A/N: I am so sorry that this has taken so long for me to write. It is not cool. I promise that you will never wait that long for a chapter again. But the thing is that this is the penultimate chapter, second to last, and then epilogue. I know I've done you a disservice by waiting this long to write (major transition happening in my life, make that transitions) but still...IF you have read this story, can you please let us know what you think? If you have been reviewing all along, thank you! You are the best. For the silent ones, I get that too. I have been known not to comment. But for these last two (plus an epilogue) chapters, will you please say hello? I must thank Faeyero, for her ceaseless efforts and always pushing me farther than I think I can go. Also PS, it has been so long you might want to read the last chapter first.


Chapter Fifty Five

Sensations woke Mary slowly–the weight of the sheet against her skin, her own eyelashes flickering, the small sting of antiseptic in her nose, a hand lightly holding her own, and the whispers of what even her sleep-addled, medicated brain recognized as the semi-hushed gossip of nurses, thin yet layered, like gauze wrapped around a wound again and again.

"They're saying he was shot..."

"...vicious man..."

"...in the stomach, too..."

"Hideous, really..."

Mary strained her ears to hear more, to hear who had been shot and who had been doing the shooting, but she must have moved slightly, her legs stirring against the sheets, hissing like snakes, because the person holding her hand cleared his throat: "Good morning, Mary." His voice was tired, crusted with lack of sleep, Irish and well loved. His voice was the one to tell her that she was an aunt to a baby named for her. His voice was that of a brother's.

She opened her eyes; or rather, she opened the eye that was not swollen and battered shut. For a moment, even knowing whose hand she held, she was surprised to see Tom and not Matthew, but she remembered asking her husband, begging him to be there when Gracie woke up, and when he'd opened his mouth–whether to agree or disagree, it hadn't mattered–Mary had begun to cry because something should be, needed to be normal for their little girl. Didn't he understand? He'd said he did. I do, I do. I'll just stay here until you sleep. And his hand had stroked her hair back from her battered, tearstained face, and she had not bothered to blow her nose, she'd only curved her head head into his palm and cried some more knowing she should feel lucky to be alive but instead grieving that she would not rock her little girl to sleep that night, for many nights perhaps, not until her face was somewhat healed. There had been no arguing after that, just her own guilt, and the scratchiness of his unshaven cheek against her cheek, while they both waited for her to sleep.

Still, she hadn't expected Tom to be there in his place this morning, holding her hand in his stead when she woke. Though she should have expected someone, because Matthew never left her alone.

He never did.

As if Tom knew exactly what she was thinking, he cleared his throat again and awkwardly let go of her hand. "He didn't want you to be alone when you woke," Tom explained gently. "Sybil wanted to be here...but she and Maggie are a bit tied together since she's Maggie's food source and all..." The bubble of laughter hurt Mary's face. The shaft of sunlight through the curtains made her wince. "I promise I wasn't taking any liberties holding your hand while you slept...I only wanted you to know you weren't alone." I only wanted you to know...

She felt the babe move, struggle in the confined space of her womb.

I'm never alone.

Mary smiled. For a moment, she forgot how she must look, all black and blue, battered and bruised. She forgot that she was supposed to be broken and sad. For a moment, she felt a keen regret that stretched her wide until there was nothing left but joy. She remembered the car ride, only Mary and Edith, to stop the marriage in Scotland. The countless talks where she begged Sybil to consider what she was doing–she remembered those too. I suppose you think you can talk her out of it, he'd said. And she had nodded, so confident–and she had failed so completely, and she had never been so happy to fail at something as she was at this moment, looking at the Irishman her sister had decided to marry, the Irishman her sister had not only fallen in love with but had been brave enough to marry. "I'm so sorry for ever thinking you weren't good enough for Sybil," she whispered. Hearing her own voice hurt, as if her vocal cords had been dragged along gravel, but some things had to be said. Some things were worth saying.

His grin may have been a bit forced (no one could deny that this situation was beyond their worst imaginings) but the fact that he tried helped Mary feel more like herself, helped more than he would ever know. "I would take this opportunity to say 'I told you so,' but you seem sorry enough about it."

"Is there any news about Baby?" Mary asked. Pain was returning, to her cheek (which Dr. George worried might be fractured) and the worst of her black eyes, the one that she could not yet open. She knew it would only grow worse if she didn't ask for medicine, but she wanted to wait as long as long as she could stand. Though she trusted Dr. George, even though he claimed things would be fine with this dosage of medicine...how many things could go wrong before things went truly wrong, before something happened that could not be undone?

How many times could things go wrong before they went terribly wrong?

"She made it through surgery," Tom explained slowly. "Dr. George says her hip is shattered. Your father has been on the phone trying to find the best veterinarian to fix her and fought with Dr. Clarkson to keep her in a hospital bed." He smiled wanly. "Your mother...is sedated. She became a bit..." Tom's face twisted into an unreadable expression, "unglued after..."

"Unglued?" Mary tried to raise her eyebrow but ended up wincing instead. "I can only imagine. And Granny?"

He coughed. "Well, you know your Granny, tough as nails, she is." Mary was not so addled, not so medicated to miss that he did not answer the question.

"And Sir Richard?" Though everything remained a bit fuzzy, from the trauma and the medication, she wasn't an idiot. She'd purposely saved the villain in the story for last because she wanted a straight answer and the only way she would get one from anyone who loved her, from anyone who did not want to hurt her further, would be with the tactic of surprise.

Tom began to choke.

"Tom, I demand a straight answer." The intensity of her tone demanded it, but the weakness of her voice, how she lay prone, left the choice in Tom's hands. She was not Lady Mary, standing tall, ramrod straight, her eyebrow raised. They both knew it; they were both so keenly aware of it that Tom did not know how to be merciful in such an instance.

"Aye, you demand it." He bent his shaking head and she saw his hair was a mess from lack of sleep due to his vigil over her. "You Crawley women are full of demands. And wily too, saving that question for last. Don't think I didn't notice that. Don't think I'm not used to that strategy, having married your sister. Where's the milk and where's the eggs; did you remember the bread and what if we went to Downton for the summer?" He continued to shake his head.

"But you haven't answered," Mary insisted, though the intensity of her pain continued to creep upwards. Her eyes flickered. Everything hurt. "I heard the nurses talking. They were saying...Is he dead? How?...Who?"

He can't be. Can he? Can he really die?

"Just calm down," he hissed at her. "You've got to stay calm for the baby, all right?"

"I'll calm down once you tell me," she hissed back at him, which she found was actually easier than speaking normally due to the blows to her jaw. The blows. The way he hit her. The jarring slaps.

Could he really be dead?

"Well, that's just it. Everyone is worried that once you hear, you won't be calm..." Tom explained.

"Oh, I see," she retorted, though it took a bit of effort to speak with such authority. "Has there been a symposium on the subject?"

"Well, what would you call it when your family closes ranks?" He lifted his hands and pulled at his hair then sighed. "All right. Okay. But you have to promise, you have to absolutely promise–"

"Do you know me at all? Do I have to regale you with how I have been schooled in the art of controlling one's emotions? Now tell me, Tom," she begged at last. "Is he dead?" She wasn't ashamed of the hope in her voice but she couldn't keep the fear out of it when she asked, "Who?" and prayed it was no one she loved.

"It was his wife," Tom told her levelly. "His wife shot the bastard in the belly."


His hand, his hand...

His hand was holding his bloody heart. He felt it thumping, he felt it throbbing in his hand. It must be his heart, the blood and the gore. Someone must have pulled his heart from his chest.

It could only be one person. There was only one person who could wreak that kind of damage on a man. And just as he turned to go, from his own door at Haxby back to Crawley House, to kill the bitch who had reached inside his chest and handed him his own heart, beams of light hit his hand and he realized he was not holding his heart but that it was his hand...

Bloody, torn...Gone?

He could not look long enough to count fingers.

His scream was that of a wounded animal, and inside his own house his servants scattered as they were prone to do when they heard their master in such a state. When he opened the door and screamed again, there was no one there but the echo of his own voice, his own screams, the blood dripping onto the marble floor. Red on white. Red on white. His eyeballs felt as if they were bulging out of their sockets.

He screamed for his wife.

Or he screamed for Mary.

He could not be sure which.

In her bedroom, his wife knuckled the sheets. She'd been sick all day and now she could hear her husband screaming and she closed her eyes and prayed to whatever God was listening that some servant would stop him, would hit him over the head with a cast iron pot and save her...but she knew they wouldn't. They scattered like ants whenever he was like this; they kept to themselves and found things to do far from him and if they heard her scream they waited an hour to find her–her lady's maid first to the scene after sixty quiet minutes–to see if she was alive. And she couldn't blame them. Not really. Everyone just wanted to live during his rages. Everyone wanted to make it out alive.

She was afraid now, afraid more than she could say that they would not make it out alive–she and the baby. But when she saw him, he was more than a monster, more than a roaring mouth, she saw the bloody hand that did not resemble a hand and went to him, screaming a bit herself, and sat him in her place on the bed.

"Oh, darling, darling..." she whimpered for him. She loved him. That was the problem. Later, she would remember that one weakness and hate herself for it. She would never forgive herself for that because with that stump he smacked her as hard as he possibly could. She felt his blood on her face, his own scream of pain at the impact. She fell back against the nightstand and hit her head so hard she fell on her side, on the side of her belly. And when the dizziness eased, she felt a cramping in her belly. Oh, god, a horrible cramping in her belly.

He was not the only one bleeding now.

Perhaps that was what he had wanted all along.

That's what she thought as she grappled for the silk-lined drawer, even as the cramping intensified. She hated him. She hated him. Of the three of them, one of them should make it out alive and it would not be him. She would not let it be.

Oh, darling, darling...

You've finally seen me bleed the way you've wanted to all along.

"Marianne," he whispered when he saw...when he saw what she would do. "Marianne, calm down. My hand. Call the doctor."

The gun was her own. The best money could buy. It was made of mother of pearl. It fit her hands perfectly well and when she pressed the trigger, it worked perfectly well. She fell back from the force of it. How strong, how violent guns could be.

They were both bleeding like pigs stuck in the belly–the both of them. Finally, they were evenly matched, evenly wounded.

She could have called for the servants but even the boom of the gun wasn't enough to have them running in to see what the master or mistress had done to one another. So she waited, miscarrying on the floor of their bedroom, as the father of the baby who was not to be looked at her with an open mouth and unsaid pleas and silently begged for mercy that she could not give, even if she had wanted to.

She'd shot him in the belly.

There was no hope for him now.

Oh, darling, darling...

Darling...


Marianne woke from her dream, her whole body convulsing. She knew it wasn't a dream so much as a replay of the previous night. She knew she was in the hospital. She knew her baby was dead. She knew she'd killed her husband.

Moreover, and startling in its own right, she knew that the Dowager Countess had stayed with her through the night, had kept the police from questioning her, had kept the nurses from gossiping. The old woman had demanded Marianne be given something for the pain and the doctor had listened because she was the type of woman people listened to, the type of woman even men listened to.

She was still here, sitting beside Marianne's bed. "Good morning," the Dowager Countess said quietly. "The police are waiting to speak to you."

Marianne closed her eyes. So it was over. She had no baby and they would put her in jail for killing her husband. Had it been in cold blood? She hadn't planned it. But she couldn't say whether her life had been in danger...not hers but their child's...

The older woman continued, in a firm and quiet voice. "They have many questions for you. And I've kept them from you as long as I could. I ask that you answer only one of my questions: what do you want?"

Marianne startled and pulled the covers up to her chin.

What do you want?

"Do you want a life?" The old woman continued. "Do you want to heal? You know what to say if that's what you want."

"It would be a lie," she whispered. "I was angry, so angry at him, for causing the miscarriage–"

"Marianne," the Dowager Countess interrupted sharply. "What do you want?"

The word bubbled out in a whisper from a woman battle worn and scarred. "Safe." She wet her lips. "I want to be safe."

The old woman nodded. Her eyes seemed wet with pity. "You want to live. So you will not tell the police, as you have told me, several times, that you had time to think about shooting that...bastard of a man. You will not tell them that you were enraged over knowing you were losing the baby. You will tell them he attacked you, as he attacked others. You will tell them he has attacked you habitually, as he has attacked others. You will tell them there was a struggle. He never calmed down and asked you to call the doctor. He never spoke, he only screamed. It is all very confusing. You don't even remember what happened. It is all very confusing." Lady Grantham took Marianne's chin in her hands. Her fingers were not gentle but they were not unkind either. "You don't even remember what happened, do you?"

"No," Marianne whispered, a single tear dripping from her eye. "I want to live."

"You want to live," the Dowager Countess repeated as she let go of Marianne's face and walked to the door. "I've kept them at bay for as long as I can. Are you ready?"

"Yes," Marianne replied, sitting up a bit straighter in bed. "I'm ready."

I am ready.


Mary did not cry when Tom told her the story. She did not cry when Granny came to sit with her and stroked her hand, so much like the first time when Granny had lied and told her it was all over. Now, there was no need for lies. It was all over. And yet, Granny knew better to say so because Granny knew what Mary knew–you cannot kill a memory. Still, neither Mary nor Granny cried. And when Doctor George heard the baby's heartbeat again, alive and well, Mary did not cry in relief then either, though she wanted to. She felt like a balloon filled with water and that if the first tear dropped, she would burst and never stop. She would cry a river before they found a way to plug the leaks in her eyes. She would drown herself. And even knowing this with such certainty, she had no idea what she could cry over. She was alive. Her children were well. Her family was safe. And the villain was dead. She felt relief, the buoyant feeling of relief, and yet there was a killing sort of dread that weighed her down.

If throughout the day, she remembered her words to her own husband: you cannot kill a memory, she turned away from them. She asked Granny to tell her something happy and Granny did. "Edith's pregnant," she told Mary at one point. "She wanted to be the one to tell you but I know she will forgive me under the circumstances."

"Oh, Edith," Mary breathed and she smiled. But she did not cry. "Do you know, I just know it will be all right for her this time?"

"I think so too," Granny replied conspiratorially.

But still, there was the dead baby that would never go away for Edith. Edith would never forget, even holding this live baby in several months time, the dead one she had given birth to months before. Mary wanted to cry then, thinking of that, but she turned away from the tears again. "Tell me something else," she asked Granny.

"The veterinarian says he can save Baby's leg," Granny replied softly. "He says she may walk with a limp but he's confident that she'll live and walk, even if it's a hobble."

"That's wonderful," Mary replied, but she wanted to cry again. Poor Baby with a limp. Poor Baby with a constant reminder of what she'd sacrificed for the family. "I'm afraid I'm not good company today, Granny."

Granny laughed, breathlessly, in a way that made it clear she, too, was holding in tears. "Oh, Mary," she sighed. "If there was a mirror in this place you would realize you'd just uttered the grandest understatement of all time."

They laughed together some more. They wanted to laugh until they cried, but both of them were very aware how easy happy tears could turn sad–a flick of a switch, a lightening strike and all that laughter would be for naught. Still, Granny took Mary's hand in her own and kissed it, pressed it to her cheek. "Don't tell the others, but you have always been my favorite," Granny whispered.

"Why?" Mary asked, in awe at the admission.

Granny set Mary's hand down and pulled the sheets until they settled appropriately around her granddaughter. "Because you are the most like me, of course."


When Matthew walked in, just as the sun was setting early in wintertime, his hair brightened by the reds and oranges behind him at the window, Mary nearly began to cry, and yet she was able to close her mouth and smile. Still, his first words could have easily brought on the first tears as well: "Gracie went right down for her nap. Her and Robbie both. And Uncle Tom has promised to build a fort for them when they wake up."

Mary swallowed her tears. She thought of Gracie's knees, how some days after crawling around on the carpet and jumping and dancing until she fell, Mary would press a kiss to each knee, a bit red from too much fun. "These are Mama's knees," she would say and Gracie would curl into her with laughter. "No," she would giggle. "Papa's!" Mary's fingers would tickle her girl mercilessly until she cried out and surrendered, "Mama! Mama's knees!"

Matthew pressed his lips to Mary's forehead, his fingers gentle on her neck. He kept his lips to her skin for a second, a moment longer than he normally would. She could feel all the emotion he held back, pent up inside of him, in the delicacy, the careful kiss to her forehead. She leaned into his arm.

"I love you," she murmured because she did, so very much.

Granny looked away as if she had speck of dust in her eye and stood up. "Well, I'm a bit tired myself. Perhaps I'll nap with the children. I'll see you tomorrow–" she paused and took Mary's hand as she had in the small library, as she had earlier today, "I'll see you tomorrow, my darling girl." And then Granny was off, cackling at Doctor Clarkson to cover any emotionality.

Matthew's fingers stroked Mary's neck–a safe place, at least on the right side, unbruised and unmarred. But before he could take Granny's seat, Mary turned to him, her face to his stomach, her fingers grasping beneath his jacket to his shirt, the forehead he'd just kissed touching the crispness of his shirt. "I know I said I wanted you to be with Gracie today," she said, her words muffled against his clothing, "And I did. But I'm so glad you're here now. So glad."

He bent, stooped so she could keep her head where it was and he could press his lips to her hair. He stood like that, uncomfortable and awkward, his hand on her neck, his lips, his face in her hair, bowed as if he might break, as if he might cry. But it seemed they'd formed a bargain, the two of them, somewhere along the way, not to cry together. Or perhaps the bargain was: if we cry, it will be together.

"Gracie asked for you," he murmured into her hair. "When I told her you would be back soon, she arched an eyebrow at me and just said Baby? as if to say, this sibling business requires a certain amount of work that no one ever asked me about." He paused, and they both laughed together, though their pose was not one of laughter but of desperation. "She's a bit sad that Baby's at the doctor but having both of her cousins stay with her has buoyed her spirits."

"I'll bet," Mary whispered. Matthew could feel the heat of her words through his shirt at his belly button. "I don't want her to see me, Matthew. I just–"

"Mary." His hands left her neck to gently tangle in her hair as he pulled her face and kneeled in front of her.

Mary shook her head. "I don't want to scare her. I look horrid. It will only scare her."

"Mary," he repeated, shaking his head along with her.

"And maybe it's wrong and I know he's dead. Dead. But I don't want her knowing that this can happen to a person, that a man can come into your home, and just, and–" she squeezed her eyes shut against the tears. "She's too young to know that things like this can happen, that they can just–"

"All right," he soothed, sitting and scooting the chair nearer her bedside. He touched his forehead to hers. He needed to touch her, all the time, now. "Oh, god, Mary..."

It was no one's fault, the crying. And since it was the two of them, in a room, alone, there was no need for blame for recriminations. Neither felt weakened by the tears or stupid for shedding them. Each cried soundlessly, holding onto the other, shaking. They held one another up.

For half a second, just half a second, Mary thought this was what marriage was, loneliness and fear and love shared between two people, with no one else to see but the only other person who know your fears and secrets and loved you just the same.

They held one another up.


She insisted he lie with her, which was truly ridiculous, on the narrow hospital bed, with her less-than-narrow stomach. He clung to her and they laughed when she told him it was only because she weighed as much as an anchor, and there would be no way for him to fall off the bed with his arms around her.

They laughed.

Half his body was off the side of the bed but he promised her he didn't care, and when she asked him again, he nosed his face into her hair and said, "Well, perhaps a little..." and they both laughed again, his breath puffing out against her skin. She held him as tightly to her body as she could. She'd asked him to lie with her but really she needed him to be that close, just for tonight, if only for tonight, even if it was ridiculous. And not only did he seem to know that but he seemed to need it too, just for tonight, if only for tonight.

"It's almost Christmas," he murmured drowsily against her neck.

"It's snowing," she replied, looking out the window with her one good eye, and stroking the hair against the back of his neck. "I'd forgotten it was winter. I'd forgotten it was almost Christmas."

"Did you forget you were pregnant?" he asked, his breath against her skin, laughing before he finished the sentence, before she pinched his side.

"I never forget I'm pregnant," she sighed dramatically, pushing her stomach against his so that they laughed some more. "Is it wrong that we're laughing?"

"No," he whispered and kissed her neck. "No, it's not."


Something woke him. For a moment, he thought he was falling off the bed, but he was anchored firmly by the arms of his wife. Yet, something had awakened him. There was a rippling against his belly. But it was not his belly, it was Mary's. It wasn't the usual movements of the baby, either. It was almost as if her belly was...contracting...

"Mary?" he asked, in the darkness of the hospital room.

"Hmm?"

"Mary," he shook her gently, to wake her up. If ever there was a woman to sleep through labor...Could it be labor? "Mary!" Suddenly, he could feel something wet between them.

Shock kept him quiet. But her sleepy voice rose in the darkness, "D'you know, Matthew, I think my water broke?"


A/N: I know you guys have waited for this chapter figuratively and literally for a long time. So please, if you have been with us this whole while or jumped on board, or read the whole thing three days ago, give us your input.