Commend My Heart

Summary: The way his head shot up nearly made her heart hurt, his blue eyes losing the resentment entirely and instead filling to the brim with hope - bittersweet hope. "What am I wrongly presuming?"

Her eyes shut slowly - finding the words. "What I'm - suggesting - is the game with Edith has no reflection on how I feel about you.

Rating: T

Pairing: The Crawley's [Mary and Matthew]

AN: Doesn't anyone wish they could turn back time? Well, I do. I wish that in Episode 5 of Season 1, Mary hadn't allowed Matthew to brush over her explanations! Because I think that if he hadn't than it would have made a difference in their relationship.

Even if I can imagine than having a bit of a tiff over toying with emotions..

I've actually had this sitting unfinished for a two good months, but I had some free time today and last night, so I figured I finished it so I could move properly onto my projects in other fandoms.

I hate leaving pieces unfinished.

Well, here we go! Hopefully it goes well.

[OoOoOoO]

It wasn't often Mary felt this way, but in this particular situation, yes - she felt painfully guilty of her behavior the prior night. For once, the victory of the challenge with Edith hadn't sated her - in fact, she was almost certain that she wasn't the true victor. She may have been able to garner Sir Anthony's attention over Edith, as she said she would have been able to, but she had also driven Matthew away in the process.

She would be the last to admit to harboring any late affections for him, but they had been getting along very well - much better than she had ever planned or accounted for.

She liked him very much - his company and all, lawyer from Manchester or not. He had integrated himself rather well into their lifestyle and for that he would be commended. He at least still had some dignity left, whereas she did not. That's what made what she had to say to him all the harder. There wasn't a bone in her body that didn't want to cling to the last bit of pride she had left.

Mary had ghosted around, complimenting blooms and trying to will herself some time before she located Matthew and tried to make amends. She wasn't even certain of what she was going to say to him - or if it would do any good. She wouldn't have found it unfair of him if he refused to speak to her at all, but that wasn't in Matthew's character. She would have if she was in his position, but he was much nicer than her - much kinder and politer than she had ever been.

For that he could also be commended.

As she watched him discreetly, it was fairly obvious that he was trying to avoid her. He kept himself crowded at all times - it wasn't hard to locate him when he was always in the center of a crowd of people, sticking close to his mother or even her parents. She swore she had seen him even engage in a brief conversation with Edith and that may have been the most insulting visual of all.

But eventually his planning faltered and he was alone, which she found to be the perfect time for him to approach him. Her stomach was churning with nerves that she longed to become dormant again. She was speaking with Matthew Crawley - why on Earth did she feel the need to be nervous of any kind?

Swallowing down the last remnants of her pride, Mary made her way tentatively over to him, trying to wear a polite smile - that may have come across as more sheepish than anything. She reached a hand out to brush his shoulder, but there was no need - his attention had already flickered to her, so her hand touched only gently, before falling back down to her side. His blue eyes bore into hers rather mercilessly - depicting just how much he may have resented her now.

"When you ran off last night, I hope you hadn't thought me rude." She spared a look down at her shoes, unable to stare at his accusing blue eyes any longer - or the way he was itching so desperately to get out of this situation.

His chuckle was anything but accepting. "Certainly not. I monopolized you at dinner, I had no right to any more of your time." Oh, he was so passive-aggressive, so curt and unacknowledging, but even if that lit a fury within her for him to act so terribly wounded over something so small - she supposed it was fair.

Now she had to find the words to soothe the hurt, something to explain just how stupid and trivial she had been to brush him aside for Anthony Strallan of all people. "You see, Edith and I had this sort of bet - "

"Please, don't apologize. I had a lovely evening; I'm glad we're on speaking terms." Oh, her efforts for going down hill so very quickly. He was not even looking at her anymore - he was trying to retreat. She couldn't pass up this moment - she wasn't certain she could stand if this was how things were between them now.

"I'm sorry." She spoke rushedly, easily regaining his attentions from those few words and halting him from evening be able to utter a good bye. It wasn't often she said sorry - not to anyone, let alone someone she used to think beneath her - but she had to.

Matthew offered a small smile, but just by that she could tell he wasn't all too convinced. "Really, there's no need to apologize. Everything is quite - "

"There is a need to apologize. You and I both know that. If there really wasn't a need, you wouldn't have gone running off as if you'd heard the King was coming for your head." Perhaps her attitude was surfacing, but she couldn't help it. What was the use of apologizing when every effort she made was futile? She clearly had to ignite him to get him to understand just what he was seeing.

It was evident that this had lit him as she'd hoped for. "Cousin Mary, I said there was no need to apologize and I meant it. Now, if you would excuse me, I'd rather not have this conversation - "

"Oh, must you continue to act as if last night did not bother you?" She was doing her best to keep her voice quieted, for they weren't exactly in the most private location, but she couldn't help beginning to feel just so agitated by the mess. He was making such a big deal of things.

He could have been sputtering and/or seeing red. The statements she was throwing at him were infuriating. For her to come and give a damn about his feelings now, when they had been so easily brushed aside last night - it was just ludicrous. Her little game had been at his expense - she needn't pretend that it affected her at all.

"Save me the sympathy, Mary, really. You have made your feelings toward me abundantly clear - I do not, will not need a repeat." He hardly needed for her to pity him, feel as though she owed him something. She owed him nothing. He had come in and taken what rightfully would have gone to her under very separate circumstances. He had tried time and time again to apologize as compensation for it, even going as far as wanting to get close to her - be her friend in the very least, but it had been glossed over and ignored.

They were to be distant friends, if even that - nothing more. His efforts at pursuing her were obsolete. She would never see him as more than a tag-along and he understood that now.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I need some air." He was feeling light-headed and beyond angry, and he doubted that he could watch any more awards be handed out - especially if the award for Best Bloom was given to the Dowager. That, he was unsure of whether he could tolerate. His mother may have had the gall to voice her opinions on that verbally, but that didn't mean he did not agree with her - at least discreetly.

He brushed past a few, muttering his "excuse me's" and about anything else that would allow him an exit out the door. He needed to get away from Mary, if not to clear his head - to halt the painful pounding of his heart.

Mary pressed her lips together firmly, glancing off to the side to see Edith smirking at her - so broadly and smugly. The blonde even had the audacity to wander over.

"Why was Cousin Matthew in such a hurry to get away?" Her tone was so falsely innocent and meek, that Mary could have turned around and slapped her.

She shut her eyes, resisting the urge to. "Don't be stupid."

"I suppose you didn't want him when he wanted you, but now it's the other way around." Edith stared at her, her eyes as triumphant as ever. The game was still going on. "You had to admit it's quite funny."

Mary had heard just about enough from her at this point. She had needed time to lick her wounds, however, she had not needed someone to come and pour salt all over them. "I'll admit that if I ever wanted to attract a man, I'd steer clear of those clothes and that hat." her brown eyes ghosting over the apparel pointedly.

Edith shook her head in disbelief. "You think yourself so superior, don't you?"

Mary rolled her eyes. This same conversation did not need rehashing. "Ugh." But what was necessary was at least getting the last word in with Matthew. He was so incessant on having known her feelings and having known her - that he had overlooked quite a few variables. She needed to set him straight, if not for his sake, for her own.

And with that, Mary left Edith to lick her wounds, leaving behind a trail of determination as she took the path Matthew had to exit the show.

[OoOoOoO]

Matthew leant back against the wall, engulfing as much fresh air into his lungs as he could. He was not a confrontational man - he had taken up industrial law for a reason, but he knew how to hold his own. Something about Mary - something about quarreling with her set him on edge. She was so stubborn and stiff.

But he still loved her; he'd long realized that. Ever since they'd met that day, under such poor circumstances, he'd been smitten - truly. She'd been fierce and different and unlike any woman he'd ever known - not to mention she was - is beautiful. She was an entirely different breed of person and it had enticed him beyond rational thought.

So he'd leapt into trying to get into her good graces - trying to show her that he was not just a greedy middle class man who'd come to steal her fortune. A year later and he had felt [up until last night] that they had made significant progress in their relationship. For just a short while, for just a little bit, he'd thought that maybe - maybe she felt the same as he did. That maybe she could love him a fraction of how he loved her, but he'd been wrong. So terribly, painfully wrong that it took his breath away.

It didn't take a scholar to find him - he was rest just a few feet outside the door, leant against the wall and looking emotionally exhausted. She would have felt bad if she would have been convinced that it was her doing. Clearly he was reading her entirely incorrectly - or as she'd thought before: misread simply from a lack of knowing her properly.

"There you are." She spoke, announcing her presence. He glanced over to her, his eyes widening in defeat, his head practically bobbing.

"God, Mary - what else is there to say?" Did she not know when to leave a man who was down /alone/? He was beaten - she had won, what other gratification did she need?

Her face contorted in frustration and she stood in front of him, braced to argue. "Must you continue to act so presumptuous?"

He broke out with a wry laugh. "Honestly, Mary, - "

"Honestly, Matthew, must you continue to do so? And to do so very wrongly." Her pulse was beating fiercely against her throat, head disbelieving that she'd come right out and said it.

The way his head shot up nearly made her heart hurt, his blue eyes losing the resentment entirely and instead filling to the brim with hope - bittersweet hope. "What am I wrongly presuming?"

Her eyes shut slowly - finding the words. "What I'm - suggesting - is the game with Edith has no reflection on how I feel about you. And I hadn't meant to make you think it was." She'd been thoughtless and perhaps a bit too self-centered, but she was sorry for it - very sorry.

"And how do you feel about me?" Her brown eyes lifted to meet the hopeful blue, the sight continually tugging on her heartstrings. He was well aware that he was speaking with the peak of aristocratic grace and of withholding true affections, but he needed to know. They could go on no longer with playing this silly game.

It was just difficult to express feelings - feelings she'd felt for so long, but had been kept dormant - dormant out of defiance and rebellion and not wanting to conform to the fitness of things. Not wanting to listen to her parents when they'd implied countless times that she'd find a solution to all of her problems in Matthew.

She'd hated him - despised him for coming into her life and tossing her future around. The hatred was for his position; he had had no personal influence on his fate. He had been as powerless as she. He had a duty and he had to fulfill it. The position should have been damned, not the man.

"Don't play with me. I don't deserve that - not from you." He was suspicious and she didn't blame him. Not when she continually fed him silence rather than the answer he longed for - the answer even she longed to give.

"Matthew, I - " But Matthew was just too insistent on interrupting her every word. Did he not understand that words were hard to come by for her? Did he not understand that saying the words was much harder than hearing them? The dormancy had long impeded her speech on the matter, now that she had ever saw herself speaking these to him - especially so abruptly.

"Don't say anything unless it's true. I don't require your sympathy or pity. Truly." He clearly had no faith in her feelings. He clearly did not know that she only ever said what she truly felt.

He was frustrating and infuriating and she loved him all too much. The feeling of fury and - pure love overwhelmed her, and rather than say anything, anything that he would doubt, she felt a physical expression would get her farther.

Throwing caution to the wind, she closed the short distance between them. He was shell shocked, she could see it on his face as her lips finally brushed his. She had to admit, even she had had her hesitations about kissing him, but to get him to be quiet had been a high priority.

It hadn't been a mistake.

His lips were tentative and gentle at first - unsure of whether to believe she was kissing him because she desired to. But once it'd been long enough, she eventually coaxed the passion out of him, and with that unleashed all of the pent up emotions of the past two days.

Her gloved fingers rose to clutch at either side of his jaw, their lips harmoniously moving together, a bruising mixture of passion and pressure. His own hands kept politely to her waist, regardless of their ungentlemanly desire to ghost lower.

Matthew was sure it was something about Mary that unnerved him so, something about her that unraveled him from his very core. Oh, he didn't know - he just desired much too strongly to continue kissing her.

But both realized that'd been clung together for too long, and even though they were in a more isolated area, they were still very publicly outside and neither would particularly enjoy them being the word of idle gossip. Almost anything that occurred could easily filter into aristocratic gossip and after being enlightened of just how she had almost been the center of it all because of Kemal, Mary chose wisely to steer clear of venturing into any more.

They broke apart, lips swollen and gaped, chests heaving with the need for breath. Matthew thought briefly that his head could spin right off his body at this moment and he wouldn't care. He was beyond - happy.

And then it hit him rather suddenly, taking his breath away once more. Was this real? Did she truly reciprocate the feelings? Or was this physical engagement just a mere distraction?

Mary was out of sorts rather uncannily, trying to not only settle her breathing but also the manic beating of her heart; she'd never heard it beat as fiercely as it did now. She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but she hadn't, apparently, expected him to be such a good kisser. He'd always come across as the reserved, but snarky solicitor, perhaps lacking experience in the art of women. Clearly, she had been very wrong.

They stood across from each other, not looking at each other, but thinking. It was Matthew who chose to break the silence, looking to her with the same accusatory blue eyes he'd used while they were inside.

Her heart sank instantly: he didn't believe her display.

He licked his lips, the vague taste of Mary still very alive on his tongue. "I - " His gaze flitted about unsurely, finding the words for his testament. "Was that just to silence me? To satisfy me?" She knew how he felt - there was no need to dance around it anymore. If she was just trying to settle things in a way that would absolutely settle things.. He wasn't sure he'd be able to handle that level of manipulation.

Wordlessly, he searched her eyes for an answer - knowing she was strong enough of an actress to be able to fake it verbally, but not in her eyes. He'd learned that in her eyes, he'd be able to tell just whatever she was thinking.

Her eyes widened at the accusation and her lips parted a few times, prepared to say something, but just overall shocked at the claim. "Well then." She couldn't even hide the hurt from his words, glancing back down at her shoes. "If that's what you think - " Really, what could she do? She figured the apology and the kiss would have awoken the only rational conclusion: that she cared for him the same. But if that wasn't the conclusion, what else was she to do?

It took only a few seconds for Matthew to process just how offensive his comment once and he wished to take it back desperately, especially when he was able to see just how genuine she had been. This was no trick; there were no falsities in that kiss or what she had been trying to convey through it.

He jerked forward and immediately found one of her gloved hands, clutching it in the both of his. "Mary, please. I wasn't trying to - "

"Offend me?" She finished for him, raising her head and smiling wryly. "It would seem that neither of us try to, we just seem to anyway." Sometimes she found it remarkable that they cared for each other at all; sometimes it seemed the only thing they were good at was hurting the other.

He swallowed thickly. "I just - after last night, I - " He didn't need to go on when she nodded, a somber understanding.

"I know; I can't accuse you being unfair, I'm afraid." She spoke slight mirth in her eyes, raising her unclutched hand and letting it rest atop his. "As much as I may want to."

The smile came more easily to his face and he was able to finally breathe. He hadn't felt this calm - this settled in a while. Holding her hand, being this close to her, knowing she cared for him. It was all very euphoric, very surreal. But it was the best kind of foreign.

He did wish, however, to lighten the atmosphere a bit - extend even further from her own comment. And did so by jokingly confirming the opposite of what he had feared the night before. "So, is it safe to say that you prefer me to Sir Anthony Strallan?"

Her lips curved upwards as a light, unbridled laugh escaped her lips. Oh, she couldn't help it - how silly this entire charade had been. To think they'd danced around each other for a year and finally they had gotten to this point. Never had Mary ever thought she'd love Matthew Crawley, but here they were.

"Yes, Matthew, it is safe to say that I prefer you to Sir Anthony." And just because she took a particular liking to the look of surprise on his face whenever she did, she leant forward and planted a brief kiss to his lips.

She could grow quite used to this.

[OoOoOoO]

Once they'd concluded their conversation outside, they'd gone back inside only to find that the gathering had concluded as well, at least for the awards portion. The crowd had dispersed to send their congratulations and/or sympathies to those who had or hadn't won.

If the Crawley family wasn't still trying to get over the fact that the Dowager had released her hold on the Best Bloom trophy, they were even more taken back by the re-entry of Matthew and Mary. He'd offered his arm to her before re-entering, having been prepared for rejection to such a display, but she'd accepted it - and they were both rather thick as thieves. The family was in awe, especially considering the prior night's events.

No one had /not/ noticed Matthew's sudden exit or Mary's sudden exit to see after him unsuccessfully. There on-and-off relations had been the source of many conversations, even just of occasional guests to Downton.

Cora and Robert exchanged surprised, but pleased glances to see the two together - hopefully assuming this would mean something, especially when Mary's reputation was a thread away from being permanently tarnished in the eyes of other men.

A quick commitment, at least in the form of an engagement, would secure her fate and make it one that she deserved. Matthew and her were more than equal on the intellectual battlefield and she'd hardly be doomed to years of boredom with him in her future.

"Matthew, Mary." Cora greeted warmly once the two approached. It was just her, Robert, and Violet. The rest had dispersed about. "You missed most of the ceremony."

"You mean the most important part." Mary corrected with an affectionately amused glance to her grandmother. "Did you take home best bloom?"

The Dowager straightened her shoulders, not as amused by the question. "The judges decided that Mr. Moseley had the best bloom this year." Mary and Matthew exchanged a surprised look.

"There's always next year." Matthew reminded optimistically, regardless of very well knowing she had been the deciding factor. Perhaps his mother had enforced a bit of guilt into her.

"You bear your loss very graciously, Granny." Now Mary was just teasing.

"All in stride, my dear, all in stride." She responded without missing a beat, making her exit with as much dignity as she could muster, only wanting to escape this teasing.

Once she was gone, Mary released a light laugh. "My, my, she was feeling rather generous today." It was quite funny, really. Especially the insistence on trying to convince everyone that the choice had been in anything but her hands.

"I'm afraid Cousin Isobel may have impacted her after all." Robert remarked amusingly. "Though perhaps not for the best. I'm not sure for how much longer she'll be able to take our jokes."

"Mother is many things: persistent and convincing are the two of them." They all shared an amused smile.

"Admittedly, it was long overdue for Mr. Moseley to receive the best bloom." Mary said rather bluntly. "Granny will certainly be commended for her sacrifice."

Robert chuckled. "That she will. Though that may mean we won't be able to joke about this any longer!" The older man glanced between his daughter and his heir. "Is all well between you two?" Cora and him were wondering rather desperately.

Mary and Matthew shared another glance, feeling a bit bashful.

"I'd say so." Matthew answered, not revealing everything, but really enough, all while smiling rather warmly at Mary. They were hardly engaged, but they were attached for now; that was all he would need from her. He knew she cared; that was much more than what he had left with last night.

While the three engaged in some idle chatter, Mary's gaze shifted around her, soon finding the particular person she was looking for. When Mary finally met the eyes of her sister, all she could do was smile smugly.

She who laughed last, /certainly/ laughed longest.

[OoOoOoO]

AN: Hope you enjoyed!

Reviews are my life; don't kill me.