The Place of Rest

Georg was in Milos a week, longer than he'd ever stayed in one location these past few years. It made him restless. But he couldn't steer or sail a boat without the use of his dominant hand. While functional in its makeshift splint, it stilled throbbed ominously with overuse.

And then… there was Maria.

He needed to solve the problem that was Maria before he left the island. Even though the real Maria had hardly exchanged more than a handful of words and a few convert glances since that night in her apartment, she was everywhere. She was in his thoughts constantly, and while he wouldn't admit it, Georg spent the week skulking around the Siren, where he knew she'd be. She even featured prominently in his dreams. The more he tried to put Maria from his mind, the more of a fixture she became, needled like ink under his skin. Georg had the sense that if he sailed out, she'd follow him to the ends of the earth.

Georg didn't know why his traitorous subconscious insisted they were intimately acquainted, when they barely knew each other. He didn't know why he felt such a sense of familiarity about her – felt like he understood her, and she him, when the young woman couldn't be more unlike the cranky old sailor that he was. He didn't know why he persisted in thinking of her as kindred, when their last exchange had been filled with animosity, and by all accounts she never wanted anything to do with him again.

Perhaps his subconscious had been led astray when, for the first time in his life, he'd awoken in a woman's room – albeit on the sofa – in a home that was not his own.

Georg had woken that morning after with a start. He'd thrown himself half out of bed before the blinding light of his surroundings caught up to him. It was disorienting. He didn't have a hangover, but there was a deep throbbing ache in his dominant hand. It was quiet. And there was an incredible sense of stillness he had not experienced in weeks. His legs were tangled in a soft floral throw that was definitely not his, and there was an odd, unmistakable scent of fresh pine against his pillow that reminded him of the Untersberg.

It was only then that he came to his senses, recalling that he had not returned to his boat, but stayed the night in Maria's living room. Had she stuffed her cushions with pine needles? From home? Georg blinked dazedly. The realization should have been significant. It had always been one of his unspoken rules never to stay the night if he accompanied a woman home – but when it'd come to Maria, he hadn't thought twice.

It was the same way he'd gone running for her, following her screams before he knew what was happening. The frantic embrace after the scuffle, as though he'd been afraid to lose her. The walk up to the little house on the hill, where his main motives had been to comfort, to protect.

And then there had been the long evening that followed, which he now recalled with a guilty sense of intimacy, even though they'd done nothing more than talk.

Automatically, Georg had glanced toward the door to the bedroom, but it was still closed.

For, in spite of all that – or perhaps, because of all that – he'd blown the ship entirely out of the water when he lost a hold of the vice-like control he'd kept around, well… everything.

It was disconcerting. None of it was who Georg was. He didn't notice women – not in any real sense, although women seemed to notice him, mistaking his indifference for mystery. He was a man who'd already seen too much, lived too much, and didn't care to see any more. He'd buried a wife, sent away seven children, and managed to push away everyone in Austria who tried to help him. He was a man with no currency left to invest. But then he'd run into Maria, a sometimes-guitarist-sometimes-dancer, charming, a little rough around the edges, and all had gone to hell.

Georg had once upon a time briefly seen a shrink, caving in to Max's badgering that he try grief counseling. The man had been very insistent on a technique he called 'exposure therapy', where he'd introduced little bits of stimuli about his marriage in a very roundabout way designed to minimize trauma. Georg had dismissed him as useless, and had learned to suppress what he couldn't overcome.

But Maria had barreled into all of it – how could a woman with such beguiling innocence be so challenging? – and triggered everything. Bits of emotion he thought he'd extinguished, memories that had all but faded, and questions, so many questions about his life he hadn't been prepared to answer. It'd… what was the term the shrink had used? It flooded him.

It'd been rage. Rage and helplessness and betrayal and shame, which had erupted from him before he could control it, lashing at the young woman even though she had nothing to do with any of it. Though why on earth she would suggest he marry again… well, that was beside the point.

He shouldn't have frightened her. The poor girl had been terrified.

Georg didn't feel good about it, although it no doubt put the lid firmly back on the whole matter. He really should apologize again for his outburst when she woke up, and part amicably, at least.

He had gotten up then. The apartment was so compact he could make his way from one end to the other in seven big strides. Through the solitary window by the main door, Georg could see the balcony, with its gleaming white stone and white-painted railing, and the remarkable view beyond. He couldn't blame Maria for choosing to live in an out-of-the-way apartment like this, with endless blue sky and the Aegean stretching all the way to the horizon. It was the same vast, sweeping feeling he had out on his boat, but more… restful.

He stood by the window for a long while, admiring the view with his eyes while his ears listened for noise in the room behind. But Maria was either still sleeping or not ready to come out and face him.

Finally, as the morning sun swept across the entire length of the balcony, he turned away. Perhaps it was better this way. On the small table were still scattered bits of Maria's first aid kit. Georg located a scrap of paper and scribbled a message for her with the pen he kept in his pocket. Then, he'd gone to the kitchenette to pour himself a glass of water. A carton of eggs lay on the counter. On sudden impulse, he checked the small fridge – piles of vegetables sat in neat little piles. Before he left, Georg made breakfast, the process made more tenuous by his weakened hand in its new splint. The aroma coming off the pan was so strong in the small space he couldn't imagine Maria sleeping through it all. When he was done, he carefully slid the omelet onto a plate and under a plastic cover on the table.

I was more of a beast last night than I usually am. Forgive me.

And then there was nothing more to do besides let himself out of the apartment. He couldn't help a small sigh as he stepped out into the bright morning light, and shut the door behind him. It locked automatically, tumblers sliding into place – more of a jolt than a sound.

More an awareness than anything else, that something had shifted.

Georg went back to the Siren every night he stayed on the island. Part of the reason was because there was nowhere else to go if he wanted a drink – and coping with his thoughts when drunk was significantly better than scrutinizing them while sober. Maria worked every night he was there, and he felt some measure of relief to see her before him, even though they largely steered clear of each other. They exchanged nods of acknowledgement, small pleasantries when their paths couldn't help but cross.

Georg drank, and thought of how he would tell Maria about the children. He thought about telling her that he missed them. How his wife with her last breath had pleaded for him to keep the children close. How sending them away had sent him spiraling toward a new depth he hadn't even known existed… how this time, not even Elsa could help him, God forsaken creature that he was. Those had been almost her exact words, and he had deserved it.

Scheibe. He should really leave her alone.

Maria seemed to have gone back to her usual self and usual routine, splitting her nights between playing the guitar and fulfilling her role as dancing girl. She was as vibrant as ever as a dancer, and as wistful as how he'd first remembered her as a guitarist. What was she using her smiling barmaid charms to hide? What unspoken story escaped through the music, when she let herself go when no one was watching? But he was watching. She must have known he was. But she paid him no heed, as though she'd already put him in her past, along with the other broken bits he knew had been filed away – so determined was she to embrace what she had. The thought didn't sit well with him.

The smug little barkeeper seemed to pick up that whatever dalliance had occurred between his dancer and the wealthy captain had ended. Instead, Stavros wasted no time parading a host of other exotic women before him. One evening there was Netta from England. The next night was Mavis and Jenny from America. Another night was Cayenne from France, whose name Georg assumed was a stage name to match her dyed red hair and feisty nature. He'd made an effort to engage with them, to let them take his mind off Maria… but at the end of the night, it was still Maria. No amount of showy skin or husky suggestions about wanting to see his yacht seemed to sway him.

Toward the end of every night, he found himself waiting. Either seated at the bar waiting for her to finish, or leaving early to pace the dock and watch for her slim figure as she left the Siren. Georg didn't tail her, precisely. And he only walked halfway up the hill, turning back when he was assured no one else was following her. He made sure he was far enough she never spotted him – it wouldn't do for her to know. Maria would be furious. And she would be in her right, for he was surely insane.

And then, later in the night, when Georg finally drifted to sleep… his dreams were full of Maria. And this – this was the worst of all. He'd dream of her, and the way she'd knelt before him… except she wasn't tending to his hand. Not at all. He'd wake with a start, sweat soaked and a cry on his lips, his body betraying him in the most traitorous of ways. He'd imagine her hands, her mouth, his hands exploring her curves, teaching her that the very idea of virtue was overrated.

It was disgraceful and appalling, the ways he made her come apart in his dreams. The irony of it wasn't lost on him. If Maria had been just another dancer, he would have no trouble acting upon any of it and having his way with her.

Everything might just have gone on that way until he was fit enough to sail out. Georg was equally masterful as she was at filing things away into his past. But one evening, Maria didn't come for her shift at the Siren.

Georg sat at his usual table – God forbid, had he become a regular? – wondering where she'd gone. Wondering why she hadn't given him any indication she'd be away. Wondering why he expected one. Georg didn't realize how dark his expression was, how many pints he'd had to drink, until he saw Stavros making his way over on his nightly rounds. For once, there were no girls draped around his arm.

"Alright there, Captain?"

Georg debated not answering at all. Wasn't it enough he was paying a small fortune for his drinks and his tips that Stavros could stop pestering him? Smarmy little man. "Yes," he ground out at last.

Stavros didn't seem to be offended. "Excellent, excellent." He leaned casually against the table. "You know, Captain," he said, switching from heavily accented German to slightly more understandable English, "I am not such a tyrant as you seem to think – I do give my employees days off, regularly, at that."

He paused significantly. Georg didn't know whether to feel relieved or furious. Smarmy intuitive little man.

"Good," he nodded finally. He'd meant to sound curt, but the word slurred against his tongue.

Stavros peered at him. "Good," he echoed. "And you know what Captain, a moussaka on the house. For your generosity." He straightened up, and barked rapid orders in Greek to a passing waiter before Georg could protest, waving off his drawn eyebrows with an infuriating grin.

After Stavros had wandered off, Georg wearily massaged the back of his neck. He couldn't go on like this; drinking himself senseless like a love-sick fool who needed someone like Stavros feeding him layers of potato, like a hot-blooded youth who couldn't control his infatuation, like Maria was some ghost he couldn't exorcise.

The next morning, Georg made his way up to her apartment. The morning air on the hill was surprisingly brisk for an acrid Mediterranean island. It was almost more refreshing than his usual morning swim, but the uphill climb did nothing for his pounding headache. When he arrived at her apartment, taking the stairs two at a time, pausing at the top to clear his head, he found a man sitting on the patio. Georg stopped, taken aback, as the man looked his way. He was well into the golden years, face and arms tanned and leathery from the sun. He wore overalls and a wide brimmed hat; a man used to hard work. Georg noticed a bucket and mop beside his chair. The help? But he sat there, relaxed and unhurried, like he owned the place.

Georg wondered how he appeared – unshaven, out of shape and winded. At least he no longer reeked of whiskey.

He nodded. "Kalimera." Good morning.

The man tipped a hand to his hat in greeting.

Georg hesitated, then continued in broken Greek. "I am Georg. I am looking for Maria."

"I am Alexander. The owner here."

Well, that explained it. Georg nodded again politely, his supply of Greek exhausted. Alexander looked him over, his eyes piercing blue beneath sleepy lids. "Maria has few guests," he commented at last. Georg had the sense that he'd been found wanting.

The thought, while infuriating, was oddly warming; that she had this protector figure in her life who cared about her wellbeing.

Georg held up his hand, still in it's bandage. "Maria helped me with this a few days ago," he said by way of explanation. Maria herself had invited him here, he wanted to add. Maria herself had assessed him and deemed him unthreatening… until he had threatened her.

Georg swallowed.

Alexander glanced at his hand. Georg wasn't sure he had understood, but he seemed mollified and a little amused by his attempts at garbled Greek. The corners of his eyes crinkled. "She is up that way." He pointed further up the hill. "At the church."

At the church? Georg raised his eyebrows, sorting through the days in his mind. It wasn't Sunday. Was Maria so pious she attended church every morning? But he nodded and thanked Maria's landlord, and turned back down the stairs, feeling unsettlingly like a schoolboy who'd just be scalded by the father of his date.

Further up the hill, the small road gave way to paved stairs interspersed with stretched of pebbled path. Looking down, he could see the harbour, with its rows of boats, mere toys at this distance, lined neatly at the docks. The small town clustered around it like little white stacking blocks. Georg wound his way upward, toward the peak, and soon, a small white church came into view. There was a slim cross perched upon its white domed roof, and a quaint bell tower peeked out from the far side. The building was surrounded by a low stone wall, and he could see a lone figure standing within. A garden, maybe? As he came closer, Georg realized it was a cemetery, a humble space scattered with small crosses and plain headstones.

Georg hesitated by the small wooden gate. Maria hadn't noticed him. She was standing in the middle of the yard, gazing out toward the open sea. Who did she know that was buried here? It was, he mused, not a bad place to be for your eternal rest, with open sky reaching toward the heavens and the soothing soundtrack of wind and waves. Perhaps, if he'd lived his life in a solitary, meditative place like this, even he could learn to believe in God.

After awhile, Georg approached her, making enough noise on the gravel that she would know he was there. Maria turned. Her hair was again bound in a kerchief to guard against the wind at the top of the hill, the same wind that whipped her skirts around her slender legs. She gave him a small but bright smile, like she hadn't spent the past week avoiding him like the plague. He couldn't help but smile back.

"Hello."

"Hello, Captain." She sounded eager. Could she be glad to see him? "Did Alex tell you to find me here?"

Georg nodded, feeling oddly grateful she didn't ask what he'd been doing at her apartment in the first place.

She nodded back, then turned away again, back to the remarkable view of sky and sea before her. He hesitated. There was a sense of peace to her that matched the surroundings – Georg realized he'd only ever known her amidst a flurry of activity – and it was almost astonishing to see her so contemplative, as though this spot, high above the world, was her place of solace. He didn't want to provoke her, as he always seemed to do.

Georg was of half a mind to leave her be when she said suddenly, "Captain, don't – I'd like you to stay." It was as though she'd read his mind.

"I didn't know if I was forgiven," he started, keeping his voice light.

She turned back to look at him, eyes solemn. "Captain, I've been thinking about it – " had she? " – and I shouldn't have asked… I mean, I'm far too outspoken – it's one of my worst faults. Stavros tries to get me to think before I speak, but…"

"You didn't say anything wrong," he protested. "I wasn't used to… I'd forgotten – maybe hoped to forget – I hadn't always wanted to send the children away, and there were other factors…"Georg faltered, the part of him that wanted her to know warring with the part that refused to think about it at all.

Maria shook her head. "You don't need to explain yourself to me, Captain."

He sighed. "I suppose what I'm trying to say is I was simply a cantankerous old man."

A smile brightened her face. "You're not cantankerous. And you're not that old." She flushed, and he chuckled inwardly. "You do make very good omelets. I didn't know you could cook."

Georg made a small noise of outrage. "Of course I know how to cook."

Maria laughed at his childish expression. "Sorry! It's just… I assumed you had a cook. I mean, you talked about a housekeeper…"

"I did," he conceded, impressed that she remembered. "I worked for a short time in the galley when I first entered the navy. We all had to learn."

Maria nodded agreeably, and moved a few steps to the side, which Georg took as an invitation to join her at the small pathway between the headstones. It didn't take much, he marveled incredulously, to restore that sense of easy intimacy between them. He came up beside her, and examined the cross in front of her.

In memory of Pierre Bernard. 1892 – 1927.

A Frenchman? Georg's eyebrow rose in surprise. How did a Frenchman come to be buried here, on this small Greek island so far from home?

"Someone you knew?" He asked lightly.

"Yes." She didn't seem inclined to expand.

"I'm… sorry," he offered tentatively. "Is today a special occasion?"

She shook her head. "I come here every morning."

Georg stared at her, stunned into silence. 1927. Maria had been holding vigil daily for two years. He recalled that she had been on the island for just about two years.

Could this be…? Now that the thought had crossed his mind, it was obvious. It must be. This was the man Maria had been governess for, the man she'd accompanied across the Adriatic. The man she'd left Austria – left home – for.

He could have sworn she'd told him her employer had been a Viennese. But – no. Georg recalled that the son, the boy who'd been her charge, had had a German name. The father was a real estate developer or something to that extent, and traveled extensively. And then he'd died in some tragic accident she'd refused to talk about.

The realization hit him suddenly. Maria had loved this man. She may have started as his governess, but it certainly hadn't ended that way. She'd loved him while he was alive, and now that he was gone, carried him in heartbreak. He knew. Knew the slow drip of sorrow – in sad melodies and cryptic references and moments where the only way to cope was to shut down.

It explained much about her. That sadness that'd first attracted him to her, the music that spoke of loss and yearning. That blind determination to move beyond it, to put grief behind her. So Maria had loved him. He felt the thought as a punch in the gut. Georg couldn't be sure what had caused it – whether it was that Maria was more like him than he'd thought, or that she had once loved so ardently.

"Your… employer?" Lover? Husband?

Maria nodded. She didn't seem shaken. Perhaps time had been kinder to her than it'd been to him.

"He was French?" Georg did not know how to broach a conversation about grief, even thought the grief was not his. Perhaps it was better that he didn't.

"He was. His late wife was Austrian, and he spoke German fluently, so I'd never picked up much French, I'm afraid. Just a few words here and there from Johannes."

"And you said he was a… property developer?"

"You remembered!" She gave him a smile, which he found himself not quite able to return, startled as he was by the revelation about her. "Yes. Vacation properties. Before we came here we were in Italy for a few weeks, on the Rivera." Maria shook her head. "I never thought I'd get to be a globetrotter."

Georg hesitated. He shouldn't. He definitely shouldn't. But his mouth seemed to have a mind of its own. "You didn't tell me you loved him."

The silence pressed between them. She went very still, as thought understanding that if she move or spoke at all, it would be a point of no return.

Then, she turned fully to face him. He could feel rather than hear her exhale. "We were going to be married."

The shock of this second surprise paled in comparison to the first. It merely added another layer of heartache, of loss. Maria had planned to give her life to this man – and the life they could have had together, it hadn't even been given a chance. The future together… that was what Georg had mourned most of all. Wondering each and every day how they would have filled it together. Did Maria get to experience any of it? In this regard, she was worse off than he'd been.

He felt a familiar stab of sorrow for this young woman, a feeling he knew all to well. "Maria – " he started, their common grief opening a new connection between them.

"Wait – " she said quickly, like she understood. Georg waited, and she paused again. Then she said quietly, "I didn't love him."

Under this third shock, Georg fell utterly silent.

"I – I didn't love him," she repeated. "I cared about him – very much. I respected him. Pierre was kind. He was funny, and very hardworking. He was lonely. He'd only had a few years with his wife before she died."

Maria turned outward again, toward the sea, as though she could see her past laid before her. "When I was sent to work for him, I didn't want to go. I didn't want to leave the only home I knew. But I was told it would be good for me – it would broaden my horizons before I settled down." She grinned ruefully. "Pierre liked that I was Austrian, and could speak with his son and keep that connection to his mother's culture. I liked that he gave me free reign over Johannes – even when he'd come home every day dirty, his clothes torn. Sometimes wet."

Georg almost snorted, suddenly imaging Maria as the governess to his children. Would they, too, have appeared before him dirty, wet, and bedraggled? The thought was unexpectedly amusing.

"The arrangement suited both of us. I became part of the family, and I fell in love."

"But – "Georg started to say.

"Not with him. With Johannes. His son. He was six years old. The shyest, sweetest boy. He'd lost his mother very young, just as I did, and we became the best of friends. When it was time for him to start school, Pierre had to pull him out because they would be traveling soon. He was a devoted father, but his job took him away a lot. He needed a caregiver, and I – I didn't want to say goodbye."

"You agreed to marry Pierre for his son," Georg said slowly, comprehension finally dawning. Maria had agreed to enter a marriage of convenience. Suddenly, that she'd suggest he marry to give his children a mother didn't seem so shocking to him.

"He trusted me with his son, and I trusted him, trusted that he would always care for us."

"You would have given your life for this family."

"I was prepared to give up everything." She looked at him with such intensity in her bright blue eyes Georg wondered if he was missing something.

"I would have done anything for Johannes, I loved him so." Maria was quiet for a long moment, and when she spoke next her voice wobbled with true heartbreak. Alarmed at how overwhelmed she'd become, when she'd been so stoic about the rest of it, Georg reached out to grip her shoulder with his hand. "But I couldn't. The accident… it took Pierre… and it took Johannes. It took everything from me."

Georg took that to mean she had lost the future that had been promised to her, and shook his head sympathetically. She half turned into him, and he slid his arm along the length of her shoulders.

"Well, anyway. Johannes' grandmother sent for him through a sailor nephew of hers, and took him back to France. I… I cried for weeks after, but it was for the best. How could I support myself and a child?" She looked up at him. Her eyes were dry, and her voice was bitter.

How many times, in these past two years, had she berated herself for giving up the child, blamed herself for not being enough? Maria had lived these past two years in purgatory, just as he had.

The difference was she didn't have a choice. And he had.

"Maria," he started again. He cleared his throat, determined to clear the air. "I – erhm, I really have no right to say this… the situation with my children – "

"Captain, you don't need to explain," she said for a second time. Her eyes had cleared, her voice soft. She pulled away from him, but slid her hand into his. In comfort. In solidarity. "You love them very much, I can tell." She sighed, and Georg wondered if she even realized how hard she was squeezing his hand, or that he was squeezing back. "You didn't want to let them go, either."

He paused. "No, I didn't." And in that moment, it seemed to be enough.

A/N: This story is coming together! I'm really excited to dig deeper into Maria's history - it's AU, but aren't there familiar bits from the movie? ;) I'm also taking great liberties with bits of Maria's real history. Still much more on the way. :)

Thank you all for reading, and the lovely reviews and messages! Would love to know what you thought of this chapter. xx