A/N: Last update. I still don't own Reign. Side note: It really interrupts the flow of typing when a character has an accent mark on their name and you have to keep stopping to reach alt +130 to get that character.

Leith had brought Mary to the chambers she used to share with Francis and then went to find the king. As the two walked swiftly up the corridor to get to Mary, he questioned Leith about what had happened. "How did this happen, exactly?"

Leith seemed concerned for his own safety and for his position within the castle. He had killed a foreign diplomat, even though said diplomat was in a dungeon. "He lunged at the Queen, your Grace. He started to choke her and kiss her at the same time. I pulled out my dagger and stabbed him through the back of the neck. It seemed to be the best place to not risk hitting the queen but to also get him to stop immediately. I escorted the queen to your chambers and left to find you."

Leith finished his story as they neared the doors. "You needn't be so concerned. The only reason for me to be upset by you killing that man is that I didn't get to do it myself. You did the right thing, Leith." Francis pulled open his doors to see Mary staring into the fire.

"Mary?" Francis cautiously entered the room and shut the door. He recalled all too clearly what happened last time that someone left marks on her neck. Would she pull away again? He could see bruises forming around her perfect neck.

He gingerly sat down next to her, she still had not stirred. "Mary?" He reached out to grab her hand and felt it ice-cold, despite her proximity to the fire. He got up to go to the bed and fetched the nearest blanket to wrap around her shoulders. Leith did the right thing concerning Condé, but he hadn't checked for symptoms of shock before leaving her alone.

Draping the blanket, careful not to touch her directly, Francis sat back down. "Mary, can I touch you?"

Mary finally spoke, "Francis, this isn't like last time. This was someone I trusted, who you constantly warned me against trusting." She still had not taken her eyes from the fire, but she reached up to massage her own throat. "This was more of an attack than anything sexual. He was angry, just as you warned me, again. I didn't think he would hurt me. It shows how little I actually knew him."

She pulled her gaze from the fire and locked on him. "I would relish your comfort, if you're willing to give it to me, Francis."

That was all he needed to hear. It had been so long since she had turned to him for much of anything, much less his physical presence to soothe her. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and drew her to him. She nestled into the crook of his neck. He began to stroke her hair, noting the bits of straw that still clung to it from where she must have fallen.

As much as he didn't want to say anything nice about the man, Mary didn't need to be beating herself up right now. "You may have known him well, Mary. I can speak from experience that losing you to another man is quite painful. I lashed out at you when you chose Bash, if you remember."

Mary laughed darkly, "Francis, you yelled at me. You never laid a hand on me. Another reason why it's always been you and it always will be you that my heart belongs to. I'm so sorry, for all of this mess, Francis. Truly I am."

"Mary, I've got you and we're alone. You loved him, I wouldn't blame you if you had tears to shed over him."

Mary pulled herself closer to his larger, warmer, comforting body. "I have no tears left to cry."

He gently kissed the top of her head. They sat in silence for some time before Francis interrupted it. "You've had quite the trying day and it's not yet noon. Shall I call for some soup to be brought in and you can lie down to rest?"

Mary sat up and shrugged off the blanket. She ran a hand through her hair. "I'm not made of porcelain. There is no need. That was one thing I did learn from my time with Louis. At this point last year, I was plotting with you against your mother, I was planning with my Ladies about how to achieve the goals I had set for myself and also to help them with their matches. We were both working to gain our full power back from France's nobles and we were ruling the nation in a much more just manner. We also focused on Scotland and France. Recently, I've become bitter, I've been scared of Elizabeth, I'm meek, I let you take the lead on everything and Scotland has fallen by the wayside of this rule. No more. I am not going to stand by. This likely means more fighting for us across plans, maps, laws, and edicts, but it also means us working together again. I am the Queen of Scotland by birth and I'm going to remember that and act like it."

She reached out and push a handful of hair off of his forehead. "I am not as fragile as I have been. If you want to have this discussion, I am ready."

Still wishing for more of her touch, Francis was taken aback. "What discussion?"

Mary threw her shoulders back and, following a deep breath, "The one where you ask me why I came to you in the first place this morning. The one where you ask why I changed my mind about Louis so quickly."

Francis leaned into the back of the sofa. "Ahh, that discussion. Should I ask, or should I just accept my good fortune that my wife has come back to me and leave it at that?"

Mary smiled. "I was so scared after the attack on the castle, and then to learn of your connection, I wasn't sure how to trust you. Louis was here. He was kind and he always seemed to be on my side, especially when you weren't. And with everything he sacrificed, I felt like we owed him. He wrote me a letter declaring his feelings for me. He was so easy to latch onto. The angrier I got at you, the more appealing he seemed. How he and I came to be, I understand perfectly and I don't think it's difficult for you to understand either. The more complicated part is how I lost the desire to be with him so quickly."

"You and I are complicated. We always will be. There is no other way for us as we are the rulers of two separate sovereign nations. He was simple. He wanted happiness for me and he wanted to be with me. But, because of my position, I knew it could never happen. It was safe to grow attached to him because nothing could ever come from it. I drew away from you and to what I saw as the safer option. Then you sanctioned my affair and suddenly it was real. I had to actually make the decision about it. I realized that the fantasy of what it could be was so much better than the reality. I was transferring the reality of the courtship you and I had onto him and what I thought he could be for me." Reaching across the space between them. "The reality I want is with you, Francis."

Clasping his hand with hers, Francis wanted nothing more than to accept every word she said, but he had to be a king and not just a husband. "Mary, we can never get back to the trust and innocence that we once had. Far too much has happened. We can't even go through the process of making an heir together. If we're to go forward from here, we'll have to work hard at it. It won't be easy to get us back to a place where we can feel like we have a functional marriage."

He dropped her hand and stared at the flames as they licked the sides of the logs in the grate. "Mary, I don't know how long it's going to take for me to get past this. When I think of you two physically, it makes me sick. But I picture your naked body wrapped around his and the pain makes me feel ill. I know that I too took a lover to my bed, but you actually were encouraging a mistress, I allowed it to make you happy."

"So, you did take a mistress? How was I never informed of this?" Mary realized that anger had seeped into her tone and quickly squelched it down. She had no right after all but pushing him toward that girl on the night of his wine-tasting.

Francis steepled his fingertips and rested his forehead against them. "I didn't take a mistress so much as I shared my bed with one woman, one time, on the night of my tasting. Even she said that I seemed to have been with someone else in my mind during that time."

Mary stood and sat on an adjacent chair to put some space between the two of them. "I have no right to be mad. You tried to leave that event and I pushed you toward her. Yet, still, I am mad. Especially as Louis and I never made it that far."

Francis' head snapped up, eyes boring into hers, "What? The two of you never…?"

"No," Mary struggled to keep eye contact with her husband, "he was pushing me for it this morning. That was when I knew for certain that I couldn't do that to you. You, Francis, remain the only man I have been with of my own free will." Francis stood and knelt in front of his wife.

"Can you forgive a husband for allowing his jealousy to blind him?" He grasped both of her hands, as he had when he proposed to her so many months ago.

Mary squeezed his hands back, "Can you forgive a wife for being jealous of an affair she pushed you toward? Can you forgive a wife for pushing you legitimize her affair and making a mess of our marriage?"

Francis pulled them both to their feet and leaned down to kiss her. "We've both done quite a job of making a mess of our marriage. It was not just you. Nor was it just me. It's in the past and all we can do is learn from it."

He leaned in for another kiss, gentle and slow.

Mary was done with gentle and slow from her husband.

She tangled her hands in his locks and deepened the kiss. It had a desperate air to it that she had neither shared with Louis, nor Francis in quite some time. More importantly, this was going to be her choice. Not her mother's, not Catherine's, and, although she certainly hoped he wouldn't object, it wasn't Francis' idea either. She began to maneuver them around the furniture between them and their bed. The bed they shared as husband and wife. The bed she had been avoiding for months.

That was all changing tonight.

Francis broke their kiss, breathing heavily, "Mary, what?" she pulled his lips back to hers.

"Francis, please!" She continued to back up, no longer caring much if she backed into anything.

He broke the kiss again, "Mary, are you sure? I want you to be absolutely certain. I don't want you to regret this."

"Francis, I'm am positive. I want you, my husband, to take me to bed. Now." She squealed slightly as Francis knocked her feet out from under her as he gathered her into his arms and resumed the kiss as he carried her to their bed.

While their last attempt to be together had been forced, awkward, and stuff, this time, they were both consumed by passion. Whereas last time, Francis had actually added a robe to her, they disrobed each other with the efficiency of a couple who had shared a bed, literally and euphemistically, dozens of times. When her gown fell to the floor and Francis was able to look at his wife for the first time in weeks, he couldn't seem to take his eyes off of her. Her beauty was breathtakingly radiant.

They tumbled back onto the pillows together. Francis trailed kisses on every part of her torso he could reach as Mary reached down to feel his arousal growing. There would be time for sweet love-making later. They both wanted this, physically desired each other. They let out twin moans as he slid into her, locking their lips together again. Francis could feel Mary finish and moved faster to join her.

As he slid out and off of his wife, she rolled with him, listening to his heartbeat, his breath.

"A week ago, and the sound of your breath would have sent fear through me. Now, I'm clinging to this sound like it's a lifeline. I love you Francis."

Francis wrapped her in his arms, "I love you, too, Mary"

The couple fell asleep in each other's arms for the first of many nights to come.