Mary sleeps with the door barricaded. Francis is curled up in the corner of the room watching her when she pushes the heavy chest of drawers in front of the door. He doesn't offer to help, and he doesn't say anything as she straightens the strength from her shoulders. Her movements are fluid and graceful, but there's a prowl in her step that sometimes looks like a hunted animal, and sometimes like a hunter. He wonders what that makes him.
The candles are still burning when she slips into bed, the light reflecting off her dark hair. He sits up to blow out the one next to his makeshift bed, but Mary's voice catches him by surprise.
"Don't," she says. An edge of panic clips her voice. He freezes. He can hear her breathing heavily. "Don't blow out the candles."
Still he says nothing, lowering himself back into bed again. The blankets are rough on his neck, and he longs for her smooth skin against his again. But this is the closest they've been in weeks, and he's content.
"You're still dressed." Her voice, when she speaks, is not heavy with sleep, but clear and alert.
He nods, then realizes she can't see him. "I didn't think you'd want …" He trails off, unsure how to continue.
She is silent for a while, so still that Francis thinks she's gone to sleep. He is drifting off himself when she speaks again. This time, her voice is a little raspy, and quieter. "It's okay," she says, and a fragile thread of intimacy hangs in the air. The night is long though, and Francis is happy to let that linger. He doesn't want to push this shaky peace they've established, doesn't want to push her too much. He closes his eyes, and even though his clothes are restrictive, even though he's not going to sleep much tonight, he knows that his dreams will be pleasant, and his life – well, maybe his life is on its way to being so. Sometimes his crown weighs heavily on his head, but not tonight. Tonight he is just Francis, and the girl over in the bed is just Mary, and they're on their way to being okay.
.
.
.
He sleeps longer than he realizes, but the next thing he knows is that Mary's voice is a harsh scared whisper reaching to him in the darkness, and he is suddenly wide awake.
"What's wrong?" he whispers back, and he doesn't know how and certainly hasn't stopped to think about it, but suddenly he's in bed with her, and she is in his arms. She melts into him, and suddenly this is so easy, suddenly he can smell her hair. She is so small in his embrace.
"I heard a noise – somebody at the door."
She is still half asleep, this lovely girl, and as her breathing stills, he can almost feel her start to doubt herself. There is no surprise in her face though, as she blinks her way around the empty room. The thought occurs to him that this is a regular night occurrence. Selfishly, he wonders if his name on her lips is too.
"I'm sorry," she says now. "I must have been dreaming." He feels her pulling away from him in embarrassment. He doesn't want to let her go.
"It's okay," he says, echoing her words from earlier. "I have these dreams too."
And he does. He wakes in the middle of the night too, her name on his lips. He dreams of dark hooded attackers, and her helplessness. He dreams of her dying in battle, of her blood staining his hands. He always wakes crying and clutching at empty air.
"You do?" she whispers, and she is looking at him like she hasn't in such a long time. Her eyes are wide and there is nothing between them, no ghosts, no past.
It's almost an accident, the way his lips brush against her forehead, but she doesn't stiffen up, doesn't recoil, and its progress.
There is a moment where he's not sure what to say, a moment where he thinks that if he says the right thing, anything, that somehow he'll magically fix them, but this is real life, and not some children's story, and this is real life, and the doorknob starts rattling.
Mary flinches and there is real fear in the way she grips at the bedclothes, and the way she clenches her fist around the poker that Francis only now notices is sitting next to her bed. Her fingernails dig deep into her palms, and tomorrow there will be little crescents marking her hands. He knows that she is about to retreat away from him, and so he jumps up first.
"Who's there," she calls out, and he is so proud of the way her voice doesn't waver, and the way it doesn't lose that regal tone that he loves. And sometimes hates.
There is no answer as he approaches the door, but the doorknob only rattles harder, and urgent knocks pelt its frame. He opens the door a crack, knowing that any attempts to ram it open will just push the door into the bookcase.
"Mary?" It's a strangled whisper, and he almost fails to recognize it but Mary is out of the bed at once. Her bare feet pad over the ground, and all Francis can think is how cold she must be.
"Catherine?" she says, and she is pushing the bookcase aside before he can move to help her.
His mother tumbles into the room, but her hair is askew, and there is terror and realization in her eyes, and, by God, blood on her hands.
Mary shuts the door firmly behind her, and gestures to Francis to push the bookcase back in place. "Catherine!"
Catherine is collapsing to the floor, her hands wide and outstretched before her, blood dark and drying. Garbled sentences escape from her mouth, and Mary crouches down beside her, takes his mother in her arms, and he can only hear muffled fragments. He watches them helplessly, hands dangling uselessly by his side.
Mary looks up at him. Her dark eyes reflect the glint of the candlelight. "Diane's dead," she says. Her voice is hollow. "Catherine killed her."
She doesn't trip over her words, this brave wife of his, this strange Scottish girl that he knows everything and nothing about. But it hits him in the gut and he has to stop for breath. "Where is she?" He doesn't ask why or how , doesn't ask for reasons, and in that moment, Mary thinks she might love him.
"In her room," Catherine breathes, and she is so small, his mother.
"Stay here," Francis says. "I'll get rid of the body."
He doesn't know what he is doing, not really, and maybe the women in his life don't either. As he backs out of the room though, he meets Mary's eyes, and there is something less than coldness in them as she looks back at him. His mother is hunched over in her arms, and he can't help but think of the last time his mother was in their room, and those happier circumstances. Mary nods at him, and a wave of mutual understanding creeps between them. Maybe they'll be alright.
.
.
.
Bash can't know is the first thought echoing in Francis's head as he takes the stairs two at a time towards Diane's chambers, taking care not to be seen. And then - maybe queens have the worst of it, he thinks.