Mary tries not to appear like she is making a beeline for Matthew's room, but as soon as she is certain that Isobel has gone to bed, she comes into his bedroom, her duvet wrapped around her shoulders.

"You're eager tonight," Matthew jokes, and while it isn't particularly funny, it makes Mary's heart soar to hear him joke even a little.

"I think you need me tonight," Mary says. "And... I need you. Or else I might have nightmares that you actually went through with it."

Matthew's face falls. "I'm so..."

"You don't need to apologize, not to me. I know you feel awful about it now that you realize what it would do to us." She frowns, sitting on the bed next to him. "I don't need an apology, but someday I would like an explanation."

"Someday," Matthew confirms. "Not now. But I do want to talk."

"About what?"

He sits up further in the bed. "Anything but what happened today. I'm not tired and I dread to think what nightmares are going to come to me if I close my eyes. I just want to talk about something other than the war, something other than my issues." He smiles sheepishly. "Remind me of all there is to live for."

Mary shakes her head. "You've put me on the spot."

"Just... anything, really."

She stares at him for a second, then shakes her head, smiling. "This isn't anything, really, just being in Scotland reminded me… we used to come up to Shrimpie's every year. Every September, we'd all go up to Duneagle. I enjoyed it for a long time. Their oldest son, James, was a year or two younger than me and Annabelle was about Sybil's age. James and Annabelle and the three of us had a lot of fun together. We would run all over the gardens, or even around the countryside as we got a little older. But then we got too old to have fun, and so we'd sit around and try and make conversation, and talk about how peculiar little Rose was, because she is about ten years my junior, and… then Duneagle just wasn't quite the same."

"Are you ever too old to have fun?" Matthew asks, teasingly.

"According to propriety," Mary shoots back.

He shrugs. "Since when did I pay attention to propriety?"

His humor is forced, Mary can tell. He's trying to make light of what happened earlier, to ease her mind and perhaps to ease his. But she's so grateful that he's trying. So she laughs for him, and the room feels just a little lighter.

"I do love Scotland, though. Especially this time of year. It's so beautiful." Mary continues.

"I've never been here before…" Matthew says. "Really, I haven't done a lot of traveling in my life. Mother and I always talked about how we wanted to spend our summers exploring Europe or riding around Africa on elephants or even going over to America, but it never came to fruition. I think we got too stuck in a rut of our work and our lives being simple and uninterrupted. And we figured we'd better use our money for other things. Little did we know that in the future money would not be an issue at all. But I fear we've missed our chance."

Mary frowned. "Why do you say that?"

"I wouldn't be much fun to travel with, not anymore, having to drag this bad leg around everywhere. It would just be unnecessarily difficult."

Mary frowns. "Matthew, you don't know…"

"Did you know the only time I ever left this island was to go to France? That's the extent of the traveling I've done and I can't say I would recommend it," he says sharply.

"Oh, Matthew…" she whispers under her breath.

He presses his lips together and looks away. "I need to stop thinking about it."

"Maybe you just need to process it, instead of avoiding it."

He turns to her sharply. "Trying to process it didn't go very well, considering it led me to put a gun to my head."

Mary has no reply.

She allows the silence to linger, unsure of how to respond to him. His words make tears that she doesn't know she still has well up in her eyes, but she does not shed them. She must be strong. For him. She must not show how much his troubles are hurting her. That would not be fair to him.

"I'm sorry Mary, it's just…" he begins.

She lies down next to him, close, so close.

"I haven't been dealing with any of this well at all," he says. "I've been stubborn about hiding it, I've tried to deal with it on my own, because I hate being this vulnerable. I feel so goddamn fragile all the time, and it's so difficult. Everything, everything in my head was telling me I'd be better off dead. Because of all the demons and all the pain and everything… it just seemed like too much and that was the only way out. In a way, it still seems like the only way out. But if I have any good qualities, it's that I'm not particularly selfish. I'm a little selfish, all humans are, but not enough to make you and Mother go through that. When you came into my room, when I saw your face when you saw the gun… I realized what I was doing to you. And I can't do it to you and Mother. And I'm… I'm beginning to realize that isn't the only way out. It's slow, Mary, and I'm going to need your help. But you saved my life today. And for that, I'm so very grateful to you."

"I don't know how, but I somehow just… knew that I needed to come back here. And I'm so grateful I did. I don't know what I would have done if you had gone through with it."

He shakes his head. "I'm so sorry for making you… go through that."

"I'm not sure I've quite forgiven you for that."

"That's fair."

Mary smiles slightly. She realizes her hand is touching his. "I told your mother that when I come in here with you, we don't so much as touch. But I don't think that's entirely true."

"I told her the same lie," Matthew replies. "I had forgotten at the time how lovely your hand feels in mine."

She moves even closer to him, so that their heads are touching. "I think I know a little bit of how you felt today," she says softly.

"Really?"

"Yes. After Pamuk… assaulted me." The word feels strange coming off of her tongue, but it also helps her. Pamuk was not her fault, she tells herself, and she feels better about it than she has in years. "I didn't see how my life would go on, especially if the scandal got out. I felt awful, so guilty, and the secret was just eating at me. It got easier, if only slightly. I forgot the pain, I forgot the shock of having a dead man on top of me, but… for a few months, I felt so guilty that I could hardly eat. I considered drowning myself in the lake or throwing myself in front of the train so I would never have to see the scandal come out. Of course, I read too many novels and fancied myself like the heroines of them, but it was still a very dark time for me. But little by little, it got better. Life seemed to have more meaning, the guilt faded, and every day that went by without publication left me a little more relieved. And you were there. You helped me heal, even if you didn't know it. Pursuing a friendship and later a relationship with you made me feel better, purer, because you were just so good, and you seemed to radiate purity."

"Were so good…" he mutters under his breath.

"Are so good," Mary corrects. "You are still a good man, one of the best I know, and whether you realize or not, you have helped me heal. Being with you made me happy, made me forget, and made me feel like a good person too. And so I came out of that dark time with your help. Now my scandal is out there, but you've helped me heal again. And I'm trying to do the same for you, and I hope I succeed. But more importantly, I hope you heal."

"How could I refuse such an eloquent speech?" He asks. His tone is humorous, but his eyes are welling up.

Mary smiles. "I rarely make eloquent speeches, so consider yourself special."

"You're so important to me," he says. "I don't know what I'd do without you. I certainly know I wouldn't be here today."

She smiles and leans over him, stroking a few stray hairs away from his face. It is an intimate gesture, but neither of them feel that it is wrong. "I'm glad you're here."

"I'm glad too. I'm not sure how I would have managed under any other circumstances."

Mary nods. "Everything worked out the way it should have, I think."

He is silent for a few moments. "Do you ever wonder what it would have been like? If we had married before the war like we were planning to?" he asks, staring at the ceiling.

She settles back down beside him. "I do. I guess I would have told you about Pamuk. I didn't feel it was right to go into a marriage with that secret under me."

"And I can't tell you how I would have responded. I was an awfully moralistic prig back then, I might not have been so forgiving."

"But you're past it now?"

Matthew turns his head to look at her, his blue eyes, visible even in the darkness, holding hers. "War has a way of distinguishing between the things that matter and the things that don't. And of course this matters, but not in the way you think it does. It matters because you were young and he took advantage of you, and you lived with this burden alone for so long, and I hate Pamuk for that. The very fact that it happened might have bothered me back then, but the fact that you were assaulted by him bothers me a great deal more."

Mary stares at him and sees the deep love in his eyes. "You're so good, you know. I wish I could have the character, the morals, the strength, the judgment that you have."

"Maybe I had those before. But I feel as if the war has turned me into a monster," he whispers.

"Why do you feel that way?"

He purses his lips, blows out frustratedly, and looks away. "I hit Lavinia, for one. That was awful of me, and I know you'll say I didn't mean it and of course I didn't mean to do that to Lavinia, but that doesn't mean I didn't mean to do it. I was planning to hit that German. And that violence that I had to learn still seems to be a part of me. I almost did the same thing to Mother, as well. I thought she was someone else, and I tried to fight her. And then with Dr. Warren… it was a good thing I wasn't able to get to him or I might have hurt him too. And I wish it wasn't that way, but here we are, and I fear that I may never be able to let go of the violent instinct. And then… it almost led me to hurting myself."

Mary murmurs his name and rubs the top of his hand with her thumb.

"I'm a monster, Mary. To everyone around me. Even to myself. Which was why, I think… part of what today happened."

Mary shakes her head. "You're not, though. Not really. The war has made you sick, but you can and you will recover from this, and there will be a day where you won't feel like a monster anymore."

"I'm just so scared sometimes…" he whispers. "I'm not always under my own control. Sometimes I do things and I'm not even thinking, just working on instinct. That worked in the trenches but my instincts aren't right for here. Part of me is terrified to go back there, but part of me feels like I would be better back in France. It would be awful, but it would feel right."

"Didn't it take you a while to adjust to France when you first got there? I know you weren't a natural soldier."

He nods. "It was hard, for the first few months. I barely slept. Just like I can barely sleep now because it's too quiet here."

"So you had an adjustment period there. You're having an adjustment period back here. And you'll get there, I know you will. You're never going to have to go back, Matthew."

"That's right. Because I'm too crippled to go back," he murmurs, under his breath.

"The war is coming to a close Matthew, you will not have to go back in any capacity."

He groans. "The war has been coming to a close for four years, I'll believe it when I see it."

"You'll see it soon!" Mary says adamantly. "I know you haven't been reading the papers, and that may be better, but your mother and I have been, and it's so close to the end. Turkey's pretty much out of it, morale in Germany is lower than ever, and with the Americans coming…"

Matthew stops her. "So what if it ends? What will be left? Broken countries full of broken people unhappy with the result of an utterly pointless war."

"It will be over. The destruction will end. And then we can rebuild. And ensure it never happens again," she says.

He frowns. "Rebuilding isn't as easy as you seem to think it is."

"Perhaps it won't be as hard as you seem to think it is."

He has no reply.

Finally, Mary brings up the question that has been weighing on her mind for a long time. "What would it have been like, if we married then? If you had gotten past the Pamuk incident."

"I would have hated myself, for tying you down to me. But not much in the war would have changed…"

"Matthew…?" She is concerned by his sudden shift of tone.

He closes his eyes. "In the trenches, Mary, it was you. It was you who I thought of to get me through. And that probably didn't help my mental state because it threw on guilt that I was thinking of you rather than Lavinia, but I couldn't help it. It was you I thought of, every time. It was your little dog that got me through."

She feels a pang of deep love for him. "Really?"

"That thing never left my pocket."

She grins, although it is slightly tearful. "Do you still have it?"

He frowns. "No. They lost it when they took me off the battlefield, I think. I've been quite lost without it, to be honest. I'll put my hand in my pocket, to touch it, to reassure me, and it won't be there."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry for losing it," Matthew insists. "I promised I'd bring it back without a scratch, and here I am, without the dog and with many scratches."

She wipes the few tears that are escaping away. "That doesn't matter. All that matters is that you're here and safe and alive."

Matthew stares at the ceiling, pretending not to see her tears. "If we had been married, I still would have been here. Shellshocked, injured, a total mess after the war. And I'd still have you here by my side. But I think you wouldn't have had to argue with my mother to be here by my side. And I'd be able to…"

"To what?"

He blushes furiously. "To kiss you…" he murmurs.

"You've thought about that?"

His cheeks are flushed with embarrassment. "The last time we kissed was when we were up in London for the Season. The night after Sybil's ball, we went to dinner, just you at me, at a very nice hotel restaurant. It wasn't a place I would have normally gone, but I splurged for you. I was certain you were going to accept my proposal that night. You didn't… but you did kiss me. It was quite heavenly. We were in a secluded booth at the restaurant but it was still in public, and you kissed me like no one was there."

"I remember…" Mary whispers.

"But that was the last time I kissed you. So of course I remember it."

Mary considers him, and smiles.

She leans down and puts her lips to his. He reacts in surprise but melts into the kiss, enjoying the taste of her lips once more.

"Now that wasn't the last time we kissed," she says, grinning.

He smiles too, more genuinely than she has seen from him in a very long time. "It's as lovely as I remember." He laughs a little bit, too, and it lightens Mary's heart. "Imagine if Mother found out. We did promise her we weren't touching at all."

"I guess we did break that promise," Mary says, giggling.

He looks at her softly. "Does this mean you love me?" He asks. His voice is so quiet, so afraid, and the question so simple, so sweet, so unsure. He looks at her with those pleading eyes that she could never refuse.

She wonders at how he could ask such a question so blatantly. But she also is pleased with his directness.

She grins. "I never stopped loving you."

"Neither did I," he admits. "I'm afraid it was painfully obvious to everyone but me. And maybe you. I think that's why Lavinia left so easily. She could see what you and I couldn't. And Mother knew. She told me, before we even left for Scotland, that you were in love with me. I didn't believe her. But now I'm starting to see…"

"Do you want confirmation? Because I'll tell you. I've been in love with you for the past four years. Once I started, I never stopped."

"Neither did I," he repeats. "Although I think I fell in love with you the moment I set eyes on you."

"I think you have me beat on that then," Mary replies, with a light laugh.

The love in his eyes, that love that has perhaps always been there, is so obvious now. "Thank you so much. For all you've done. And especially for saving my life."

"I was more than happy to do all of it. Although saving your life was fairly distressing for me."

"I'm so sorry about that. How can I ever repay you?"

"Perhaps you might be able to kiss me. To convince me you're real, and put out of my mind any memory that you could have died today?"

He grins and reaches for her face. "Gladly," he murmurs.

The passion in their kiss is long overdue, and the intensity is such that Mary almost fears Isobel walking in on them, but she is too occupied in the kiss to really consider such a possibility. They kiss and kiss, making up for lost time.

Until Matthew begins to wince.

"What's wrong?" Mary asks, pulling away from him and brushing his hair out of his face.

"I think you must have put a little bit of pressure on my leg, it's paining me a lot," he says. "It might not have been you, I was probably doing something stupid. And I'm so sorry to interrupt this because it's been absolutely lovely, but I do think I need medication for it…"

Mary gets up instantly and shifts into nurse mode. "Of course, I'll get that for you right away."

He frowns at having ruined the moment, but his leg really is paining him, more intensely than it has in weeks.

Mary comes back with a small cup and he tips it down his throat, trying not to really taste the disgusting concoction. He relaxes back into the pillows and sighs, trying to ignore the throbbing of the injury site.

"Are you alright, then?" Mary asks, the concern in her voice evident.

He nods. "Just fine, I must have moved it too much or something. This will help it a lot."

She considers him for a moment, and accepts this, lying down next to him again. She pulls the duvet over herself and gets close to him. "It's probably good that your mother either too strongly believes in your innocence or is too smart to comment on it."

Matthew smiles. "Yes, I'm not sure she'd be so happy with this arrangement. Mother's very open to some things, but some things she believes are entirely inappropriate."

"It's rather fun, though, don't you think? To sneak around like this."

His eyes are getting droopy, but he reaches for her hand. "It is. To do it with you."

Hey, I actually posted this on time! Guess I couldn't resist publishing this chapter! That said, I may not be able to stick to such a consistent schedule for the next few months, but I hope that it'll be no more than three weeks in between updates. Thanks so much for reading and supporting this fic, and as always, reviews make me very happy.