AN: I realize I have been very late in submitting these, however, I'm taking the weekend to write them. They probably will go through a few edits, so check back and reread to see if anything has changed.

December 5: I'll be in New York for Christmas

Pairing: Mary/Matthew

Rating: K

"I've always thought this tree was like your other grandmother in some ways," Martha Levinson told her oldest granddaughter. The two of them were standing in front of the Christmas tree in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where hung dozens of cream-faced angels and the tiny Nativity setting.

"And how can you compare my grandmother to a Neapolitan Baroque crèche?" Mary humorously inquired.

"Well, they're both old," Grandmama jokingly began. "But also, more seriously, Violet and this tree are symbols of tradition. Having this mess of angels on a ten-foot tree is a tradition that's been around for more than fifty years. It'll probably be here forever. Tradition is hard to destroy, I have to admit."

Mary smiled a tad at this. She felt in better spirits today for some reason. Presently, it was just her grandmama and her perusing the galleries at the Metropolitan, which the Levinsons just happened to be great benefactors of.

"New York in December is just one big time of pulling out the old lights and putting them exactly where they were last year," Grandmama continued. "That's was the New Yorkers like, and that's what the tourists like. They see the pictures, they think, 'I want to see that next year,' they buy plane tickets, they get what they want."

"Do you like to see the same thing every year?" Mary asked. She knew her grandmama's view on tradition: it was the complete opposite of her more conservative family.

"You know me," Grandmama said with a short pause, "I like to see things keep moving. Like the subway, it just shouldn't stop for anything. But then again, seeing all the lights and trees and candy boxes from years past makes me feel that nice little bit of nostalgia. My friend Lily told me once that we like seeing old decorations each and every year because it reminds us of happy memories, of the peace and fun of Christmas."

"You might want to write that all down for Sybil," Mary said. "She's determined to get rid of some of our older decorations sitting in the upper rooms at Downton."

"Well, some of your decorations are uglier than a nutcracker," quipped Grandmama.

In the Patrons' Lounge, waiting for afternoon tea to arrive, Mary snuck a quick look at her phone. She knew that Anna had received the photos and video of the tree lighting at Rockefeller that Mary had bothered to take. That had been a nice night, actually: although most of the crowd had been outside, Mary had found a café with some views towards the Christmas tree. She wasn't used to utilizing the camera on her phone, but she learned to position the phone steadily on a windowsill just before the tree was illuminated in a blinding sparkle of light.

And in few seconds of impulsive decision-making, after sending the photos and videos to Anna, she sent them again, to Matthew.

It was like sending something in the post: once she had hit 'send' she wondered whether or not it was a good idea. Sometimes she wished there was a way to retract sent emails from recipients' email inboxes, or that she knew how to hack someone's account to delete embarrassing mail.

What she was more anxious about was what Matthew would write back. He would not write back anything mean-spirited — he wasn't that type of person at all. But the way Matthew wrote emails to her, such as the most recent one from a few days ago, it was as if he was sitting right beside her and striking up a conversation. There was a level of familiarity that he put into writing them, and she liked that — though sometimes it was hard to just read it and imagine his voice saying the words instead of hearing him speak them aloud.

God, what was she thinking?

She opened up her email inbox (which took a good five minutes due to the lack of internet signals) and waited for any notifications to load. There was only one unread message, and it was from Matthew.

Mary wondered if she should read the email quickly before eating, or put it away and wait until she got home. If she chose to wait, the suspense would definitely aggravate her. But she also did not want other people to see her reaction when she read his words. Her grandmama would ask questions if she noticed Mary making even the slightest face.

Against her heart's unrealized desire, Mary put her phone away and tried to push the unread email out of her thoughts. It took a few minutes, but eventually the unread email was, for a time, neglected.

Mary later realized that she had made the right choice. As soon as she got back to Grandmama's apartment, she read the email. Her jaw hung like a stocking above a fireplace.

Dear Mary,

That was really nice of you to send the photos and the video you took at Rockefeller Center a few days ago. I've never seen that before, and I wasn't expecting that you'd send me those sorts of things, but thank you. It was a pretty good video, (even though you might want to fix the photos in an editor, because I can barely see the tree).

I just received some very bizarre news from my boss today, and you are also going to think this opportunistically strange: I'm being sent to New York City for work purposes next week. I won't bore you with the details, but the important part is that I'll be in the same city as you from the 16th to the 21st. I have no idea if my boss knows that one of my friends is in New York, but I suppose that's fate.

I understand if you're busy, but as it has been a few months since I last saw you, it would be nice to meet up with you, even if it's just once while I'm there. I will wait until I hear back from you before making any plans, though. And I'm sorry if this is too spontaneous for you; the boss just sicced this on me as I was getting ready to leave work.

Matthew

"Mary, you should close your mouth before Santa Claus thinks that's someone's chimney," Grandmama said. She peered close at the email, before Mary could turn the phone off.

"I see. So you're good friend Matthew is going to be in New York soon?" she said cheerfully.

"Apparently," Mary said flatly. "It's just for work."

"Mary, no one comes to New York in December just 'for work,'" Grandmama said seriously. "Now, you text or mail or whatever him back and tell him not to bother booking a hotel."

I didn't take long for Mary to understand what her grandmama had in mind. "What?" she cried.

"No buts, Mary. He's your friend, you're in New York, and I have quite a few bedrooms going to waste."

She, in the lightest sense, was stunned. How could it 'just so happen' that Matthew was going to be within miles of her instead of an ocean away? Why did these Christmas miracles just have to happen so perfectly?

Oh God, I'm going to see Matthew again.

That single thought sent her brain into a flurry of reminiscing, imagining, and thinking up ideas about what to do with Matthew when he was were. Yes, of course she wanted to spend time with him. She had missing him this entire time she had been in hiding: why else would her heart be beating so violently at the thought of seeing him again?

She hated admitting she was still, partially, in love with him.

She brought her computer into the sitting room and hurriedly began to type an email in reply. It was basic in it's language: yes, you can come, you can stay with my grandmother and I, I'm available almost all the time.

"Grandmama, what do you think I should do with Matthew?" she asked.

"Well, he gets here the week before Christmas, so there won't be any shortage of things to see and do," Grandmama answered. She stood next to Mary and read over the email draft. "What do you think he would like to do?"

"How should I know?" Mary said, somewhat perplexed.

"He's your friend," Grandmama said.

"Well, he's not my best friend. And we never talked about our personal selves that often," Mary countered.

"Then I think it's time to do so," Grandmama said. She sat down next to Mary on the sofa. "Call it an old woman's mental aberration, but I sense that he's going to get your Christmas present while he's here. It would be in your favor to drop a few hints here and there."

Mary let out a long sigh of irritation. "Grandmama, you don't understand. Matthew's had a tough year, even worse than I've had it. Don't you think that he deserves some space?"

Grandmama scoffed. "How long has it been? Almost a year? You can probably afford to give Matthew some attention. The way I see it, he wants to see you as much as you want to see him."

Mary sat in dumbfound silence.

"Mary, your relationship with Matthew is not like the Metropolitan tree. It can't stay the same forever; you need to realize that he is in fact very dear to you."

"What makes you say that out of the blue?" Mary asked. She was never used to having these conversations with anyone else except her mother. It must be an American custom to talk about unrequited love so openly.

"Why else were you so stunned to read about his coming over here?" Grandmama said, laughing. "Besides, you and him have a past, and you can't discard a past like a candy wrapper, even when you can't taste the sweet stuff anymore. I think it's time to make amends. And no, don't think I'm implying you should get together again, because I know you won't. But it is about time you stop thinking of yourselves as 'friends' and more like 'good friends who are very special to each other.'"

"Do you think that he'll be willing to go back being, as you say, 'good friends who are very special to each other?'" Mary asked.

"I think he already knows that's how you two are," Grandmama said with a twinkle in her eye.