So here's the last chapter of this Hearts and Bones epilogue. I love this 'verse so I had to write some more.

XX

Matthew closed the door to the boy's room. He took the medal and placed it back in the velvet box as he walked down the passage to what was once again the spare room at the end of the hall now that his daughters were no longer residing at Crawley House. He opened the latch and switched on the lights. The trunks Molesey packed and sent over were on the floor under the window seat. He opened one and carefully tucked the box underneath a blanket.

Starting to walk away, Matthew wavered. He opened the trunk again and took out the medal box. Opening it, he stared at the Victoria Cross but with vacant eyes, rubbing his thumb over the raised shapes of lion and crown.

"… Glover, Okes, Webber, Sloane, Cosway," he murmured. His men. All who endured absolute hell with him that day in 1916. He'd never forget their names. Their sacrifice.

All dead now.

There was a time he wanted to die as well. In Paris, alone and drinking heavily, he contemplated ending it and joining them all in their supposed eternal glory. Better that then never recover his sanity. Who'd care? His wife and mother dead. His father wallowed in his own fog of despair. For years a dark devil in his mind nagged him to leave a world that seemed indifferent to his existence.

And then one June, in the waning days of a Parisian spring, he met a woman. Literally bumping into her as he took the corner from the street where he lived.

"Excuse," he had mumbled in French; too focused on an address scrawled on the palm of his hand to look up. He had gotten the name of a publisher interested in short stories and book reviews from a friend the night before, and he rushed to find the Le Rire head office and make an appointment before reporting in to the British delegation for work.

Always in need of spare cash, Matthew couldn't afford to let the opportunity go.

"Tu vas là-bas," Chloé had told him the address as she bent down beside him, her tight-fitting gown always showing off her best assets to the potential customers of the private rooms above. She knew Matthew was not one of them. He was her longtime, rather peculiar ami from the war years. The officer who only visited her establishment to sit by the fire and quietly observe the surroundings, occasionally scribbling in a notebook various drafts of individual types he would later turn into characters in a story. He had not brought his writing pad that particular evening, having decided at the last minute to go into the gaming house only to get a meal before returning back to his small bedsit. Chloé always allowed him to eat without being disturbed so he was surprised when she walked over in a hurry. But after realizing it was the address of a potential publisher of his articles, he wrote the address on his palm with an ink pencil he borrowed from the bar.

Always a night owl in those days after the war, Matthew had tossed and turned well into the early hours that night, his body only giving in to sleep around 4am. Waking late, he had rushed out the door and took the corner on the Rue de Gabelle without looking where he was going.

And right into his fate as it turned out.

Distracted though he was looking down at the publisher address, Matthew did observe the woman's expensive high heeled, curved toe shoes and very feminine ankles.

He straightened his hunched shoulders and noticed that the rest of the woman's clothes matched her elegant foot wear. She looked more than slightly put out by his inattention to where he was going, her voice giving a tsk sound as she flattened a crease in her skirt; her eyes downcast as well.

Thinking back on that day, now over twenty years ago, Matthew once again experienced the sense of peace that overcame him, of his whole world suddenly shifting into place. He closed his lids and let it wash over him.

Their eyes had met at the exact same moment. He was sure of it. Or was he misremembering because that's how it should have happened?

Two soulmates meeting for the first time should always feel it at the same time.

Smiling, Matthew tucked the medal away again. In doing so he felt a hard surface underneath the blanket. Curious, he lifted it and discovered another artifact from his past. The old battered leather case he had in France where he used to tuck in the notebooks he used to write his reviews or stories.

Pulling it out, the handle came away and he caught it before all his papers fell out. He was about to start rummaging through them when he heard Mary in the hallway leading to their bedroom. She must be coming up with his late supper tray curtesy of Mrs. Shaw.

Hunger surpassed curiosity and he got up, putting the case under his arm and pulled down the lid of the trunk. He turned off the light and made his own way back towards their room.

XX

Mary heard Matthew footfalls on the floorboards of the narrow hallway.

She caught every noise, every creak in this house. Accustomed to the hushed quiet of beautifully appointed quarters and servants who were trained to be seen and not heard, her sensibilities had strained to endure the confined space of Crawley House.

But now, two years on, she hardly noticed. Needs must as the devil drives …yet again that old adage of her Granny's came to her mind. The war had changed her.

As a child she had accepted her family's place in society as an eternal thing, but now she knew that the world she had inhabited was gone forever. What hadn't been destroyed by the first war, with its poison gas, shattered men, and revolutionary rumblings would be forever uprooted by this second one. Her world had already teetered on oblivion as people realized they no longer needed or wanted a distant aristocracy guiding them into a more rational and refined world. Look where that had led? She was almost glad her father had died when he did, still respected as a benevolent trustee of the land and title bestowed upon him. Matthew was better suited to take the Grantham estate into the 20th century. He had an inborn cynicism towards the upper classes but the integrity to do his best by the inheritance that came to him. Her own work during the war on the farms had shown her so many better ways to use the agricultural assets of the estate once the war ended.

In order to survive they adapted. And to Mary's surprise, it was easier than she would have expected.

Matthew opened the door to their bedroom. Mary walked towards him.

They kissed deeply. "I've missed you," Matthew said.

"You look tired," Mary frowned as she lightly caressed his cheek. "How long has it been since you slept? Or shaved?" her hand moving down to feel the stubble on his chin.

"We've had so much on I feel like it's been days. My batman, Corporal Salt, is very keen on proper kit. He despairs of me. He actually wanted to follow me over to make sure I wouldn't disgrace him." He paused, then said dryly, "I told him that wouldn't be necessary."

Mary chuckled. "Good." Then asked, "how are the boys?"

"Both asleep." Matthew put the case next to the chair by the fire.

"Hungry?"

"Starving," Matthew said, his stomach rumbled to prove his point.

"Mrs. Shaw managed vegetable stew, a slice of savory pie, and bread. It's quite delicious."

Matthew gave his wife an amused look. Mary noticed and rolled her eyes. "I know, I know. Time was I'd have called that peasant food and turned my nose up. Well, times have changed."

"It smells divine." Matthew removed his wool serge jacket, loosened his tie, and unbuttoned his collared shirt. "I'll eat and then get into the bath."

The tray was on a small table by the fireplace. They sat on either side. The chill in Crawley House wasn't completely eliminated because of the lack of sufficient coal, but the room was toasty and warm if they sat close to the fire.

Matthew tucked into the meal, Mary pouring out some coffee from a thermos. "How did it go with the boys?"

"I managed to skirt around the worst of the details," Matthew said. "George wanted to pepper me with questions but he resisted, in part because Robert was present. I think they were satisfied."

"I'm glad. I know it's not easy for you to turn up the past."

"These last few months have brought up a lot of things I thought long buried. Cecile's interest in our story …" He broke off as they exchanged worried glances. Cecile was back in France, Matthew knew. Doing what he had no idea, though most probably insinuating herself into a local town and gaining intelligence she'd radio back to other SOE operatives.

Mary hated the not knowing but she understood the need for secrecy.

"Cecile was persistent," bringing the subject back to their daughter's curiosity. "Drawing me out on all sorts of things I've not thought about for years. She wanted to know all about Richard and whether I would have had an affair with you given the chance." Mary gave an insouciant shrug. "I told her I would…" She laughed. "They were both quite shocked. Isabella refused to believe it."

Matthew looked up from his meal, one eye arched. "Would you have really?"

"Why? You think that would make me Tess to your Angel Clare? A scarlet woman?"

Matthew knew his wife teased him. "You know very well that's not what I meant."

"I know," Mary smiled. "It's just that you wouldn't."

"Wouldn't what, my darling?" though Matthew knew very well.

"Make love to me while married to Lavinia."

"I suppose that makes me something of a priggish hypocrite." Matthew wiped the edges of his mouth with the table napkin. "My marriage was largely a sham, but middle-class sensibilities must be maintained."

"Not at all," Mary reached over and took his hand across the table. "Simply because you wouldn't be you if you broke your vows of fidelity."

Matthew brushed his wife's fingertips with his lips. "I tried to talk to Isabella. Tell her that we're all capable of doing things we never thought possible. She made me think about our own affair in Paris in a different light. If I had been married, feeling the way I did when we brushed shoulders…. What would I have done? And I must admit even Galahad might have slipped a bit when he came upon you strolling down a boulevard in Paris."

Mary recognized her husband's admission did not come lightly. "I truly thought the best part of my life was over when we parted. I thought I knew what I was doing. Indulging in an extended naughty week end to set myself free of the past. I had no idea just how much I had fallen in love with you until we parted."

"I spent much of our time trying to deny it. That the intensity I felt was merely a carryover of being celibate for so long. But that was the lie I told myself. I knew you were the real thing. I thought I would destroy you if we stayed together. That I'd take you down into that 'shadow of the dead men' where only old soldiers dwelled."

"I could tell you were a wounded soul." Mary replied, biting back tears. Those heady days in that Parisian summer of 1919 were among her most cherished memories. Endless hours of love making, naked in each other's arms. His wounds both physical and mental apparent to her. She knew she was not the type to efface herself and take his fragility as her own. Frankly it had frightened her at times. When he bolted up in bed, screaming out names, his eyes glazed and unseeing.

"You were my balm." Matthew's eyes lovingly took in her own across the table.

"I didn't know what to do…"

He gave a short laugh. "Neither did I. All I know is being with you saved me. And everything that came after- our reunion, our marriage, the children…" his voice broke, but he recovered "has only confirmed to me what a very happy man I've been."

"I couldn't imagine a better life for myself," Mary said. "Even living on top of each other like we are now." She sighed. "If only we could all be together again…"

Matthew grimaced. "Now that the Americans are in we have a fighting chance but it's still going to be a long war."

"Isabella's letter arrived today." Mary pulled it out of her pocket. "Charles is still on light duties but has reported back to the squadron. She starts her ATA training in February. She'll join Number 5 Ferry Pool at Thame, Oxfordshire in a fortnight."

"I hope she finds the purpose she seeks. It's not the easiest path to contribute to the war."

Mary smiled. "Did we expect otherwise from our children? They do rather take after their parents."

"Very true."

Matthew put down his fork. "Please tell Mrs. Shaw the meal was delicious." He went to stand up and kicked the case at his feet.

"What is that?" Mary's eyes were drawn down to the carpet. "It looks like it's seen better days."

"Like it's owner…" Matthew pushed his fingers into the small of his back. It had been acting up for days given the fact he had been hunched over examining tests and candidates as the need for agents in place in occupied Europe had increased his work load. "I found the case in one of the old trunks when I put the VC away. It contains drafts and copies of things I wrote in Paris. I hadn't seen it in years."

"I remember seeing papers all over that rickety desk in your small flat. Alongside that nightmare of a typewriter that kept me awake. Clickety clack clickety clack."

"You'd hate Downton these days then, nothing but those sounds all day long."

Mary gave a mock shiver, but returned to the case's contents, her curiosity piqued. "Is your novel there?" She remembered his scribbling late into the night as ideas had come to him when they were in Paris.

"It's hardly more than bits and bobs," he demurred. "Yes, it is. I shoved everything in when we moved my stuff back to England after we married."

"Why did you give it up?"

"Once I took on the job with the Foreign Office and we moved to London and started our family…" He shrugged. "It just didn't seem important."

Mary wasn't buying that. "Really? I remember you working furiously at your desk well into the night."

"Probably because I couldn't sleep." Matthew bent down to take the case and put it on the cushioned bench at the end of their bed. "Truth is it reminded me too much of my past. I think I grew afraid that if I brought it out, I would fall back into that funk I felt after the war."

"I never asked at the time because of the nature of our affair, but what is it about?"

Matthew opened the case and rummaged through some of his old book and stage reviews and a few of the rude stories he published in the bohemian rags of the Rive Gauche and finally found the folder of A Young Man Faces the World.

"What a pompous title …" Matthew thought to himself. He took it out and sat back down next to the fire. "I never decided on an actual plot. I wrote a series of vignettes of odd people and places my main character encountered in various times of his life. His naïveté shattered on the bloody fields of France etc etc. At best I'd say it's a poorly constructed jumble of Dickens meets James Joyce with a spot of Wilfred Owen for good measure."

Mary knew her husband was a master at self-deprecation and was having none of it. "You're just saying that. I'm quite sure it's marvelous. You should think about publishing it after the war."

Matthew guffawed. "No chance." But he did open the folder and began to read at random, "the pretty courtesan's features were slender and sharp, her half slitted green eyes formed a come-hither stare meant to enchant the young man into her arms, instead it saddened him and he lost his eagerness. She in turn grew irritated. Didn't he know the Madam frowned upon unhappy customers and she'd lose her place? The only job she'd managed since escaping her rapacious father and trying to find a life of her own…"

Did anyone care about the lives of a few lost souls in a world such as it is now, he wondered?

He closed the folder. "First things first, though. I'm in desperate need of a bath."

"I asked Anna before you arrived to start the geyser so we might have some hot water. She already put out your night things in the bathroom."

"Excellent." He moved over to the bed to sit down and take off his boots, putting the folder on his nightstand. Mary noticed. "A good sign," she thought, rather than return it back to the neglected recesses of that battered suitcase. Matthew had spent years becoming the husband, the father, the MP, and now the Earl of Grantham that he believed the family expected. He'd earned the right to recover his former self, the footloose writer of their time in Paris.

Mary walked over to him. "Would you like some company in the bath?" She leaned down and gave him a long, lingering kiss.

You've read my mind." He began to undo the top buttons of her blouse as she leaned closer to brush his cheek with her lips.

The night became their own.

XX
Well that's it then! Of course in our fan fic world we must have happy endings for all because I can't deal with the alternatives. Matthew does publish that first book and then several more in addition to his duties as Earl of Grantham. Mary's intimate knowledge of her home and its rich farmland put her in the forefront of transforming Downton into a model of how to bring an old aristocratic home into the 20th century as well as pioneering efforts in conservation management. George graduates from Oxford and works as a solicitor until he takes up a role as estate manager at Downton when Matthew's old war injury flares up and he calls upon his son to help. Robert, taking after the more bohemian aspects of his parent's personalities, moves to Paris in the 1950s as a painter and sculptor. Isabella and Charles's marriage survives the war, though he suffered through bouts of depression and battle fatigue. Cécile was honored with the Croix de Guerre for her efforts with the French Resistance. She spent much of the rest of her life teaching French in London…or at least that's what she told her family ::wink wink:: in actuality she worked for MI 6 throughout the Cold War.