Disclaimer: The Sound of Music belongs to 20th Century Fox (now Disney). No infringement is intended

A/N: These chapters are somewhat related but not entirely. The muse kind of came back earlier this month when I was re-posting older stories to a different platform. This is the result. I have not read TSOM fanfic in some time; if these ideas are similar to others, that is unintentional. Great minds think alike!

Chapter 1 - The Other Blue Dress

The room hadn't changed. The new drapes, the duvet, the bright lights, and the brisk, fresh scent. It was all the same. And yet it seemed smaller and somehow colder.

Maria Rainer felt a sort of muted déjà vu settling over her as she placed her bag on the bed. Shouts could be heard outside, the children's mirth echoing down the hall. Despite herself, she smiled at the sound. That at least, was a comfort. Their joyful reaction to seeing her again had been stamped into her heart and would remain with her forever. The children had erased most of the apprehension that had consumed her in her journey back to the Villa.

Most, but not all.

Footsteps, loud and thumping thundered in the hall, and she frowned and walked over to close her door. She felt bad; she'd always wanted to be open to whenever one of her charges needed her. But in this moment, she craved solitude. She didn't think she could even feign her smiles any longer.

For she had come back to the villa for an answer. And it had taken less than a minute to receive it. The Baroness was right; the Captain had gotten over it. Or what was more likely, he'd never really felt anything at all, and the Baroness had been exaggerating.

Maria's eyes burned, and she blinked. Somehow that hurt even more: the overwhelming emotions she felt when she looked at him had consumed her, but it was nothing for him. She was merely the help. The dance at the party was simply for the children, and he'd probably forgotten about it. For all Maria knew, he had laughed if the Baroness had told him the governess had feelings for him.

Maria shook her head, desperate to regain even a fraction of that confidence she'd gathered in her first journey to the Trapp family. But all she wanted to do was go back to the safety of the convent. She'd done as she'd been told. She returned and she had her answer, just as the Reverend Mother had requested. Why should she stay any longer?

She gulped, knowing dinner was soon and she'd have to face everyone. Face him.

"Kurt! You give that back!"

Maria squinted at the door. Brigitta. Again, she couldn't help but smile and a sort of resolve filled her. The children. She would focus on the children. That's what she'd been sent to do, and she would spend her remaining days with them, making memories they'd all cherish once she left for good. She tried to ignore how lonely that made her feel.

Exhaling with an unsettled determination, Maria glanced at the clock. Dinner would begin in a few minutes, and she frowned. She didn't have anything to wear. When she'd first come to the family, she'd thought it odd everyone changed for dinner. Not her, of course, she still had that dreadful frock even the poor had rejected. The idea of changing clothes for a meal had been so foreign to her, a country girl who'd been lucky if she'd gotten any dinner at all, or the postulant who wore the same thing at all times. The villa, and the family who lived in it, was a different world.

A world she apparently didn't belong in.

"Stop," Maria sighed and pulled at her unpacked bag. No, she didn't have anything really appropriate, even if it didn't matter. She looked down at what she was wearing; it was a pretty blue dress, and fortunate the incoming postulant and she had been the same size. But it didn't feel acceptable for dinner with the Von Trapp family.

Not like…

Maria's heart raced as her mind drifted to another blue dress. A dress with light and diaphanous material that swayed as she walked. A dress Marta had said made her look like a princess. A dress that had made her feel like she belonged with them.

A dress he couldn't stop staring at.

Slowly, Maria turned to the armoire, and she wondered if it, and all the other clothes the Captain had generously provided for her, were still there. Or had they been removed the moment she'd fled? She walked over and opened the door, and her breath quickened. It was still there. They were all still there. Tears stung her eyes; they hadn't erased her as completely as she'd thought.

She reached up and touched the soft blue fabric. It really was beautiful. Her mind wandered to all the times she'd worn it. Dinner was its most frequent use. It was the only one really suited for the formality. She'd also worn it to the puppet show, thinking it fitting for the performance. And then afterward as she'd leaned against the cabinet, her knees weakening as she watched the Captain sing before his children. When his eyes had raised and met hers and she'd felt the world drift away.

Maria gulped, forcing herself back into the moment. She pushed the dress further into the armoire. She shouldn't wear it. It was too connected to the feelings she was trying to escape from. And yet…She did love it. She'd loved how the sleeves fell over her arms like a butterfly's wings. How light and breezy it was, like the air in the mountains. She felt beautiful when she wore it.

Postulants were supposed to put aside dangerous vices such as vanity. And truthfully, Maria never really considered herself vain in her appearance because she never really considered her appearance at all. From the farm to the Abbey, clothing was always practical, and even here at the villa, she'd never thought about what she was wearing. Until the Captain had bought her the material and for the first time, she felt attractive.

Maria's hand drifted back to the blue satin, her breath quickening. The dress was more than the puppet show, more than that evening. The children, well the girls at least, had said she looked pretty, and as their encouragement rested in her mind, a new sort of confidence fell over her.

And at the moment, standing alone in her room as the clock ticked down to dinner, she needed all the help she could get. If the dress armored her with even a flicker of resilience, she'd take it. Her mind made up, she pulled it from its hanger and gave it a gentle shake to remove any wrinkles. The dress would help, she knew that. It would give her the confidence she was so desperate for and that would give her the strength she would need to survive dinner.

The children's voices echoed out again, and she allowed a tiny smile as she unfastened the buttons. She could do this. She would put all her attention on the children, as it always should have been in the first place. They would shield her from however she would react to their father, and in this dress, she would hold her head up high.

She slipped the fabric over her shoulders and instantly felt better.