Dance Me to the End of Love
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Summary: "They were this now: a widowed nurse and a married doctor. It wasn't normal social conduct by any means but what else was normal around them?" Mary has her doubts regarding her way of life and her relationship with the still married Doctor Foster but, with his help, she finds the small moments to cherish.
Mary was gently swaying to the music despite its being lively and full of spirit. It had been her mood lately – slow, contemplative. And it seemed it suited her partner, too. Among the merry bustle of the Union ball, he danced with her to a music only the two of them seemed to hear.
They were going into the fourth year of the War. The losses were devastating on both sides, and yet, the end seemed so far, far away.
And she was tired of it, so very tired.
Tired of nursing back men to semi health just to be sent back to the front… tired of holding their hands as they slowly faded away… and most of all, she was tired of living in limbo for so long.
Her life always seemed to be about others. And it wasn't just her life in the Mansion House. Truth was that she couldn't remember a time when she hadn't put other people before herself. Ever since her father died… it was her mother, then Gustave. People she loved dearly. There'd been always somebody to worry about, to look after… until one by one, everybody left her.
Then the war broke out and there were so many soldiers wounded. Strangers whom she could help.
And everything began again.
Until someone came and showed her that she was worth the attention she'd, for so long, denied to herself.
"Are you feeling all right, my love?" Jed looked down at her with concerned eyes as they gently swayed. "You look exhausted."
"I am," she admitted with a small, grateful smile. He'd been always like that – so attentive to her…
"Then we should retire for the night."
… and so persistent in looking after her.
She still remembered the first time he so openly stood up to her. It was an awful day with soldier after soldier coming to the hospital and so few of them living to see the following day. The more fortunate ones died on the operating table at least given the chance for survival but many of them had to do with only the reassuring words of the nurses… or nothing at all.
The street before the Mansion House looked like a battlefield.
After the influx of patients ebbed and the casualties were taken care of, Mary found herself standing in one of the large rooms of the ground floor, her clothes soaked with blood, her hair disheveled and matted with sweat and dirt.
It became unnaturally quite compared to the previous hours of horror and she wanted nothing more than a warm bath and the comfort of a bed. Of course both of those things were unreachable luxuries, so she simply stumbled over to a relatively clean spot between two beds ready to unceremoniously crumble to the floor. She was held up by a pair of strong hands, though, and gently ushered up to one of the rooms.
She was so exhausted that she hadn't even realized what was happening until she was standing in the room of Doctor Foster. It still took her an impossibly long time to react to him in any way. When she finally did manage to acknowledge his presence, he'd been already cupping her cheek and regarding her worriedly. Mary wondered how he could look so collected after everything that had happened. But it didn't matter really. What mattered that she wasn't left alone with her thoughts. No, not even that… The fact that somebody cared. That he cared.
She stumbled into his arms, a crying mess.
She didn't know for how long she'd cried into his shoulders – suddenly she found that she had many years' worth of anguish in her – but when she finally looked up at him, he was giving her the same look of patient affection like before.
"The water is warm," he told her, gently stroking her dirty cheek. "And the bed is freshly made. I'll be back in while but take your time," he finished with a kiss on her forehead, then turned to leave.
"Stay." Her silent plea surprised both of them but he complied, stepping back in front of her. She liked the way he search her eyes and sighed when he slowly, reverently reached up to pull the pins of her apron. Her eyes were closed while he reached around her and loosened the strips. Pulling back a little, he placed a kiss on both of her eyelids, and she could feel his small smile as she pressed her face against his. He was quite apt with her small buttons and her underskirts didn't frightened him, either, so she soon found herself lowered into the welcoming warmth of the water.
He took care of her like she'd been the most precious thing in the world and Mary had to admit that she needed that just as much as the bath or the bed.
And he'd been treating her like nothing less ever since.
"I do not want to just yet. I'm having a wonderful time," she answered with a reassuring smile which must have shown the troubling thoughts hiding behind it because a small frown crossed his face before it brightened, mostly for her benefit.
"Not the least because of Miss Hastings' greatest exasperation, I assume," he remarked bemused, and Mary, indeed – finding some guilty pleasure in Anne's indignant look as she regarded the couple – couldn't deny that.
"Why, Doctor Foster," she looked at him with theatrical mortification. "That would be highly inappropriate."
"I dare say," he started, lowering his face closer to hers, "that we are highly inappropriate as it is." And with that he kissed her.
And they were indeed highly inappropriate, Mary reflected. That was a burden she bore.
A widow and a married man, living together in a hotel turned hospital. But Mary had gotten over their unfortunate circumstance a long time ago. She was happy, really happy for the first time in her life and she decided that she deserved it, no matter the circumstances. And others could keep their opinion.
That was of course until that moment when Miss Hastings realized something Mary herself was trying to come to terms with.
"My, my, my, Miss Phinney," the other woman started one day when she found Mary trying to regain her equilibrium. "If I hadn't known better, I'd say, you are with child."
Anne's not at all subtle voice rang like a shot in Mary's ears as she stood frozen in the suddenly silent ward. Unfortunately, her reaction only spurred Anne further.
"Oh, wait, but it is possible. After all, everybody knows you're entertaining our good Doctor Forster in private. I wonder what Mrs. Foster would say about this."
Mary could still feel the mortification of being put on the spot and so bluntly faced with the reality of her situation which was only lessened by Jed taking up a spot next to her, standing proudly and telling everyone in no uncertain terms to mind their own business. And it was completely banished when he pulled her aside and took her in his arms.
He was so happy that suddenly nothing else mattered.
She admired how easily he could dismiss everybody and disregard every expectation and just be happy in the moment.
Mary smiled into their very public kiss when she heard Miss Hastings scoff next to them.
"I swear you two have no decorum whatsoever," she looked at the embracing couple reproachfully, then, with a superior air around her, she scurried off.
Mary and Jed shared a smile which then became a matching grin when, with their hands on Mary protruding belly, they could feel their baby's kick.
"And there, I believe," Jed started amused, "there's someone else who couldn't be bothered by it," he remarked lightly but his pointed look wasn't lost on Mary. "It isn't worth it."
She knew that. She wouldn't be there, pregnant and all, if she hadn't.
Sometimes it was just hard to accept that they were that for now: a widowed nurse and a married doctor living in sin. It wasn't normal social conduct by any means but what else was normal around them?
This time she was the one initiating the kiss.
She chose to live with the consequences a long time ago and, yes, sometimes she was still trying to come to terms with her choices. However, in times like these, when there was nothing else just she, Jed and a tiny life they'd created, she felt fortunate. She dared to believe that there would be a time when their love would not be frowned upon.
And until then, she would cherish these moments and trust Jed to dance her to the end of love.
And anyhow, the scandalized look on Anne's face alone almost made it fun.
The End
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