December 12: All I Want For Christmas is You

Pairing: Mary/Matthew

Rating: K

"Matthew, I still do not understand," Isobel Crawley said. The office phone she was speaking into was probably faulty, as Matthew could not comprehend why his mother was unable to follow what he was saying.

"Mother, apparently the forecast predicts that there's going to be snowfall in London early on the sixteenth, heavy enough to stop all flights in and out of London I got rebooked on a flight at one from Leeds Bradford to Heathrow tomorrow, and then from Heathrow to JFK. After a five hour layover."

Isobel was probably running that through in her head. Matthew hoped she wasn't exasperating herself while she was still working.

"Okay. I get it. Maybe. This isn't going to cost you anything dramatic, is it?"

"No, my boss is handling it with the airline company," Matthew explained.

"And Mary – did you call her and let her know?"

"I couldn't reach her, but oddly enough, I was able to contact Martha Levinson. She said that she'll make rearrangements or something."

"Good." Isobel sighed on the phone, obviously already suffering through a tiring morning. "For the love of everything good, I can't believe the weather pulls tricks like this. It was nice and light yesterday."

"Well, things like this happen," Matthew said. "Anyway, just called to let you know. I'll see you tonight."

With that, he ended the call. He rested his elbows on the desk and rubbed his face with his palms. This entire month was exhausting him to the core: he imagined his cheekbones were going to be as noticeable as his nose by Christmas day. Even if his firm was sending him to New York for long enough to give him time to kill, it wasn't going to be a relaxing journey. He wanted stab whomever suggested him to go to New York right before Christmas in the arse.

The small consolation was that he had a friend on the other side of the pond: Mary, whose face he had not seen in months, but he imagined every day smiling and enjoying herself, a changed woman from the troubled and flummoxed person who had decided to leave England without a date for the return trip.

He missed Mary a lot: he remembered how torn he was when he said goodbye to her. Matthew knew well that it was better for Mary's spirit to take some time off and forget any troubles that she had accumulated in the past year. Matthew had admitted, indirectly, in one of his emails to her that he was jealous of her being carefree in another country. And yet, he missed her. A lot. More than he thought he would.

It was a surreal sense in his brain, to think that he'd see Mary again, and sooner than he had anticipated. He wondered how she would react upon seeing him again. Would she smile and embrace him, as old friends often did? Or would she stare off blankly, uncertain of what to do?

And just how much had she changed? He hadn't seen any pictures of her since she arrived in America, though she took plenty of the city surrounding her (she had sent him the pictures of the illuminated Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, which he had been delighted and shocked to receive from her). Matthew wondered if she had gotten some drastic haircut, which was fairly hard to envision in his mind. Since he had met her, she hadn't made any strikingly different alterations to her appearance, even though once she had commented on getting a pixie cut or bob or whatever strange names women christened their hair. He remembered the comment that Lavinia had given about the image of Mary's hair all chopped off, and he remembered smiling at that.

Out of a habit that had grown in his mind, since April, he paused when he thought of Lavinia. Constantly he told himself to brush aside his futile guilt because it wasn't going to do him any good, and it sure as hell was not going to do Lavinia any good. His pain had eased up during the last few months, but somehow, with Mary gone, his thinking of her also incited him to think of Lavinia. Matthew still did not know the reason for this. Maybe he was just bored, without a young woman to talk to.

Still, he was glad, as he was looking forward to share some time with Mary. For the both of them, the past few Christmases had been difficult, the years stress-filled on account of various unpleasantries. To see Mary finally relaxing might even help him to relax, and take his mind off of everything else. Mary had an unconscious talent of doing that very well.

Matthew heard his mobile phone vibrate on the desk, buzzing like a mortally wounded horsefly. He checked the messages, and saw an unidentifiable number. He was just about to delete the message, most likely spam or a caller with a wrong number, when he noticed the letters Mar inside the message.

Just as his instinct told him, though based on nothing but the letters within the text message, it was Mary.

From: Mary Crawley's mobile. Hi Matthew, I know your flight got switched to tomorrow, Grandmama told me. Will wait for you tomorrow evening at JFK

Matthew smiled to himself, restraining a burst of laughter. It seemed that Mary had finally figured out how to send text messages internationally. So far, she had only communicated with family and friends back home via email. Matthew felt rather flattered that she had graced him with a quick text message. It felt closer to normality to doing that instead of the rather rigid emails she sent him.

The phone vibrated again. Matthew looked at it again, and once again it was an unidentifiable number. But he knew it was Mary again.

Can't wait to see you again

"Oh, Mary Crawley," Matthew said wistfully, "have you really missed me that much?"

Because he did miss her, more than words could possibly say.

Carefully, Mary typed out the words:

Can't wait to see you again.

She then hit send, and waited an obscene amount of time before it actually sent, far across the ocean and to Matthew Crawley's own mobile. She hoped he wouldn't that too weird a text, even though it was true.

It had been a shock when Grandmama had announced that, due to foreseen weather conditions, Matthew's flight into New York was a few days earlier. That meant, to Mary, she would see Matthew again sooner. This sudden turn of events was practically a good turn.

What news would Matthew bring, if he had any to bring? If her parents hadn't told her anything concerning the machinations of Richard Carlisle, that either meant that there wasn't anything to be told or they didn't want to disturb while she was on her holiday. That was meant very well, but if Mary had bad news waiting for her, she would rather know and adapt to the bad conditions than be caught off guard. And if there was any inkling of trouble regarding Carlisle and his manipulative behavior, Matthew would certainly be the one to tell her. Neither of them were accustomed to hiding secrets; not usually, as there was at least one that she had refrained from speaking aloud to him for several years. Otherwise, they were trusting confidantes, and thus Mary had to mentally prepare herself in case Matthew delivered the worst possible news.

Get it together, Mary, she said to herself, you sound positively paranoid. There's probably nothing to hear.

Often she told herself that Richard Carlisle was a coward who intimidated solely on false promises and threats. That may or may not be false, hopes that could be shattered within an instant, a few short words.

She heard a faint tinkling from the far side of the apartment, followed by strained grunting and something falling over and scraping a wall. She left her room to investigate the sound and found two men and her grandmother standing around a Christmas tree, struggling to right itself as it slid against the wall. The fragile tree stand had split down the middle, and Mary could see the workers' efforts were pointless.

"Gracious, I was hoping that tree stand would last another year. It would have been nice to decorate it tomorrow, to have it all ready for Matthew to see," Grandmama said. She looked down at the withered tree stand and shook her head, oblivious to the two men still in the living room that were struggling to keep the tree from crashing down on any other valuables.

"Grandmama, it's not a big deal whether or not there's a Christmas tree ready to welcome Matthew. He's not a god," Mary pointed out.

"He sure looks like one, or else that is an excellent editing job on those photos," Grandmama said. "Then again, I suppose that can be something you can do together."

"What?"

"Decorating the tree, you silly child," Grandmama said, playfully nudging her granddaughter. "He's going to be here for some extra time. And since I notice how bored you are with all my old wrinkled friends, I imagine you'll be with an old flame as much as you possibly can."

"Please do not call Matthew my 'old flame,' Grandmama," Mary responded.

Grandmama raised her hands in surrender. "Alright, easy, only teasing," she said. "Still, who knows when you'll see each other after this. It will be nice for the two of you to catch up, make some nice memories here in New York. And I promise I won't hang around you and embarrass you."

"Don't worry. I'm well capable of embarrassing myself, thank you very much," said Mary curtly.

"Uh, ma'am?" one of the workers said with a strong Boston accent. "This tree's 'bout to fall right on that vase there, and if someone doesn't move it — "

"Ugh, for Pete's sake, just let it fall," Grandmama said, waving her hand nonchalantly.

"But ma'am — !"

The tree fell with a soft thud, and the vase that had been sitting in its path broke into eight large pieces.

"I hated that ugly piece. I don't know why I kept it in my home, let alone where everyone could see it," Grandmama said. She had been watching the workers run about the fallen tree like agitated chickens, and all that was missing was the popcorn.

Mary laughed. She watched as the two workers rolled the tree off of the table where the vase had once stood in all its gaudy pride and set against the wall.

"You know, Matthew broke a similar vase like that once," Mary said.

Grandmama gave a small hmph. "Justice is being served to these poor Quasimodo vases," she said.

"Well, it was by accident," Mary said, recalling the incident that had both horrified and amused her.

"As long as he doesn't break anything else, I will remain hospitable to Matthew," Grandmama declared.

"Matthew's hardly clumsy," Mary explained, "but he broke the vase in the middle of a fight."

"Ooh, well now I'll have to hear this story," Grandmama said.

Mary scowled. "Some other time," she said. "Maybe Matthew can tell you that story."

When he gets here, of course. Which is sooner than expected. And I'll be seeing him very soon.

In fact, she was counting the hours until she'd see Matthew's smiling face again.