A/N: This idea was inspired by a passage in the book which touches me every time I read it – I'll reveal this passage at the end, as it belongs there better. Please read and review!

Into the Embers

She studied his face in the first light of dawn, memorizing every plane and angle until her observation was interrupted by the object slowly stirring and opening his eyes. Then feeling her gaze on him, he smiled, his eyes glowing with iridescent happiness. 'Morning, my lovely lass.'

How she loved it when he called her that in his soft northern lilt, in the special way he reserved only for her. She snuggled up closer to him, sighing contentedly. 'Good morning.'

She had not noticed him awaken and rise until he was standing beside her in the moonlight streaming through the window. 'I couldn't sleep,' she said, answering his question before he could ask it. She laid a hand on her swollen belly and smiled. 'Someone insisted on keeping me awake.'

Stifling a yawn, he laid his hand over hers. 'How long is it now?'

She leaned into him, marveling at how perfectly they fit together. 'About another month. Just think – one month and we'll have an addition to the family.'

He hugged her close to him. 'I hope it's a little girl who looks just like her mother.'

Moving out of his arms a little so that she could turn and face him, she looked at him in surprise. 'A little girl! I thought all men wanted a son?'

He shrugged, smiling sleepily at her astonishment. 'I would love to have a son. I would also love to have a daughter. All I want is a healthy and happy wife and child.'

She settled back in his arms and sighed happily. In moments like these, she was more than usually glad that she had not given in to her relatives' disapproval and had settled for nothing less than a marriage based on love.

She was sitting in the train carriage, physically tired but mentally alert, watching the unfamiliar scenery flash past, reflecting on the past few happy weeks. One hand stroked the soft dark hair of the toddler whose head was resting in her lap while the other was encased in the large, warm hand of the man sitting beside her, his head having lolled onto her shoulder in slumber.

Their trip to Spain had been wonderful, and it had been so lovely to see her dear brother, the hero of her childhood again. And if the two most important men in her life had not immediately taken to each other, they had each eventually seen the other's sincere affection and devotion towards her and had striven to become friends, a feat they had achieved some time before they had left.

She looked down at the little boy in her lap and smiled; he had taken after his father, she thought, rather than his namesake in everything but the remarkable blue-black hair and the fair complexion which when coupled with his stunning azure eyes made such a striking combination. He would grow up to be a handsome man.

Although it felt a little heavy, she liked the feel of the warm weight of her husband's head upon her shoulder. Again she gave thanks to God for her two boys, these two who loved her unconditionally and were completely dependent upon her, the people she loved most in the world.

'What happened next, Papa?' Little Hannah was valiantly trying to combat her drooping eyelids and twelve-year-old Richard, although he had recently proclaimed that he was too mature for bedtime stories, was listening with poorly concealed interest.

Their father shot a wicked grin at their mother. 'The beautiful princess gave the prince two tight slaps for presuming to think that she had saved him because she cared for him in the least. She pointed out that any woman would shield with her reverenced helplessness a man in danger from an army of evil goblins.'

Hannah had lost her battle with sleep and Richard his with comprehension. Goblins were all well and good, but what was this about rev-ity-whatsit something-or-other? Absorbed in pondering this, he missed his mother's hiss of 'I never slapped you! And the rioters were not 'evil goblins'!' and his father's reply of 'Poetic license, love!' and his subsequent attempts to escape her trying to prove she had never slapped him by correcting this mistake now.

When he did notice, he rolled his eyes, trying not to smile. Honestly, his parents behaved like children sometimes – but for all that, he could see how happy they were together and he was glad of it. He raised his voice a little so that they could hear him over their bickering. 'Good night, Mother; Father.' Of course he had long since given up the childish habit of calling them Mama and Papa, as that baby Hannah still did.

'Oh,' continued the extremely mature, grown-up boy as if he had just remembered, 'Hannah will be wanting you to tell her the rest of the story tomorrow night, so do make sure you finish the rest of it. She won't be able to rest without knowing the happy ending.'

The prince and princess had no objection to this plan, except that they could not provide a happy ending for their story as their happiness did not look like ending any time soon.

She was standing appraising herself somewhat critically in the bedroom mirror, wondering if her new gown was perhaps a little too revealing for a woman of her age when he knocked and walked in.

'Love, I just came to say we should be leaving in –' He stopped speaking abruptly as he took in her appearance.

She returned his gaze a little anxiously. 'Do I look alright? Oh, you don't think it's a little too –'

He let out a shaky breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and moved instantly to her side, taking her into his arms. 'You look wonderful. More than wonderful.' He nuzzled her neck. 'Do we have to go out? I think I'd much rather stay here.'

She moved purposefully, if rather reluctantly, out of his embrace, looking at him archly. 'Sir, you cannot be suggesting that we turn up late to our own party?'

He gave her a pleading look. 'There's still half an hour,' he pointed out.

She stood for a moment, torn, but she couldn't resist. Slowly moving closer to him and relishing the sight of his pupils dilating, she started pulling off his new silk cravat in a business-like manner. 'You, sir, are a very attentive husband.'

A wolfish grin spread across his face. 'And you, madam, are a very obliging wife.'

When the couple hurried in rather late to their own twenty-fifth anniversary party, wife's hair slightly disheveled and husband's cravat slightly crooked––

'Aunt Margaret!' Margaret Hale started and looked up, the voice of her little Sholto (who really could no longer be called 'little' Sholto by anybody except for his parents and his doting aunt) breaking into her thoughts. 'What on earth can you be thinking about so intently while staring into the fire?'

Even after all these years, when she blushed as she was doing now, she looked like the Margaret Hale of old. Thankfully Sholto's question did not seem to require an answer apart from her somewhat embarrassed smile and the return of her attention to what he was telling her about his wife-to-be and their wedding preparations. Sholto, she thought with some amusement, took after his mother in that respect: not for him was the simple walk across the green to the church.

However, it wasn't long before her attention began to wander again. As always, her thoughts were never far from her beloved Milton and its charismatic inhabitants, or more particularly, one charismatic inhabitant. Or she should say, ex-inhabitant.

For as Henry had told her all those years ago, in her first year in London, Mr. Thornton had given up his lease and had taken himself and his fortune to pursue the benefits of commerce in America. And although she knew it would make no difference, really, she could not help feeling grieved at the extra couple of hundred miles physical distance in addition to the great chasm of understanding between them.

She had heard around the same time of the closing down of many nameless mills from Milton and was thankful at least that Mr. Thornton had been spared such failure, that he had not been brought low a second time after all his hard work and struggle. But despite it all, some selfish part of her wished that he had failed, so that she could come in with her great love – and great fortune – to help him and comfort him.

She had never gone back to Milton, not even to visit her friends. Although he would not be there, it would be too painful, she had thought – everything, every place, everyone would be a constant reminder of him, of the life she could have had.

That was not to say she was unhappy here. She managed to keep herself occupied, and had put Mr. Bell's considerable fortune to good use by establishing schools, hospitals and other benefits for the poor of London, ignored and passed over by the rest of its inhabitants.

She had hoped someday to do the same in Milton, the day she would be able to overcome the demons of her past and the longing for what could have been. That day, she was now becoming convinced, would not come any time soon, if at all. However, she was determined that soon she would make the trip back to the place she called home to carry out her good intentions – determined that she would not be deterred by the memory of her sad mistake, the man she loved, and the life that might have been.

'I dare say, there's many a woman makes as sad a mistake as I have done, and only finds it out too late. And how proudly and impertinently I spoke to him that day! But I did not know then. It has come upon me little by little, and I don't know where it began.

'I will not. I will not think of myself and my own position. I won't examine into my own feelings. It would be of no use now. Some time, if I live to be an old woman, I may sit over the fire, and, looking into the embers, see the life that might have been.'

- Margaret Hale, North and South

A/N: How was that? Please review with any comments, criticism, anything!