A/N This is going to be a series of scenes that I've thought of that didn't get into the main storyline. They won't be overly important, but it might play a role in character development.

I'm almost finished with the next chapter of Love Prevail's, so that should be out fairly soon.

This one-shot takes place in the two weeks between chapters 4 and 5. Angst warning. Also, I know some of Matthew's thoughts in this chapter are a bit conflicting with thoughts in chapters three and four of LP, but this chapter also takes place during one of his depressed moods, when he isn't thinking as clearly.

Everywhere he looked there was mud and blood. It was all around him and covered everything. Nothing had escaped. He held his gun firmly in his right hand as he crawled through the mess Suddenly he heard a noise and looked up. Someone was standing there, in the middle of no-man's-land. It was Mary! What was she doing there? He tried to shout, to warn her, but suddenly she collapsed and began to bleed. He tried to run to her, but he couldn't move. "Mary! Mary!" he shouted.

Suddenly he felt someone shaking his shoulder gently and calling in a soft voice, "Matthew! Matthew! Wake up!"

His eyes flew open and he looked around wildly. There wasn't any mud or blood to be seen. White walls met his eyes. Where was he? What was happening? Why couldn't he move?

"Matthew," the voice said again.

He turned his head and finally saw the speaker. "Mother," he cried. "Get down, it's not safe. Where's Mary? She's hurt!."

"She's gone back to the Abbey to sleep," Isobel answered calmly as she placed a hand on her son's shoulder. "You've had a nightmare. You're at the hospital in Downton Village."

Matthew continued to stare blankly ahead and didn't respond. He didn't know where he was, but he couldn't be at the hospital. He was still in the trenches. "No, no," he said hurriedly. "I'm not there, you're lying. I'm in France, in the trenches." There were a few seconds of silence before Matthew said in a panicked tone, "What's wrong with me? Why can't I move my legs?" His arms began to fling wildly around and he couldn't control them.

Isobel reached out and grabbed one of her son's hands and held it still. She gently rubbed his arm and gradually he began to calm down. "Matthew, son," she said gently. "You're home. You're safe. Please, Matthew, look at me."

He stopped flailing and turned his head. "Mother," he breathed in relief. "What happened? Where am I?"

"You're in the hospital," Isobel repeated calmly. "You were injured and were brought to the hospital at Downton."

Matthew nodded in understanding. That much he remembered. He furrowed his eyebrows, knowing there was much more. He tried to move into a more comfortable position, but was unable to turn his body. His eyes opened wide as he remembered what else he had been told: the dreadful truth that neither his body nor his mind could accept.

"Matthew?"

He let out a low grown of pain. Everywhere but his legs hurt and he remembered why. "Why?" he moaned. "Why?" He clenched his fingers into a fist, wincing slightly at the pain of the movement, but relishing it in a strange way at the same time.

"Matthew?" Isobel said again. "Son?"

"Why am I a cripple?"

"Matthew! You're not," Isobel admonished, horrified that her son could even think to call himself one.

"I am, Mother," Matthew answered slowly. "I'm paralyzed. I'm helpless. Why am I even alive?" His voice had grown louder and louder with each statement, with the question almost a shout. "I wish I had died in that shell blast," he said through gritted teeth. "It would have been far better to have died than to have woken up in this damned world where I am nothing."

Isobel didn't say anything. She continued to hold her son's hand in one of hers, but with the other gently stroked his hair. He wasn't in any state to reason with and she knew at this moment, he simply needed to vent. It hurt so much to see him like this, but at the moment, she knew there wasn't anything she could do for him except be by his side.

"Why did I survive if my life is to be a helpless existence?" Matthew asked, still clearly angry, but this time almost in tears as well. "I can't live like this, Mother. I can't!"

"I don't know, my son," Isobel said calmly. "But, you're home and you're alive. Things aren't always going to be this dismal. You will get stronger and you will have a life. You will learn how to live again, my son."

"A life of a cripple isn't a life," Matthew responded angrily. "It's just another version of hell on earth."

Isobel looked into her son's eyes and what she saw frightened her. The look of love and relief she had seen when she had arrived the previous day, was replaced with a dark, steely glare. She had never seen a look of such pure emptiness before, even during her time as a nurse during the Boer War. What had happened in her son during these last four years to make such a change in him? She knew he wasn't suffering from shell-shock, but her son who was laying in the hospital was a very different man than who she watched go to war.

Matthew meanwhile was finding himself sinking deeper and deeper into despair. He was a cripple, he was helpless, incompetent, half of a man! He didn't even deserve to be called a human being anymore, his body was so mutilated. It would be so easy to simply end it all and escape. He didn't know how long he was in this disturbing place in his mind, but he was quickly jerked out of his dismal thoughts by a soft voice.

"Matthew. Matthew," it said. "Come back to me son."

He turned his head and his eyes found his mother. Suddenly, he felt a wave of calmness pass over him and any thoughts of offing himself were gone. Once again, he was horrified and disgusted at himself that he had even contemplated it. He felt like he might be sick, but managed to avoid doing so, much to his relief.

"Matthew," his mother repeated again, still gentle but also very firm at the same time.

"Mother," Matthew sighed in relief. "I… I don't know what happened. I… I hate myself for those thoughts. They just … they just show up." I don't want them to, he screamed inwardly. I can't control them.

"Shh," Isobel gently whispered as she continued to comb her fingers through his hair. "I know, son. I know it's not really you saying those things. You will have more than your fair share of challenges in life, but I promise you, you will have a life."

"I know that, Mother," Matthew sad sadly, Sybil's words to him on his first night of consciousness in the hospital flooding back to him. "But I cannot believe it. I'm laying here, almost completely helpless, and will be in a similar situation for my entire life. How can I believe there's a life beyond being an invalid for the next fifty years?"

"I don't know," Isobel said simply. "All I know is that you will find something to cling on to that will keep you going; something that will make you want to live again. I don't know what it could possibly be, but something is out there."

Matthew turned his head away from his mother and stared at the ceiling. There wasn't anything he could cling to. He had lost Mary; he had lost Lavinia; he was incapable of being an earl. There wasn't anything he could cling to, nothing that he could hold in his hand or see that could give him the courage to continue. "There isn't anything I can hold on to," he muttered despairingly. He could feel another bought of depression arriving and fought hard against it, but it was swiftly gaining control.

"Have you thought of praying?" Isobel asked.

Matthew blinked in surprise and the feeling of depression repressed itself. Why hasn't he thought of prayer? It had sustained him and his men in the trenches so many times, but it hasn't occurred to him to pray from his bed. He had no clue as to why. As he mulled over this thought, he heard his mother stand up. She placed a hand on his shoulder and said, "I'll be back with your dinner in a minute. Please think about what I said."

He heard his mother walk away and as she did so, he murmured, "God, help me." And instead of the overwhelming grief that too often struck when he was alone, he felt a strange sense of peace. For the first time in ages, he had a feeling of calmness deep within him.

Life was going to be extremely difficult from here on out, but he could make it; he could survive. He knew that these thoughts could not possibly be coming from him. As he lay there, contemplating this strange feeling, he knew that no matter how depressed he got in the days to come, somehow he'd survive. He had no clue how, but he would pull through.