Mary stood at the window in her room, looking out at the court. Everything was crumbling down around her. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. She should have been in Scotland by now. Away from all of it. 'It's never going to end is it? I'll never find peace.' She thought. A knock came at the door and a servant entered.

"A massage for you, your majesty." She said handing her a letter and leaving. She let her eyes roll over the words.

"I'm too late." She said to herself. 'I'm going to lose my country. I've already lost my husband, my dignity, myself. I can't keep doing this.' She thought. 'I need to see Francis.'

She opened his door slowly, and crept inside. She walked to the side of his bed tentatively, and sat beside him. His face was pale and his lips were blue. A crust of dried blood had formed at the edge of his ear. The sight of it was too much for her. She couldn't hold her tears in any longer. They fell from her eyes like a dam had just boken. She reached over and took his hand. How could this near lifeless body belong to her husband? This had to be a nightmare. She heard the door open and close behind her. She turned to see Conde standing there.

"Louis, what are you doing? You shouldn't be here." She said.

"The men are waiting on your word. They need you to make a decision now. If they don't leave soon..." he started.

"Our army will not be going to Scotland...No one will." She said.

"But Mary, England is ready to..." he began again.

"England has already struck. I just received word. My mother wants to surrender. She likely already has. My country is already lost. And as such, is now unsafe to hold me." She explained.

"We can still go. We just have to adjust our plans." He said.

"No. We should have never made those plans in the first place, and you need to leave this room. It's not right for you to be here. It's disrespectful." She said.

"Mary..."

"Please go. I can't do this right now." She said through the tears. He quietly backed out of the room.

As Catherine was on her way to check on Francis, she saw Conde emerge from the room and she was furious again.

"What do you think you're doing allowing him into this room? You can't even wait until Francis is gone to start galavanting around the castle with him!?" Catherine yelled.

"I didn't ask him here. I made him leave just as soon as he arrived. I know he doesn't belong in here. You know I would never do that." She answered.

"Yes well, I never thought you'd run off with a Bourbon or betray the alliance by stealing our army under your sick husband's nose either...but here we are." She said, a little calmer, but anger still dripping from every syllable.

"I am not sending French soldiers to Scotland. You were right. It's already lost. I can not save it." She said quietly.

"Finally you've come to your senses. I'm sure he didn't take it well when you dumped him. We'll have to work on a way to keep him from retaliating." She said.

"I didn't dump him." She looked toward the window. "I only canceled our plans."

"Ah I see, so you're going to continue shoving your affair into my son's face?" She started raising her voice again.

"Just because I'm not going to Scotland, doesn't mean I need to stay in the castle. We have other properties I can reside in." Mary explained.

"You can't be serious. This is ridiculous. Why do you keep insisting on this madness?" She questioned.

"Why do you care? You're the one who told me to live separate lives." She argued.

"This is not what I meant and you know it. And that was when I thought he was hiding things from you." Catherine shot back.

"He was hiding things from me!" She replied.

"To protect you! He hid it from me too, you don't see me getting angry about it."

"That's because it wasn't you that had to pay for his mistakes!"

"You act as though he's not paying for them too. He's hurting just as much as you are. And he's not running around with someone else trying to hide from it. He's feeling every moment of it, and I'm the one who has to sit back and watch him suffer while you look the other way."

"I'm not looking the other way. I'm simply trying to start over. Give us both a chance to find some kind of peace."

"Does this look like peace to you?" She said gesturing toward Francis. "And what kind of life are you going to have with a man that could have his head removed at any moment?"

"He knows the risk, but we are devoted to each other." She said.

"As I recall you took a chance of loosing your country and your life trying to save Francis from a prophecy that you barely belived. But with him, you throw him right into the fire. Knowing full well he will most likely lose his head. Yes, you seem so very devoted to him."

Mary didn't answer, only looked back at Francis. She shut her eyes, trying to close it all out. No this isn't what she wanted at all.

"This is what I have to do. There is no other way." Catherine could see it then. She understood what she was doing now. Why she was continuing on with her plan as best she could. She needed something solid to hold onto. Something that she could count on. She needed to feel safe.

"What you have to do. Not what you want to do." She said more calmly than before.

"Happiness is the one thing we Queens can never have." Mary repeated the words Catherine herself had said to her so many months ago. In that moment, Catherine's heart shattered in the cold realization that Mary had taken her words so much to heart that she started to believe it herself. The thing she'd always admired most of her, she'd been the one to ruin. All the time she'd thought she wasn't listening, she'd been hearing all the wrong things. She reached a hand out to her and then pulled it back quickly, not saying a word. She was at a loss. She knew now the only way to get her back was to make her feel safe again, but she couldn't even begin to figure out how to do that. Not without Francis. She took a deep breath in and left the room.