A/N: To everyone who supports this story, I am in your debt. To anyone who doesn't, read no farther and next time you have something to say, don't hide behind guest and get an actual account. From here out, this story is for the non-haters...The lovers if you will. I'm not changing the story for anyone. The poem included is Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Chapter Thirty Seven

Matthew paces the spot in front of their bench, waiting for her. How many years ago did they sit beside one another while he quipped if you like a good argument? They were children and now he paces waiting for the woman, already late, removing his hat to pat it against his thigh. None of this surprises him. In a way, it's a miracle Mary returned at all. Not even Matthew could predict how the preservationist inside of Mary might handle a return to Downton and a difficult history.

That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. She won't even look him in the eye at dinner. But once in the middle of an argument she levied this maxim at him: you have no idea what it feels like to bear someone else's hurt along with your own, a startling accurate observation. But now, he is trying to bear her hurt along with his own. Even though he doesn't wholly understand her hurt. She won't marry him but even those reasons are hazy–she doesn't want to lose another husband. But now she is prepared to walk away from Matthew completely and that he cannot bear. If he believed she did not love him, if he did not believe there is not something she isn't telling him, isn't telling herself, he would go on, just as he tried to do, eventually, when she married Mack.

Despite his pacing, he realizes it's futile. She is not coming. She won't come. So he will have to go to her somehow. They gave up too easily before. Just as they were when they used to sit on the bench, they were children. There is a painful clenching around his heart that squeezes and squeezes. For a second, he wonders if this is how Mary felt when she talked about praying for him, that he wouldn't hurt himself when inebriated. She did not know how to help him and now he doesn't know how to help her.

He shades his eyes, walking towards the house. He has some things to discuss with Robert (though God, he must avoid Cora with all this wife hunting business) and perhaps if he is lucky he will catch a glimpse of Mary. Is this what their lives will be like?

Damn it. He wants more than a glimpse.

It is like that bloody beauty mark, just a glimpse in a cream colored dinner dress.

He is willing to offer her everything and she...She...He can barely finish his thought. He is shaking, he is so angry and pauses on his walk to turn and take a deep breath. It's then he spots a woman on the grass a bit of a ways off. Either she is hurt or asleep and so he stalks quickly towards her. His heart constricts in his chest. It's Mary, having a picnic by the looks of the blanket and basket, but asleep and just beginning to pinken from the sun. Beside her, there is a book, spread over the ground to hold her place.

He is glad she is asleep. He doesn't want to talk to her now. Perhaps all they will ever have is Ireland and Liverpool. Though the thought does little to comfort, he picks up the book and reads the page she left off on.

I think I should have loved you presently,

And given in earnest words I flung in jest;

And lifted honest eyes for you to see,

And caught your hand against my cheek and breast;

And all my pretty follies flung aside

That won you to me, and beneath your gaze,

Naked of reticence and shorn of pride,

Spread like a chart my little wicked ways.

I, that had been to you, had you remained,

But one more waking from a recurrent dream,

Cherish no less the certain stakes I gained,

And walk your memory's halls, austere, supreme,

A ghost in marble of a girl you knew

Who would have loved you in a day or two.

In pencil, near the last line, the words written in masculine script are stark: I will wait for you as long as you need.

Matthew sits for a long time, beneath the sun, reading the poem again and again, realizing the reason Mary would not commit to him. In the end, he cannot blame her. Not at all.

"Matthew?" Mary asks as she wakes, her voice drowsy. He knows that tone now; he learned it in Ireland but it isn't beguiling right now. There are more important things on his mind.

"Hello, you," he whispers, having to cough over the lump in his throat. "You missed our date. I happened upon you by chance."

She furrows her brow. "I'm sorry. I didn't...couldn't read the note. I don't even know where I was supposed to meet you."

"That's all right." Her eyes fly open, waking her completely, at his lack of censure and the gentleness in his voice. "It was our bench, for the record."

"Our bench." Even she smiles, still reclining. "I like that."

"Mary," he bites his lips. "I wonder if you might explain this poem to me. I've never been good at things like this."

Her eyes spot the book in his hands but she does not snatch it from him as he thought she might. She is willing to share Mack's memory now, which once upon a time could not have been further from the truth. She leans forward on her elbow. "It's about a boy...and a girl." She pauses wetting her lips. "They love each other but they also play games with one another...In the end, when the games are over, she puts aside her pride for him. But..."

"Go on," Matthew encourages.

"He doesn't wait for her," she blurts, eyelashes fluttering madly at the ground. "Finally, she says that if he would have only waited a short time he would have known her true self."

"And what about this here? What I can only assume is Mack's post script?" Matthew asks kindly, leaning forward.

She smiles fleetingly. "The book was a Christmas present from him. We were friends. I was very clear about that and I was very clear that a present was inappropriate."

"But he gave it to you anyway," Matthew continued for her.

"Yes," she stops abruptly. "Matthew, are you sure you want to hear this?"

"I'm sure," he whispers, his throat constricting, not because the topic is difficult but because she appears so vulnerable, her eyes shadowed, her hair a mess from sleep. He reaches out a hand and she grips it tightly.

"He wanted to be more than friends but I couldn't...I was in no place to...I put him off for months but I genuinely liked him and so I couldn't let him go completely. When I opened the book, I expected it to be filled with secret declarations." She clutches his hand more tightly.

"But it wasn't?"

"No," she smiles, again fleetingly. "But for the one. That one. It took me awhile to find it. But when I did..."

"When you did..." he prompted.

"I really don't think you want to hear this," Mary tells him, finally meeting his eyes and sitting up all the way so his hand lands in her lap.

"But I do," he tells her tenderly. "It's a part of you and we've never talked about it."

"I couldn't talk about it," she admitted. Her words are jittery, without pretense. She doesn't know what she is saying until they leave her mouth. "To anyone. For a long time. To be loved like that...the way he loved me despite everything...But...if you want to hear...When I read the poem and saw what he wrote, I went to him immediately. I let him tell me he loved me. I agreed to be his wife." She pauses, choosing her words carefully this time. "For months, he played by my rules. He loved me but he never acted on it. He never spoke of it and I didn't want him too. And here," she swallowed a lump in her throat, "was this wonderful man saying he would wait forever to be with me." She glanced up at Matthew. "I'd never had that before and I just thought, Mary, what are you doing? You can trust this man. What are you waiting for?" She closed her eyes against tears, though they didn't seem to be unhappy ones. "And the rest is history."

"Mary," he squeezes her hand. "Thank you for telling me. He was a good man."

"Oh, Matthew," she cries. "What are you playing at?"

He nearly chokes. "Pardon me?"

"Why are you pretending to understand?" She untangles her hand from his. "Why would you want to hear any of this?"

"I'm not pretending. I'm growing up. I'm trying to understand you and Mack is part of you." Even now, he cannot be angry with her because suddenly the issue is so clear. "Mary," he starts and then has to begin again. "I'm thankful that Mack took care of you. But I am also sorry." He lifts his head. When he looks at her, his eyes are swimming with tears. "But I am also so sorry that I did not wait for you, not just at the garden party but countless other times. That day...I could tell something was wrong and of course, now I know what it was, but I wonder, what would have happened if I'd given you a day or two, like the poem says?"

Mary is silent. He cannot even try to read her because he has to get the rest out and quickly before he falls apart or loses this singular clarity. "Taking up with Lavinia so soon after...I wanted to hurt you. And you don't do that to someone you love. And I did love you. I loved you so much I ached from it. When we danced–"

She dashes a tear off of her cheek. "Don't, Matthew."

He takes her hand. "Why?"

He knows she is being honest because she whispers the words hoarsely. "Because it hurts."

"I'm sorry," he replies but must continue, for both their sakes. "When we danced, I couldn't help but...because I never stopped loving you."

"And then you chose someone else," she murmured.

"Yes." He squeezes her hand. "And that's the worst of it. Why should you trust me, Mary? I didn't wait for you. My pride and my pain mattered more than you. At every turn, though I can say I loved you a hundred times, what does it matter when my actions, my pride says the very opposite?" Matthew manfully holds back tears. "Mackenzie really was the better man." He begins to let go of her hand but she will not let him.

"Don't say such things," she whispers.

"I love you. You're the only woman in the entire world I want to marry but why should you believe me? You can't trust me," Matthew laughs but it isn't cheerful in the least. "It's as simple as that. You aren't worried about another car crash. You can't trust me. And why should you?"

"Matthew..."

"Don't make excuses for me," he demands softly. "I don't deserve that from you."

She cups his cheek with her palm, turning his face so he must look at her. "What one deserves has very little to do with love." Then she is moving forward, her hands slipping into his hair as she kisses him, softly at first, her eyes wide open on his. She's never kissed him this way, even in Liverpool, as if to let go of him would physically hurt her. So he returns her kisses, falling into her, as they lean back against the blanket. There is no talking, only lips and tongues. She nibbles on his mouth and he traces the seam of her lips with his tongue and the whole time she holds him to her as if she will never let go. Her hands slip from his hair to his back. There is no thought to anyone seeing then. But there is thought. She loves him, though she cannot say it yet, and she cannot bear to see him in pain. And he loves her, the whole mess of him loves her so completely.

"Matthew," she moans but even this is muffled by mouths.

Their hands don't try to remove clothing. They've never been more bare than these moments. At some point, Matthew tastes salt but he doesn't know who is crying. When he tries to pull away to find out, Mary latches onto him. Her kisses are dreamy, engulfing.

There is a cough behind them. It registers with Matthew, but only just. However, the second cough is unmistakable. Mary and Matthew sit up together, still clinging to one another.

"Is this what they are calling picnics nowadays, Mary?" Robert asks quite sternly.

A/N: I hope we all know the meaning of constructive criticism.