So here we are, my first Reign story and season 1 is what I dive back into. When exactly, you ask? Well: King Henry wanted to get rid of his wife and as it turned out, he still kinda liked her. "Let your hair down. Let me look at you." Cathry fans know what I'm referring to here and quite honestly, who else doesn't?!

So this is where I take over with my story. Henry has smooched Caherine senseless and we see him lying in his bed...

Characters not mine and all that jazz - some fluff, some steam, some angst. Comments always welcome - ENJOY! :)

Stay

King Henry was sitting upright in his bed, his head was pounding. The world around him was in a blur. Only moments ago, he had his heart set on decapitating his estranged wife and now she was lying next to him as nature had created her, beautiful, her skin soft and glowing in the privacy of his dimlit chambers.

It would soon be an open secret that the King had bedded his Queen, after all, he had insisted on keeping her guarded around the clock. And the guards he had picked were honest to him and loyal, but even they must've heard her voice as he'd remembered where she liked to be touched.

Henry sighed, his chest heavy from confusion and pain. It had felt so right kissing her, her hair let down for him upon request. So much pain they had gone through and she was still taking his breath away as soon as her hair touched her shoulders and framed her face, accentuating her beauty.

He was lying still for a while, inhaled her scent, enjoyed her slowing breath tickling his naked skin. Her eyes were closed, the lines on her face softened, her smile absentminded, dreamy. It had been years since she had last lied in his arms like this, had shared his bed and made him lose his head. She had that way about her once she let him glimpse inside her heart. She kept it guarded so well, from him and everybody else except Francis but he was too young to understand what she was telling him. So those moments of the real Catherine, her emotions raw and untamed, were a rare treat and he could very well spend days in bed with her if only she would keep being herself around him and not put on that Medici mask of sass and grace. If she remained the girl he had married, sure of herself and yet unset in her ways.

How much he would love her to keep him company now and not slip away to return to their accustomed distance, their disdain and hurt. And hurt it was, that much he had seen in her eyes and heard in her voice as he had accused her of having pushed him away. If only he had known that his affair with Diane would affect his wife so deeply, that the ways he had learned from his father would damage what he had once wanted to find with the woman he had loved from the moment she had entered his bed as his bride, unashamed and yet not unabashed.

"Don't go," Henry whispered as he felt his wife move beside him, readying herself to escape from his bed, but his voice was lost inside his head. So he endured the cold her absence caused him and allowed himself to watch her getting dressed. In slow motion he observed how she transformed herself from his loving Queen to Catherine de Medici, a woman always in control of her emotions, at least around him.

"Stay with me," the King heard his own voice state out loud. The surprise on her face reassured him: she hadn't used him for her benefit, for her survival, she meant what she had whispered onto his skin only moments ago. She loved him. Still.

Caught between confusion and surprise, Catherine stood before her husband's bed, his eyes emotional, raw and strangely intimidating. Only half dressed, his plea left her fragile and naked. What did he want? Another round in his bed to calm his conscious, his qualms? Her eyes met his. No, Catherine gasped. His eyes gave him away: he wanted her to stay.

"Come back to bed," her husband added, his soul exposed to her in his piercing gaze.

Catherine took a deep breath, her heart pounding so loud it almost left her deaf. "I'll be late to my own beheading," she dared to make him smile.

"You already lost your head to me, my Queen. And the way you did is much to my preference."

Warm shivers ran down Catherine's spine. How she loved when his voice dropped two levels, drawing her in like that, his eyes bewitching her, taking control. She was unable to withdraw, unable to resist what she saw reflected in his eyes, in his darkened pair of brown: her love for him rekindled, irrational, matured. So bit by bit, she shed her clothes for him again, unwilling to escape the fire his gaze ignited in her, his growing desire.

"You are more beautiful now than the first time we made love," Henry raved. "So much more beautiful."

Catherine laughed, "Is this something your mistresses like to hear?"

"They might want to but they don't," the King's eyes reassured her.

How come I believe you now, Catherine couldn't help but wonder before she fully surrendered to her desire to be loved by him again after all those years. Accepting his hand stretched out to her with a slight tremble, she lowered herself onto his bed while her heart pounded wildly in her chest, weakening her knees and silencing her tongue. Giving in to a moment of passion was one thing, returning to his bed another. How many times had she lived to regret her weakness for him? How long would it last, their rekindled love?

"Don't push me away again," Henry whispered as if he was reading her mind. "Trust me this time."

And there it was, the word that was so hard for her to accept. Could she trust him now after everything he had said and done? Trust him with her life, her heart?

"I want you, Catherine, I always have."

"Then why did you bring Diane back to court, again and again?" Catherine's voice was brittle, startling Henry to the core.

"Why didn't you tell me how much her presence was hurting you?"

The Queen laughed quietly, a stubborn tear willing itself down her cheek. "Was it really so hard to guess?"

"You befriended my father's mistress," Henry brushed his fingers against her cheek to wipe away the sign of her desperation. "I never thought..."

"I knew the kind of influence Anne had over your father. I was new in court and she was willing to teach me a lot of things. Diane wasn't particularly welcoming and she had no reason to. She was already in your heart when you took me to your bed as your wife."

"Diane will always be a part of my life," Henry kept caressing his wife's cheek, still wet from tears. "But you are the one I have been in love with, Catherine, and despite of what you may think that has never changed."

Catherine's instinct was to mistrust his words but the sincerity in his voice matched the warmth in his eyes – eyes that had looked at her with so much contempt only hours ago and were now filled with so much love.

"Let me show you how much you are loved, my Queen," Henry brushed his thumb over her lips, then moved his hand into her hair to pull her into a lingering kiss. "Lie with me," he whispered against her trembling mouth, then pulled her further towards him.

Skin on skin the lay, entangled underneath his warming covers. Fingers probed and fondled, hands entwined then lost in individual caresses. Catherine moaned ever so lightly, his feathery touch, his kiss… He was right to assume she was losing her head to him.

When his body finally claimed hers, her mind replayed flashes of memories of being with him throughout their marriage. Eight children she had given him, most of them results of his unfaltering passion and her unwavering love. But these memories paled to the way he was treating her now: his touch more patient, his desire matured, running deeper somehow, tender, refined.

"I love you, Catherine," Henry moaned into her ears as his name fell from her lips in a loud ecstatic whisper.

Smiling against her skin, the King pushed her Queen closer to the brink, he relished in her repeated satisfaction. Finding his own moments later, he collapsed into her arms and showered her neck with tender little kisses. "I love your scent after we've made love," Henry raved, then pulled his wife into a passionate kiss. "I will never tire of this."

Still catching her breath, Catherine hummed her approval against his lips while she stroked his back with loving hands. When Henry finally rolled onto the side to find some rest, he pulled her along and wrapped her in a warm embrace. When she drifted off to sleep, he placed a tired kiss onto her hair, then closed his eyes to find some sleep himself.

When King Henry woke, his wife was still sound asleep in his arms, her face graced with a contented smile. How long since he had last seen her uninhibited like that, he wondered. Or had he ever?

Sadness crawled back into his heart over the dispute they had had, his accusations and unawareness of her love for him after all those years, despite everything. Cold he had called her, unable to love. How could he not have seen that her pain had been like his, born in a series of so many unfortunate events.

"I am here to see the King," a female voice suddenly interrupted his melancholy.

"I am sorry, your Majesty," one of his guards said in a hushed voice. "Lady Kenna is rather persistent on seeing you."

"Send her away," King Henry answered ill-tempered, his voice low enough not to alert his sleeping wife. "I'm in close council with the Queen. No visitors," he ordered clearly. "Only the royal family." He paused, then added quickly, "But not unannounced."

The guard tried hard to suppress a smile.

"And call off the extra guards for Queen of France. There's no need for them now."

"The guard nodded, his eyes going wide at the sound of Kenna's voice suddenly so close-by. "What is taking you so long," the girl almost shouted as she approached the King's bed in long strides. "Don't you know I am granted access to the King's chambers at all times?"

"Not anymore," Henry corrected her sternly. "Your rights have been revoked."

Catching a glimpse of female skin behind the King's bare chest, Kenna pouted visibly, proving a point his wife had long before made, that she was still a child and nothing else. "So, have you brought Diane back after all," she snarled, then stood in mental lockdown as she realized who the King was sharing his bed with. "What's this supposed to mean," she asked confused as two guards already dragged her out of the King's chambers.

"Yes, what is this supposed to mean," a sleep-fogged voice sounded from right next to him.

"No more distractions," Henry answered quietly, then shouted after the intruder and his guards. "And let the court know if you like! Shall they all know the King has reconciled with his wife!"