A/N: Some background: this fic is inspired by "Rewrite the Stars for You" by melliyna (also available under "mihrsuri" on AO3) and her extensive notes about related headcanons on her Tumblr (also mihrsuri). Basically an AU where Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and Thomas Cromwell had a secret polyamorous relationship from 1536 onwards.
FFN doesn't allow links, but on AO3, I've included several Tumblr post links that you can take a quick glance at for some more background context, though not strictly necessary.
Major thanks to mihrsuri for giving me permission to play in her universe, and also for sharing such a world with us!
It starts when the Prince of Wales is born.
Mary almost does not notice it in between her elation and her consternation. Elation, that the kingdom finally has a Prince of Wales, that her father has an heir, and she finally, finally has a brother (she has always wanted a brother, in some bone-deep part of her, even when she herself was Princess of Wales). But also a very real fear that this boy will replace her (she has not forgotten how it felt to be pushed aside by the Holy See, and the brief period when her father was cold to her and she rarely saw her mother, before Anne stepped in).
Still, she is genuinely glad for them, and when she is finally permitted to visit, nearly two days after the birth, her smile is broad and unpracticed. "A thousand congratulations to Your Majesties," she says, curtseying as she enters the chamber. "And long life to His Highness the Prince of Wales."
"Oh, enough with the formalities!" her father booms. Anne sends him a slight frown, still worn from her labor, but smiles tiredly and offers the bundle in her arms to her stepdaughter. Mary comes closer, not taking the baby into her arms (she is not yet a mother, but she can imagine Anne is afraid to let him go quite yet) but smiling down at her brother - her brother!
"I did wonder why you decided to name him Thomas," she remarks. "He'll be one among a hundred at court."
Then she catches herself, and glances up in fear at her father. He loves her, and things have been good between them for years now, but how unwise of her to criticize the name he gave his heir-
But Father is only smiling. "He may be one among a hundred courtiers, but among kings, he'll be one of his own - King Thomas the First! And I must say, Anne liked the title rather better than Henry the Ninth or Edward the Sixth."
"Henry." Anne shakes her head. "That was just a perk. We agreed it was the best way to honor my father, the saint, and our most trusted councillor."
A movement on the fringes of the room, and then Mary realizes with a start that the Lord Chancellor is also there. High-ranking though he is, he is a servant, and it seems strange to her that any servants other than the doctors and physicians be present in the room. Her joy is tempered a bit; her father and Anne think quite highly of Cromwell, but she has always been rather wary of his more radical attitudes towards heresy, compared to the middle path that the King and Queen tread.
Still, both the happy occasion and her own upbringing as a princess mean that she graces him with a polite nod, while he bows deeply. As he glances up, a look passes between him and Their Majesties. It is just a look, but Mary feels as though she is suddenly missing something.
She shakes her head, and moves closer to the bed. Anne finally gathers the courage to relinquish her precious boy, and Mary takes him into her arms. Thomas, Prince of Wales - a familiar name in some ways, but new in others. Its origin is perhaps a touch too common, but why should that matter? The man maketh the name, and she is certain her brother will do grand things to his name.
The next hint comes perhaps six months or so later, shortly before Christmas. Mary is at Hunsdon House to check on her tenants' welfare, but the reports she receives send her on her fastest horse to Whitehall several days before she is due to arrive. She does not even make her greetings to her parents first before going straight to see Lord Chancellor Cromwell.
She bursts into his study unannounced, seething and ready to let him have a piece of her mind, even if it lands her in the Tower. The nuns and monks of the monasteries on her grounds - her tenants, her charges - have been cast out thanks to his dissolutions, in the dead of winter with nowhere else to go. Mary has always turned a blind eye to his policies, knowing that the King and Queen not only trusted but highly esteemed him. But this? This goes against all Christian charity, against everything that is holy.
He jumps to his feet quickly and bows when she enters, but before he has risen up, she has launched into the furious speech she had half-prepared on the mad ride to London. Every cruel appellation - a Lutheran, a heretic, the emissary of Satan - flies off her tongue, and she rages that he will see good men and women of God left to die in the dirt so that he might fill the coffers and his own pockets, and use the proceedings to further his reform agenda. She even snaps that he does not deserve the ennoblement to the Duke of Essex that Their Majesties have planned for him.
Cromwell, to his credit, speaks not one word while she vents her anger upon him. When she has finally calmed down, fear besets her. Mary has set herself against the King's most trusted minister, and while she may be his beloved eldest child, she knows all too well in whose favor the pendulum might swing.
Dear God, what have I done…
But Cromwell is calm, almost amused. He praises her consideration for her dependents and her courage in speaking for them. "I have witnessed the Tudor temper too many times to be intimidated by it, and it is no more than the natural order of things that you should have inherited it as well," he says.
He admits that he was too hasty, too zealous in his approach to the monasteries, and that over Christmastide, he will be glad to discuss with her how they may reach a settlement. "I will assist you in bringing your concerns to Their Majesties' attention," he promises, and when she blanches, he quickly adds, "perhaps with more diplomacy," and she finally breaks into an uneasy laughter.
She leaves soon after, to properly greet Father and Anne, but even as she walks along the corridors, Mary turns the memory of his smile over and over in her mind. It was oddly warm, almost… paternal. Too paternal, even for the King's most trusted advisor to the King's honored eldest daughter. Perhaps Cromwell was remembering his own late daughters, and imagined Mary in their place, speculated on the fully grown women they might have become had the Sweat not snatched them away. Who is she to deny an aging man temporary solace, especially at Yuletide? And he is not as radical as she has always secretly feared; perhaps the word compromise may even be in his vocabulary.
