EPILOGUE

"What time is it?"

"Half-past three and a bit," Georg answered. He refrained from adding, "only ten minutes later than the last time you asked me, darling."

"When did she say she would get here?"

"Before five. It won't be long now, Maria. She's not far away, you know. If we need her before that, we can telephone."

Georg knew perfectly well that there was no urgency to the midwife's arrival. Frau Vogl wouldn't be needed for some time to come, in fact. But much as he wanted to reassure his wife, he knew better than to share any wisdom borne of his previous experience.

It had taken only one misstep early in her pregnancy to teach him that lesson. He'd made the mistake of reassuring her that her morning sickness was only temporary, provoking a bitter outburst from Maria - "Is it to be every day for the rest of the nine months, or only upon occasion, Georg, that you're going to lecture me in such a condescending fashion? Because this may be business as usual for you, but it's my baby too, my first baby! " – for him to learn to keep his advice to himself.

All day yesterday, when she'd flown around the house, frantically rearranging the pantry, nursery, and even the garden, all in preparation for the new baby, he'd kept to himself the certain knowledge that her time was near. Luncheon today had been a silent, tense affair, following a morning during which his normally cheerful, capable wife had flown off the handle at three of their seven children.

But when she'd sought him out in his study an hour ago, everything had changed. Maria was subdued, uncertain. "Georg? Can you – I think you might need to call Frau Vogl. When it started this morning, it didn't seem too terrible, but now it's starting to - I need to go upstairs." She turned to press her forehead against the wall, hands fumbling against her belly as she let out a breathy moan.

"All right," he said calmly when she had turned back to him, though his gut had begun to churn. "I'll call, and Liesl can take you upstairs-"

"No!"

"Frau Schmidt then."

"No! You. You. I only want you," she had insisted. "You're the one who's taken care of me from the beginning. And you've been through it seven times already, after all. Which is a great comfort."

Somehow, the telephone call was made and he got her upstairs, into a nightgown, and onto the big bed. He drew the blinds part-way against the bright afternoon sun and fussed with pillows and water pitchers, tasks not normally in his domain. And all the while, Georg was silently lamenting that his wife had decided to depend on him for reassurance, just at the exact point where he had little reassurance to offer. The truth was that he was not at all well prepared, not for this part of it.

First of all, it was four times, not seven; he'd been at sea for three of his children's births. Second, even though he'd technically been present those four times, the room had been full of Agathe's mother, aunts and cousins. He'd been happy to be relegated to a corner, trying not to feel guilty about how much he'd enjoyed the necessary part he'd already played in the proceedings.

This time, in contrast, it was just the two of them, and Maria was utterly focused on him; he could feel her eyes following him as he moved about the room. The only other presence in the room, a fiendish Beast Georg could practically see lurking in the corner, was fear. He had watched one wife suffer and die in this very room, and now his second wife – his little Fraulein, his miracle he'd found half-dead by the side of the road – was counting on him for a different outcome. It wasn't the same situation as Agathe's death, not at all, he knew that, but try explaining it to the Beast.

Maria lay back, watching stray dust motes dance in the golden rays of sunlight that snuck around the half-drawn blinds. She told herself to relax, but every nerve was tense with anticipation, and an awareness that this was it: one of those moments in life where you were hurtling toward an unknown future, with no chance to hesitate or turn back, and even if it was a change you hoped and prayed for, it was still terrifying, somehow. She had felt this way in the robing room, when she'd first entered Nonnberg Abbey, the day after her moment of truth on the glacier. And that night in the gazebo, when she'd agreed to marry him, despite her misgivings. And she had felt this way just before beginning the long walk up the aisle at the Cathedral on their wedding day.

Watching him pace the room, Maria felt a flicker of guilt. For reasons she'd barely understood at first, she had held him at arms' length from the very start of her pregnancy, starting with the weeks she'd kept the tender secret from him entirely; she knew that had upset and angered him more than he'd ever admit. As the weeks and months went by, she'd treasured every roll, nudge and kick from within, but she rarely called those signs to her family's attention the way other mothers did. "Hello, little one," she had whispered, but only when alone in the bath or her dressing room, and after a while, she was able to admit to herself the reasons for her selfish behavior: fear. She was afraid that Georg would never, could never, love this eighth child of his as intensely as she already knew she would, and she was afraid that her love for this child would eclipse her feelings for her seven stepchildren. Even now, Maria winced at the harsh word.

"Georg?"

"Hm?" He was staring distractedly into a shadowy corner of the room, where the sunlight couldn't reach, as though something were hidden there.

She bit her lip. "I haven't been very nice about all of this, have I? I haven't let everyone make a fuss over me, the way they did when I lost my memory. And I know perfectly well that you've been holding back all these months, trying not to tell me what to do. Even though you're usually very bossy-"

He laughed. "None of that matters, darling. We'll have a healthy new son or daughter, that's the important thing. Try to rest, would you?"

"But it is a comfort, Georg, knowing that you've – oh, dear God," she exclaimed, as the dreadful pressure took over her body, pinching and squeezing until she could not hold back a cry of distress. "Georg!" He was by her side, sliding his hands into hers and holding fast, murmuring wordlessly until it passed.

Then he smoothed the hair from her face. "You're doing fine, my brave Fraulein."

"It's not too bad," she said. "Not like a toothache, or a hammered thumb, or the cut of a kitchen knife, when you can't get away from the pain for even a minute. With this, in between, I feel perfectly wonderful, like I could dance," but when she squirmed upright and swung her legs over the side of the bed, he stopped her.

"You've got to save your strength. This is only the beginning, you know."

"But you said she'd be here soon."

He frowned. "Yes, love, but the baby won't come until she's ready-"

"He," Maria corrected him automatically.

"In this house, they're usually girls, if you haven't noticed," he said with a wry smile. "The baby's likely not going to be here for hours, Maria."

"But you said Frau Vogl would be here in just a little while!"

"For God's sake," he blurted, "That woman was here a half-dozen times at least. Didn't she bother to explain what was going to happen? What was she doing all that time?"

"We-llll, she told me what to eat, and she listened to my heart, and she helped me bring the baby things down from the attic. And she said not to worry about the baby coming, it was all very natural and she would take care of everything. Why? Is there something she didn't tell me?" Maria flicked a worried glance in his direction.

"Never mind. Everything will be fine, darling." Was that the Beast, giggling in the corner? Sighing, Georg looked around, thinking of a way to distract her. "Would you like me to read to you?" He reached for the pile of books on her nightstand, but his nerves betrayed him and his clumsy hands knocked them all to the ground. All that remained was a slender volume covered in soft blue leather.

"My journal!" Maria protested. "Surely you're not going to read aloud from that!"

"Journal?"

"Don't you remember? Your sister gave it to me as we were leaving for our honeymoon, because I was always saying how I didn't want to forget a moment of it. When you've lost your memories, even if you get them back, you don't take new ones for granted. I wrote in it almost every day."

He had a vague memory of Hede pressing the slender package into Maria's hands as he hustled his bride into the car. The wedding breakfast was still underway, and a red-cheeked Maria had protested, "The way you're rushing us out of here, Georg, everyone is snickering," but he'd waved her concerns away.

"Of course they are. We're leaving on our honeymoon, for heaven's sake. Now hurry up, darling, we don't want to be late," he had said, flushed with joy, champagne and smug anticipation. He'd managed to keep the honeymoon plans secret, with Hede's help. She was the one who packed the small valise for Maria, and tucked it into the boot, while the trunkfuls of bridal trousseau were sent on ahead.

In the end, he'd overruled Maria on the wedding, insisting on every extravagance he could muster: the Archbishop, a choir, hundreds of guests filling the Cathedral, Maria in a long white dress and veil. It was the only way he knew to fight back against the gossip and speculation, although he had thought at times that the necessarily longer wait to have her in his bed would kill him. She'd gone along with the wedding plan, reluctantly, teasing him that the honeymoon would have to be twice as good to make up for it.

Twice as good. That was exactly what he'd had in mind from that very first night in the gazebo.

Maria smiled at the memories now: Georg had planned that honeymoon with the same strategic precision and flawless execution he'd brought into battle during his naval career. He'd timed things down to the minute, from the moment the driver started the car and pulled away from the villa. And he'd planned for every contingency, for example, the possibility that she would have been too nervous to eat before the ceremony, and too emotional and excited afterward. How grateful she'd been to find the lunch basket Frau Schmidt had left waiting in the back seat!

After lunch, as the car made its way up into the mountains, she'd drifted off to sleep on her new husband's shoulder until he gently shook her awake and the car slowed to a stop.

"Maria. We're about to descend. Come have a look."

She'd never seen anything like the landscape that opened up before her: they were poised at the head of a high, chalk-white cliff, glowing in the late-afternoon light. Below them, a stony slope dotted with red roofs and patches of gray-green undergrowth led to the wide promenade, lined with bright foliage. Beyond, stretching out to the horizon, lay the sun-glittered, azure sea.

"Where are we, Georg?"

"Trieste."

"Oh, Georg! Trieste. You remembered!" She'd clasped her hands together with obvious delight. But she hadn't figured the whole scheme out, not yet. There was another hour's confusion when the driver dropped them at the rough dockside inn, where they were shown to a cramped suite of rooms. Maria was a sturdy soul, but she knew her Captain's luxurious tastes well enough to know that this could not possibly be where they would spend their wedding night. Her confusion had only grown when he'd handed her the small valise and left her to change into the rough suit of clothing she found within.

"But where are our trunks?" she asked when he reappeared, similarly attired.

He'd only smiled mysteriously and hurried her down to the dock, where the freshly-painted little boat bobbed invitingly. As he raised the sail and navigated out onto the open water, she stopped asking questions and watched, mesmerized, as the setting sun painted spectacular colors across the evening sky. She thought of the evening on the glacier when she'd dedicated her life to God. Now, she and Georg were dedicated to each other.

They made the journey in a kind of expectant silence, barely exchanging a word until, an hour later, he'd moored the boat and helped her step out onto the beach. There was just enough light left to make out the tiny stone cabin set in a grove of tall trees.

"What is this place?" she asked.

"It's an island. A private island. I bought it, more or less."

Her eyes went wide. "More or less?"

"I– ehrm, I rented it, that is. For three weeks. There's no one else here, and there won't be, either, unless we raise that flag," he nodded toward the flagpole, "if we need anything. I had it pretty well stocked, though, and we can fish, and-"

"I can hardly believe it!" Arms flung wide, Maria spun around in a slow, wide circle. "This is perfect. But poor Hede, all that fuss about a trousseau," she chuckled, gesturing to the rough trousers and shirt he'd given her. The little valise had held only the barest necessities; she wasn't going to need very much clothing at all, as far as he was concerned.

"Your trousseau has been sent on to Paris. Three weeks here, then three weeks there." He shrugged away her delighted cries – "I couldn't decide, so I got them both for you."

At last, Georg let himself relax. The wedding was behind them and they had arrived at their first destination to find everything exactly as he'd directed. He hadn't planned everything down to the minute. For now, it was enough to spread a blanket on the sugar-soft sand and lie sprawled next to her as the moon turned everything silver, knowing that very soon, under a sky smeared with stars and with no sound except the shush of the water against the shore, he would make love to his wife at last.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

"Georg!"

The blue journal fell to the floor as she reached for him again. He could swear that he heard the Beast muttering in the corner as Maria shuddered and twisted against the pain until she slumped, pale and gasping, against the pillows.

Glancing at the clock, he wiped her face, brought her some water and then settled back into his chair. He retrieved the diary and with forced cheer he teased, "Do you mean to tell me that you documented our wedding night in here? I can't imagine how you managed to record the details when you didn't even know the word for-"

She laughed weakly, and he was gratified to see a pale wash of color return to her cheeks.

"May I?"

He waited until she'd nodded her consent before clearing his throat theatrically and opening the diary, only to make a clicking sound of disappointment. "But Maria, darling! This is far too modest to be entertaining. The morning after, and all you have to say is, 'Now, Georg and I are really married.' Was that the best you could do?"

It was hard to say who had been more shocked by what happened between them in the next three weeks: Maria, at the unimaginable variety of things that a man and a woman on a deserted island in the middle of the blue Adriatic could find to do with each other, or Georg, by the rapid transformation of a demure and innocent bride into an ardent, even inspired lover, and his own reversion back into the randy teenage boy he'd been three decades before.

Grinning at the thought of it, he pulled his chair closer to the bed, so they could both admire the clever sketches she'd entered in the journal, the Adriatic flora and fauna they'd observed while hiking around neighboring islands. Although he didn't remember very much in the way of hiking, actually; the only outdoor activity he remembered had to do with a very strenuous test of just how limited the space on the little boat really was. Nonetheless, it was clear that Maria had documented, with painstaking care, every memory of their honeymoon.

"I'd forgotten this entirely!" Georg said. "Remember the afternoon we went back to the mainland?" They'd wanted to call home, and then, "I took you to the finest restaurant in Trieste, but you must have gotten a spoiled oyster. That's when I knew we were really married," he shook his head at the memory of a long night spent holding her head while she was wretchedly sick.

She groaned, and at first he thought it was only her memory of the bad oyster, but then he realized she was already – and it hadn't been more than six or seven minutes, this time. The Beast cackled with glee. Maria tugged on his hands with surprising force, until they grew white and cramped with the strain, and he summoned from somewhere in his memory the only advice he recalled. "Breathe," he told her, trying his hardest not to look at the clock. "Just try to breathe deeply." Where was the damned woman, anyway?

When she fell back against the pillows, he made her comfortable and then began to page through the journal until he found her accounts of their time in Paris. "Remember, darling? The bateaux mouches at night? The opera? Notre Dame, the stained glass?" He was babbling, now, loudly, anything to drown out the Beast's cruel taunts, but it didn't matter. Maria wasn't paying attention to him anymore, not really.

The next three were closer together, and stronger, too.

"This is much harder than I - I'm afraid I'm going to die," she told him in a small, despairing voice. "I know it's wrong, to say such a thing to you, but…" she trailed off.

"You are not going to die," he assured her. "I won't let you," he mustered every bit of authority he'd known as a naval commander, but he knew, better than most men, that he could make no such promise. And she knew it, too.

The Beast was howling now, so loud that Georg barely heard the doorbell, or Frau Vogl's steps on the stairs.

After that, time froze, or sped up, or disappeared entirely, Maria never really knew. The room filled with violet shadows, there were soothing words and cool cloths and sips of water, there were loud cries torn from her own throat, and the sound of children singing somewhere in the distance. And, throughout it all, there was a deep voice and a pair of strong hands that anchored her fragile body through the hurricane of pain and fear.

And then the blinds were open again, so that she could see her husband standing by the window, showing the silvery full moon to his sixth daughter. One look at him cradling the girl in his arms, and any reservations Maria had about a father's love for his eighth child simply vanished.

"She looks like a little monkey," Georg told his wife, whose eyes were bright with joy but whose face was gray with fatigue. She opened her mouth to protest, and he added, hastily, "Of course, little monkeys are the loveliest, sweetest creatures in the world. Everyone knows that."

"Will you bring the children in to meet her? Just for a moment," Maria whispered pleadingly. Suddenly, she yearned for the seven of them, missing them as desperately as if they'd been separated for months. Which, perhaps, they had been, in a way.

They tip-toed in, subdued and grave with the momentous milestone, the little girls suppressing yawns. "One minute," Georg warned them, "and then your mother has earned her rest."

After they had left, and Frau Vogl followed a few minutes later, he nestled his daughter into her cradle and sat by the bed again. Maria would sleep soundly now, at least until the baby needed her, but he was reluctant to leave her side. The Beast had vanished, but Georg knew he might reappear at any time.

He picked up the blue journal from where it lay on the floor and began to flip through it. The Bois, Montmartre, the little gallery where they'd bought that painting. "Missing the children," he read to himself, and then, "sad to leave, never another time like this." He turned the page and gave a grunt of surprise.

The page was blank. As was the next, and the next, and the next.

After Paris, she'd never written another word.

"Georg? What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry, darling. I didn't mean to disturb you."

"What is it?"

"Nothing," he said. "It's just that – do you know that, after we returned, you never wrote another word in your journal? You were so intent on capturing every memory! And then-"

"I got busy," Maria murmured, eyes heavy with fatigue. "Do you have any idea what it's like to run this house, and raise seven children, and carry an eighth?"

"Of course." Georg bent to kiss her forehead. "Rest now."

He thought she'd drifted off to sleep when he saw a smile curve her lips, and he had to lean forward to hear her last, drowsy whisper.

"I suppose - between love and memory? Love won."

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Thank you again for reading my story, and for the wonderful reviews and PMs. Please leave me one last review, wouldn't you? I hope you liked reading this story half as much as I liked writing it! This chapter draws on the RL story, of course, with a few of my own childbirth memories thrown in. The ansgty early pregnancy stuff comes from another story idea I've played with over the years. Don't own, all for love, and see you soon!