This is my first time writing a fanfic (be gentle with me), so thankyou to everyone who is following along so far. I hope you are all enjoying my version of how things went down on Reign. I'm having a lot of fun paying homage to these characters and I hope I do them justice, but obviously I didn't create them and I fully acknowledge they don't belong to me. I'll try and post a new chapter every couple of days for those who are interested. I appreciate any comments!

Needless to say, any possibility of enjoying my evening vanishes out the door with Bash, and I become a terrible fidget. Up and down and back and forth, my eyes darting about the room, I am completely incapable of holding a conversation for more than few minutes. I shift in my seat or on my feet, my hands twisting at napkins and tablecloths and my skirts. People are beginning to notice. Francis is beginning to notice.

'Is something the matter?' he murmurs, his cool hand pressing at the small of my back, anchoring me with enough pressure to convey a clear message: stop pacing.

'Yes, actually, I'm afraid I'm feeling ill.' It's not even a lie. My hands are trembling.

'The feast is not for another hour. Perhaps you should go and lie down awhile,' he suggests, his breath tickling my ear. I frown at the words, forgetting for a moment that I really would like to be excused, instead remembering all the nights in Italy I was sent to bed alone. You go on up, I'll follow a little later.

'I think I will,' I say coldly. 'Would you please let my ladies know?' I move away without waiting for his reply, headed quickly for the door before anyone has a chance to stop me and reaching the corridor beyond with relief. Still moving quickly, I head in no particular direction, following a breath of cool night air and relishing in being unobserved. I let myself feel now what I had been trying so miserably to hide, let it settle into my expression and the stoop of my shoulders. I am undoubtedly shaken; as much as I had dreaded seeing Sebastian tonight, I never truly expected that I would. What on earth is he still doing at court, after everything that happened?

Coming back to myself, I realise I am about to reach the gallery that usually serves as my vantage point for watching fireworks. I quicken my pace, seduced by the promise of night air unimpeded by stone, dreaming of a cold breeze on my fevered skin. When I round the corner I see him and stop. Everything inside me loses its balance, teetering like a dozen spinning tops losing momentum, the overall effect being one of vertigo and nausea. He is leaning on the balustrade, elbows resting against stone, the lines of his body curving toward the stars as he watches them with a look of suffering that makes me wonder what he sees up there. The urge to touch him surges within me, overbalancing the spinning tops and causing them to finally fall. I lean against the doorframe, my knees weak with the agony of the moonlight on his skin and the way it falls over him in a play of silver and smoky shadow.

It may be a change in my breathing that gives me away, a sudden gasp for air after a moment of suspended breath, but his body stiffens with awareness and he turns to look at me, pushing away from the stone and stowing away the suffering on his face. He smiles suavely, his cheeks dimpling beneath a layer of stubble, and bows, eyes fixed on mine.

'Your grace.'

With all the discipline and stillness I have learned from a childhood spent in a nunnery, I pull myself together and straighten my back.

'Good evening, Sebastian. Beautiful night, isn't it?'

'Very.'

'Are you planning on watching the fireworks?'

'Perhaps. I'm sure you'll have some romantic vantage point from which to watch them with my brother.'

The blood I worked so hard to divert away from my cheeks returns and I quickly glance down, but not before I see a grim smile that tells me the moonlight has given me away.

'Well I hope you enjoy yourself, now if you'll excuse me-'

'Bash wait.' I reach out without thought, my arm extending, my hand drawn to him as though to magnetic north. My fingers brush the soft hair of his arm before I catch myself and drop my hand back to my side, my skin tingling. He halts at my touch and watches me expectantly, but I can't think of what I had planned on saying next.

'Did you enjoy your honeymoon?' he asks abruptly, moving back a step, taking himself beyond my reach. As he should be.

'I did, thank you. Italy is very diverting.' I do not want to talk about my honeymoon.

'And Francis, he is everything you expected him to be?'

'Yes, of course. He is a good man.' It is requiring more discipline than I have to keep from squirming, like a child being chastised.

'Excellent. I actually have some business to attend to, so if that is all-'

'Why are you here?' I blurt out, and he flinches. 'Not that I don't want you here,' I continue hastily, 'you're my husband's brother. But I would have thought that, after everything that happened, you would leave court.'

'This is my home, your Grace,' he replies simply, quietly.

'I'm sorry, Bash,' I say just as quietly. 'You've been such a good friend to me, and I'm sorry for everything that happened. I hope that we can forget about it and start afresh.'

Something flashes across his face, like lightning on the horizon heralding an approaching storm. 'That's all I am to you, isn't it? To you, to the whole court. Something to forget. An illegitimate son whose existence is condemned, who will fade from the face of history because the powers that be wish it so. Well Mary-,' he grasps me by the shoulders before I can back away and holds me still as he brings his face within an inch of mine, '-what if I don't want to be forgotten?'

'What are you saying?' I gasp, a shiver of fear brushing my spine. He holds me for a heartbeat, and then lets me go, looking back out over the balustrade.

'Nothing. Don't you go worrying, I'm leaving in the morning. I wish nothing but happiness for both you and Francis. Truly.'

When he turns to leave I want to stop him, but instead I let him go. His receding footsteps on the stone beat against my eardrums, and he takes the fevered heat from my flesh with him. I begin to tremble and I wrap my arms around myself, squeezing tightly as I lean against the wall, wishing I hadn't seen him, frantic at the thought of not seeing him again, of leaving things between us as they are, unresolved. All the touches shared between us, every glance, every kiss, every cautious hope, he can't possibly stay at the castle anymore. The feelings that I've never named will surface every time I look at him, growing despite my every effort to suffocate them, becoming more dangerous with every moment until they are out of my control.

I will go to bed, get some rest, start the new day with my focus where it ought to be, on my husband and my country. I will think of him tonight, but then never again. When he leaves the castle these feelings can go with him.

Francis

I thought that I had won, you know. I thought that after our wedding I would pick her up and whisk her off into the sunset to somewhere too beautiful for sadness, where I would kiss her white skin until she quivered and everything but my name was swept from her mind. My wife, my Queen, my love, my Mary, why does she turn her face from me? Why does she roll over in the night, curling into herself and leaving me the smooth expanse of her back?

She is so nervous tonight. She wrings her hands and taps her feet, her eyes full of that same faraway expression I have seen so often these past two months, during a time when I should have been granted her full attention. I have held women in the palm of my hand, captivated and entirely in my power, ready to surrender to me everything that they are. I know what it looks like when a world shifts and reorientates itself to find me at its centre. That's how I know that Mary is not entirely mine.

Her ladies know something is wrong, too. I can see them glancing at her from around the room, and Lola hovers around her, never far away, bringing food and refreshments that Mary doesn't touch, dabbing at her neck with a damp cloth. Sweet, compassionate Lola, she glances at me, too, her eyes shy, her smile timid, just asking to be taken from behind as she bends over a chair. She was so kind, so gentle that night we spent together. So eager to be loved.

'Be frank with me, son, are there any heirs on the horizon?' Kind Henry claps an arm around my shoulders in a semblance of fatherly affection.

'Not just yet, father. We've only been married two months.'

'Your honeymoon was as expensive investment, Francis, one that I expected would return an heir to the thrones of France and Scotland. And potentially England.' His breath is heavy with wine, but I know better than to think it's just the drink talking. The ability to hold one's liquor is essential for any king.

'I know, and it will happen, but these things take time.'

'Good man. I'm glad that you're aware of your obligations. I got a little worried that your mind wasn't on impregnating your wife when I saw you making eyes at her lady-in-waiting over there.' He said it in an offhand way, and for some reason that made me angrier.

'Like you're one to talk,' I snap.

'When you already have three heirs to your name you can do as you wish. Until then, I suggest you pay some attention to your wife. She doesn't look well.'

My father has a habit of sweeping in, provoking me, and then moving on before I can even formulate a reply. He demonstrates this now, already halfway across the room and deep in discussion with someone else before I know the conversation is over, leaving me quietly fuming. But he is right; Mary doesn't look well, and if the king has perceived it, others will have too.

'Is something the matter?' I ask when I reach her where she is pacing by the wall. I put a hand to her back, bidding her to stop. She does stop, and even looks at me, but I feel translucent to her.

'Yes, actually, I'm afraid I'm feeling ill.' Her skin is flushed, her eyes feverishly bright. Perhaps she really is ill.

With a sudden feeling of compassion, I lean in and speak softly to her. 'The feast is not for another hour. Perhaps you should go and lie down awhile.'

Her lips purse together and her jaw tightens, like she's clenching her teeth. Not the reaction I was hoping for.

'I think I will. Would you please let my ladies know?'

'Of course. Anything,' I reply to the back of her head as she walks away, her skirts swishing with her pace, the hips beneath them swaying from side to side. There is a stirring within me as I watch her hips, but I quash it immediately. My company is obviously not wanted tonight. Lola approaches me with two glasses in hand, her eyes darting about the room.

'Mary has gone to her room to rest before the feast,' I explain, taking one of the glasses and taking a long, deep drink.

'Of course, she must be so tired after such a long trip home. You must be too.' She blushes and glances down at her feet, her hair falling about her face like waves lapping at a sandy shore.

'I am, but duty calls. How have you been? It must have been something of a relief, to be left at court with no queen to attend.' I smile warmly at her, and she smiles immediately in return.

'It has been… quiet. But I'm glad you've returned. It's just a shame about Mary, I knew she would get a shock seeing Bash here tonight, and I did warn him-'

'Sebastian is here?' The blood drains from her face as my own begins to pound in my head.

'You didn't know?'

'Why is he here? He should have buried himself in the deepest, darkest corner of Europe,' I growl through gritted teeth as I turn to storm through the room, anger in my steps, a roaring in my ears.

Lola grasps at my sleeve, hurrying along behind me. 'Where are you going? What are you going to do?'

'I'm going to find my father.'