A/N: This is the first continuation chapter of my original one-shot, "Stolen". At this point, I honestly don't have a coherent plot in mind. I've changed the title to "The Years of Our Lives", inspired by the classic film, "The Best Years of Our Lives". As I said in the description, this will probably become a long-term project of mine and involve snippet scenes of many fictional years. Still confused? Think "One Day" by David Nicholls...but not really. =)


Still August.

It was always the same memory that haunted his dreams, distorted and made more terrible by the deepest of sleep. It was the night of Boxing Day, more than a year ago, driving home from the Crawleys' mansion in Yorkshire—slippery highway paved with nothing but ice; cold, biting winds that whistled an eerie tune through the car windows lined with frost; squeaking windshield wipers that couldn't keep up with the snow and hail balls beating down around him; Lavinia sitting beside him in the passenger seat.

Even in the haziness of a dream, her face was pale like the falling snow and her eyes were colder than any measurable temperature. Their mutual silence was louder than the roar of passing cars and the jocular, childish Christmas tunes blaring on the radio.

Her figure loomed out, darker and more terrible than ever, in his mind. She slapped her hand on radio's power button, forcing complete silence upon them. "Don't pretend, Matthew," she said.

His grip on the steering wheel wavered, making the car snap back and forth for a split second. "Pretend what?"

"You know damn well what." Her words fell like stones. "You're still in love with her."

Matthew looked ahead adamantly, forcing himself to focus on the road.

She laughed bitterly, maniacally. "It's not that hard to believe, is it? You've known each other for so long, you know everything about each other, you're both attractive enough to be models and smart as hell. No wonder you'd pick her over me…How could I even begin to compete?"

"I didn't pick her, Lavinia." Matthew's temper rose. "I don't—"

"Listen to yourself. An idiot could tell you're lying." Her anger seemed to give way to sadness as she broke into hysterical sobs. "But you're engaged to me. Don't I have a right to be jealous?"

"That's right! You're my fiancé, not Mary. I've told you that I love you, and we're going to get married. Nothing's going to change that."

The only warmth in the car came from the heat of their angry words.

"Stop the car," Lavinia said abruptly.

"This is the middle of a highway."

"There's an exit coming up. See the sign?"

"No, we have to get home. I'm not going out that exit to God knows where."

"Fine. Put on the lights and pull over."

"You're being unreasonable. You've had too much to drink."

"No, I haven't. Bear left and get to the exit. I can't sit in the same car as you any longer." She groped for the steering wheel in near darkness.

"Lavinia, don't." Matthew kept one hand on the wheel and used the other to pry her hand away.

She grabbed his cheek with her free hand, forcing him to look her in the eye. "Don't. Tell me what to do." Her hand hit the steering wheel and Matthew looked ahead as everything started spinning.

"Stop the car!" she shrieked.

"Lavinia!"

"Matthew!"

Her screams turned into laughter and back into screams.

Matthew closed his eyes as his head hit the side of the car. "Oh, bloody bloody hell—" All that floated in his mind now was a clamor of scraping, screeching—a mosaic of darkness that beat his body until a deathly silence took over, bringing with it a background of pure, blinding white.

A disembodied voice rang out through the haze. "You've done it now. You've killed her."

"Is she really d—"

"Dead."

"But it wasn't me. I didn't—"

"If not you, who else?" The voice was cruel and biting.

All of a sudden, he was arguing with the voice, and a hand reached out, grabbing him around the neck and strangling him, squeezing the air out of his lungs— "No, no, no," he sputtered, gasping for air.

Mathew was waking now and thrashing on the backseat of Mrs. Levinson's black Lincoln.

"Matthew, are you alright?" Mary's voice cut through the monochrome of the hospital room in his dream. Even as he woke up, Matthew could still smell the pungent cleanness of the ward, a scent that boded only emptiness. "No, no…"

"Matthew, it's me, Mary."

He opened his eyes and squinted up at her. His gaze sharpened and he realized that what had just seemed so real and terrible was no longer. "Mary, I…sorry…" He shook his head, foregoing any explanation.

She squeezed his hand. "Bad dream." It wasn't a question.

Matthew nodded but said nothing.

"You fell asleep somewhere in New Haven, and we're nearly to the Holland Tunnel now."

"Goodness. I guess I was tired from the party last night."

"Well, I figured I'd have plenty of time to sleep on the plane tomorrow."

"Good plan."

She smiled nervously, resting her hand on his arm. Matthew could tell, from the odd expression on her face, that she guessed the horror he awoke from; there could be no doubt of it. That car crash had killed Lavinia, and Matthew had told Mary everything afterwards: Lavinia's bitterness and jealousy, their argument, the jagged ice that set the car hurtling out of the highway…Mary had wept and together, they knew it was their guilt. Though it had happened more than a year ago, the memory still haunted them both, and Matthew began to think that their reconciliation last night was merely a moment of euphoria, a respite brought on by liberal amounts of champagne and summer's chafing heat.

Mary leaned against him. "Do you mind?"

Matthew shook his head and brought his arm around her shoulder. They sat quietly like this, feeling a mutual warmth, but thinking stray thoughts unknown to the other. Matthew looked out the window, afraid to close his eyes for fear of seeing Lavinia's pallid face, her forehead and cheeks scarred with jagged cuts—jagged cuts like the hailstones that beat on the window that night—Matthew caught his eyelids drifting together and forced himself to look outside at the billboards that grew more and more numerous as the car got closer to the city. They had passed through the Holland Tunnel already.

"Don't miss the Broadway Revival of Phantom of the Opera—Get your tickets today!" screamed one billboard. Another flashed, "Memphis: A New Musical—Listen to your soul!" The noise and the flamboyant colors reminded him that he would have to return to London soon, a city much greyer but even more self-important, in his view, than New York.

Mary's voice cut into his thoughts again. "I've never actually seen a real Broadway show."

"No, me neither. I've never been in New York long enough to go to one."

"I suspect West End shows just aren't the same."

Matthew shrugged. "I don't think there's supposed to be much of a difference."

"It's just brilliant to think that these geniuses—Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter and Sondheim—that they lived and breathed the air here," Mary said with a wistful look of awe.

"What? You've never met them? Do you mean to say your father hasn't managed to invite them to one of his corporate charity parties?"

Mary smiled, rolling her eyes. "Seeing an actual Broadway show is the closest I'll get!"

"When does your flight leave?"

"Not until tomorrow morning."

"Well, I was just thinking, perhaps we can go to a show tonight, if you're up for it."

"Really? I'd love that!"

"We can argue over the show once we get to the ticket booths, alright?"

She laughed and leaned back onto his chest.

Matthew fell silent. In truth, he would prefer the noise and vicarious emotion of a musical to his own thoughts and misgivings that ran rampant in his mind. When they got to the hotel (Hilton Garden Inn on Sixth Avenue) that Mrs. Levinson had reserved for them, would they keep their two rooms, or would they drink a few extra glasses of wine with dinner and stumble, half-awake and embracing, into the same room? As much as he wanted to, Matthew could still hear Lavinia's cold, self-pitying voice, "What have you done, Matthew Crawley?"

They arrived now as the driver stopped the car by the front door. They got out, stretching and yawning. It was nearly noon, and they had been sitting for more than three hours. A bellboy came to take their luggage.

Mary motioned the driver to roll down his window. "John, thank you so much for driving us down."

"It's my job."

"Well, it was quite a drive. Have a safe trip back."

"And you too, back to England." He put his sunglasses on and waved to Mary as he drove away.

Mary turned to Matthew. "Grandma wanted to book us for the Waldorf Astoria, but I didn't see the point."

"Thank God she didn't."

"Why? It's not like you'd have to pay for it."

"I haven't been around 'your people' for a while now. I'd feel a bit out of place."

"They all miss you terribly," Mary joked. "Every time they ask about you, they're always in tears."

Matthew laughed as they followed the bellboy into the lobby.

Mary unzipped her handbag, taking out her purse. "Grandma absolutely insists on paying for both of us, so don't argue."

"I'll remember to thank her."

She smiled. "We can check in now, rest up for a bit, have lunch, and wander off to Broadway before it gets dark?"

"Do you think we can actually get tickets? Most people book weeks before an actual show."

Mary waved her credit card. "It's all on Grandma. I'm sure we could find some outrageously expensive scalper tickets."

After they checked in, the elevator took them to the fifteenth floor, where their adjacent rooms overlooked the shorter skyscrapers of Sixth Avenue.

"Half an hour?" Mary said, glancing at her watch and swiping her key card on the door.

Matthew nodded. "See you then."

They lunched at a little restaurant with a long Italian name a couple of blocks away. Mary claimed to have eaten there as a child when she came to New York with her parents on business trips. Matthew reluctantly allowed her to pay for everything with Mrs. Levinson's limitless credit card. Now that they had a purpose and a destination, conversation was easy and, ironically, aimless. After lunch, they began walking towards Broadway, which was a little more than a mile away: "Much better to walk," Mary had said.

"I'll bet you want to see West Side Story," said Matthew, as they weaved through throngs of people and taxis.

"No, I've seen that at the West End. Twice."

"Chicago, then."

"Wrong again!"

"Evita?"

"Not a bad guess," Mary smiled. "If I tell you, you must promise not to laugh at me."

"The Lion King."

Mary shook her head. "Beauty and the Beast," she said, laughing already.

Matthew chuckled. "Really? Why?"

"You promised not to laugh!"

"You're laughing."

"It's rather a childhood favorite of mine. I absolutely dreamed of becoming a Disney princess, and I suppose Belle was my ideal."

"I don't think I've seen it since my preschool days."

Marry grinned. "Come on, what would you pick? Something much more high-brow, no doubt."

"Well, I didn't really think about it, since I was going to let you decide."

"Always the gentleman, aren't we?"

Matthew smirked. "Hardly. Until you get back to London, we're still celebrating your graduation and your future ventures to do great things."

"Oh, stop it," Mary rolled her eyes. "Beauty and the Beast, then? No arguments?"

"Not one!" Matthew pointed ahead at a elephantine billboard advertisement for the "Beauty and the Beast" box office. "We should try over there."

They walked over together, Mary brandishing her grandmother's credit card and Matthew grinning at their childish happiness. And yet, why did he still feel so uneasy?

When they exited the theater three hours later, Mary was smiling through joyful tears. Half a moon began to fade into its place on the darkening sky lit with city lights and stray stars.

"Don't lie, Matthew. You were about to cry when Gaston and his gang wanted to take Belle's old father away to the asylum."

Matthew smiled but didn't acknowledge her statement. "It was wonderfully acted," he said.

"The music—Don't you just love Broadway music?"

"Favorite song?"

"The last one, definitely the last one."

"The love song…of course."

"You know, it's the feeling of being able to watch something and know that everything is exactly the way it should be, that the sad bits won't matter by the end because everything always turns out right. If only…Well, never mind."

If only life were like that, Matthew thought, finishing her thought silently. He pulled out his cellphone to check the time. "It's barely five o'clock. Where do you want to go?"

"We could go anywhere. That's what I love about big cities. Everything is literally within walking distance."

"Come on then, which of the usual tourist attractions is it? Central Park? Time Square? Rockefeller Center?"

Mary craned her head at all the looming skyscrapers. "I'd much rather take a stroll down Greenwich Village, or somewhere quaint, and maybe stop to have a quiet dinner. Not very exciting, I know."

"Shall we?" Matthew smiled and offered her his arm; like a gentleman of the early 20th century would do, he mused.

She took it and they started walking aimlessly ahead.

Matthew felt more at ease with her in the midst of a million other people. "What's the official plan for Oxford?"

"Not much, only writing, studying, being asked if my family owns Crawley's, and then getting snubbed by everyone who thinks I bought my way in."

"I bet they won't once they find out you're a Rhodes scholar."

"Then they'll just hate me more."

"When I first found out we were going to Uni together, that's how I felt, too, and then—"

"—You were thrilled when I transferred to Brown."

Matthew laughed. "If that's what you want to believe."

They now came to a small restaurant not unlike the one where they had lunch earlier. In fact, Matthew thought that most of the non-chain restaurants in New York had the same aura—an air of self-proclaimed uniqueness and a will to stand out with mellow lights and a sophisticated, brooding attitude. This particular restaurant was called Northern Lights, as heralded by a sweeping, brush-scripted plaque.

"Odd name for a restaurant," Mary remarked.

"I wonder if it feels like Antarctica inside." Matthew held the door open for her.

They were ushered into a fashionably dark, yellow-lighted corner. The waiter explained that the name "Northern Lights" came from the different shades of lighting used throughout the restaurant. "Like the real northern lights, you know?" he said, gesticulating.

After a few minutes, the waiter came back to take their orders.

"Oysters Rockefeller for the appetizer? Both? Alrighty. And the main course? Sir? Okay, Atlantic salmon...and you, ma'am? Yes, the hearts of lettuce are very much in season, and the Venetian chicken? Fine, fine…And what to drink?"

"The Cabernet."

"The Chardonnay."

They had spoken at the same time.

The waiter smiled. "Which one is it?"

"Both." Mary winked at Matthew. "It's on Grandma."

"I would warn you that I get drunk easily, but you know that already," said Mary, as the waiter walked away.

Matthew grinned. "These odd Brits with their funny accents, he must be thinking."

"Americans adore us."

The waiter came back to deliver their two bottles and two accompanying wine glasses. "Enjoy," he said, setting them down with a clink.

"Start with the white?" Matthew opened the bottle of Chardonnay and poured two glass-fulls.

Mary picked up her glass and rested it before her lips. "A toast?"

"To Mary Crawley and her big, brilliant future—"

"Oh, come on, you can do better than stealing lines from my grandmothers."

Matthew sighed in feigned exasperation. "To scholarship and academia; insert Latin motto here—"

"Stop it."

He paused for a moment before raising his glass. "To life, and whatever it may bring us."

"Much better. I'll drink to that."

Neither of them had a great tolerance for alcohol, and after nearly a bottle each, they felt comfortably light-headed, slurringly sentimental, and intellectual to the point of intoxication.

"What are we, really?" asked Matthew, as though speaking to an oracle.

"What are we? Gods? Lovers? Philosophers?"

"Fools. To be reincarnated into cows."

They laughed.

"Hardly well-suited," said Mary.

"I still hate you sometimes."

"And I, you."

"We're a complication," said Matthew.

"An entanglement."

"A badly written sequel."

"A spilt glass of wine."

They laughed again.

"What if we lived here, you know, in New York? The city of dreams paved with golden streets—"

"It hasn't been since 1890."

"Do you ever think, Mary, what it would be like to live somewhere where nobody knew anything about us?"

"Isn't that what everyone says at some point in their lives?"

"Everyone says it because it's true at some point in their lives."

"Actually, yes, I do." Mary sipped more wine, tilting her head, which had already become dizzy with drink.

"It's the past that haunts us, Mary. And we can't get over it because everyone around us knows."

They were no longer eating and there was no longer any semblance of reserve between them. They spoke freely, too freely, not like prospective lovers, but like solitary hearts seeking any commiserating listener.

"I know," echoed Mary. "You've got the ghost of Lavinia Swire, and I've got the ghost—well, not the ghost, not really—of Richard Carlisle—Sir Richard Carlisle…he got knighted…"

"Terrible, what happened to Lavinia. Thank God I'm moving to London. Soon. I can't even drive a car without wanting to hit myself."

"And don't think for a moment I don't blame myself."

Matthew put his glass down. "Why the hell is it we always end up talking about this?"

"We're drunk, aren't we?"

Somehow, hey stumbled back to the hotel after a dinner of mostly wine. Coming out of the elevator, Mary grabbed Matthew's wrist. "Stay with me," she mumbled.

Matthew, bleary-eyed and staggering, let Mary drag him to her room, and watched as she fumbled to find her key. As she went to insert her key into the doorknob, Matthew laid his hand on top of hers. "Mary…no, this isn't, it's not right…"

"I know," she slurred, standing on tiptoes and bringing her face closer to his. "Please, for once, let's pretend we're both too drunk to be rational," she whispered.

That moment was their moment of clarity. It soon passed.

Matthew's pounding heart and sluggish brain got the better of him as he placed his trembling hands against her collarbone and kissed her urgently, passionately.

"Just pretending." Mary's voice trailed as she pressed down on the doorknob and they staggered together for a few steps before tumbling onto the bed.

Words soon became as useless as the clothes they threw on the floor. They weren't really drunk; intoxication was merely a semblance for this deep, irrational longing. Matthew abandoned all rationality when he let his hands roam freely along the protruding, almost jagged lines of her neck, her ribcage, her waist…Her short ragged breaths fell on his skin like hot coals, burning his insides, charring his fingertips. They clung to each other tightly, as though this moment of delirium would be their last. Yet, the night was still young…

When he woke the next morning, Matthew found himself tangled within several layers of sheets, lying eagle-spread and very much alone on the King-size bed. Wincing at the rhythmic throbbing in his temple, he rolled over and squinted at the alarm clock: 7 AM. He glanced at the other side of the bed, where Mary had lain before. The pillow retained a fresh indent of her head, and a few stray brown hairs had fallen onto the sheets. Matthew stood up, but sat back down on the edge of the bed when a blinding blackness ricocheted through his head. He tried not to think as he glimpsed his naked body in the mirror.

Matthew saw a half-crumpled sheet of Hilton writing paper lying on the desk by the windows. Walking over and unfurling it, he could see that it was Mary's handwriting.

Darling Matthew, life isn't a Broadway musical. –M

"I know," Matthew whispered to no one, letting the note fall on the floor beside him. He looked out the window at the sunrise city, seeing the tiny yellow taxis below, wondering which backseat she sat in and where she was headed.