A/N: Happy Downton Day! This ficlet popped into my head whilst driving to work on Friday, and wouldn't go away until I wrote it. So here it is! Huge thanks to EOlivet for her encouragement and polish!

No spoilers beyond M/M's honeymoon destination.

Enjoy...!

Nothing To Mar Their Joy

The first days of their honeymoon had been utterly blissful.

Not quite perfect – but blissful, nonetheless, and on reflection they wouldn't have changed one thing.

The night of their wedding, they'd stayed in a hotel in York, by the train station. No-one had minded when they'd left Downton early in the evening, and they hadn't wasted a single moment more before making love. It had been shy and awkward and unsure, and Matthew's back had ached afterwards (they both ached everywhere, muscles tired from this new way of movement, though that was a more wondrous ache), but they were together and the delight of intimacy had been even more beautiful than they'd imagined.

"I don't think I want to go on honeymoon after all," Matthew had murmured against his wife's hair that first morning, when they woke with their legs tangled together and his arm completely numb from resting under her shoulders.

"What do you mean?" she wondered sleepily, noticing with pleasure the way the sunlight caught the fair hair on her husband's chest.

He smiled at her tiny little frown, and smoothed her hair away from her beautiful face.

"Well darling," he breathed, eyes closing again. "I know it'll be wonderful but going on honeymoon would mean getting out of this bed and getting dressed… and I can't say that's an appealing prospect just now."

"Oh…"

He stretched his legs comfortably, and the movement of his body against her skin made Mary gasp, and though they did have to take the train in just an hour or so… that was quite enough time to make love, and take breakfast on their balcony and then to make love again, because they could.

It had been so kind of Rosamund to let them stay in the house, and they'd taken full advantage of its emptiness (bar the few servants left) to get to know each other just as thoroughly, and without restraint, as they had both longed for. They supposed it might have been proper to leave the bedroom perhaps a few times more often than they did; but when Matthew was doing this and his wife looked – and sounded – like that… propriety was the last thing they cared for. They had waited too long for this.

After those transcendent few days, with each time becoming less shy and more vocal and bearing less of that nervous awkwardness that had despite everything been utterly endearing, they made their way to France.

At Southampton, they boarded the little cross-channel steamer and braved the choppy waves and morning spray to stand on deck. They didn't say much, only stood and held each other closely with warm arms wrapped snugly around. Mary kissed her husband's jaw lightly, noticing how it seemed clenched and set, how he stared from under the brim of his hat at the waves, and supposed that he looked so oddly pale simply because of the roughness of the sea.

They docked at Cherbourg. Calais would have been a shorter journey, Mary had argued when they had planned the tour locked away in the library one afternoon before the wedding, but Matthew had bluntly insisted on the more western port. She had challenged him, briefly; but her protest silenced when his finger traced down the map and wavered over Amiens on the way to Paris.

"It feels far too long since I've been abroad," Mary said brightly as they settled onto the plush seats in the First Class compartment on the train to the capital. "I've missed it!"

"Have you, darling?" Matthew turned to her, and smiled, curling his fingers around her hand where it rested in her lap. He was so pleased she was happy.

"Certainly! It's been years – absolutely years. In fact – God, I don't think I've travelled away since you've been at Downton, even."

"No…" He fell quiet, naturally starting to reply, "I haven't since the –" before he realised what his answer must be and his lips pressed shut.

"Oh, Matthew…" Mary squeezed his hand, rubbing her thumb comfortingly across his knuckles, frowning gently, wishing she had thought a little more before she spoke.

"No, it's alright," he said quickly. "I hadn't thought – it doesn't matter, let's not think of it." He tried to smile, and said more bravely, "Do you know, I hadn't been abroad at all until then anyway. So I can't say I've missed it very much. But… perhaps that will change, by the time we come back."

His wife arched her eyebrow, not a little suggestively.

"I shall make it my mission, darling."

He brightened after that, and Mary was pleased for it. The last thing she'd wanted was for him to be reminded of that – and though it seemed an impossible hope, travelling through France, she'd hoped that the southern coast of the country would be sufficiently removed from it all to be alright. Well, they'd be there tomorrow.

It was afternoon by the time the train pulled into the Gare du Nord. Mary had dozed a little on the journey, her head nestling comfortably on her husband's shoulder. And so she didn't notice as his posture had gradually stiffened, as countryside became slowly more familiar to him, towns and villages now recovering that he'd passed through before in what felt now like a different life. He flexed his fingers, stroked them lightly against Mary's knee and concentrated on slower, deeper breaths.

"My darling, we're here," he wakened her softly, smiling at her sleepy smile. He'd loved that little smile each morning, on soon discovering that he was an earlier riser than she. She took his hand and rose gracefully to her feet, enjoying the liberty of taking his arm and walking closer to him, their sides bumping together through their coats, than she'd been permitted to before. It felt wonderful to stand up, to stretch, and though the station air was hardly the freshest it still felt wonderful to breathe in instead of the staler air of the train.

Matthew found a porter, giving the young man the address to send their luggage to. They'd decided a night in Paris, before the long journey to Provence the next day, would suit them very well.

They didn't need to stand and search for the exit out onto the street, as Matthew remembered it well enough. And it was as they walked below the enormous board listing the day's trains that he froze. Splayed across it in bold, tall letters were names of places that chilled his heart, even now, even after nearly two years. Amiens… Arras… Rouen… Mons… and all the blood seemed to drain from his face.

"Matthew?" Mary rubbed his arm anxiously, more scared than she'd like to admit by the blank expression behind his eyes. "Dearest, what is it? Should we sit down?"

If he heard her, it was only dimly, and though he turned his face to her he barely saw her. Instead he could see only the station swarming with soldiers, with khaki caps and kitbags and boots still caked with the mud of Flanders, and long-forgotten fear lanced through him. He suddenly remembered that he couldn't remember the last time he'd left France for England, because that last time there'd been nothing but a gray fog and haze of pain and nothingness and… Mary.

He blinked, and saw her, and for one sickening moment he thought he was dreaming again.

"My God, I – Mary –"

"It's alright, darling, let's sit down a moment…"

He was shaking, and she found herself needing to pull his arm to make him move, his eyes wide and scared as she reverted instinctively to the calming, soothing voice she'd cultured to settle him in the hospital. The station was hot and stifling but she felt cold, and he wouldn't sit down even when she drew him to the nearest bench but carried on pacing, pacing, as if the movement might stop his tremors.

"I hadn't thought," he muttered shakily, "I hadn't thought it would matter – I thought it'd be alright – it doesn't matter what I thought, I was wrong, and – oh God, Mary –"

She clutched his arm more tightly, rubbing his back, oblivious to the people passing them. Beside her his fingers curled into bitterly clenched fists, trying desperately to not think, to not remember, not now, not on their honeymoon, but the memories encroached thick and fast, suffocating him with their strength. Here, in this place so distressingly familiar, he could only remember fear, and pain, the stench of mud and whisky and the itch of lice, tiredness, and crippling fear and then… pain, and…

"Matthew, darling –"

"Oh God," he said again, stooping suddenly and clutching the back of the bench with white-knuckled fingers. "I think I'm going to be sick."

What little colour there had been drained completely from his face, and Mary had no time to care whether or not anyone was looking at them or how terribly improper vomiting in broad daylight in the middle of a busy station must be, as she felt him tremble beneath her hands and heard his breath hitch in that all too familiar way.

"It's alright, darling," she murmured, rubbing his back in wide circles as he bent double over the back of the bench and retched, shuddering with his hacking cough. "It's perfectly alright…"

Very slowly, he straightened, covering his mouth with his hand before Mary quickly passed him her handkerchief. He wiped his face and allowed her to help him to sit, still shaking.

"I'm so sorry," he mumbled at his knees. "I wasn't expecting… I couldn't help it, and –"

"Please, don't apologise," Mary said, taking his hand firmly. "I absolutely forbid it."

"But darling, it's our honeymoon and I've just spoilt –"

"You haven't spoilt anything," she insisted, watching him in concern. "You haven't spoilt anything at all. It's perfectly alright –"

"You've said that to me before," he suddenly turned to her with a quiet, almost reverent, whisper. And he was smiling, though very weakly, and his eyes brimmed with unshed tears. "Far more often than I'm afraid you should have."

She gazed at him. "You remember?"

"Of course I remember, though I'm… ashamed to," he admitted.

"Why?" Mary exclaimed, her fingers curling more tightly around his hand, warming slowly in hers.

"Because it was horrible, and you shouldn't have had to –"

"What, care for you?"

"No, I mean… Well…"

"Don't be ridiculous, dear," she fondly chastised him. "I was happy to."

Matthew frowned incredulously. "Happy to? Mary, you can't mean that."

"Of course I can." She inhaled deeply and rubbed his hand between her own, staring at their fingers lacing together. "You were alive, darling, and there wasn't anything more I wished for than that. All… through the war. Only that."

They were treading on dangerous, unspoken ground; themes and feelings they'd skirted around because to admit to it hadn't seemed right. If they admitted to it, it would mean… they'd wasted all that time, hurt people that should never have been hurt, but…

"You… did?" he asked, quietly, staring as well at their hands.

"Continually," she whispered, and glanced hesitantly up to smile at him. "And – even though you were wounded, it meant you were out of danger from then on, so – yes, I was happy to."

Matthew lifted his head and met her eyes, and another memory and a new understanding seemed to pass between them in that breathless moment.

"You meant it," he said. She frowned, not understanding, and Matthew shook his head. "I mean, you meant – when you said, if someone should just want to be with me, on any terms – my darling, you meant –"

Her eyes widened – he'd been so unwell, she'd never imagined he would remember that – but she simply smiled, and nodded.

"Of course I did."

There was nothing he could say, no words that would do justice to what he felt, and so he pulled her into a close embrace, whispering his apologies and his adoration against her neck with shaky, tearful breaths, forgetting entirely the world that walked by them on the platform.

Soon, they stood, and made their way into the fresher, cleaner air of the city. The reminders here were far less, far more slight – and where they were, generally more pleasant. An estaminet in which Matthew recalled, rather to his shame and Mary's amusement, drinking more in one evening that he likely had in his life, that had ended by leading the company in several rousing songs before being politely asked to leave. An inn that he'd stayed in for two nights of his first leave, when he'd been unable to face coming home and seeing his old, broken world through new, war-scarred eyes before the host had managed to convince him that little could cheer his spirits more than home-cooked food and his mother's missed embrace. They were little, unthreatening memories, generally far removed from the everyday harsh reality of the trenches, and he found it quite a pleasant release to share these memories, at least, with Mary.

It was later, as they lay together in nakedness and sheets and warmth, safely ensconced in their hotel room at last, that Mary asked him anything more.

"What was it really like?" she asked softly, stroking back his hair from his face with the warmth of his palm on her waist. But his eyes at once took on that same, haunted expression that had scared her so terribly that first time she'd seen him again, and she instantly felt sorry for asking. She eased forward to kiss his lips. "I'm sorry, I only meant – you don't need to tell me of course, but please don't feel that you mustn't, Matthew. Not ever."

He smiled faintly and shook his head.

"It isn't that," he murmured, rubbing his thumb distractedly over the softness of her skin. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath. "You see, darling, I couldn't – I can't, describe it. I simply don't think I could. And I wouldn't… Mary, the truth is it was worse than I'm sure – than I hope – you can imagine. So I don't want you to imagine it, because… I cannot give you the nightmares that I have. Please understand, darling – and especially now; not while we're – here…"

She nodded. "Alright. But when we're at home, if you ever do want to darling, you will –"

"I will, I… will. Thank you," he smiled, and eased forwards to kiss her. She instantly wriggled closer into his arms, her body closer to his, her lips soft and eager and her skin like silk, and warm… "For now, though, darling, could we just… forget about it all?"

She stroked her hands through his hair, revelling in the feel of his skin flush against hers, all the way down her body, scarred and blemished and beautiful, so beautiful…

"Yes, darling," she whispered against his lips.

For the next hour, at least, she did everything in her power to help him to forget… to forget everything, everything bar her name, and her skin, and the feel of her hands and her mouth on his body, and the tightness of her body around his, and the blissful obliteration of all thought but ecstasy.

It was blissful, and for the rest of their honeymoon not another word was spoken of it – not even the one night Matthew did wake in a cold sweat and shaking from a nightmare, when she simply held him and kissed him until he'd calmed – and in the future they would happily say that there was not a single moment of their honeymoon that they'd have changed.

Fin

A/N: Thank you so much for reading :) Your loveliness and support for my writing means so much to me - I'm sorry I'm not finding the time to reply to reviews, but I'll try my best this week, and please know regardless that each one means the world to me! I hope you enjoyed this little pondering on their honeymoon - thank you so much :)