AN: The universe of That American Girl is somehow still stuck in my mind and there are several alternative versions that I have decided to work on. This is the first one of them and there will be at least one more, although I don't know when.

For those of you who haven't read the original version of That American Girl (TAG) here is a short summary:

TAG is based on the idea that Violet got her will and that Robert did not marry Cora, but someone else instead. Consequently Cora married someone else as well, namely the Duke of Suffolk and they have a son named Sam. However, Sam has never met his father because the father died before Sam was born, which of course means that Sam himself has been a duke all his life. Cora was never really happy with the Duke.

Robert and his wife have a horrible marriage and do not get along at all, but they have daughter, Mary (yes, THE Mary). Robert and Cora meet again of course :).

In the original story, they meet shortly after Sam's birth, but in this AU, it takes a while longer, you'll see why :)

Anyway, I hope you like this and that I am not boring you with the TAG universe.

As always, let me know what you think!

Kat

P.S.: As I have finished writing this story, I will be back to my usual updating schedule.

The first chapter is the one with the most angst in it, it will get better soon.

It is his daughter's fifth birthday today and he gets up very early to make sure that he is the one to wake her. He doesn't want her to be woken by her nanny and he wants her to be woken by her mother even less. So he calls for his valet at 5:30, he had warned the man about a week ago about what was coming his way and his valet had looked at him and only nodded, as if he understood why his employer needed to be up so early. So when Robert is completely dressed at quarter past six, he goes to his daughter's room and prays to God that his wife did not reverse his instructions to the nanny to not sleep in the same room as Mary. Mary is afraid of other people, she is afraid of everyone but him and he hates the thought of his poor girl being afraid at night because she has to share a room with someone she doesn't like. He silently opens the door and is glad to see that the nanny's bed is empty. He decides to have it removed that day, he is sure that he can convince his parents to be on his side in this, they love Mary just as much as he does and they are doing their best to gain Mary's trust, but so far it has all been to no avail. His parents aren't hurt or disappointed, they, just like him, know that it is Mary's mother's fault that the girl is so timid and scared and only ever talks to him, but there is nothing to be done about it.

He sits down on the edge of his daughter's bed and gently strokes her cheek. The girl should be coming to him in the early hours of her birthday, she should walk into her parents' room and wake them up, asking for presents and be very excited, but that is something that won't ever happen for his little girl. She slowly opens her eyes and looks at him. "Good morning my birthday girl," he says to her and smiles. She smiles back at him; it is a very shy smile, as if she was afraid of really smiling. "I've got a surprise for you, but you have to get dressed." Mary's face screws up at this, the girl is afraid of being dressed, because once she is dressed she isn't allowed to ruin anything. Her mother continually yells at her if there is just a small spot on her clothes or if a strand of her hair has become lose. "We'll take your clothes and then we will meet Elsie. You know her, don't you?"

"She is Carson's friend, isn't she?"

"Yes, she is. She is the head housemaid. She said she would help us today, so we won't have to wake nanny." The under butler Carson and the head housemaid Elsie are the only servants that Mary isn't afraid of, although to his knowledge none of the other servants have ever given her a reason to be afraid of them, including the nanny. Because he wants he daughter to be something akin to happy at least in the early hours of her birthday, he asked Elsie to dress Mary that morning, he knows that that was unacceptable and he apologized to her for it before he had even asked her, but when he asked her, Elsie nodded and said that she wouldn't mind dressing Lady Mary for the day. He takes the box with Mary's new clothes that he brought with him and carries his daughter downstairs, where the head housemaid is waiting for them. "Well Lady Mary, first of all 'happy birthday'. I'd sing if I could but I don't want your ears to hurt." He knows that Elsie wanted to make Mary smile but it didn't work. Mary is afraid of smiling in front of everyone who isn't her father. Elsie takes Mary into the billiard room to dress her, they can't risk Mary being dressed upstairs, because although her mother tends to sleep in late, one never knows when she might be wandering the hallways and it wouldn't do for Mary to meet her mother this early in the morning, especially not on the girl's birthday. While he waits for his little girl, breakfast is served and when Elsie brings Mary into the breakfast room the girl looks at least a little pleased. She is afraid to show her emotions but he knows that she is very happy, at least for the moment. He nods to Carson who leaves the room and when he is alone with Mary he asks her "Do you like your new dress?"

"Yes, Papa. I look like Aunt Rosamund before she goes riding."

"You do. You look lovely."

"Thank you Papa."

They eat and while they do so, Mary talks about New York again. She found a book about it in the library more than a year ago, a book with many pictures in it and she hasn't stopped talking about it since the first time she looked at the pictures. She is only five, but she wants to go to New York and he plans on fulfilling that wish as early as possible, he just isn't sure when Mary is old enough to really appreciate a trip like that. Once they are finished with breakfast, Carson enters the room again, carrying a birthday cake and singing 'Happy Birthday'. Mary even smiles at the under butler, a gift she very rarely bestows because of her shyness and Carson smiles back at her. "Enjoy your cake, my lady," he says and leaves again. Mary does enjoy the cake, it is her favorite and she seems to be truly happy. After they have both eaten more cake than they should, he takes her outside. He goes on a walk with her every single day, just him and her because he wants Mary to be free of the constraints of being afraid of people at least once a day. But today he takes her to the stables and there is one other person but that can't be helped. Mary may not dare to hope it, but he has gotten her a pony for her birthday. Both he and his father think that learning how to ride, how to control an animal bigger than her, might do Mary some good, might help her become a little more self-confident. He has asked the stable boy to not come inside before he gets him because he wants Mary to able to be happy about her birthday present unrestrained.

"Papa, why are we here?"

"Because there is a birthday present for you in here. It is from your grandparents and me. Look, there he is."

"A pony, Papa? You are giving me a pony?"

"Do you like it?"

"Yes Papa. My own pony. I love it. And I love you. So will I learn how to ride?"

"Yes. There is a stable boy here who will help you saddle the pony and I will teach you how to ride."

"Can I name the pony?"

"Of course you can, he is yours."

"Then I will name him Pedro."

"Pedro?"

"Yes. I read it in a book. I forgot which one. It wasn't good, but I like the name." Read it in a book. His daughter is turning five today and she can both read and write. He taught her, she asked him to teach him about a year ago and so he did and it didn't even take half a year for Mary to be able to read and understand the Greek Classics. Of course in English translations, she doesn't know ancient Greek, not yet anyway. Mary loves the lessons he gives her every day, he is now teaching her maths, they've gone far past multiplication tables and moved on to fractions and integers, things he learned at Eaton, not when he was five, and he thinks that if Mary keeps on learning so much, they will start with functions and trigonometry soon. He has also considered teaching her Latin as well, Latin, Math and philosophy were his strong subjects. He'd hire a tutor for her if it made any sense, but it doesn't because Mary wouldn't talk to a tutor. To everyone except him, Mary seems like a stupid girl who hasn't ever spoken a word. His parents and sister and his sister's husband believe him when he tells them how intelligent Mary is and what she is capable of, although she is still so young. Mary's mother, however, doesn't believe a single word of it. All she sees is the girl who in her eyes should have been a boy, the girl who in her eyes keeps on disappointing her, although Mary certainly is a daughter to be very, very proud of, a daughter he wouldn't exchange for anything.

Their riding lesson goes as well as any other lesson he has ever taught her, she learns riding just as quickly as she learned to read and write and to do math. The only downside is that Mary's hair now looks as if it had never been done and he hopes that her mother won't be up yet so that Elsie can fix Mary's hair, because if her mother sees this, she will yell at Mary. He thinks that he should probably learn to do a few simple hairstyles so that he can help his daughter after they have been riding together, because her hair will fall apart, there is no way around it. He wishes she wasn't so scared of his mother, because the Countess of Grantham would be more than willing to help, but Mary doesn't trust her.

"Papa, thank you. That was the nicest birthday I ever had. I love you. Please say thank you to Grandpa and Granny too." He briefly wonders if he should tell Mary to thank them herself, but he'd be putting pressure on her and he doesn't want to do that.

"I will Mary. They will be very happy that you are happy, because they love you very much."

Mary grabs hold of his hand and doesn't let go of it before they reach the house. Once they are inside, he hears his wife fighting with his mother about Mary not being iniside and him having taken her away so early in the morning. He automatically lifts Mary up into his arms because he knows that she is afraid now. He wants to bring her to the billiard room and ask Elsie to fix Mary's hair in there, but, but he never makes it to the room, because his wife leaves the library before he has left the entrance hall.

"Mary," she yells and the girl begins to shake. "What happened to your hair? Why are you wearing a riding habit? Talk! You are five years old you have to speak."

"Leave her, please. It's her birthday."

"I don't care." Mary has now hidden her face in his shoulder and begun to sob.

"Phillipa, please." He has begged her million times to leave Mary alone, to accept that she only speaks to him, to stop yelling at her and thereby build up some trust, but his wife doesn't listen. He hates her for that. He never liked her, he only married her because his mother wanted him to, he had wanted to marry Cora Levinson, an American heiress, but his parents insisted on him marrying the daughter of an Earl and so he did because he was a dutiful son and at 18 had been far too young to understand the magnitude of it all, to understand that he should have fought for what he thought would have been a much better solution. He didn't love Cora either, but at least he liked her and he had been sure that she would be a good mother. She probably is a good mother, she married the Duke of Suffolk and had a son a few months after the Duke had died in a racing accident. He hasn't heard anything about her ever since, he sometimes thinks about her still, but his memories of her have become vague and they are probably somehow idolized, but that doesn't really matter because he doubts that he will ever see her again and if he did see her again, she certainly wouldn't talk to him. He knows that she expected him to propose to her and he didn't even tell her that he would propose to someone else, she learned from the newspapers that he had done so when his engagement had been announced.

The nanny has now taken Mary from him and the child cries even harder now and he wishes he could go with her but he can't because he can't be around her 24 hours a day. He goes into the library because he wants to tell his parents how happy the birthday present made Mary but Phillippa follows him there and keeps on talking to him.

"Robert, we have to do something about that horrible child."

"She isn't a horrible child, she is a wonderful little girl."

"She is stupid and only ever causes trouble."

"That is not true. She never causes any trouble."

"Did you see her hair?"

"I took her riding. It wasn't her fault."

"Before you teach her to ride, you should teach her how to speak."

"She can speak. And read and write and do math far beyond what I could do when I came to Eaton."

"I don't know why you always protect her. Why you can't just accept that we have a horrible daughter who is nothing but a disappointment?"

He wants to answer something but he sees movement outside out of the corner of his eyes and when he looks outside the window he sees Mary running across the lawn and she doesn't wear a jacket. He is sure that she is running away, so he leaves his wife where she is and runs after his daughter, yelling her name but the girl doesn't turn around and he is scared. Mary has never ignored him before and she seems to be running for her life. She runs straight towards the lake and then onto the lake, and although it is the end of January, he is quite sure that there isn't enough ice on the lake to support even Mary's weight and he yells at her to get off the ice, but Mary now slides to the middle of the lake and then his world turns black around him because he sees his girl fall and the impact is so hard that the ice breaks and his daughter vanishes into the lake.

He runs as fast as he can and when he reaches the lake he can still see her move, thankfully she knows how to swim, he taught her last summer, but she can't get out of the water. He knows the ice will break, he knows he will most likely be injured, but he has to save his little girl and so he runs onto the ice and falls into the lake himself but he can grab Mary and swim to the shore with her. His father has arrived there as well now, he didn't even notice him following them, and in the distance he can see his mother, Carson and Elsie coming their way too. He holds Mary tight to him and the girl sobs uncontrollably. His father takes of his coat, he must have been outside, and hands it to him and he wraps Mary in it. He then walks towards the house as fast as possible, carrying a sobbing and shivering Mary. She needs to be changed out of her clothes and before he has the change to ask, Elsie takes her from him and although it leads to Mary crying even harder, at least the girl doesn't struggle. "I'll change her, my lord, you should get changed too." He nods but strokes his daughter's head before he leaves and says "I'll be with you soon, my darling girl. I love you."

"You should have let her drown. It would have been what she deserved for running onto the ice like that." He doesn't know whether he is mad or glad that his father grabs hold of him before he can hit Phillippa. He isn't a violent man, he has never been in a fight in his life but he just snapped and he is trying to struggle free of his father holding him.

"Robert, no. Listen to me. Don't do it. That is not you. Go upstairs, get changed, I don't want you to get sick, you couldn't be there for Mary if you got sick."

His father is right, of course, he can't get sick, his daughter needs him and so he leaves without looking at his wife. He makes a decision while he gets changed, a decision he should have made long ago, so he tells his valet to pack all his things and then also tells him that he will only take Mary with him and no one else. He goes to his daughter's room and he can hear her cry before he hasn't even opened the door. The sight that greets him once he has opened the door breaks his heart. His little girl is sitting on the chair in her room, rocking herself back and forth and still sobbing uncontrollably. "I got her into dry clothes but she wouldn't let me do anything else for her."

"Thank you, thank you so much. Would you tell nanny to pack all of Mary's things? I am not taking the nanny, I am not taking anyone, but we will leave."

"Yes, mi'lord."

He walks over to his daughter and lifts her up, sits down on the chair himself and puts Mary onto his lap. "Oh, Mary, I was so scared. I am so glad nothing happened to you. I love you so much." He strokes her back and eventually she stops to cry.

"I am sorry Papa, for running away like that. I won't do it again, I promise." He kisses the top of her head and just says "I love you" again. He needs to take Mary to a doctor to make sure that she isn't sick, but so far she seems to be alright. He is glad beyond words that he got her out of that lake so fast and that he taught her two swim, because he is sure that he would not have been able to deal with her death and he knows that it was close.

"Mary, we are going to leave the Abbey for a while. We will go to your Aunt Rosamund as soon as our things have been packed. Just you and me. No one else."

"For how long?"

"I don't know yet, but I think we should go somewhere else as well." Maybe they could go visit his cousin Shrimpie in Scotland. The weather would be horrible, but it would be far away.

"Can we go to New York?" He makes a spur-of-the-moment decision. Why shouldn't they go to New York? Mary has wanted to go there for over a year and he would like to see it too.

"You know what? We can." Maybe they will even stay for a while if they both like it. A few months, maybe even a few years. He knows he will have to return to the Abbey eventually, but he won't be doing that any time soon.

While he and Mary wait for their things to be packed, he asks Carson to organize their transport to the train station and to send a telegram to Rosamund, telling her that they are coming there. Shortly before they have to leave he takes Mary downstairs to say goodbye to his parents. He knows that he will hurt them endlessly, but it is at least in part their fault, had they let him marry Cora Levinson, none of this would have happened. He can see in their faces that his parents know that he will leave for an indefinite amount of time. His mother hugs him and while she still has her arms around him she looks at him and says "Robert, I am so sorry, so very sorry," and then for the first time in his life, he sees his mother cry. He hugs her again but doesn't say anything because there is nothing that he could say that wouldn't hurt her. His father hugs him too and there are tears in his eyes too.

"Will you come back?"

"Eventually. I won't leave you in the lurch. I'll do my duty and I'll come back before I have to follow in your footsteps." He wants his father to know that he is not leaving forever, that he will see him again. "Will you let us know where you are and how you are doing?"

"Of course Papa."

"We will miss you."

"I will miss you too. But I have to do this."

He gives his father a final hug and then lifts Mary up into his arms and leaves the Abbey. He is glad that his parents haven't come outside with him; he needs to do this his way.