Title: Too Good to be True
Author: Sassy
Rating: T
Pairings: Mary/Sebastian, Kenna/Henry, Mentions of Mary and Francis, and oddly Kenna/Sebastian
Summary: This is just a weird idea I got in my head when I was thinking about the upcoming episodes. Now understand I am a Mash shipper, but realistically, I know that these happy episodes of them together won't last. So then I started thinking about what would happen when they weren't together anymore (I know! HORRID!)
So this is a little one shot about Sebastian and Kenna dealing with the loss of what they had almost had.
Disclaimer: Reign owns these characters, not me.
Too Good to Be True
Sebastian had always known it was too good to be true. He was a bastard. He had grown up with the knowledge that if something seemed a little unreal, it probably was. And it would always come back to bite you.
Coming across Mary, ready to escape from her marriage with Francis for whatever her reasons, had seemed like fate or destiny at the time. For a practical guy, he should have known better. It was unlikely that his destiny would deliver Mary into his hands to love, honor and cherish. Being captured and thrown into the dungeon had seemed like a turn for the worst, but then he was out of the dungeon and on the way to being legitimized, king, and wed to Mary. She was finally allowing herself to look at him in the way he'd dreamed, to treat him in a way that was more than just a protective friend.
Everything happened so quickly. One minute he was a carefree, favored, bastard son of the King of France, and the next he was learning how to reign properly over countries and people. He didn't have time to dwell on the unrealistic nature of the turn in his life, not often. It passed his mind fleetingly when he was first told, but then, perhaps due to Mary's suddenly continual presence in his life, it never crossed his mind again. They were together often: talking, planning, preparing, falling in love as Mary accepted the turn in her destiny with less struggle than Sebastian had expected.
He felt like he was floating on a cloud most days, everything he had never dreamed of having in his life rushing towards him like a flood. He was aware, hyperaware, of the dangers that surrounded himself and Mary, but he grew comfortable in his new position. Particularly the part that allowed him to kiss Mary and not worry about being beheaded for it.
However, he should have known. These types of things don't happen to men like him. Rather, they don't work out for men like him.
Nostradamus' predicted that Mary would be the death of Catherine's first born had spurred all of this into action. No one realized that Catherine's first born was a disfigured girl from a sordid affair many years ago. Once Clarissa was killed kidnapping the young royals, Nostradamus' feelings of death surrounding Mary and the firstborn were gone. The dots were connected and Catherine realized that Francis was never the one in danger. It was Clarissa the whole time.
Just as quickly as he had won Mary, he lost her. Not completely. She looked at him with love, longing, and sorrow in her eyes now. Catherine and Nostradamus explained it all to Mary. Suddenly, she couldn't fight the line of succession. Her reason for doing it was to protect Francis. Now that she knew he wasn't the one that needed protection from her, she realized she couldn't destroy his entire life, the young princes and princesses' lives. She instead destroyed Sebastian and her life together.
She loved Sebastian. She told him the day that it was all over. She explained her logical reasons and she explained that her heart was not part of this. Her heart could never have really been a part of her marriage. She's always been one expected to marry for her country, and she would be. But he was no longer what her country needed. To keep them all safe, she would return to Francis, marry him, and try to commit to that. Sebastian would be safe. He just couldn't be with her. It didn't matter what she wanted. It didn't matter what he wanted.
Just as soon as he thought his life had fallen into the place that he'd wanted to, it had shattered into even more pieces. Things he had never thought he'd wanted were taken away, and things he knew he'd wanted were left to burn inside of him, a fiery passion that would never be released.
He hated watching them together. She was distant with Francis, but still next to him. She watched Sebastian from afar, and he would feel her eyes and burn. But they never spoke, they never touched, they never turned to each other. It was always her eyes on him, and him pretending that he didn't think every day about kissing her.
He was left with the broken pieces of his life, fire burning for a woman that could never allow herself to love him back again, left with the realization that he was ruined forever by what he had almost had.
Kenna should have known it was too good to be true: names in fire, tiles torn out, mistresses "banished" from court. None of it was permanent, even though she'd truly thought it was. She really should have known better. Kings get what they want and then they turn to their next fancy.
King Henry had burned for her and she had burned for him. She just didn't know his fire was a fuse that sparked quickly and burned away just as fast as it started and her's was embers of wood that sparked and shimmered and grew and flamed.
She'd come to court wise to what was happening. She had hesitated when the King had tried to take her virtue. She knew it was the only thing she had to bargain. She knew it was a mistake, but the fired that burned low in her belly and his relentless pursuit of her had convinced her. She should have remembered that a king always gets what he wants, and will use words and promises and grand gestures as a way to ensure it happened.
He probably enjoyed chasing her.
She hadn't learned that some men enjoyed the chase, but not the catch.
She wondered if he enjoyed hurting the women in his life. He certainly enjoyed throwing his mistresses in Catherine's face. He'd tried to have Catherine beheaded. He played hot and cold with Diane De Poitiers for 20 years. She should have looked at his past women and known that things would not turn out well.
Silly Kenna. She always let the fire inside of her direct her life.
He'd told her not to make him choose between her and Diane. She sat, broken, bloodied, and injured from an attack, and he had the nerve to tell her to deal with the fact that he loved multiple women, and he wasn't going to change that. He kicked her when she was down. What kind of man said that to a woman while she was healing from a vicious attack? His flattery was obviously all used up. He had had her. He no longer needed to talk her into bed. It was the worst lesson of all for girl to learn. The lesson that men were not always to be trusted and that they didn't always mean what they said was one that always had to be learned the hard way. Too bad she'd been educated so publicly.
Still, the fire burned.
He was done with her. Just as quickly as he had pursued her, he threw her away. Virtue gone, name infamous, Kenna was without options. She had nothing but broken virtue and a broken heart.
She watched him as he moved with other women, flirted, touched, sat them on his lap and whispered in their ears. She felt disgraced in a whole new way that had nothing to do with being a mistress, but she still loved him. How could it be so one sided? She hadn't meant to love the King. She'd wanted the passion and the power. The ambition inside of her drove her to find others just as passionate. But that was all it was supposed to be. Give her a position at court more than just a lady, give her power, and someone who had deep passion inside of him. She never imagined his passion changing; her inexperience showing in her belief that once she had the King, she would always have him.
For someone so smart, she really was dumb.
So she was left to wonder what to do with broken pieces of her life, left with a fire burning for a man that did not love or think of her, left with the realization that she had ruined herself for something so little as love.
It was really all for comfort. They didn't love each other. They barely even liked each other. But they understood each other.
They ran into one another in the hallways late at night, both wandering through the castle like ghosts over what they had lost.
The looks in their eyes were the same. Hollow, with a small spark hidden just deep enough that only others with the same spark could see it. They never spoke.
They threw themselves into the kiss, both pretending it was someone else they were kissing: one kissing a father, the other a best friend.
They didn't care if they were caught. They didn't care that they yearned for others. They didn't care if the fire inside of them consumed them into ashes that would blow away into the wind. They just wanted to pretend again that things were too good to be true.