A/N: So...I don't really know if anyone will be in the mood for this after that first episode. I still haven't finished it. Eeek. So good! But anyway, like I said, here we go: it's Mack's POV. I love him and I love Matthew. Don't you worry, I am sticking with the plan and promises I set up in chapter one.

Chapter Seven

"Wasn't the ceremony lovely?" Mack asks as they hold one one another in the standard dancer's form with plenty of room between the two of them, the tension held completely in their arms alone. Except for Mack, the tension is everywhere.

"Of course," Mary replies drolly, turning her cheek slightly so Mack smells a bit of lavender. "If you go in for that sort of thing."

Mack grins and mocks her accent. "What sort of thing is that?"

"Oh you know." She lets go of his hand for a moment, to twirl it in the air. "Weddings."

"Oh, so now you're too good for weddings?" Mack mocks. He would like to bring her closer, to rest his cheek on the softness of her hair, close his eyes, brush his fingertips against the blush beading of her gown. Though, he does not do any of these things. He cannot. He smiles when she looks up at him because that is what she expects and because he cannot help smiling when he looks at her.

"No," she scoffs. "I'm not too good for weddings. I'm just never getting married."

He manages to keep dancing though he feels as if she punched him in the gut. Mack never thought he would be dancing with a girl, hoping that she would look at him with a glimmer of romance in her eye, hoping for a morsel of feeling from her, instead of side stepping commitment. His hand slides along her back, touching the smallest bit of skin. He loves Mary. He wants Mary. It is a strange and unique feeling for someone who has lazed his way through life, indolently picking and choosing who is and is not worth the effort.

"Mary, I feel–"

"Why, Mackenzie!"

Mack closes his eyes as soon as he hears the voice. It is the worst timing. It is the very worst timing. He stops dancing, removes his hand from Mary's back, but when he turns, he takes Mary with him, keeping their hands locked together. He nods. "Emily."

"Mackenzie! It's so good–" Emily's china blue eyes travel down the length of him and stop at his hand, the one holding Mary's. Her eyes narrow in on it and Mack knows there is nothing he can do to stop the claws from coming out. "And who is this?"

"Lady Mary Crawley," Mack sighs out the introduction even as Mary looks at him as if he is crazy. "She's–"

"Oh, I know who she is." Emily's smile winds up her face. "Lady Mary Crawley? The Earl of Grantham's daughter?"

"Yes," Mary breathes out. Her hand twitches in Mack's and he is so confused as to the tension that seems to rise between the two women. He is not immune to the stares, to what party goers will assume is last summer's fling meeting this summer's fling. The room is much too silent. Any words spoken will be much too loud.

"Don't worry about introductions, Mackenzie," Emily chides, briefly touching his chest. "Your escort's reputation proceeds her."

"I'm not his escort," Mary replies, tugging her hand out from Mack's.

"Well, that's good news for Mackenzie!" Emily giggles and covers her mouth. "From what I've heard your escorts tend to end up in your bed..." She lets the sentence drown out in the silence of the room. "Dead."

Mack watches Mary's face turn white even as Emily goes on. He waits for Mary to defend herself but it is Emily who continues to speak: "Isn't that what happened to Mr. Pamuk? I read about it in the English papers while I was there this summer. The Turkish diplomat died in your bed, didn't he?" Mary presses her lips together until they are white. "Rather brave of you to wear such a pale colored dress with that reputation, don't you think?"

Mary's hands link together. It happens slowly. Instead of angling her neck and bestowing a verbal smack that would likely mortify the entire room, Mary begins to fade into someone Mack does not recognize. Without thinking, he takes her hand. For a moment, she glances at their joined fingers and then his face, shocked and surprised. He knows her well enough to read her eyes: Let me go. I'm not worth saving. He has to look away. He has to because he cannot imagine a situation when Lady Mary would be so thankful to be saved.

"Well, Emily, if I would have known you had so much information at your fingertips, maybe I wouldn't have been so bored last summer."

Before he knows what he is doing–Mackenzie–the boy, the man, who has been sure never to make a statement like this before, takes Mary from the room, away from the prying eyes, grabbing a bottle of champagne on the way. For the first time, he does not think of himself; he thinks only of Mary and getting her out of the room as quickly as possible.

"Maybe you should slow down," Mack suggests as he drops his jacket to the sand and sits so he can lean on back on his elbows and watch her. Even as he cautions her, he feels his heart beat in his chest, each separate excruciating thud. He swallows and his palms are damp. Mackenzie can not recall a single moment in his life when a girl made him nervous, when he wasn't the one in control, steering the relationship in whichever direction he wished–all with a smile on his face. Love them and leave them. It's not so hard to do. Until here. Until now.

But Mary, in her glittering blush dress, is different. Mary at all is different. He is all nerves and hope, a boy sending his first love letter. It would frustrate him, how she could render him so juvenile, if she wasn't so...

"I don't need to slow down," Mary tells him, raising one eyebrow while she kicks up sand on the beach and twirls lazily, the champagne bottle in one hand. "Can you avert your eyes for a moment, good sir?" she asks him cheerfully.

"If you agree not to do anything stupid, like swimming after drinking champagne," he concedes. He smiles at her.

"You." She points at him and then steps nearer, bending down to touch her finger to his chest. "You are not my keeper."

He takes her hand in his own. "But I did give you the champagne. So I will close my eyes, if you promise not to go swimming."

She rolls her eyes, whispers, "I'm only going to take my stockings off. So, please just close your eyes." She twirls away from him and dutifully he closes his eyes, even as he gulps. He tells himself to think of his grandmother, how she smelled before she died, the way her skin felt as if it would fall off her. He tells himself to think of death by swimming, death by burning alive, death by...imagining Mary removing her stockings beneath her dress with her delicate and perfect hands, rolling the silk down the legs he'd only caught impressions of, but considering the rest of her, must be perfection. Something is flung in his face and he hears a giggle.

"I take it I can open my eyes," he says dryly. No matter what, he is her friend. No matter what, he will make her laugh until the sadness leaves her eyes. No matter what he wants. No matter how he loves her. No matter that she threw her stockings in his face and even as his fingers touch them, he knows he will slip them into his pocket to keep.

"Of course," she agrees, humming in her throat as she dances on the beach. "I've never been drunk before, you know."

Again, dry as the champagne she is drinking: "I could have guessed, which is why I cautioned you to slow down."

"I can't go slow," Mary replies, twirling, twirling, twirling. "If I slow down, I will think and remember. And I don't want to do either of those things." She opens her eyes and kneels near his waist, facing him. He tries to make a subtle grab for the bottle but she wags her fingers at him and takes another swallow. "You know one of my worst secrets now, Mackenzie." Her eyes soften as a sober Mary would never allow. "And you're here. You're here."

"Where else would I be?" he asks her and bites his cheek to keep from saying it the way he feels, with a passion and frustration that is difficult to explain.

I am not like the people who hurt you.

"Oh, lots of places," she replies. "Far away from me. My sister called me a slut for what happened, though she's since apologized." She shifts, so she is spread out like him, her chin resting on her hand, elbow propped.

"What did happen?"

He speaks without thinking. It's none of his business. He waits for her reproof but again, her eyes only soften. Her fingers touch his wrist and stay there. "Y'know, you're the first and only person to ask me that, in all of this."

She closes her eyes and lies back. "Why is it, Mack, that it's always you who manages to do or say what no one else in my life ever has?"

Because I love you.

Love you.

I'm in love with you.

"He was visiting with a friend. Pamuk. The turk. I was attracted. Perhaps that makes me a slut–"

"It doesn't," he interrupts.

She waves him off and takes another drink of champagne. "I was attracted but when he tried to kiss me, I pushed him away. I was very inexperienced; I never would have dreamed of acting on any feelings. I still–" She shrugs. "I pushed him away but then that night he came to my room. I still don't know how he knew where to find me. I certainly didn't tell him. When I threatened to scream, he told me I would be ruined either way. He was right, of course–"

"He told you what?" This time Mack cannot help that his voice raises in anger.

"Shh," she soothes, brushing his cheek with the back of her hand. "I just...It just happened and then it was happening and I was so naive, Mack. I mean to say," she stops to rub at her nose, "really so very much...What was I saying? Oh, and then he was dead."

"People just assumed then, what happened. They never asked you? You never told anyone that you asked him to leave, that you didn't invite him?" Mack is so angry and Mary's fragility as she shrugs and a strap of her dress trails off her shoulder is heartbreaking. She doesn't even realize how badly she has been wronged. She just accepts it.

"No." Before he can reach for her, she is standing with the near empty bottle of champagne. "But don't feel sympathy for me. Don't you dare, Mackenzie. You're forgetting the first thing I ever told you about myself."

He repeats the required phrase, "You're a life ruiner."

"Exactly!" She drops the bottle in the sand to clap. "I am that."

"You aren't," he insists, shaking his head.

She dances away from him. "I am. And now you know two of my biggest secrets so I might as well tell you some others." She twirls and sand flies. Her hair is coming out of its pins. "Hmmm," she taps her chin. "All right. I've got one. I do not enjoy Shakespeare. I actually loathe him." She laughs at his expression, his lack of laughter. "Mack, don't be serious. I can't be serious. You've never asked that of me and please..." There is a note of desperation in her voice. "Please, don't ask it of me now."

He swallows it–his anger on her behalf, his sadness on her behalf–and smiles (for her, always for her). "Obviously I understand the necessity of confidentiality with this secret. An Englishwoman who hates Shakespeare..."

"It's so stupid," she sputters and sits with a thud beside him again. "All his sonnets about love. Don't get me started about Romeo and Juliet. That isn't real. Love is not like that."

His mouth is dry. "What is it like?"

She shivers and closes her eyes. "Like dying. Like dying from the inside out."

"Do you want my jacket?" he asks because he wants to hold her. He wants to tell her that it does not have to be like that, that with him, it would not be like that. Though he's never been in love before, he is now. It isn't easy but if she could just see...

"Yes, please," she murmurs and allows him to help her put it on. "What was I saying? Oh! His sonnets. I prefer my poetry honest." She grins, cupping his face in her hand. "Just as I prefer my friends."

I don't want to be friends anymore.

It's not the time or the place but if he doesn't tell her soon, he will be endanger of lying to her, something he refuses to do.

She lies down and rests her head on her chest. "I'm dizzy," she complains. His arm comes around her. "And tired."

"Just close your eyes for a bit, Mary Jo," he whispers up into the night sky, when he would like to murmur the words into her hair (God, it smells of lavender and her stockings are in his pocket and she is curved into his side, her naked toes brushing his trousers). "Close your eyes and have a good dream."

"What shall I dream of?" she asks drowsily. "What do you dream of?"

Us.

"Whatever makes you happy," he replies. "That's what you should dream of."

Mary lifts her head from his chest and meets his eyes. "I forgot to tell you another secret," she whispers. "I would never have the nerve without champagne." Her face is so adorably genuine that he cannot help but smile back. "You. You make me happy." And before he can do or say anything, she snuggles back into his chest, stills, and breathes evenly.

A/N:Drunk Mary! Pamuk Scandal hits America! Mack has FEELINGS for a GIRL? Drunk Mary! Dying to know what you think.