
And slowly, Matthew followed suit. "You think you are so clever, don't you? You figured it all out, haven't you?"
She cackled. "I figured it out long before you two ever could. But then again, most people can say the same."
He laughed a little. "Figuring out the puzzle is the easy part. Doing the work, taking the risk, that's what is hard."
"Don't I know it, Earl," she whispered. "Did I ever tell you about the day she came here? Showed up on the doorstep and asked to speak to her grandmother. Now, normally, I wouldn't let someone like that in but you could see the Levinson in her features. She kept her shoulders straight and eyes level but...I could tell something horrible happened to her. She was dressed impeccably and she gave away nothing but I let her in because I knew if I didn't, she would never make it."
"I don't like to think of that," Matthew stated quietly. "Yet, in the middle of the night sometimes, I still can't help but think of that."
"Well, that's pathetic." She began to cough. "Any man thinking in the middle of the night instead of doing is just plain sad. There's a box for you in my drawer. Don't open it until you are back at the brownstone. And not in front of the children."
Matthew found the box. He shook it near his ear, though there was no noise. "Sounds like silk."
Mrs. Larson cackled. Before he left, she spoke with a quiet dignity. "It was an honor to take care of her and Gracie. But it was my greatest honor to meet you, to know you would take care of them from then on."
"I always will," he promised.
"Of course you will," she insisted. "Or I'll haunt you from the grave."
A/N: I know Grace-verse is a beloved place so I my hope is I always do it justice. Please let me know your thoughts. x, LDI