Your reviews have been the kindest and most meaningful thing behind this story going on after three or four chapters. This last one spiralled and perhaps a bit too much but writing it actually made me feel that much better about all that went on, make sense of it kind of thing. It's a bit of an open ending but of course I believe in canon and that the Christmas special did go on to happen. I enjoyed and struggled writing from Mary's perspective - for some reason I'm much better at taking it from Matthew's. So, The End, and thank you so much, I feel encouraged to write more in this fandom and I hope the feeling is mutual.

1919


speak to me slow, my dear

no ghost, of course, in here
pleased to be lonesome, quiet, and clear
all is alone in here

drops in the river, fleet foxes


Once she saw one dead body she figured another would look much the same – grey and cold, stiff and heavy, eerie and lifeless.

But when she saw Lavinia Swire's dead body she felt an ache so tremendous nothing else she ever felt compared – The air she breathed moved painfully through her, as if the death had blown a literal hole through her chest that oozed and rotted, her breathing worsening the horrible wound.

For Lavinia looked beautiful even in death. Kemal Pamuk turned to some terrifying, wax-skinned corpse who nearly smothered her as he died atop of her but Lavinia looked like a sleeping beauty. Pamuk had a bulge-eyed look, his eyes stuck open, and his mouth was agape and that's how he remained, frozen and stiff, even after they carried him to his room and she tried to shut his eyes. He had been beautiful in life but was terrifying in death and everything about his death reminded her of how what they had done was horribly wrong. Pamuk was cold and so too was the blood in Mary's veins – chilled and terrified to her core. He would haunt her, she knew nearly immediately, he would haunt her until her own heart beat no longer.

And so would Lavinia.

She had died an invasive death, far too many people standing in the room, watching the Spanish flu take her life, so, so suddenly...

After she died her cheeks remained their peaches and cream colour, the sheen of sweat over her skin offering her a glow even in death. Her strawberry-blonde hair was damp around her head from the fever and in curls and she wore a white nightgown (Mary's nightgown she had borrowed) and looked like an actual angel, laying dead in yet another bed at Downton.

Mary all but ran from the room.

Her own mother barely survived the pandemic herself and Mary could not believe that Lavinia was the one to die. That of everyone anywhere who could come down with it, Lavinia did and she succumbed...Younger than Mary, innocent and undeserving of such an undignified death.

For it was undignified how they treated her in her final hours, her very own fiancé was dancing in Mary's arms and kissing Mary's lips...and she saw, Lavinia knew it all...

Matthew had regained use of his legs. That had been the most remarkable thing in the world at the time, so unbelievable and reassuring that everything seemed brighter and possible again. Matthew walked. He had been paralysed and now was standing, now was taking small steps, and bearing weight and Matthew had his life back. Not only had Matthew survived the war, in the aftermath of it his injury even faded, and he was the luckiest man in the world, Mary swore, and she had never felt so happy as when she saw him walk again, smile as he hadn't in years.

Matthew and Lavinia would get their happy ending after all, everyone thought, and they announced their plans to marry in Downton in April and somewhere amid her happiness a dull, cold, numb settled in her heart. Not only were they getting the home she knew and loved and lost...the titles, the legacy...they would get the wedding in Downton before Mary's own wedding...and they would get the happy ending that Mary never, ever could know (at least not living like she was, suffocating slowly with Richard).

It was hard for anyone to believe but she was happier than she was bitter – If nothing else it meant she wouldn't have to marry Richard for a few more months on top of that. She committed to the end of July, Matthew and Lavinia would marry in April and it would be enough time for Mary to enjoy her own wedding, surely.

But Lavinia died days before her wedding to Matthew and no one would enjoy anything ever again, it seemed. How could they? How could anything be fair or happy or real again when someone so guiltless, so sweet, and kind died? She deserved better than that, she deserved better than Matthew even and she got nothing...She got death and Mary couldn't believe it. If it had to be someone all Mary knew for certain was that it shouldn't have been Lavinia.

And then there was Matthew...he was more paralysed after her death than he was after a war injury, after a shell detonated and slammed his body against jagged, hard earth and robbed him of his livelihood for months and months...He had moved more then, had felt more then, believed in possibilities then...And that was something because then he believed in nothing, he hated himself and wished his own death when his legs didn't work...and it was all worse after she died so he was practically catatonic now.

Of course, not catatonic until after he stood at Lavinia's freshly dug grave near their feet and blamed himself and Mary for her death. That they were cursed and doomed and would never be happy, didn't deserve to be happy because Lavinia saw their kiss, heard Matthew's torment of throwing her over for Mary and it was for that she died. He implicated Mary in her death and she was so repulsed by Matthew in that moment that compared to it she loved Richard. It was their end, Matthew declared, and Mary agreed, how could it not be. How could anything ever begin again?

She knew Matthew's guilt would eat away his innards until there was nothing left but a man struck with the luck of health and healing when his fiancée had not been...He would be shallow and empty, a walking ghost of his former self, and nothing would move behind his eyes. Mary knew it because already his eyes were strange and empty, the life drained from them when Lavinia's drained from her.

Mary was surrounded by ghosts. They walked with her each day and were more apart of her life than any real person. Matthew would join them, a ghost to her for he withdrew from all around him so heavily she wasn't sure that he ever existed at all.

Other things had happened between the end of 1918 and the spring of 1919...Richard had tried to bribe Anna to spy on Mary...Carson found out and revoked his commitment to Haxby, breaking Mary's heart and she spoke untoward of him, horrified for the things she had said...Anna and Bates had married...Sybil tried to run off with Branson, the chauffeur...Bates had been arrested on grounds of his ex-wife's death...and everything was in upheaval, turned upside down and rocking their lives.

After Lavinia's wake, after the dirt was thrown down onto her casket and the vicar said the final words and that was it – the end of her life was confirmed and she was borne to the earth again – Mary walked back to the house arm-in-arm with Sir Richard and he was no comfort at all but it was the closest to comfort she would find.

"You need to leave." Mary told him, still wearing her hat and black mourning dress, pale as the spring day was.

"I wouldn't dream of staying and imposing at such a tragic time. I reserved a train ticket yesterday." He said and Mary grasped his arm tightly, staring up into his handsome face (for truly, he was handsome) and wondering if this would now be enough – He would now be enough.

"Thank you. I don't mean to be harsh, Richard, but I will be no company in the coming weeks and the family needs space to fall apart and pick back up if they so need it. We're doused in misery."

"You're strong if anyone ever was. Please think of our marriage while I'm gone, Mary, if nothing else this shows how unfair life can be."

"Unfair indeed. Oh Richard." Mary's chest rose and fell sharply and she thought she may be panicking, thought she may faint or be sick. "She was the kindest person."

"She was. Caught up in something beyond her control."

Mary put a hand to her mouth, for Richard spoke as if he knew and she was sure he did, or at least suspected, and she was ravaged with guilt but Matthew piling it in on her too made her certain she would never feel well again.

"Please don't." Mary's shoulders shook and he rubbed them, frowning as he so often did, and she leaned up to kiss his mouth, his lips thin and rough from the cold spring wind. "Papa will order the motor if you find him. My legs are about to give out, I think."

Richard looked at her very seriously and she thought he may say something epic – say something that would change this tragic dance but he bowed his head and kissed her hand.

"I'll call once I'm back to London. Get some rest, my dear." He spoke softly, his words hanging off of his Scottish tongue in a charming way. She could not read him since Lavinia had died – they had fought the very night of her death, Mary accusing him of only showing up to ensure if Lavinia did die of Spanish flu that Mary had nary the chance to comfort Matthew on her own.

She wasn't sure who she was more sickened by in the last few days, Richard, Matthew, or herself. How could Richard even think that if Lavinia died, in Mary's own home, that she would see it as an opportunity to win Matthew back? How absolutely ridiculous. But then again how far off was he? She had kissed Matthew only hours before Lavinia died, they had known she was sick in bed as they danced and...Was Richard really a better judge of character than any of them?

And Matthew, pulling Mary down into his self-deprecating pit of guilt, shaming her and him and them. Mary felt terrible for ever loving him at all, felt as if Matthew dismissed their very real and obvious feelings for one another in one fell swoop. And also affronted that he thought he could kiss her, while talking of wanting to throw Lavinia over but not being able to because of her selfless sacrifice...what was to say Mary would take him up on it? What was the purpose of exploring the feelings they had buried the previous spring – finally! – once again?

Nothing had changed, Pamuk still lingered, Richard would ruin her, perhaps Matthew wouldn't even have her once he knew...No, it was all too much, too ridiculous, too convoluted and she wholly regretted the dance, the words spoken – He took advantage of her emotions, it seemed, knowing she still loved him (so her Granny had told him) and it wasn't fair that Matthew blamed them for Lavinia's demise as some form of punishment for feelings they couldn't control.

"Yes. Thank you. Travel safe." Mary ascended the stairs and left Richard standing below, watching her (she could feel it).

She sought Anna out and begged her to help her corset off.

"I can't breathe in it," Mary bent over her vanity, gasping for breath, aching and trembling. "Quickly Anna."

"You have to calm down, milady," Anna told her, calm and strength as she so often was, and she managed the hooks of her dress very quickly and Mary let it fall inelegantly to the floor. Both sets of their hands pulled at the corset until it loosened and Anna tugged it off. Mary clutched her arms around her middle, standing in her slip and chemise and pulled at the fabric, still so unable to catch her breath.

"Anna, Anna," Mary pleaded, though she knew not for what, and she crumpled onto the edge of her bed, the slip half tugged off her shoulders, her stockings rolled down and she heaved, a dry sob shook her entire body.

"Oh, oh." She hiccoughed through the tearless cries and Anna left for a moment and came back with water and a thick quilt.

"Here. I don't know what you need but you're frozen to the touch." Mary trembled and drank the water as Anna wrapped the blanket around her until it engulfed her entire body.

Finally she cried, her breath flooding through her with relief as she squeezed her eyes tight, tears streaming down her cheeks.

She took heavy breaths and sobbed against the warm material, her body stilling as she stopped shaking and she soaked the edge of the quilt with her tears.

"Lady Mary, what can I do." Anna knelt down at Mary's side and grasped her hand tightly, frowning and worried.

"Nothing, I feel better." Her voice was hoarse and deep and she was absolutely drained. "Sybil's leaving with Branson, you know. Maybe just talk to me."

"Alright, of course." Anna stood and put a hand on her shoulder. "What is Lord Grantham saying?"

"He's blessed them. I think everyone feels like they've had a revelation with Lavinia's death." Another cry burst out at random and Mary covered her mouth, shaking her head, ashamed with her behaviour.

"It's important for Lady Sybil to be happy." Anna offered and Mary nodded, a fresh wave of emotion spearing through her – Yes, he may be the Irish revolutionary chauffeur but if Sybil was happy then bless, bless, bless her.

"I'm so sorry, milady." Anna whispered.

"No, I am. What a sight I am. You have the world on your shoulders and here I am feeling sorry for myself."

"If I may, this is one time where you most certainly do not feel sorry for yourself and you must know that. You feel sorry for everyone suffering all around you and are powerless in it all."

"Powerless, am I ever," Mary blotted her nose on a handkerchief offered by Anna and wrapped the blanket tightly around her, trying not to be touched by a lick of cold air. "I can't believe this happened."

"Nobody can."

"How is Carson coming?"

"Much, much better. Nearly back on his feet."

"I'm so glad." Mary said and then, "It's all really over now..." Anna fluffed her pillows and Mary fell back against them, atop her duvet but snug in the warm quilt, her shoes still on her feet. "None of we three will be happy now. Lavinia's took it all with her, rest her soul."


"How heartened am I to see you this morning!" Robert declared as Mary entered the dining room, wearing a light grey blouse and dark navy skirt (as close to black as was acceptable for the time of day). "I can't tell you how many days I've taken breakfast alone."

"What of Edith and Sybil?"

"Yes but like your Mama they have been late risers."

"Ah. We've all had the stuffing knocked out of us. How are you Papa?" Mary asked and she found the aftershocks of mourning almost similar to getting over a bad illness. Leaving your room for the first time in days to attempt to take a meal on a queasy, empty stomach, a groggy, thick head. Her limbs were heavy and clumsy, and she was slow moving.

She drank orange juice and then tea and found her insides warmed considerably with just a little substance and hoped an entire meal would have her feeling normal again.

"As well as can be. And you my dear?"

"I'm managing."

"I never expected we would all be so hard hit." Her Papa sighed and he was a little unkempt, too, but was steadier than Mary – She had fallen to pieces, for what it was worth.

"Nor I." Mary nibbled on toast and found her appetite returning, the constant gnawing over the last few days easing as she ate more.

"I'm going to see Matthew today, I haven't since the funeral. Isobel is away for a few days, she put it off as long as possible...Anyway, would you like to come along?"

"No." Her father folded up his paper at her response and raised an eyebrow.

"Do you have any words for him I could pass on? I'm sure he could use comfort."

"No." Mary repeated and clutched her juice, the cold crystal feeling nice against her burning palm.

Robert sighed again and looked at her in a familiar, scolding way – One that had not quite faded from use since her youth.

"My dear he's been through tragedy, you can't be at odds with him now, surely?"

Mary was careful in her expression, decidedly neutral and passive, as she replied.

"I care so much for what he's going through that I've been sick with it myself, Papa. I just don't think he would find me any comfort right now."

"I don't know what's happened between you but I know that now is not the time for it. You must mend soon, Mary."

"I'm sure we'll come around, yes."

Sybil came down not too long after and proceeded to argue with their father over breakfast. She would leave tomorrow, she said, off to meet Tom in Ireland, eager to settle in with his mother, to find a job (there had been a posting she had called about and was guaranteed the position if she could arrive within the week). It had been over two weeks since Lavinia's wake and Mary figured there was no point of Sybil lingering at Downton if she would just be unhappy and feel useless. Mary wished uselessness on no one and at least Sybil had the skills to be otherwise.

"I see no need for you to move there before you are married to the man, Sybil! I blessed you, certainly, but I want no daughter of mine living in sin."

"It won't be sin, Papa! You can't retract your approval if something isn't as you please – I will leave on good or bad terms but I'd prefer good. I was so encouraged when you blessed us, please don't knock me down again."

Mary knew her father was torn, for Sybil held a particular place in his heart – In which she was argumentative and the most wild of his girls but he could also deny her nothing and even when they disagreed he was always the one to break first. Sybil was stubborn in the most darling way and Robert was unsuspecting but also unsurprised when she ended up the one to flee the nest first.

"Sybil, darling, you are braver and better than any of us could hope to be, even in love. Papa, you must let at least someone in this family be happy." Mary struck a chord, reminding him that even he had been unhappy in the years of war and had made his own mistakes, and Mary saw her own sadness reflected in her father's eyes and that was it, he relented.

"I'll arrange the train later. It just saddens me so to have my youngest fly the coop, not even a wedding first..." Ah Robert Crawley was powerless in the face of his daughters, truly, and Sybil leaned over the table to kiss her father happily on the cheek.

Mary felt a little emotional herself watching the exchange between her father and Sybil and she wasn't sure if she was jealous of Sybil's love life or profession – Mary never yearned for work, never wanted to be a nurse (outside of how she helped Matthew) but maybe there was some greater purpose in life she was missing out on and it would be too late when she realized. Oh, she just did not know.

Sybil left on the train the next day, so early in the morning that it was still dark out and Mary and Edith bade goodbye to their baby sister in their night gowns and braids, bleary-eyed and husky-voiced, standing at the bottom of the staircase.

Edith had her say and returned to her room, then Mary turned to Sybil, for whom she felt so protective and connected (and so often outsmarted by).

"Will you be okay?" Sybil asked, eyes so blue like both their Mama and Papa's, and Mary grasped her hand, smiling.

"Oh darling, I'm meant to ask you that!"

"Yes – and I will, I'll be better than that, Mary – and you? Will you be?"

"I will try mightily." Mary kissed her sister's cheek and smoothed Sybil's hair under the hat she wore. Oh where had the time gone? Where was it still going? How was it possible she was so ready to leave Downton behind?

"Look after everyone, I know the Crawley's are all so strong but we've never taken change well!"

"Indeed we have not. Send my wishes along to Branson. Be safe and happy, Sybil." Mary had not warmed to calling him Tom and was not sure she thought he was best for Sybil but it wasn't up to her, was it? She could hate him if she wanted but still hoped Sybil was happy with him and that he would be damned if he ever hurt her.

"I will. Goodbye, Mary."

It was strange to watch Sybil leave without any of them, alone in the motor, off to find her fiancé in another country in the dawn at Spring – Oh, it was romantic, truthfully. Mary turned back to bed before her parents did, knowing they weren't wholly comfortable with it and not wanting to invade on their private difficulties.

Of any of them, she thought, Sybil would be fine and it was because she was a combination of sweet and strong, honest and careful, fiery but reasonable. She had her own will and beliefs and for that she would succeed even if the world failed.

Mary could at least take heart in that, that someone had left Downton in one piece (it seemed so few of them did those days).

"Are you very well, milady?"

"Oh, yes Carson, quite." Mary had just taken the first step when Carson emerged from outside, giving her parents privacy as well in their goodbyes to Sybil.

"I'm glad to see Lady Sybil off. It's very early, I'm sure you can sleep more." Carson's deep voice rumbled and Mary couldn't help but smile. He was everything comforting to her, always had been.

"Perhaps, yes. Sleep has certainly not escaped me these last weeks."

"We react in our own ways. Grief touches us all differently."

Mary felt a shiver run through her and she frowned without realizing the emotion wracking through her.

"Well it has taken a nasty toll this time, I'm afraid. We're all so very changed."

Carson looked up at her to where she stood on the stair and she knew he was seeing her as she had been as a child – Sniffling in her nightgown, clenching her palms and struggling to keep her features smooth, blink her emotions away. She had not changed much in his eyes and it made her affection for him swell. She had changed so much to so many others but Carson was constant and good and probably too loyal to her.

She felt the restlessness inside her from the last few weeks ebb away, a warm calm spreading over her, slow and heavy like a cover. It was a morning much like this one, the house dark and dawn creeping in, that Matthew Crawley had visited before returning to war and the presence he brought was so like the one she felt standing there with Carson. Oh, she wondered what it meant and was sure that...that Matthew was as great of a comfort, as close as a companion as Carson had become over the years. She thought that was very important, for there were few people (hardly none) to understand her troubles in such a way and try to calm them. Most thought she was responsible for her own problems (she was) and let her handle them on her own. But how nice it was to have these men in her life to offer her the sweetest reassurances even when she scarcely deserved them.

Mary hoped so very much that some day that Matthew would be that comfort to her again. She hoped she would think of him and not feel sick with guilt, not feel ravaged with heartache at his harsh words, his unforgiving, cold, deadened gaze. She wanted for the easy days when she wheeled his chair and he begrudgingly accepted her help but by the end of the day would have her playing cards and laughing. She wanted for the feeling she had, the bursting emotions, when he had walked again after a decided fate and then danced with her, kissed her gently for the second time ever...

At least, until then, she had this man.

"You've told me before that you were never down for long – I know so. This is the very thing we must live with, carry heavy in our hearts. You're only just beginning."

"You know just what to say, for I have felt so very...expired, as if I'll never get up again."

"It astounds me," He boomed, hands clasped behind his back. "how the young reflect on their mortality. Miss Swire has expired, William Mason has, too, but you're flesh and blood, milady, no expiration in sight!"

Mary smiled again, tugging her braid habitually, and swooped down to kiss Carson's cheek.

"You are my grandest champion, dear Carson. Goodnight," She laughed and he smiled, wild eyebrows raised. "Or I suppose – Good morning."


Summer 1919


Summer found them again and the family took the Season at their house in London, spending some time with Rosamund, travelling to the Brighton coast to visit the beach (a pleasure that Mary had missed the last few years, as their vacations were sporadic and the war seemed to make summertime hardly exist).

She longed for the coast sometimes, the ocean, and it was strange to Mary for she had grown up landlocked in the country, far from the city, the beach...Green lawns and trees, ponds and flowers were her scenery but oh the ocean...

It was, she supposed, for typical reasons she loved it so – What an escape, what a place full of potential and renewal, energy in the waves, comfort in the breeze. The sand was born anew with the changing tides and the same water never touched the same places twice – What a concept, she thought, to roll across the beach, experience something new each day, to touch and form the land around you, gently but powerfully...until enough years have passed and you could see your impact, know that you were a force of nature with proof of that. Oh to be the waves. It was enlivening and remarkable, an atmosphere she was so foreign to but so connected with. The seaside air tasted so different from anything she had known and she got gooseflesh just thinking of the warm sun, the footprints along the water's edge.

Perhaps she felt just a little more free by the sea, a little less trapped to know there was something as vast and endless as an ocean out there – She lived in a world where wonders like this existed and if she could be anything and go anywhere, she would be a sea creature and she would go to the water.

Mary felt positively inspired and youthful there, someone she had once been when she was but a teenager, and it never lost it's specialness as the summers went on – if anything, it was all more meaningful to her. The more submerged she was at Downton, the more she wished she was submerged in and surrounded by the salt water, weightless and floating and free.

It was a place she wanted to experience with those she loved (and she was thankful to share this place with her family) and her first thought was not to bring Carlisle here or that they should perhaps honeymoon somewhere warm and ocean-hugged...

She thought of Matthew...and if he had ever seen places like this...If during the war he ever saw the Atlantic ocean and if he ever touched the cool water, if it meant anything during war, if it meant anything at all to him...

Even when she was hurt by him he was always her first thought.

There had been an argument between Edith and Granny that had amused them most of their trip to the shore, Edith admiring a pair of tourists and their tanned, naked skin in swim costumes and they in their dresses and parasols. Violet preached staying out of the sun and Edith bemoaned how nice it would be to look brown and alive for once, not porcelain and delicate. Edith threatened the rest of the trip to sunbathe and Violet thought it was all preposterous, this was not how a Lady such as she behaved! Mostly it was Edith antagonizing their grandmother out of boredom and Violet missing the old ways before war, when Lady's stayed their place and didn't dream of more. Sybil running off had scandalized their Granny probably more than it had Robert and she would wax theatrics over her heart not being able to handle so much excitement from the ever-surprising Crawley family.

Sybil's wedding was the end of July, when Mary and Carlisle's had planned to be before Lavinia's death, and the family would leave from London and spend the last of the Season there (their Papa of course would return home, childishly refusing to attend his own daughter's wedding).

The wedding was not going to be a grand, lavish affair but it would be wholesome and it would be important. Small and intimate and full of love – that was what mattered, did it not?

Mary had never spent much time in Ireland but it was beautiful and lush during the summertime. The sun nearly shone while they were there and the hotel they stayed at was small but the rooms were ornate. Mary so enjoyed seeing Sybil in her element and was glad when she stayed over at the hotel with them the night before the wedding.

Isobel came to the wedding, as did Rosamund, a few other relatives and friends. Her Papa would not break on this one thing toward Sybil and truthfully Mary was surprised but Sybil was stubborn and never asked for him to, either. Had she asked, Mary thought...Oh, their Papa would have swam there if she had asked. But they were both being stubborn and that was that. Their Mama said it was sad but the wedding should be about what was best for Sybil and if she wanted a happy day – well, best for Sybil was Papa securely back at Downton.

Sybil really seemed happy and settled and full of purpose. No one could deny that Sybil glowed as she never had before and Mary was moved at the ceremony, touched by the way Branson gazed at her sister, full of love and longing and meaning. Mary felt jaded afterwards when she was sure no one had ever looked at her like that (most certainly not Carlisle).

On the night before the wedding they lounged at the hotel and Matthew was brought into discussion.

"How is Matthew, Isobel? We haven't seen much of him since the spring. How is his back coming?" Cora asked, curious concern etched across her features, eyes blue and wide as always.

"Quite well, thank you. I tell him just how lucky he is...the advancements they've made since I was a nurse...Without therapy on his back he would not be near as mobile and pain free as he will come to be. We are blessed."

Mary was very pointed in her conversation with Edith, quiet musings about Sybil's wedding dress and veil, whether the home Branson had found would be comfortable enough...But Mary was very good at multi-tasking, so she also listened to them speak about Matthew.

"We're so glad to hear, after all he's been through at least he will recover and feel normal again."

"I hope that's the case, the best thing for him right now is focusing on his health but he's so very morose all of the time."

Violet interjected. "Matters of the heart always take longer to heal than any physical ailment."

Mary cast a sideways glance at her grandmother. Violet, too, was good at multi-tasking and spoke to Mary as much as she did Isobel.

"Well, let us hope he does so quickly. Until then he seems quite determined in getting back to work..."

Mary drifted out of the conversation and was both sad and smug to hear he was morose – Of course Matthew wasn't going to move on quickly from it but he had brought her down so low with him she was glad he hadn't crawled up out of it before she had. She was glad and terribly sad...it had been months since she laid eyes on him, she hardly knew him anymore.

If nothing else it was good to hear his name and know he was still a living, breathing man...she was beginning to feel like the two years during war when he had not returned to them...and she forgot the colour of his eyes...and dreamed of his death but death was in and around them now, no need to dream of it.

So very close, so very far.

"Are you very upset Sybil's getting married and not you and Carlisle?" Edith's turn in conversation drew Mary back in and she raised her eyebrows at her sister.

"No."

"You're in no hurry, are you." Mary wasn't sure what Edith's point was, whether she was trying to bother her or offer her an ear.

"Not really, no. Why should we be, I suppose – Richard's not anymore either. We're at a bit of an impasse."

Mary reflected on when Matthew found the ability to walk again...and she stood across the room watching as he wheeled to the mantle and pulled himself up, gaining quiet applause from the family gathered in the room and Richard look at her and asked if she was still in love with Matthew Crawley. And this was when Lavinia was safely with them, this was when everything was still as it was to be, and Mary looked at him, the man to whom she was engaged, and was very good at what she did, quite easily appraised Richard and told him that no, she did not – for would she ever admit to loving a man who preferred someone else?

There was no satisfaction for Richard in that response and they both knew it. Lavinia dying had only prolonged the inevitable...they were in a strange purgatory...Richard as good as knew that Mary preferred no one over Matthew but now that Lavinia was gone they were stuck...There was no chance for Mary and Matthew, no innocence anymore and Richad had Mary right where he wanted her...stuck. They were stuck with each other. He had won but under the worst, darkest circumstances. How long could he go on, knowing she must love another man, knowing she was only with him as security of her Pamuk-stained honour?

Something had to give.


The first time Matthew saw Mary again, unbeknownst to her, was well after they had returned from Ireland and were settling back into routine after the summertime. It was late August, after breakfast time, and it had rained the night before. It was at Lavinia's graveside. She wore a grey skirt and navy coat, the collars of a cream coloured blouse visible beneath. The edges of her skirt were dark – damp from the long, wet grass. Her hands were folded at her front, a dark handkerchief clutched there but apparently unneeded as she was frowning deeply and her face was dry of tears. Matthew had never seen her there before (for she had never been) and had Mary been aware of his presence she would have seen his face fall, crumpling in on itself as if he aged twenty years in the moment. Creases, folds, and tension weighing it down. She would have hardly recognized him had she seen him, too (and she didn't, but for his retreating back and she could not know it was his).

Mary laid a vivid bouquet of flowers across the grave and she thought it was so strange how the mud had grown up and grass covered the site – Almost as if it had always been there, as if it had never been disturbed. What a testament, she thought, to nature and the power it held over all things. Lavinia's graveside was hardly her place but Mary felt the need for closure with Lavinia, aside from the words Matthew had said. Matthew could say and think what he wanted about them and the triangle (square! Sir Richard!) they had been involved in but Lavinia meant something separately to Mary. She had been a friend, even if Mary had never been wholly honest about her feelings for Matthew...She had been more honest than she was with most people. They shared a bond not only with Matthew but with Sir Richard – The devious man held information on each of them and they were not that different, Mary and Lavinia. Lavinia had done what she did for her family and so too had Mary...Was it all that unexpected that it would end up the three of them, Mary still carrying feelings for Matthew? She and Lavinia obviously had similar values and appreciated similar strengths.

Maybe Mary had been the stronger of the two but what had that gained her? Nothing, really. She was alive whereas Lavinia was not but had Mary come down with the disease her strength would not have prevented the same from happening. Lavinia, the supposed weaker of the two, held a clear conscience and was insightful in ways many were not. She was in charge of herself, and she was very aware of things around her and perhaps she had been heartbroken before she died but not made weak because of it. The fact about it was that Matthew behaved as if he were Lavinia's saviour, the best thing for her, the only man who she could ever love but...Mary was certain the young woman would have decided she could do better than Matthew!

Matthew would spend his days guilty and loathing his every waking breath (and his dreams would have him loathe those breaths, too) for he broke her heart and cut down her livelihood and she died simply for there was no reason to live without him (so he thought). But Lavinia was smarter than he gave her credit for. Of any of them she had the most self-worth, she had the most belief in her life and future and she would never have hung on to a man who did not love her most of all. She would have guaranteed the wedding be cancelled, she would have done so with dignity and grace but she would not have accepted Matthew's gallantry – Perhaps she would have appreciated it but she would have turned him out on his ear. Lavinia Swire, Mary knew, would not be the type to sit back and allow a man to marry her who had wronged her and confessed he was only doing it out of obligation to her sacrifice.

No, Lavinia had loved Matthew and would not marry him for those reasons so she would have had found someone else to love and Matthew would have been the one left heartbroken.

Mary had thought about it long and hard, actually, and it was helping her rise above her grief, her guilt, her crushed soul. Mary was pragmatic, if nothing else, and she was down for longer than normal with this blow, with death seeping in from every corner but she decided to step back and think about it. And she thought about how Lavinia had sensed Matthew and Mary's relationship, despite their awkward efforts to suffocate it, and she had been reasonable, thankful it was put to rest but respectful of what had existed between them. Lavinia would not have been bitter or resentful, she would have just wanted to put herself and Matthew to rest so she could leave – All she wanted was for them all to live easily, happily and if they could not do that as Matthew and Lavinia, Mary and Richard, she would end it. She would not begrudge them, perhaps even pity them for the mess of their lives and Lavinia would have left, meekly perhaps, but she would have found someone better.

Lavinia was not blind, this Mary knew (but maybe Matthew did not) and she knew the world must have better people than Matthew Crawley for her to love (and who would love her so, for Matthew loved Mary but still loved Lavinia in death! She was a woman with a hold on men, Mary had felt).

Certainly, it was speculation, certainly it was easy to wish that was how things would have gone...but no one knew for sure...Mary didn't know for sure, as deductive as she considered herself to be...but she could hope and she could hate herself alongside Matthew and she could try to feel better.

She felt so touched with gratitude, so full of appreciation for Lavinia as she looked down at her stone. Life would have been different if Mary had not known her, and for the worse – She deserved to be alive and Mary was not the type to think "better me than her" like Matthew was but she was the type to desperately question the world because of it.

Matthew, as he watched Mary, cane in hand, a black pocket square at his breast, would bemoan that even in death these two women of his were hopelessly connected and he had deserved neither of them.


The first time Mary saw Matthew it was September. Her life went on without him and Mary went on with it – She felt rather independent again, for while there was no Matthew there so too was no Richard. Oh how committed, she thought, what a man who must value and love her so if he all but disappeared when the threat to his happiness was gone. Matthew was miserable, Mary was, too, Lavinia was dead – What did Richard have to worry about? Mary and Matthew were honourable people, he thought, they couldn't possibly find each other again with Lavinia's death clouding them...This was it, this was the final nail in Mary and Matthew Crawley and he could breathe easier and not work so hard to ensure Mary was his. Good, it was done, life and death and it was over – They were damned people who would wallow in misery until Richard would marry Mary.

They couldn't possibly find each other again, she and Matthew...And Richard was not usually wrong.

Mary had been for a ride and it was something she clung to in the year post-war and during her engagement to Richard. When she would see her own unenthusiastic eyes reflected back at her she would need to ride...need to feel that again. So, she had been for a ride and was almost late to dinner, dusk falling rapidly around them. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes bright and wet from the wind that had whipped around her. She wore grey jodhpurs and a black riding blazer, a tall hat snug on her head (she had looked very similar to the first time Matthew had met her at Crawley House all those years ago).

She strode into the house, tugging her gloves off and smiling bright at Carson who, all affection, accepted her cap as she finger-combed her strewn hair. Her boots clomped loudly through the hall and she slowed as she saw her Papa standing with Matthew.

"Milady, Mr. Crawley came through this afternoon...His Lordship is extending a dinner invitation." Carson warned Mary in a low voice and she skirted to the edge of the entryway, standing still for a moment, waiting to see if her father had noticed her.

"Mary, my dear?" Robert's voice, asking for her presence, and so it was with thanks to Carson that she approached the two Crawley men.

"Hello." She greeted, still a bit breathless from the rush of the ride.

"How was it?"

"Wonderful. Diamond needed it as much as I." Mary came to stand a few feet away from her father and was careful to keep smiling at him, so nervous to meet Matthew's eyes for the first time in a season (literally, a season had come and gone since they laid eyes on each other).

"Good to hear, are you changing for dinner?"

"Yes I'm going to ring for Anna and pull on a skirt."

"I'm just convincing Matthew to stay – your Granny and Isobel are here – he should stay, shouldn't he?" Of her Papa she knew he had no real ulterior motives to standing there talking with Matthew while beckoning her to join. Perhaps he wished they would be on good terms again but he didn't really know what went wrong so he couldn't begin to plot to set it right.

"Certainly he should." Mary's voice was not unlike herself and she was glad for that – and if it was an octave higher it could be pinned on her exertion from riding.

She had not expected to hear him speak.

"Really? Do you mean it?" It was funny, perhaps, that Mary was the one to look at Matthew, her mouth agape, as she stood in her riding gear, instead of he looking at her with the expression of when they first met.

And to look at him was to see him and oh how she tried not to see him.

The exhilaration from her afternoon out was wearing off and her clear head was clouded again as she looked at him, her bright eyes were guarded and eyebrows high, her skin tight and felt a bit wind burned. She was tired. Her knees were stiff. Looking at Matthew brought her to reality whereas riding her horse was the purest, greatest pleasure. She wished he was not there.

"Mary I'm going to find your Mama, please be quick, we'll be going in soon." Robert walked off to do as he said.

Oh of course her thick-headed Papa, leaving her standing so far from Matthew it hardly looked like they could be talking, when she wanted to be anywhere but.

"I said certainly, so I mean it." She responded to Matthew and was unblinking and taken aback. She reminded herself that just because he had not spoken to her in months, it did not mean he lost the ability altogether.

"Are there any stipulations if I do stay?" He was speaking, she knew he was, but she could hardly identify the sound of his voice, could hardly acknowledge that this was somehow Matthew.

"None that we haven't already self-imposed!" Her eyebrows were stuck high on her face and she knew she looked incredulous, sounded the same, but she had him writ off as ghost along with the others and here he was.

Matthew did not laugh or scoff or anything, just stood there. He just stood there and she couldn't take in a thing about him. He was a blur to her, a present blur, but still one. She supposed he was still blonde and blue-eyed but nothing registered.

"Mary." Matthew said her name, he had not said her name in months, and the physical jolt it gave her went straight to the heart. She felt he was vile and stupid but also felt he must still be the same Matthew. She did not look into his eyes, was focused on his nose, could not recall what he wore that day or whether he looked well, thin or fat, pale or tan, bald or blonde. He was a blind spot to her now.

"Please excuse me."

She left him there, as well, and went upstairs to change and he, in fact, did not stay for dinner.


There was a visit from Richard, between his absence in the summer and his presence that would be over the winter holidays – that so confirmed to Mary that they would never come to fruition. It was never the realization she wanted to have, for even when she was scared of him or repulsed by him, she always knew she would marry him. She never expected otherwise.

But this one was it and it would set the stage for her attitude toward him over the coming months, her attitude that would just finish them off so bitterly.

She had not seen him during the summer, or any of the months after Lavinia's death at all. It was not that she missed him but she supposed she should have – and truthfully was a bit putout over his sudden disinterest in her. She knew it was all because his life in London was more important to him and having to spend so much time at Downton keeping a hawk's eye watch over her and Matthew had bothered him. He was freed up now, reassured that Mary could only be his and so he returned to a normal pace of life, writing her letters, calling every couple of weeks, but keeping his distance.

So when he showed up, boasting a new car and stories of his investments paying off, Mary was practically sweet to him. She held his arm and kissed his mouth and listened raptly to all of his stories, though he seemed to have no room for her own. He dismissed her rediscovered love of riding, bored with her mention of Diamond's recent ailments, argumentative about Sybil living in Ireland, married to the chauffeur. Mary was coming to realize she was for his entertainment and conversation, not the other way around. He wanted little to do in her life. Even after the fake Patrick Crawley had come by and Richard hadn't known the back story to it all...afterwards he hadn't wanted to know. Yes it's all well and good he dismissed and his only concerns were newspapers and Matthew Crawley.

Mary feared their engagement and his time around her family had not done him well. He was not the man she was initially taken with, his impatience with her and loud opinions were grating her nerves. He looked so smug when Matthew wasn't at any of the dinners he took at Downton and then argued with both her father and Granny on political issues. Mary was moritifed.

"What is with you? You show up after months and were certainly not shy about starting up conflict over dinner!"

"Mary my dear I am so very tired of catering to your elite family with polite conversation that it is nice to argue. You asked me to leave in the spring and I didn't think I should come back until you asked me that, too – Which you never."

"Oh Richard." Mary very nearly rolled her eyes but instead narrowed them. They had gone through without the rest of the family to take a private drink but Mary was wishing they would all come through. "First we were in mourning, next we were in London and then Ireland – I can't invite myself to your home in London! I wrote we were planning vacation and heard nothing until we were back from Ireland."

"Ah, I see. Well, my apologies Lady Mary. Perhaps the time apart will ignite some spark between us?"

"A spark in the form of disagreement, I'm sure."

"I've been very patient, you can't deny that."

"Yes, Richard, patient and absent. You can't deny that you don't seem nearly as keen to marry since the spring. What was I to take away from that?"

"I can't force it on you, can I? The pressure is admittedly less since Miss Swire died, so why not give you some time to decide on a wedding date, I thought. I'm not ashamed to say it, I was very glad to get back to London after that fiasco was over."

"You are tremendously insensitive." Mary drained her wine glass and met his stoic gaze.

"And you ridiculous! I don't know why you think anyone would want to marry you, the way you've treated me..."

"Not just anyone should want to marry me! Only you." Mary hissed, hands flailing while balled in fists.

"And I do."

"It's so apparent where this went wrong..." Mary said very quietly and Richard's eyes were slits, the corners of his mouth turned down.

"Where's that?"

"I should not have asked for your help...you should not have asked for my hand in return for the favour. This may have had a chance if a business proposition wasn't apart of it." She made to turn on her heel, aware she had as good as prodded a sleeping giant – She probably should have left Richard as he was, but how could she when he behaved so? When he showed up and was bored by her, had been absent from her, only cared to marry her as some sort of prize won.

He grasped her arm, as he had before, some innate need for physical contact within him as he made his point. By grabbing at her his points were much more like threats, even if he did not yell, even if he spoke so quietly.

Mary's nostrils flared and lips pursed but she did not wince, though she could have.

"You talk as if this could end. We've had this conversation before, have we not? There's no chance of it."

"Must you always put your hands on me! I'm not talking as if it's going to end, Richard...I'm talking as if it has gone wrong and it has...but that doesn't mean it's going to end." She wrenched her arm from his grasp and took a step back, openly glaring at him now.

"Oh oh ho, you're putting me in a nasty position, aren't you?"

"Oh aren't I just! I'm not asking or suggesting anything, only that I feel a bit damaged from all that's taken place and so unwanted by you."

She watched him and she was not mean or cold but quite sincere, his harsh frown fading back to void of any readable emotion. Perhaps he had realized he didn't want her...and only continued with it all because he was not a man who was roped into something like she roped him into, costing him so much money in the process, and then thrown over. He was not going to lose the one good thing about a shoddy situation but maybe she wasn't even a good thing to him, anymore. Maybe they were both realizing the same things, that the positives of their arrangement were cancelled out by the negatives. For Mary, she believed more each day she could weather the Pamuk storm but not the wrath of Richard the rest of her life. Richard, perhaps he believed he actually could find someone to love him for more than this...The shine on Mary Crawley was fast fading for him and just because he didn't want to lose, for he never had, that did not mean he wanted to keep her.

But he had spent time on her...and she on him...and were she to break it off with him, Pamuk would rise again and the fact she knew Richard would watch, assured he was right about her and Matthew all along, put her ill at ease. If Richard broke it off with her, he would lose the one touch at the traditional ways he had...he was a proud man but would he be taken seriously by anyone with less than a Lady at his side? Would anyone respect him, the way he made his name and his living, with less than Lady Mary? He was not fearful for the public but he was desperate for success and Mary Crawley was the greatest someone could succeed (on paper, at least).

Things did not end that visit, of course. Richard was set on mending things, changing his behaviour, while Mary was simply over it. She didn't care. If he wasn't going to give up than nor should she but it was exhausting. She was so very, very tired of it all and how bleak the rest of her life would be spent with him was coming into detail – which scared her, for she was much more comfortable when it was a far-off objective but next came marriage and she didn't know how to do that, to get there.

Issues like his trying to bribe Anna lingered, things that made Mary uneasy and upset, certain nothing genuine could grow from what they had. He would never trust her, never believe in her and she couldn't blame him, at her core.

She wouldn't, she wouldn't marry him. She didn't know how she wouldn't marry him, and she was still terrified of the repercussions to come, with no idea how to fix anything swirling on around her...but she could feel it in her bones, this was not the end of her story.


October 1919


The third time was the charm. Mary's beloved October and she was in her walking tweeds, down by the lake, standing on the small dock. Small ripples spread out as dying leaves fell atop the calm surface. It was appropriate that she spent autumn beside a small, stationary body of water while she spent summertime by the ocean. This was much more the speed she was at, water landlocked and still, waiting for the next rain to offer it any relief. She breathed in the gentle autumn air and it smelled like nature and death, all wrapped together. It was cool but fragrant and her green, velvet hat kept her ears warm, brown leather gloves on her hands. Mary felt the further in she was with Richard, the more the outdoors calmed her.

It had been nearly a year since the war ended...over a year since Matthew had come back to them injured, a fallen soldier. It had been over six months since Lavinia died, nearly as many since Bates was arrested...So much had gone on within this small world, it was amazing it had not imploded.

"Hello."

How could it be?

She could feel him approaching and folded her hands daintily in front of her, rather than shoved in her pockets like they had been, and gathered herself up to turn around.

Oh to face him.

Her skirt swayed as she turned and her boots were loud on the wooden boards. A tendril of hair blew free from her hat as the wind lazily played with the finds of autumn and she took a long whoosh of breath as she finally looked at him, finally saw him.

Matthew. He carried a small cloth bag and was dressed in a rumpled suit but a long camel coloured outer coat made him look more outdoorsy. The collar was turned up around his neck, a newsboy cap on his head, gold chain of his pocket watch dangling – Although he carried his cane, he looked well, this she could see.

"I've brought along some tea and apples."

"Matthew, I'm a Lady I don't chomp on apples like a horse." Mary was shocked by how easily this rapport came back, after a handful of words spoken in months, and she could tease him just as if it had been yesterday.

"Perhaps you will if you're hungry." He grinned cheekily and knelt down as he joined her on the platform, rummaging through the bag. He pulled out a Dewar flask and two mugs, offering her to hold one as he poured the steaming liquid into the first. She accepted the full mug and then he poured his own.

Her breathing was quicker and her mouth open a bit as she welcomed the cooler air into her lungs. She did not know for sure why she was still standing there, did not know why he was acting so familiar and she wondered if she had been knocked unconscious and forgotten they had settled their differences and that was why he was here. That could be the only explanation, couldn't it? Who just walks out of the blue and offers a picnic when you haven't spoken in months? And the last you did speak you were cursed, both of your souls for eternity?

Matthew stood again and was tall above her, his cane laid on the ground (for he did not so much need it anymore, just was attached to it as the last vestige of his time with Lavinia), his blonde hair still blonde, tucked beneath the cap, the brim which shadowed his face.

The cool breeze stung her eyes, as did the resonant emotion that came with him, and she hardly blinked. She had not seen him this way since before the war. He had not smiled so easily since before he had gunned men down, and long before he lost Lavinia.

"How did you know where I'd be?"

"I didn't but Carson was sure if you weren't out on Diamond you'd be down here, so I traipsed down in hopes. Though he seemed loath to share that with me."

Mary smiled. Carson, her protector. Yes, he was likely no great fan of Matthew Crawley's lately.

"In hopes? How possibly in hopes after,-"

"Sit with me?"

She was too stunned to turn away even after all this time and hurt had festered. And festered it had for she felt infected and forgotten.

It was boyish and endearing that he perched on the edge of the short dock and his legs dangled there, boots just over the water. He craned his neck up, trying to see past his hat brim, taking in the pale blue sky, streaked with grey. Off came the cap, tossed aside and he raked his fingers through his hair and she stood behind him like an immobile something or other. It was too much to take in, messy hair dented from the cap, blonde and light as it always had been.

"I can't." She said finally, finding herself buckling a bit in his presence but still clinging to all of the anger she'd felt.

"Please."

"I don't know why you're here all of a sudden. It's not okay that you are. Write a letter, politely ask for a word while we're at dinner but don't find me, don't force something on me."

"Mary, I'm only trying to make amends,-" He turned to look at her, leaning on his hand to see her as she still stood behind him.

"You poisoned me! You damned me and I've felt it, Matthew."

"Mary." His voice was weak now and he made to stand but she shook her head, holding a hand out.

"Please stay away, I need a moment." She was tired of yelling and arguing and while Matthew may have deserved it more than Carlisle did, she decided to relent. She couldn't waste the energy yelling to gain nothing, fighting a losing battle. She'd surrender and listen to him and then see if she still wanted to yell.

So, Mary took a shaky breath and shaky steps to where he sat and folded herself down to the platform. He looked wary but settled back down himself and picked up his mug. She sipped her tea and he gulped at his, letting out a satisfied "ahh" and looking over at her.

"This is spiked, isn't it?" It warmed her more than a normal drink of tea would, burning her cheeks in a familiar way.

"Wee bit of brandy."

From his pocket he took out the apples and tossed one to her, shining his own on his lapels and Mary just stared at him, eyebrows knit together but no other signs of distress apparent on her face. She played along for now, her first outburst fading as they tried to get comfortable around the other again.

He bit into his apple just as her stomach leaped with hunger, so she too took a delicate bite. He was finished in a few short bites, wiped his mouth on his palm and laughed to himself as he threw the core into the lake, pleased with the distance and splash it made.

She felt so plain and ordinary in that moment, throwing her own apple into the lake after a few little bites. She settled for the tea instead that burned down her throat and brought some life back into her. The brandy warmed her incredibly and she felt the familiar tingle in her cheeks.

Matthew smiled tentatively when she threw the core and she wasn't sure she had seen so much out of him in years.

"I never thanked you. I realized I had never once, not once, thanked you and then it was too late. Not only had I not thanked you...by then, I had tossed you to the wolves...laid guilt on you for something so out of your control...I realized I couldn't have made you feel well, I knew it. But I felt so unwell myself I couldn't...I couldn't begin to apologize let alone thank you for all of it. It spun so wildly from me, Mary."

She watched ahead as he spoke, while the ripples faded from their tosses and she tried to listen to him, to take it all in and understand it even though it came out of left field.

"So are you thanking me? And what for?" She did not trust herself to see his eyes unguarded from his hat. So blue they must still be. Those were always her downfall.

"Nursing me back from the brink. Not only from my deathbed but from that self-pity, too. You had no obligation for any of it but you did both. I thought for some reason it was Lavinia who had done so much for me – and she did, she most definitely did – but in it all you escaped me. You changed who you were to spend time with me, to haul me in and out of bed, feed me and read with me...Bathed me in the beginning! Carried my damned vomit, I can't..." He shook his head and hair flopped across his forehead and this was so much the Matthew she remembered from a lifetime ago that she had to suppress a gasp.

She could almost literally feel the gaping in her heart being stitched back together, the thread pulled through snug, bringing it all back as one.

"Thank you, Mary."

"You're assaulting me with kindness, how am I supposed to find a moment to continue arguing if you keep on like this."

"That's the idea, I think, I can't give you a chance to turn me out again."

Very desperately Mary wanted to touch him. Those months he was wounded she had free reign to touch him, so innocuous and healing, and she had missed it. She remembered the warm skin of his back and neck, his soft hair in her fingers, the hard muscles between his shoulders. She remembered him moving and flexing and existing right there beneath her hands as she helped him and that was something, wasn't it? To feel him come back to life, almost, in her very own palms.

"I never needed to be thanked, Matthew. I would have done more but you weren't mine to do it for. I alienated Carlisle over those months but I had tunnel vision for you. I couldn't have handled seeing anyone else do it – I wouldn't have believed it was really happening."

He seemed to calm, less excitable than when he first showed up to her quiet moment by the lake and looked pensive. She imagined him remembering those long months between his injury and Lavinia returning, when it was just the two of them against the world.

"I have to apologize, too." He was quiet, far less confident in this speech than the first one and Mary felt her blood boil again – Some probably caused by the drunkard's tea but the most was residual anger.

"Why start now, you've not before. You've let me stew in this pathetic guilt for six months."

"I know,-"

"Do you? I did so much for you when you were ill, practically ruined my own relationship and then there you are, blaming me for her demise. You were terribly out of line, do you know that?"

"I do."

"I've hated you, Matthew." Mary all but spat, easy to speak like this while she watched the water.

"You deserve to."

"I know. If your goal was to make me as miserable as you, it was a smashing success, darling!"

Matthew gulped the rest of his tea down and the liquor hit him, shaking his head and smacking his lips against the taste. He rubbed his eyes and both of them were very skittish in their gazes, not too likely to meet brown or blue.

"Mary, Mary," he sighed and she felt his grief in her own soul, aching deeply. "I'm sorry. It was unfair to implicate you...unfair to shame you about something out of your control."

"Matthew it was out of yours, too."

"No, it was in mine – I...kissed you..." He gulped visibly at the memory buried with Lavinia. It was one of the most tender things that had happened between them, she in his arms, he walking again...they danced and they kissed and he admitted things that made her cheeks flush. But she had hardly thought of it since it happened, couldn't even recall what it felt like to be held like him so. "I set it all off."

Mary shook her head, annoyed and sad for him. "Don't be stupid."

"Charming."

"She died because you kissed me? Oh Matthew if nothing else have a little respect for her!"

"Don't talk like that, of course I do,-"

"Then you must know that she was better than dying of a broken heart. She died of a disease, she would never have surrendered life over you – That's my belief. Sitting around with guilt the rest of your life is just to make yourself suffer and in turn feel less guilty, do you see that? It's not helping her to beat yourself over it, it's selfish."

"You have all the answers."

Finally he turned to her and she to him and they were both huffing and puffing, trying to reign in spiralling emotions through deep breaths. It did not help her to see those June blue eyes again.

"I don't. But I know if she had lived, she would have been happy elsewhere. She would have left you in a cloud of dust." Mary said matter of factly and Matthew barked a laugh.

"I blame myself because it's the only way I can live with it. If I hate myself enough maybe it's okay that I'm alive and she isn't."

"And that's a gallant, stupid way to think."

"What we need to take away from this," Matthew said, ending the debate of his morals and soul. "is that I'm very, very regretful – so sorry – that I said the things I did. How sick of me...thought hurting you would lessen the guilt of hurting her. Oh but I just hurt all of us!"

"Thank you for apologizing, Matthew."

"Do you forgive me?"

She shrugged a little and his eyes were soft and the brandy in her system made her hands shake some. "Probably. I only want us to forgive ourselves."

He looked pained and she knew that he didn't – he still didn't, he sat there and talked all he did but he still believed he was the villain in this story, apologized to Mary but hadn't yet forgiven himself.

Mary was not all that upset that he still felt the way he did. She did think he was stupid but perhaps he could bring himself out of it because she wasn't going to try anymore. She had to get herself out of the depths of despair, leave him to his own.

"Any word on Carlisle?" Speaking of her depths of despair.

"Oh," It was nearly a sob as it escaped her and she put her gloved hand to her mouth and he grasped the other. She wasn't about to do this now. "Let's not get into that."

Mary squeezed his hand tightly and turned to him, full of disbelief that here he was.

"How's your therapy?"

"Well enough, they say. I shouldn't have a limp, some back problems, likely. That's the least of it, though. My life will be normal again."

He did not sound relieved or glad for it – letdown, even. Matthew would spend all of his days punishing himself.

"You must live it, then." Mary tucked one leg under herself and faced him more fully, close to where he sat, her mouth dry and heart fluttering.

For the first time since she had known him she thought he was wearing far too many clothes. She had seen him bare, his mangled back, the pale hair on his chest and for some reason she wanted it again – She felt strangely intimate with him in this moment by the water and he was always so bulked up in suits and coats, hats and boots. She was blinking at him, following the curve of his throat, a little nick from shaving near his chin, his shirt collars messily done up – She was close to being overwhelmed by it all.

"I don't know where to go from here." He mumbled quietly and his voice was sweet to her ears, something she had missed.

"I still can't believe you're here now. I was certain you'd disappear back to Manchester and I don't know why you didn't..."

"Mary," Matthew shook his head and his hand was now on her arm, drawing her closer still to him. "You've hated me these long months but I haven't you – I've dwelt on how to manage it all and finally was able to see you, to tell you...I hoped you would have been married and gone so it wouldn't torture me quite so badly but alas – I'm glad we were able to mend things."

"You weren't wrong when you said it was our end, though,"

"How could it not be," Matthew repeated the words she had spoken to him on that grey, dark day, dressed in black. "I know."

"We've ended this so very many times." Mary was practically folded into his lap, his arms encircling her and her own on his shoulders.

"It never seems to stick." Matthew croaked out, his voice thick with emotion, and surely it was all too much for him, too.

"It's why we keep ruining everything."

"Ruining lives."

Mary touched his face and she felt – she thought she felt excited but she may have felt sick. Sick for how right this seemed, sick for how wrong it was to be happening again, sick for the years lost, the time wasted on people they'd never be with...

Birds chirped overhead, to vacate for winter soon, the sun was hidden in a haze of grey, blue still peeking out from beneath – none so blue as his eyes – and autumn was a feeling in and of itself so matched with Matthew she was beside herself, too many thoughts and jumbled things.

"Matthew." Her leather gloves skimmed across his cheek and he closed his eyes at the rough sensation, lurching forward quite suddenly and burying his face away in her neck. Not stopping on that, he kissed her tenderly there and she was shaking, burning, grabbing his hair in her hands and losing her breath all at once.

She felt his lips, his teeth, his tongue against the skin of her neck and she pressed closer to him, their knees bumping, their torsos touching – Heaving chest against heaving chest.

Mary's eyes fluttered and rolled, closing and blocking out all else but the sensation of him. He smelled like something she could only identify as homey – comfort and liquor and firewood. She bent her face and kissed his cheek as his lips moved featherlight along her throat. For a few, long, torrid minutes they lost themselves in the other, Matthew against her neck, Mary's hands searching warm skin beneath coats and shirt collars.

Her skin tingled from the tickle of his beard and his lips were pink when he pulled back upright, hair flopping over and two buttons undone of his shirt.

Oh.

Oh if nothing else in the world it was Matthew Crawley. If nothing else and no one else, if there was no sense or matter or point in it all, he was everything. They would simply always find themselves back here, together or not. It was true, all their problems stemmed from their inability to seal the other off and what was the sense of trying if they were just going to keep failing? Mary believed in nothing else in that moment except for him and who they could be together. She believed so much in the potential, just for those few short minutes, that her resolve not to marry Carlisle became clear – It would be for Matthew, of course, that she wouldn't marry Richard. None of the three knew it just then, not until months later, but she believed it in her deepest ways.

There was nothing else to save her.

Everything she had missed in the time with Matthew threatened to come spilling out and between then and December, they did. She told him of the ocean and asked where he loved most in the world. She told him of Carlisle and she listened about his therapy, about his writing and his attempts at healing. They grew closer and made up for the missed months and tired wounds were fixed, apologies repeated, distance kept but love grew.

She felt alive when she was with him and he did, too, this she knew. She knew by the way he smiled and while it would take time for the bitter, boiling resentment of himself to subside – She was helping. Of course she was the very reason that he hurt Lavinia but wasn't that all there needed to be said? Willing to step out on a perfectly lovely girl for who? For Mary and if he was supposed to deny himself her for the rest of his life, it would help no one, Mary was right. He never meant to fall back in with her but a spark caught and lit and burned. The ghost of Matthew became flesh once more and it was a resurrection if there ever was.

That day, by the lake, before anything went too far, before lips could find lips and hands could roam too far, she reached behind and pulled his hat back onto his head. They were both breathless and the kisses were lacking, unfulfilled and lips aching for the other.

Carlisle did not deserve much but he did deserve a proper ending, one that she and Matthew herself never seemed to find, and she wasn't about to invite more bad karma. And it couldn't be now, for as lustful as Matthew was just then, he still carried so much hurt for his dearly depart Lavinia that it would have been distasteful to run off together.

"Someday." Matthew said gently, voice gruff and fingers still brushing over her neck. It would be the part of Mary that he would become fixated on when the years went by and they found themselves more suitably in these situations. He would kiss her neck, drawn to it, the smell, the taste, the ability to hide his face from her prying eyes.

Matthew gathered their mugs and the Dewar flask, tucking them away in the bag and when he stood he offered his hand to her. Mary accepted it and clutched his arm as they walked quietly back to the house, his cane swinging in her hand instead of his.

The war had ended a year ago and Mary finally believed that life would go on.

- fin