I'm really sorry for keeping you waiting for this – I was just too curious to know what you'd think of the concept. I can't promise to update very fast, but at least it won't last three weeks again. So far, I'm very happy to see that you like the story.

The pictures had faded, but the pain in her head and neck was still raging, burning through every cell of her being. This was not how Mary had depicted death. It was supposed to be an eternal morning filled with bliss, joy, and praising God – or at least, for she was no longer sure she could believe in heaven, an eternal, peaceful slumber.
But this… as the pain intensified Mary wondered if she had ended up in hell. Was this the price for her loss of faith? For her using occult and forbidden forces to save Francis? It hadn't even worked out. She had lost him, just as she had lost everyone else. Only memories remained, and while they had given her strength in England, now they were wearing her down as she stumbled forward into the darkness.
She would see her friends again. She had to believe it. They were all dead, and she was dead, so they had to be somewhere around.
"Please…" Mary was startled by her own voice as it echoed through eternity. She sounded younger than she used to… like when she had been a child, playing hide and seek with Francis. He would always find her in the blink of an eye while she had to run through the whole castle and still didn't get a trace of him. So one day she had hushed down into the cellars.

As soon as her feet touched the dirty ground, cold seeped through her shoes, her dress. Hiding her hands in her sleeves, Mary turned to the darkest corridor and followed it as quietly and quickly as she could. This time, Francis would not find her so easily – no matter how hard her teeth chattered. Hugging herself against the cold, Mary kept marching, focusing on her betrothed's face if he didn't catch her soon.
She liked Francis, she really did, and she was actually looking forward to marrying him one day – but he was always so sure of himself. Always so confident that things would turn out well, that people were goodhearted, that life could be easy… it couldn't, not for an heir. Mary knew that, and she was younger than him. She'd tried to explain it to Francis, but he wouldn't listen. Politics was what mattered most to a queen, her mother had told her, and that Mary should learn as fast as she could to protect her country. It was a duty and an honor, that was what her mother had drummed into her, and she knew it, she felt it… Francis didn't seem to. He was never afraid, never worried – except for Bash sometimes, when he disappeared for hours. Nobody knew where he was going.
And now it would be the same with Mary. She crouched down at the wall, buried her feet in her skirts and waited, grinning. She too would disappear for some time, and neither her mother nor Francis would be able to reach her. She was free.

After about five minutes, however, freedom stopped feeling good. Her fingertips and toes turned to ice, but worse even than that was the silence. Apart from her own breathing and occasional drops of water, she heard nothing. No sign of life anywhere.
Mary closed her eyes. She couldn't give in now. Suffering also was a part of life. It would make her strong. That's what her mother would say.
Or she would freeze to death – that was what Catherine would say.
Mary endured the silence for another five minutes that felt like an hour, then she decided to return. She wasn't cruel, after all, there was no need for Francis to panic completely.
Just how exactly had she come here?

Mary stopped with closed eyes as the memory took over, as she felt her heart beat faster than it had in a long time, fast and frantic as it had done back then when she had realized she was lost. With every step the cold had become stronger, and the darkness heavier. What had begun as a game quickly turned into a nightmare, and after an hour or so, the little queen had seriously feared to die below the castle. What a stupid way to die.

"Please…" She was so cold and tired by now that her mouth barely moved, her voice was thin. Mary shivered and tried again, louder this time and more regal (she hoped): "Please… can somebody hear me?"
Nothing. Biting back a sob, Mary kept walking. When she didn't feel choked up by fear anymore, she tried again: "Can somebody hear me?"

"Mary! Great God, what are you doing here?"

Mary's eyes snapped open as memory mixed with reality. As years ago, her body started shaking, but this time it wasn't from the cold. "Hello?"

"Hello… and forgive my stupid question. We've been waiting for you."

With tears in her eyes, Mary turned her head towards the soft voice. "Who are you?"
"Someone who, even though he deemed every day spent without you worthless, would rather not have seen you again so soon." A low laughter, so familiar it hurt. She curled her fingers into fists to stop them from shaking. Her heartbeat – why ever she still had one – lived in her fingertips, in her stomach. "This can't be."
"Yes…that's what most of us said, I heard. Except Francis, of course." The affection in the other's voice as he spoke the name brought fresh tears into Mary's eyes, until she couldn't hold them back anymore. Sobbing, she broke down – and found herself caught up in steady arms, and a smell that carried relief and safety and joy and guilt.
"Bash!"
"Mary." She felt his breath on her forehead, then his lips. "I really shouldn't be saying this but I'm glad to see you."
"See?" She laughed shakily, trying to dub the awkwardness she felt. "I don't see anything."
"Then open your eyes." Bash's voice was gentle and calm as ever, if he noticed her mixed feelings he didn't show it.
"They are open."
"Then maybe you're not ready yet." He pulled her close for a moment, then let go of her. Mary gasped, suddenly feeling uncertain on her feet without his support. Then again, she was a queen. The queen of Scotland, and once the queen of France. It was about time she acted like it. Even when, for Bash, her rank had never been important. "Where are we? Why are we here? Where is…" She bit her lips before ending the sentence, but judging from Bash's laughter, he understood. "I don't exactly know. Our best theory is we're in a kind of an entrance hall, waiting for our call to heaven. Or hell." He almost choked on the last word. "Don't worry. You made it through the shadows, as did all of us. Elizabeth cut off your head, but she couldn't harm your soul. It was never endangered."
"Not by her, at least." The words were out before she could stop them. In her heart, joy was fighting with guilt, both emotions so strong she felt as if she was breaking apart.
"Mary…"
"It wasn't your fault." She shook her head resolutely. "You have never been anything but honest with me. You told me about your feelings and then you let me go, but…"
"You sent me away", Bash interrupted. "I would never have let you go if I'd seen a chance for us to be together. Never. You always had my heart."
Mary winced at his words, and at the surge of regret inside her. "I sent you away because it was a mistake."
"To believe in our love?" The calmness was gone, replaced by the powerful rage only a son of king Henry had. Mary bit back a smile. She had missed him so much. She had missed both of them so much.
"Mary, what we had was real! I know it was."
"I didn't mean to say it wasn't", she responded softly. "But we shouldn't have done it. I shouldn't have done it. I am married to Francis." Mary took a deep breath as both joy and guilt became overridden by longing. She had learned to keep the grief at bay, and over time, the pain had dulled and become bearable – but it had never stopped hurting. She still loved him, would always and everywhere love him… and she would always search for him. In her mind. In the taste of French food. In the sky on a clear day.
In Bash.

"What we did was wrong", she repeated in a whisper, lost in memories she was no longer sure to be true. "You said so yourself."
"I…" She felt him shaking his head next to her, overwhelmed with grief as she was. "Our timing was wrong, maybe. But not our love. I have always loved you, Mary, and that love never changed."
"Then your love was much purer than mine." Mary bit her lips. She hadn't admitted it to herself but Bash deserved her confession, he deserved the truth – and she deserved his hatred, if that was how he would feel afterwards.
"I love you too, Bash, you know that. I really do. I always wanted you to be happy. But when we went to Scotland… after I'd killed the man who murdered Francis, when Lola died and everything… everything… I just…" she broke to her knees and this time there was no one to hold her. "I needed someone who would make me feel safe. I wanted my husband back. And you… you knew him so well. You knew him better than he did himself, better than I. I love you, for yourself, but in this moment I..." she stopped again. Nothing had ever been harder than saying these words: "I loved you because you were the closest thing to Francis I could find."

In the silence that followed, the darkness started to fray. As she waited for Bash to say something Mary realized she could see his shape close to her. Often she had evoked his face in her memory, had imagined the traces of time on his face. The man sitting next to her showed no sign of age, no sign of the illness that had torn him from this world weeks ago. It was yet too dark to see if he was crying but his voice was calm again. "You already told me." He waited for an answer and, realizing he wouldn't get it, continued, "when we were close to marrying, you remember? I wanted the truth, and you said it. You said that you loved me…"
"It was true then, and it is true now."
"…and then you said…" Bash closed his eyes. A sad smile played across his lips. "It's alright, Mary. I guess I knew it from the beginning." He paused again. "You see me now, don't you?"
"I do." She gently reached for Bash's hand, ready to halt if he should pull it away.
He didn't.
"Would you say it again?"
She took a deep breath, and then the words slipped out of her mouth, clear and much easier than it had been at the first time: "I love you. But I love Francis more."

With this, the darkness disappeared. Involuntarily, Mary looked up. Around her, everything was blue. At first, it didn't seem different from the blackness but when she focused on a spot of light she realized it was shaped like a cathedral, seen from very far away, and very high. It looked almost like Notre-Dame, but that was impossible!

"Me too." Bash's voice brought Mary back to reality. She turned to him, touched by his loyalty to his brother. A loyalty that had never wavered. "Bash…"
"Come on." He stood up and gently pulled her with him, cutting off her next excuse. As if words could ever explain how sorry she felt. How lost she would be without him. How much she loved him.
"Let's go find the others. I'm not the only one who missed being with you far too long."