A/N: My lips are zipped. Really, I just have to tell you a few things. The poem in this chapter, written by Edna St. Vincent Millay, is from her collection The Buck in the Snow, which was not published until 1928. Even though I hate to do it, I am taking artistic license because it is definitely not 1928 in this chapter. Also a few reviewers kept repeating that Mack and Mary have been married for a year and a half. This is incorrect. Mary says, in the last chapter, that it has been a year and a half since they were at Downton and Mack asked Robert for her hand. They are still very much newlyweds. Finally, I must thank two people–Faeyero: over a year ago, you listened to me lay this whole thing out. You are my witness that when I planned this, my AU was based only on Series 1 and 2. You were supportive, thoughtful, and gave me a taste of what the response would be like in writing this saga. And let me ask, how is it that I am always writing sagas? Can I just write a nice one off? When series 3 aired...well, my lips are zipped. But you are my witness and dear, dear friend since we walked through Grace together, while this was going on in my brain. I must also thank LaLa Kate: you have become so dear to me. Thank you for all the the talk about writing and life. In this case, writing has been a distraction from life but you never forget to ask me how I am doing, before you ask after the story, which makes me a healthier person emotionally. Probably. Anyway. Thank you to all the reviewers and the supporters on tumblr. I've been so humbled by you all. You are all so invested and you all care for these characters so much that every twist in turn, though I had to do it, has not been easy because of you all and how much you mean to me because each chapter you go out of your way to tell me what you thought, what was good, what was bad, and what you would like to see happen. Thank you so much.

Chapter Twenty Two

Mary feels as if two people pull her arms in two different directions–not two people actually, but places, really. At Downton, she finds her spine goes easily rigid. If she laughs, it is behind the gloves on her hands. When Mack kisses her cheek, she blushes with embarrassment. If she were to cry, it would be soundless, behind a closed door or around a corner where no one can see.

This is her home, the place which forged her and broke her and built her up again. In America, she laughs aloud and Mack holds her hand in front of his family. If she were to cry, Mack would expect her to tell him why. And she would, because the words are easier there. Life, is somehow easier.

But that doesn't mean better. Not always.

She is missing things. She misses Diamond, almost too old to ride now. She misses Granny. She misses Sybil. Declan's whole life until now is a mystery to Mary. Papa has more gray in his hair than ever before. And for the first time, Mary sees fine lines on Mama's face. These people are her family.

But so is Mack.

Mack and Mary, married nearly a year, and sometimes it still feels as if they are playing house. It isn't a bad thing. No, she knows what it is like to fight each day for breath and try to punch through every conflict while wearing a demure smile on her face, posture perfect. Doesn't she deserves a little laughter? Even if she knows she will never wholly be Mary Jo? Even though Mack knows it too? It is nice to pretend. It is nice to be loved and protected and to love and protect in equal measure. It is nice to know that she is the type of woman who can asked to be held and not feel the lesser for it.

Of course, she finds herself irrationally angry at Matthew, who still refuses to look her in the eye. Mack mentioned, offhandedly (of course) because this is how he mentions anything related to Mary's first love, that Matthew apologized. Mary didn't expect or want an apology from Matthew until Mack told her what Matthew said. Until that very moment, she found herself perfectly happy knowing how fine he looked, how well he was doing. But then he apologized to Mackenzie?

Mackenzie did not stay up nights as a newlywed, worrying about Matthew drinking himself to death or drinking himself into an accident. Mackenzie did not stay up nights, after husband and wife made love, and pray to God (just as she did during the war) that Matthew would find peace, that he would not kill himself. She did not have a photograph this time, but the picture of him, half in and out of the lake, blood on his forehead, reeking of drink, etched itself into her brain. She did not need a picture to murmur, desperate silent (she could not wake Mack up) prayers.

Mackenzie does not deserve an apology but Mary does.

And she is so sick of the way his eyes brush the top of her head at dinner or in the parlor. She would like to slap him across the face and then shake him. She would like to say: in all this time, I never gave up on you! Now look at me, you great lump! But she doesn't. Her spine just grows straighter; her ire grows hotter; her single eyebrow reaches its limit on her forehead.

When was the last time she asked Matthew for anything?

Oh, Matthew. What am I always telling you? You must pay no attention to the things I say.

Well, perhaps he should. Perhaps she ought to make him pay attention.

Mack is already at breakfast when Mary makes her way down the stairs, after eating in bed. Yes, they will have their picnic and her heart will be there with her husband. But there are so many parts of a heart. There are so many ways to love and to unlove. She knows from Sybil that the heart is a muscle and muscles have memories. In America, Mary made her brain and lips forget his name, but her heart...her heart has its own set of memories.

Just as she is descending the stairs, her hand trailing the rail, her anger rising in the pit of her stomach, she sees a blond head walk quickly towards the front door.

"Matthew!" she hisses. "Matthew, stop!"

He pauses for a second and then continues towards the great door quite briskly.

"Matthew, if you don't stop this instant..." It's a miracle she doesn't trip as she skips steps and makes it to the bottom of the staircase, and what was she thinking earlier about her whole body language changing at Downton?

"I really must be going," he answers with his back to her. From her angle, she can see his hand grip the felt of his hat. "Enjoy your picnic."

"Matthew!" she whispers harshly. This is not a conversation she would like anyone to hear. And before she realizes what she is doing, she marches up behind him to take his arm, practically dragging him out of the house under Carson's (approving?) eye.

Matthew squints against the sunlight. He avoids her eyes to stare at the overly bright sun. She wants to smack him now more than ever but instead she faces him. "Do you plan on speaking to me ever again?"

"I have spoken to you," Matthew replies, his eyes beginning to tear from staring at the sun for too long. How stubborn he is!

"No," Mary crosses her arms. "You haven't. You've spoken to everyone, including Declan and Mackenzie but not me. You've looked at everyone, including Edith in that nasty puce colored dress, but not me. What is happening?"

"Mary." Her name slips from between his lips accidentally. She knows because he punishes himself by clenching his jaw.

"This is unacceptable!" she declares icily and manages not to stamp her foot.

"I have accepted it," he says after a moment. "Now you must, too."

"Accepted what?" Mary cries. This time she snatches his hat from his hands and stomps on it with her shoe. "You're finally better! Things are finally all right! And we can't be friends?"

He looks bewildered but he still is not seeing her. "I don't know," he replies honestly. "I don't know if I will ever be able to be friends with you. We never were friends."

"How can you say that?" she demands. "How dare you say that?" she sounds dangerous. She means to sound dangerous. I prayed for you. I stayed awake for you. I ripped letters to shreds for you. I lied for you. I left this place, this place I love, for you. I fell in love with someone else for you. "How can you possibly say that to me after everything?"

"Because it's the truth," he blurts and now he does look at her. "We never were friends. There was I wouldn't want to push in and I was dazzled by you. There was tales of Andromeda at the dinner table. And then there was if you like a good argument, we really should see more of each other. And then don't play with me, I don't deserve it. And then I was proposing! The next thing I know we are shouting at each other, just before war breaks out: but you were sure! And the next time I see you, you are telling me such good luck. And then we are singing together. I'm engaged to someone else and so are you and my legs don't work but you're the one wheeling me about. And all the time wanting to be anything but friends. And then we are dancing, you know, the show that flopped, dancing. I'm telling you that I can't throw Lavinia over and you are saying of course not and I am replying without meaning to: however much I might want to." He finishes in one breath before hissing at her, his eyes on fire. "And then we are kissing, as if without kissing, we will die, the both of us promised to others. So no, Mary, we never were friends."

Mary breathes so heavily that even her small bodice seems tight. She can feel red streaks running up her neck. "How dare you." How dare you take our history and make it into something so compact and simple. How easy for you.

He takes a step closer. "No, how dare you. I'm trying to make it. I'm trying to do right by you and you just won't let me be!"

"Well, excuse me!" she digs her finger into his shoulder. "Did you ever think of letting me be when I was in America and you wrote me awful letters? You apologized to Mack but not to me, the life ruiner? Do you really believe that you have more amends to make with my husband than with me?"

He pulls at his hair in frustration and takes a step back, walking in a circle only to come back to her. "You don't understand. Even after all this time, you don't understand."

"If I understood, do you think I would be out here having this bloody argument with you?" she counters, clenching her teeth.

"I love you!" Matthew declares, flinging his arm out. "I always have. I probably always will. And I was stupid; I was a fool. But now you belong to someone else. He makes you happy in ways that I could not, that I cannot. So by not talking to you, Mary, by not looking at you, I'm trying to love you the only way I have left!"

She stumbles back, her hand against her lips. "You shouldn't say such things," she whispers.

"Of course I shouldn't. But you just push and push. That's why I apologized to your husband and not to you, because we cannot be friends. We shouldn't be. I'm doing what I should have done in the first place. I'm letting you go."

"But–" she cries and then stops because she doesn't know what she will say. She hears Mackenzie speaking to her father through the door and knows she has but seconds. "You are a coward! Just because I told you not to write me, just because I've done my best to make a life for myself, do you think I ever gave you up? Don't you think it would have been easier not to meet your eye the last time I was here? Do you think I wanted to return your wife's letters? Do you think I wanted to watch you marry someone else, for God's sake? Or for that matter, invite you to my own wedding? But I did those things, Matthew. I did those things because. I did those things because. Because I did those things!"

"I believe we have already established that you are braver than I," he concedes, looking at the sun again, before picking up his hat and doing his best to brush the dust off.

"Another excuse?" she spits at him. "I wonder when you will run out of them."

"Mary–"

"No," she clenches her fists. She wonders briefly what it would be like to punch a man. "Don't you ever, ever," and the words are wrenched from her gut, "tell me you love me or that you are loving me the best way you can again. You have no idea what it means to love someone." She thinks she might be sick. "You have no idea what it feels like to bear someone else's hurt along with your own."

"Mary–" he reaches out as if he might touch her gently on the arm.

"Don't," she whispers and swallows the lump in her throat. She cannot cry in the front of Downton Abbey. "You're pathetic."

Her eyes are dry and Matthew is walking off in the distance when Papa and Mack come outside. "There you are!" Mack beams before taking her hand. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Mary replies though she knows she is very pale and her stomach feels as if it might betray her with sickness. "I'm afraid I don't feel very well."

"Shall we reschedule the picnic then?" Mackenzie asks. His brown eyes meet hers and he looks at her with such concern. If they were alone, without Papa, he would press his lips to her forehead. She does not know if she just betrayed him to Matthew or stood up for him. How twisted this all is. She wants to go home and it is a shock to realize she is not thinking of Downton.

"No," she blurts. "I think that is just the ticket for me to feel better."

"Well, I think this is silly," Papa interrupts. "Why drive yourself when we pay someone to do it for you?"

"It must be the American in me," Mack says with relish and winks at Mary, just as she watches Papa's eyes roll. Meanwhile, the chauffeur drives the Rolls to them. "It's packed and everything."

"Do you know where we are going?" Mary asks. "More importantly, do you know how to drive on the right side of the road?"

Mack laughs. "The right side? Oh, Mary, do you still find yourself shocked to be married to an American?"

More than you know.

"Very funny," she tells him dryly. "Mostly, I think Papa stays up at nights wondering how Edith is the only one of us to marry an Englishman."

"You aren't wrong," Papa concedes.

He packed champagne, though she does most of the drinking, and on the blanket, eating sandwiches and laughing at his jokes, enjoying his nuzzles, she finds herself so happy. She is free from all the angst and the arguments with Matthew. She is free to love and be loved, to laugh and be silly. She doesn't have to worry about him anymore. About Matthew. She can enjoy Mackenzie without feeling guilty for loving her own husband.

"Are you going to take your stockings off like the last time you drank from the bottle?" Mack asks her.

"No," she pouts.

"It is tradition." His hand slides beneath her skirt against her leg and she wraps one of her arms around his neck to cling to him and kiss him breathless. "That's what I really wanted you to do on the beach that night."

She rubs her nose against his. "What a coincidence. I wanted to do that, the night at the beach, as well. But I was a coward."

"Never that, Mary Jo," he replies and with regret, removes his hand. "I told you I have a present for you."

"I thought this was the present," she murmurs against his lips. She feels languid; she would like to nap in the sun curled around her husband. "Just us two, alone and away from the fray." She pauses to smile slyly at him. "But if you must give me another gift, I suppose I will try to take accept it with dignity."

Something is in his hands but he dives for her anyway, until he is on top of her, his leg between her skirt. She shrieks. "You are very dignified." Then he laves at her throat so she can do nothing but gasp.

"Another good present," she manages to say.

"Oh, Mary Jo." Mack rolls them so she is curled on his chest and in his hand, so she can see, is a bound book. "Apparently, Grandpop has some rather wild connections and I was able to get my hands on some more of Edna St. Vincent Millay's poetry."

"The honest stuff," Mary murmurs against his chin. "Our honest stuff."

"Yes, our honest stuff." She feels his smile, his hands drag the pins from her hair.

She is sleepy from the champagne and from this place where only Mack and Mary exist with their very honest love poems to match. She snuggles into her husband. Perhaps she drank more than usual but it is all right because it is just the two of them and it is only the second time in her life where she has done so. "Will you read some to me?"

"For you," he kisses her hair, "anything."

So he begins:

To the Wife of a Sick Friend

Shelter this candle from the wind.
Hold it steady. In its light
The cave wherein we wander lost
Glitters with frosty stalactite,
Blossoms with mineral rose and lotus,
Sparkles with crystal moon and star,
Till a man would rather be lost than found:
We have forgotten where we are.

Shelter this candle. Shrewdly blowing
Down the cave from a secret door
Enters our only foe, the wind.
Hold it steady. Lest we stand,
Each in a sudden separate dark,
The hot wax spattered upon your hand,
The smoking wick in my nostrils strong,
The inner eyelid red and green
For a moment yet with moons and roses,–
Then the unmitigated dark.

Alone, alone, in a terrible place,
In utter dark without a face,
With only the dripping water on the stone,
And the sound of your tears, and the taste of my own.

"Don't cry," Mack whispers as he drops the books. "Don't cry, Mary."

"It's only, it's only very sad," she whispers. Tears fall and tremble on her chin. "This honest poetry stuff." And the sound of your tears, and the taste of my own.

"I agree," he sighs and holds her close. "But sometimes honesty is sad. Honesty often hurts."

Love, love is like dying, she remembers saying. And sometimes unloving someone is like dying too, she thinks now.

"Just don't cry," he whispers, kissing her eyelids and the wetness on her cheeks. "It's only a poem. Only words."

"Yes," she agrees and takes the book from his hands, putting it aside. She pulls at him with surprising strength until he is on top of her. She bites his lip and soothes it with her tongue. She drags his jacket off and sweeps her hand through his hair. "But this," she says against his lips. "This–we–are real."

"Mmm," he murmurs his agreement and there are no poems, at least not the type with words, for a very long while.

Later, when she tries to bring this part of the day back into her mind's eye, she will only remember bits–how he helps her to the car, how her body curls into the seat like water, so content and loose, how he smiles at her before he turns the key to start the ignition, how that smile might sum up the millions of honest ways he loves her.

The millions of ways.

She dozes but does not sleep. It isn't quite dark yet. It isn't dusk. But it is coming. It is certainly coming. Her book is in her lap. Their book is in her lap. She watches her husband's profile, sees his hands, tan on the wheel, and remembers that the warm color of his skin first drew her to him, as if he could be the very sun itself, as if he could warm her chilly bones and icy heart.

When she tries to remember, she will recall his curse, halfway through the turn, realizing he is going the wrong way. She will hear his, "Hold on for a moment, Mary. Don't worry." But she doesn't worry. She barely lifts her eyelids. Why would she worry? He never hurts her; he only soothes.

The things she will never remember, no matter how hard she tries, are the most important parts: the other car (a truck...but that is American...a lorry...that's what Tom tells her, isn't it, later?), a word, a phrase from Mack, a gasp of awareness, the sound of impact, if he cries out, if he throws out an arm to protect her.

She remembers pain, everywhere. Everywhere she can feel there is pain. But she doesn't know how much time passes from the moment she is admiring Mack's tanned hands and the horrible aching, pain. Finally, she remembers the line from the poem: we have forgotten where we are.

It throbs in her brain.

We have forgotten where we are.

We have forgotten

We have

where we are

forgotten

where are we

where are we

A/N: My lips are still zipped (I will unzip them asap) but please review!