A/N: If it isn't too much trouble, please leave your thoughts about this one! They help me to write the next one! Also, this chapter takes place after the season two finale, just in case you get confused. I'm hoping they'll address the fact that this happened in the show, but I couldn't resist.
When he opened his door and found Bash standing outside, looking flustered and totally lost, a single tear track running down his cheek, Francis blinked, and then pushed open the door further.
"What's wrong?" he asked hoarsely, mind instantly turning to Kenna or to Mary. "Has...has something happened? Is Mary..."
Bash managed to sake his head, opening his mouth as though he would answer, but no sound came out. He stood there silently for a few seconds, and then glanced down the hall as if he believed someone was following them.
"Come in," Francis said, frowning, and this seemed all the invitation Bash needed before barging into the room. He made it only a few steps before he stumbled, and would have fallen to the ground had not Francis caught him around the wrists, pulling Bash up against him gently.
"Are you injured?" he demanded, and Bash seemed to have just enough presence of mind to shake his head, but only that.
This was the most discomfited Francis had ever seen Bash, he couldn't help but think. Something was terribly wrong, and if Bash wasn't injured...
Francis moved them, slowly, despite all of his instincts screaming at him to be quick, to demand what was wrong, over to the divan, pushing his brother down and reaching for that bottle of brandy he'd kept stashed under the blankets of said divan, where Mary wouldn't find it, though he wasn't entirely sure why he bothered to hide them from her.
He didn't think that she entirely disapproved of drinking, as he had seen her do so herself often enough, though not nearly as often as himself.
He waited, knew better than to push Bash into talking about something if he did not wish to speak of it, but wondering all the same.
He had never seen Bash like this. Never seen him so...vulnerable, not even after Francis took back his throne and Mary. Embarrassing as it was, it always seemed to be Francis coming to Bash for comfort, not the other way around.
He regretted that.
Bash sat awkwardly on the edge of the divan, staring listlessly at the opposite wall, where a portrait of Mary hung; Francis' favorite, for in it she was smiling, and he would see her smile for the rest of his life, if he could.
They didn't speak for a while, Francis clutching the bottle of brandy and debating inwardly whether to actually share it with his brother, for, where the burning sensation of alcohol seemed to help him through much these past weeks, Francis was more than a little aware that it was not a good habit to get into.
He set the bottle aside then, letting it fall on its side on the divan, because some part of him knew that it would be better for Bash if he could talk about whatever was hurting him so badly if he was not dazed from the brandy, even if that might help alleviate the shock.
Eventually, Bash reached for him, putting one hand on Francis' arm, letting it hang there as if he wasn't quite certain what he wanted from Francis, and Francis finally leaned forward and wrapped an arm around Bash's shoulders, pulling his half-brother toward him, as Bash used to do when Francis cried as a child.
Bash seemed comforted by this, laying his head on Francis' shoulder and closing his eyes tightly, though still he didn't speak or even cry, as he seemed on the verge of doing, and Francis felt a bit of his own panic rising at how out of sorts his brother seemed.
They sat like that for a while, Francis beginning to wonder if he should send word to Mary, who was always so much better at this sort of thing than he, merely to ask her what was going on.
The silence lasted almost a lifetime, Bash clinging to him for silent support.
Then Bash spoke, and Francis almost wished that he hadn't.
"My mother is...dead. Catherine...Catherine bashed her head in, and had the body removed where she would not be found. I thought...I thought she was merely keeping her distance, as I had asked her to. I...banished her from the Court, so I thought she was gone, and somehow, that was better. But after...Kenna, I wanted to...she...all this time, and she..." he trailed off then, staring at that smiling portrait of Mary as if it had personally offended him.
"My God," Francis whispered hoarsely, numb.
Diane de Poitiers was not someone he loved, as Bash always had, but rather a permanent fixture in Francis' life, someone who had been there since the beginning, and who didn't appear to be leaving any time soon. And so he had grown rather used to her, over the years, had even grown to appreciate her, for the constant struggle that she and his mother battled through, and the fact that she had managed to survive it for so many years.
And for the fact that she was Bash's mother.
Until, of course, he had found out about the twins, and he was glad then, that Bash had banished her before he could, for he wasn't sure that he could have been so merciful.
Catherine obviously hadn't been.
His mother. His mother, who had killed her, and Francis didn't need Nostradamus' insight to tell him why.
Francis couldn't even muster up surprise at this newest revelation of his mother's actions. He felt so tired now, made worn and empty by Bash's words, by this fresh reminder of all that his mother was capable of doing, when she felt she was justified in doing so.
He swallowed hard. As angry as he might have been by Diane's actions, by Catherine, this was still Bash's mother, dead because of his. Murdered by his, with her head bashed in, which was certainly a wretched way to die.
"I...sent word to the townhouse where she was supposed to be staying, and she never arrived there. They thought she had...decided to stay at Court. One of...Catherine's Flying Squad...well, they don't work for her any more. They told me what really happened," Bash whispered out, and it seemed that, once he was speaking, he couldn't bring himself to stop.
"Bash, I'm so sorry..." Francis whispered, all too aware that anything he said now wouldn't be enough.
"And to think, all this time..." Bash let out a shuddering sob. "I can't help thinking of my last words to her. How angry I was...how..." and he broke then, as Francis had been expecting him to for some time, deep, wrenching sobs taking over his frame, and Francis moved forward quickly, grabbing his brother in a tight hug and letting Bash bury his head in Francis' shoulder once again, wetting his robes with his tears.
Francis could hardly remember the last time Bash had cried so openly.
When their father had died, he had shed a few tears for the man who had raised him, for his father and his king, though not so many as Francis, and Francis had always thought that he was secretly relieved, even more so than Francis, that the Mad King was dead and could torment them and France no longer, father though he might have been.
When confronted with the news that Francis was stealing back Mary, he had been stoic, silent, and had mourned in his own way the loss of the woman he loved to his own brother, even if he hardly mourned the loss of the throne, but Francis had never seen him cry over it.
Certainly not as he was doing now.
She may have killed, and have hurt Bash irreparably over the last couple of years, but she was still his mother, and Francis had never doubted that she loved her son as much as Bash loved her.
He held onto Bash tightly, noting that his knuckles had gone white from the grip he had on his brother, and thought, after a while, that maybe he was crying, too.
And Francis couldn't help but wonder, as he sat there beside his brother, if this would be him, one day, crying over the death of his own mother, his final words to her being that she could never return to French Court, that he never wished to see her again, as Bash now cried for his mother and his final words to her.
Bash, who had sent her away for betraying him, for killing two helpless children. Family, in the warped sort of way that Bash had always been family to them.
But it wasn't the same. It wasn't, Francis' tired mind insisted stubbornly.
It couldn't be.
And he pushed those thoughts aside. Bash needed him right now, for perhaps the first time that Francis could really remember, and he was going to be there for his brother.
Bash fell asleep against him, after a while, and Francis smiled sadly at the sight, arranging him comfortably against the divan, knowing that he would be quite sore when he woke if Francis did not, and reaching for that brandy.