Hold On Through the Dark
by galindadaae and alliluna
(your mary crawley)
Chapter 1
The fog over the countryside was thick, a gray soup covering the place that Matthew had missed so much. It was almost disappointing to not be able to see everything; after so many long months at the front, all he could see on the train from London to Downton was gray.
The view could have been a nice distraction, although little could be done to keep thoughts from overtaking him. Sleep would have been a good distraction, but everything was too quiet for him to even contemplate closing his eyes. Even with the rumbling of the train beneath him, everything felt eerily silent, as if something was missing.
He should have felt peaceful for the first time in months, but his mind was still on high alert, as if the war would come into the train car every minute. On his last leave, the feeling would not go away for the first few days. He fully expected it to be the same this time.
Matthew took a long look out the window before settling back in his seat and opening up a small piece of paper in his clammy hand. An address.
He had gone to a party hosted by one of university friends on his first night in London. He was not entirely sure why, at the time, except that his ticket for the train to Yorkshire hadn't been until the next morning, and he wanted to do something normal for a change. Something that didn't have to do with family or war. It was a perfectly nice party, subdued but enjoyable. And there he met a girl.
Lavinia Swire sat next to him at dinner. She talked with him for most of the evening, as he discovered that her father was also a lawyer and that they had very similar family experiences growing up. He was very happy to speak of the past as if it wasn't a distant memory of a totally different world. The night almost felt normal. But at the end of the evening, it was clear that Lavinia was far more interested in him than he was in her. She gave him her address and offered to write letters to him at the front. Matthew had not known how to respond; she was sweet, of course, but he was by no means ready to have any sort of relationship. But Lavinia was so kind about it that he couldn't say no. Instead, he stammered uncomfortably something about limited paper, shoved the address in his pocket, and looked at her face once more. Her eyes were so big and pleading, and he couldn't resist saying, "Of course I'll try my best to write back." It was probably a lie, but he could make any number of excuses later on if he ever met her again.
He hoped for her happiness. It just probably wouldn't be with him.
Of course, if Matthew hadn't been in mortal danger at every turn, he probably still would not have yet been ready for a relationship. The brokenness between himself and Mary still stung; two years later, and he had not yet gotten over the way their relationship had ended. After many hours of pondering, he had decided it was his responsibility for their failure; he had pushed her, he had been unwilling to accept that she loved him after she hesitated, he had been too stubborn to even give them a chance together.
And he hadn't spoken to her in two years.
Oh, he had heard plenty about her. Robert would write him letters often, to keep him updated on the happenings at the house, although his letters often danced around the subject of Mary in an obvious attempt at sensitivity. His mother wrote as often as possible, and her letters told him everything that was going on. She did mention Mary, often. Maybe she thought that if he heard about Mary going on with her life, he would better be able to go on with his. No such luck though; instead, Matthew dwelled on every mention of her, rereading the letters over and over again before shoving them into the desk in the dugout to try to avoid the behavior which he knew wasn't helpful at all. Even Sybil wrote him a few letters, although they were mostly about how useless she felt in regards to the war effort. He appreciated it all, but he hated how he scoured the letters for any mention of Mary and how she was doing after what he had regarded to be the hardest fight of his life.
Even after experiencing the Somme, he regarded it the hardest fight of his life.
He had not just heard about Mary from the family, however. The men around him had been very curious about her, and seemed to know more than Matthew did, at least in some respects. "Hey Crawley, you wouldn't happen to know Lady Mary, would you?" one man asked one day.
Matthew froze. He wasn't sure how much he should say. He wasn't even sure why the other man would ask. "She's my cousin," he replied, starting to turn away.
"Ah, so you must know her well."
Matthew shrugged. "Well enough." It wasn't a lie, exactly.
"Oh, then you've got a good perspective on this. Charlie and I've been arguing 'bout it, but do you think she screwed the Turk?"
Matthew frowned. "Excuse me?"
Charlie rolled his eyes. "I told you, Roy, he's not gonna be happy you asked that. I don't think she did it, it's just a stupid rumor going around."
"I've never heard that rumor before," Matthew replied, his voice hesitant. "It doesn't seem like something Mary would do."
"Told you!" Charlie said gleefully.
"Ah, man, that means nothin'! He's just a cousin!" Roy muttered.
"We were engaged, actually," Matthew said, his voice quiet and unobtrusive.
Charlie's eyes widened. "Well, I guess he would know, wouldn't he, Roy?"
"Ah, I doubt he'd know even then. Are you still engaged to her, then?"
"No," Matthew began to walk away.
Roy burst out laughing. "Is it because she screwed the Turk?"
"Damn man, don't be vulgar," Charlie said, elbowing him. (Matthew walked away before he did something he would live to regret.)
Matthew didn't know what to make of the rumors. Would Mary ever do such a thing? He doubted it, but he couldn't be sure. He remembered Kemal Pamuk, and the reckless way Mary had flirted with him, and her quiet devastation when he was found dead the next morning. Yes, Mary had been enamored with him, but not so much as to throw her good reputation away?
He pondered it, but he still didn't know.
And on the train back to Downton, he still had no better idea of whether the rumors were true. They couldn't be true, could they? Or at least not in the form he had heard them told.
He would have to talk to Mary, he realized. Of course, he had already known this; it would be far too awkward to go back to Downton and not talk to her, but he needed to talk to her beyond the quick niceties of societal convention.
Otherwise, he might never know.
Death had been on his mind often, but pushed to the back, like something far in the future but also far closer than ever imagined. And he knew, oh he knew so well, that he could die when he went back to the front. He had seen so much of it already, it only seemed natural that it would come to him next.
He had come to peace with it, of sorts. He knew his mother would be provided for. Downton might struggle again, but Robert would find a way. He wasn't leaving too much unfinished business behind.
But Mary? He couldn't die without making things right with her.
He had to know.
Mary's feet stepped down onto the platform of the Downton Village train station. She raised her head and took a breath. She was home.
London had been nice, she supposed, but the parties and social gatherings dwindled in the midst of the war. As a city that to her had always been a means of escape and distraction, her escapades had been rather dull indeed. And with nothing exciting happening in London, what was to distract her thoughts from the fact that her- well, not her Matthew being at war in a foreign country?
She got into the car waiting for her, and despite wanting to put her head in her hand due to sheer exhaustion, she looked out the window and tried to force herself to become interested in her surroundings. The fog was distorting most of the landscape, but the streets of Downton Village were still in view.
Mary looked away as they passed Crawley House. Instead she fiddled with her handbag as the car turned onto the Abbey's long and winding driveway. The car stopped and as she was greeted by the faces of her mother and sisters, she couldn't help but feel a pang at a face that was missing. Missing since the fall of 1914, be exact. A face that could have been her husband if she hadn't selfishly delighted in his love for as long she could before the inevitability of her ruin also ruined them.
She was home. Matthew was at war. And her facade of indifference was once more schooled on her face with her family surrounding her as she walked inside, asking how she had been and what the latest news coming from London was.
Mary rolled her eyes when her mother asked if she had met anyone significant in the city, and smiled at Sybil who was telling her how much the family had missed her. She climbed the stairs as quickly as she could and closed her bedroom door behind her. She took a deep breath, sighed, and sat on her bed.
Later that evening, as she was finishing readying herself for dinner, her mother and sisters had invited themselves into her room under the guise of catching her up on family news when truly, they wanted to hear of how things were in the city.
"Glad to be back?" Sybil inquired kindly.
"I'm never sure," Mary responded. No matter where she went, her worry of Matthew would follow her. "I'd forgotten about this nightmare of a concert. Why didn't any of you warn me? I'd have come back later."
Edith smiled slightly. "But you'd have missed Matthew."
"What?" Mary's head whipped around to meet her mother's eyes, asking for clarification.
Cora hesitated, then spoke carefully. "Matthew's on leave and he's in the village, so your Papa and I thought it would be a good time to mend our fences. He's coming with Isobel."
"Tonight," Edith added, just a touch too gleefully. Mary, in contrast, was frozen. She had no idea what to think. As long as Matthew was away, she could internally indulge herself in her love for him and try to forget all the bitterness that had driven them away from each other. With his return, she could no longer try to pretend all the hurt that occurred between them was in the past.
She finally spoke. "Well, how marvelous." A smile brightened her features, but everyone could tell it was fake. "You all don't have to worry about me. I'm perfectly fine. It will be nice to see Matthew after such a long time."
"I wonder why he's stayed so far away…" Edith pretended to ponder.
"Stop asking stupid questions, Edith. It doesn't suit you." Mary gestured for Anna to give her her gloves. "Don't mind me. You can all go down. I'll join you in a minute."
Everyone began to leave, including Anna, who gave Mary's shoulder a slight touch of reassurance. Even if her family couldn't understand, Mary could always count on Anna to comfort her.
She put her face in her gloved hands as she sat at the vanity, distraught. She certainly was not ready for Matthew to see her once more. How would she be able to handle him looking at her with such disdain? She couldn't blame him, she had treated him terribly, and without concern for his feelings.
Edith would say during that hot summer day in 1914 Mary had gotten her comeuppance, and for once Mary would not disagree with her younger sister. But still, she could try to make things right. She would be kind to Matthew, and would not let on the depth of her personal turmoil due to the mistakes she had made. He was home from the war, and how marvelous the thought!
She would be his friend and cousin, no more. Mary lifted her face to the mirror, her eyes set rather determinedly, and took a sharp breath of air before standing up from her vanity and heading downstairs.
To wait for the man she loved to arrive.
He remembered when he first came to Downton; he remembered how large and imposing the house had seemed, how frightening the future was as it stretched out ahead of him like the long drive of Downton the car was rattling down.
Now his biggest fear was not having a future at all.
Isobel's hand was on his knee as they sat in silence on the drive, simply trying to be reassuring. It was, in a sense at least, insofar as he could be reassured.
As the castle came into view, Matthew pressed his lips together and took a deep breath, preparing himself for the time ahead. It was just a concert. It was just a concert and a dinner. Who cared if Mary was there? She was just his cousin, his friend, his…
Of course he cared that Mary was there, who was he kidding? And it mattered tonight. He only had a few days at home; he would have to make the most of it.
The journey home from the front had seemed both so long and so short; Matthew felt miles away from the front as he stepped into the grand hall at Downton, but the memories of where he had been a mere thirty-six hours before still remained at the forefront of his mind. He stood behind his mother and gazed around the hall, as if he were seeing it for the first time again. Everything seemed so clean, so new, so different than his life was; he felt out of place.
His gaze finally settled on the one he'd been thinking about for so long.
Mary.
She looked as beautiful as ever, elegant and composed, but she didn't look happy. Matthew couldn't quite tell if his heart was sinking or beating a little faster at this idea. Of course, he wanted her to be happy… but he wanted her to be happy with him. Not that he would admit that, not even to himself.
He watched as she put on a smile when talking to a guest at the concert. He could tell that it was forced, and yet it looked perfectly natural. But he knew her, and he knew she was not happy.
When she turned away from her conversation and noticed him, standing in the middle of the great hall completely inattentive to anything around him, her jaw dropped ever so slightly, but just enough so that he noticed it. Their eyes met, and unconsciously, they moved toward each other.
Her voice was so soft as she came up to him that he almost didn't hear it. What could she say to start off a conversation after what they had left each other with two long years ago. "Hello," she said simply. No other words would suffice, really.
He gazed at her, his eyes wide, drinking in the beautiful woman that he had loved for so long, that he was utterly unable to forget. "Hello…" he replied. It seemed such an inane thing to say, but at the same time, it was perfectly true. She was glowing, her beauty perhaps even more enchanting than it had been when they had fought. It must be, he reasoned, for how could he have justified leaving her when this much love pulsed through him?
"It's been such a long time, I'm not sure what to say," she said, touching a hand to his arm, saying exactly what he was feeling. Electricity flowed between them, although they were not quite able to meet each other's eyes. Not yet.
"I'm…" he started, his voice catching in his throat. "I'm glad to see you looking so well."
She laughed, and with that glorious sound, all seemed right. "Alright, you win, we are at peace again," she said, smiling and placing her other hand on his arm. A gesture of friendship, he reminded himself, of renewed friendship and nothing more.
"When so much of this world is caught up in war, we ought to have a little peace somewhere," he joked, although he didn't feel the humor.
Mary didn't really laugh, but she offered an indulgent smile. "I agree. Well, the concert's about to start, we'd best get seated."
Matthew nodded, barely conscious of what she was saying.
He ended up seated next to Sybil during the concert, which he enjoyed as Sybil would make very clever comments about the music. But halfway through the concert, he is too overwhelmed by a thought on his mind to listen in silence. "Sybil," he whispered, as the music soared to cover their conversation, "Do you have any idea how the seating might be arranged? For dinner?"
Sybil shrugged. "I could go check and see, why?"
"Oh, I was… just hoping I could speak with Mary. But if you don't…"
Sybil was already halfway out of her seat. "I could go switch the placecards. There's so many more people attending than usual tonight that Mama would barely notice and if she did, she'd be too polite to comment," she whispered. "I'll go do that." She slipped quietly out of the row and ran off.
When she came back, half breathless and grinning furiously, Matthew pressed his hand into hers. "You're a good woman, Sybil."
"Always happy to engage in a bit of mischief for a good cause," Sybil replied. "The swap had the added benefit of me not being next to Larry Grey, which is always nice," she murmured under her breath, casting a disapproving glance across the room to the man in question.
The concert ended without Matthew having really listened to it, as his thoughts had been too occupied with the dinner ahead. The clapping was quiet, polite, and such an odd outburst of noise compared to what he has been used to. The sound seemed to follow him as they entered the dining room and sit down to eat dinner.
He watched as Mary sat down, and he sat down next to her, glancing across the table to see if anyone has noticed the slightly odd seating arrangement. Cora looked across the table with an indistinct frown, but just as Sybil had predicted, she said nothing. Mary blinked quickly, looking down at her first course, and turned to smile at Matthew. "I'm surprised Mama would seat us together," she said softly.
"I can't say I'm disappointed," Matthew replied, surprised at his own boldness.
"No," she murmured, looking down at her lap. "It's been so long I… I can't imagine you feel the same way about things as you did then."
Matthew shook his head. "The war has changed my perspective on things, that's for certain."
"What's it been like?" Mary asked, for a second not quite poised, but full of sympathy and fear.
Noise. Fear. A heart that won't stop beating at an unsustainable rate. Explosions. Blood. Mud. Cold. Death. But he couldn't talk about any of those. Mary didn't need to know, and he couldn't articulate it. He licked his lips and tried to focus his wandering, haunted eyes. "You know, the thing is, I just can't talk about it."
Mary didn't show much emotion, but her eyes softened ever so slightly as she nodded and attempted to smile. "Have you missed us?"
"What do you think?" he replied. "Of course, and I feel like I have so much to catch up on with you. I've… I've found things over the past two years that make me think of you. Um… like a book I read on the train home, I thought you might like. Would you… come to the library after dinner so I could show it to you?" His tongue stumbled over the lie, his hands nervously grasping at his knees.
Mary could tell he was up to something instantly. "Couldn't you show it to me in the drawing room?"
"No… no, I couldn't," he said, his eyes desperately searching for a reason. But he could not find one, so instead he met her gaze and silently begged her to accept his reasoning.
"I guess the library's as good a place as any to discuss a book," Mary said, trying to keep herself from laughing at Matthew's sweet nervousness. He was not being wholly truthful, but she was certain he would reveal his real intent once they were alone together. And if she was honest with herself, she wanted to be alone with him. Maybe they could make things right.
Their conversation throughout the rest of the dinner was light, far away from war, far away from their relationship, far away from anything that might make them uncomfortable. But the shadow of the future hung over them, and as the last course was cleared away, they shared a significant glance. Mary made some excuse that was significantly more believable than Matthew's, and together they walked to the library.
Please review! Alli and I have worked very hard to plan out this entire fic's plot, and we will write when we can. We love this universe and hopefully will stay very inspired. Thanks!