DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN DOWNTON ABBEY

A/N: Hello all! So, I've followed Downton for a while now and am obviously in love with it. I wrote a fan fic a while ago, but it is all horribly out of canon by now so I never posted it. This popped into my head right after watching the season 3 Christmas special, because cognitively I needed to fix that gut wrenching ending. It might just be a one shot, but I could probably make it longer if I want to or if there's interest. And please review-reviews certainly keep my creative juices flowing, because knowing there is an engaged audience is a writer's greatest pleasure. Happy reading!

September, 1926

All at once, very acutely, she felt two kinds of pain. There was the obvious discomfort of giving birth—a strange mix between extreme exhaustion, profound joy, and sheer terror at the prospect of it all. There was all of that ripping through her, her mind barely able to contain all the sensory information. But more implicitly, lost among the dominating forces of contractions and muscle spasms and the clammy, drenching sweat, was another kind of pain she could not quite place a finger on. Something was missing, her heart told her; a part of herself, her soul, that had been there moments ago was no longer, as if the person that held that piece in place had left their post.

She knew her family to be waiting at home impatiently. She knew the servants that had become her family to be bustling around downstairs at Downton, anxious, for once, for something to do, anything to occupy their worried fingers. She knew her mother-in-law to be standing right beside her, or at least near enough for her to discern that she was out of harm's way. That left only her husband. Matthew. Oh god, what happened to him, she thought, as the last contraction shuddered through her. What seemed like hours later, though it had been a mere few seconds, she heard the first cries of her son. Their son. How she wished he could have been there to hear it, that he always would be. But some image had flashed through her mind only moments ago, an image that seriously called the certainty of it into question. It had been quick—like the flash of movement when a car goes by—but that was all she needed to know that Matthew was in trouble. She had felt it as surely as she had felt their son leave her body, as surely as she felt his downy head upon her chest now, in her state of unease.

It was supposed to be a joyous time, but Downton seemed to have drawn life's short straw on those.

She felt like she was being hauled up from the center of her body, pulled through layers and layers of leaden ocean water, paint-like in its thickness. She wasn't awake, not yet, and though the weight pressing in around her was loosening its grip with each meter of ascent, she had an indiscernible urge to scream, just as she reached the surface and broke it.

Mary sat up stock straight, a loose floorboard that had been kicked up by the spur of a boot. Of course it had only been a dream. Of course Matthew hadn't been in any danger when she was in labor, but the anxiety of that whole day, wrapped into one tightly wound ball, had amalgamated in her head to form nightmares that never seemed to leave her.

She thrust her hand out and, to her terror, felt only the cool of the linen beneath her palm. She turned about in the dark, frantic, until she felt the warmth of another's reassuring hand entwined in her own.

"Mary," he said, softly, but stern enough to shake the tendrils of the perennial dream away.

She gripped him with an iron fist as Anna drew the curtains and let in the light of a glorious autumn day.

"Matthew," she gasped. "I thought—"

"I know," he said, forcing her to lie back on the pillows. He had already been up and dressed, but returned to their bedroom just before she woke knowing she'd need him, especially today. "But I'm here now," he soothed, kissing her as she eased herself back against the headboard and closed her eyes to still her beating heart. "And I'm not going anywhere."

"I know," she said, opening her eyes to take in his sheer presence, and reassure Anna with a look that she was all right and she could leave. "I just can't help but remember. Today, five years ago, I almost lost you—"

"But you didn't lose me. I survived and Robbie was none the wiser for having spent what should have been his first night alone with his mama with his papa as well. And, on that note, I believe that it is a certain little boy's birthday. Should we go wake him?"

"Yes," Mary said, exhaling all her anxiety into one simple word. She was happy for the distraction of her son, the only good this day had wrought. "Yes, we should. Just let me get dressed."

Matthew helped her to her vanity and rang for Anna. He lingered until the maid came, staring at his radiant wife in the mirror as she applied creams and perfumes with the ease of a trained apothecary.

"I just hate," she said off-handedly as she rubbed lotion into her hands, "that this day of such happiness for our family is so irrevocably tied to what could have also been the worst."

"I don't like it either, but darling, really, you must try not to dwell on it. For Robbie's sake, and your own." He pulled up a chair so he could look her squarely in the eye. She turned her deep, entrancing orbs to his as he pressed a hand to her abdomen. "And for this child's."

Mary's breath caught in her throat. How could he all at once calm her and bring her to tears? He was so loving, every ounce of him always invested in his family. Where did he find the capacity to store all his strength? How could she ever repay him?

She lowered her hand to cover his. "It's a girl," she said tritely before moving to the armoire at Anna's insistence that she really needed to start dressing or they'd be late for the birthday festivities.

"How do you know?" Matthew balked. "Have you been to see Clarkson without me?"

Mary rolled her eyes. "Certainly not. It's too early to tell for sure anyway. I'm only 3 months along. But it just feels different than it did with Robert. I can tell."

"Oh, mother's intuition," Matthew scoffed.

Mary gave him a pointed look that told him not to mock. "Precisely. Now, give me a kiss and be off with you."

He scrambled to obey, only slightly self-conscious in front of Anna. But she was a married woman after all, and it wasn't even the worst of what she'd seen between them.

"A girl," he said breathlessly, pulling away from the embrace. "A little girl. What will we name her?" he mused, a thousand thoughts jumping into his head as the newness of it enveloped him again. Fatherhood never ceased to be a wonder to him.

"We've plenty of time for that. Now really, Matthew, I must get dressed. I'll meet you in the nursery at half past to wake Robbie."

He left their room, a smile spreading on his face that never really seemed to disappear.