Author's Note: it's been so long since I've uploaded anything here that I forgot how to do it. I wasn't going to write anything for this show - after all, there are three books - but apparently I just couldn't help myself. Also, I haven't written anything in months (just ask all of the in-progress fics I have that are currently giving me the evil eye), so ... there's that.

Disclaimer: do we still need these? Characters not mine.

If his scars were the map of his life, then his guilt was the accompanying book. Were some enterprising wretch ever able to physically open him up they'd find his transgressions carved into his bones in aching, accusatory letters.

She tried to rip me apart.

Those would be the newest words, still black and charred. Matthew's newest guilt, his newest transgression that still smoked and burned deep beneath his skin. Diana was sleeping fitfully just above him, and he raised his eyes to the ceiling as if he could see her through the castle stones. He'd promised not to go after Satu, but the desire – the need to do so was like a drum beating in his brain.

Instead, Matthew shifted restlessly in his chair and took another drink of his wine. He could hear Marthe moving somewhere down below, doing he knew not what, and though he couldn't hear her he knew that his mother had not moved from her spot in Phillipe's office. The only other sounds of life came from the small, nocturnal creatures making their way through the world on the castle grounds. All around him the world was at relative peace, and yet none of that peace stretched to Matthew himself.

He'd tried to read, but his mind was too tumultuous to take in the words. His thoughts kept returning to Diana, and what his arrogance had cost her. He'd promised her safety within the walls of Sept-Tours, yet she'd been snatched away from him and that safety so easily.

His fault. He'd fallen asleep certain of her presence by his side and woken to the sudden, pervasive knowledge that he'd made a mistake. Diana was his; his to pleasure, and protect, and avenge. Matthew had tried to save her from this, from him, but – God help them both – she had walked straight into his arms anyway, and he had let her. In his arrogance, he'd thought he'd known (though he'd made a valiant effort not to) what aligning herself with him might cost her – might do to her.

Satu had branded her. Branded Diana as his in the most gruesome way she could have, and the memory of his insignia burned into her skin made the blood rage squeeze at his heart. Even still, Matthew could not mourn their union. God and Diana forgive him, he could not give her up now, even knowing what being with him might cost her – what it had already cost her.

There was no separating them now, and Matthew couldn't regret that the way a better man would have.

Matthew had just set his wineglass down when he heard the low, restless shuffle of bed sheets.

"Matthew?"

He was there immediately. Diana had lifted her head from the pillow and then stopped with an abrupt hiss of pain as the movement pulled at her injured back. The disorientation was just clearing from her eyes when Matthew laid himself gently on the bed next to her.

"I'm here, ma lionne."

Diana pulled herself into his side and tried to lay her head in the crook of his shoulder, but the position stretched the muscles of her back and stopped her. Matthew, intuiting what she was trying to do, grabbed her gently by the hips and lifted her until she could drape the upper half of her body over him. The crown of her head was tucked beneath his chin and her hair fanned out across his shoulder; she sighed, and the steady beat of her heart filled the long spaces of silence between the beats of his own.

Matthew breathed her in. They'd helped her clean up and bathed her, but the scent of dirt and other creatures had not entirely left her – yet. That, too, enraged Matthew, but he fought the anger down and turned his nose into her hair. Mindful of the placement of his arms, Matthew draped one over her hips and laid the other one gently on her neck, over the pulse point there. Even mostly asleep her blood responded to his touch, singing out as it rose up to meet his hand.

There's no turning back, he'd warned her. Would she want to, now? Being without her before had been an exercise in futility but being without her now would drive him to madness. Still, he would brave that fate for her, if she asked it of him.

"Matthew."

"I'm here, Diana."

"This isn't your fault. Satu did this to me, no one else."

He hadn't survived fifteen hundred years of existence by expressing thoughts when he didn't intend to; he glanced down at the golden blonde crown of her head and pressed a kiss into her hair.

"I can feel it," Diana murmured into his chest.

"What?"

"Your guilt. It's like … a blanket laid over you."

Was it just a heightened sense of empathy that allowed her to do so, Matthew wondered, or another of Diana's latent powers coming to the surface?

"What time is it?"

"Not yet two. Go back to sleep; you're safe."

He'd never sleep again to make sure that it was so.

It wasn't quick, but Diana did eventually drop back into an uneasy slumber. Matthew held her for hours. Each time she sighed against him it was like a tether that anchored him to her presence, an unwitting reassurance that she was still here; sometime around four-thirty her hand slipped under his shirt and came to rest against his considerably colder skin. Even in her sleep, Diana seemed to echo his need for anchoring.

Marthe appeared just after six with a tray of steaming tea and a breakfast plate. Her familiar face was lit with compassion as she looked first at Diana and then at Matthew; he acknowledged her concern with the barest tilt of his head. Diana, still draped over him with one hand stuffed up his shirt, stirred as she woke.

"Marthe." Her voice was rough, rougher than it should have been from just sleep, and Matthew's face transformed into something dangerous.

Marthe was the only one to see it, and she had known of enough of life's horrors to equate it to the same thing Matthew had: screaming.

"Bonjour, Diana." She smiled warmly at the young woman. She gestured at the tray she'd placed on the table. "Tea."

Diana blinked the sleep out of her eyes and then tilted her head back to look at him. Matthew studied her face and then kissed her forehead.

"You can't be comfortable."

"You're mistaken, mon couer. I've never been more comfortable."

Her eyes sparkled at the new endearment, the first sign of happiness she'd shown since her return. Matthew smiled.

Diana wriggled and pushed herself up with halting determination. Matthew braced her with hands on her hips but didn't offer to lift her. When she had managed to push herself to her hands and knees above him, she sat back on her heels slowly and then rubbed a hand over her face.

"What now?" she asked, glancing from Marthe to Matthew.

"Now you eat breakfast," Matthew answered. "And then we'll figure out the rest."

For Matthew, "the rest" was making sure no one got close enough to hurt Diana Bishop ever again. For the rest of his existence – however long that may be – Diana was his; her safety and happiness was chief amongst his concerns, and he'd do whatever was necessary to secure both.

Even if that meant the obliteration of every creature or law that stood in their way.