AN: So I have not the foggiest where this came from...it wasn't exactly what I originally had in mind for this song, but I just ran with it, so let me know what you think! Mary Queen of Scots to Fairground Attraction's Perfect.

Don't want half-hearted love affairs
I need someone who really cares.
Life is too short to play silly games
I've promised myself I won't do that again.

Mary, Queen of Scotland and the Isles and Dowager Queen of France, stood at the altar, smiling nervously beneath her veil of silver gauze. Her soon to be husband, James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, took her hand and squeezed it gently.

"It's fine, Your Majesty. It's all going to be fine," he assured her in a whisper. Mary nodded, wishing she could believe him. But her heart was crying out for more than fine. Her heart was crying out for perfect. Her heart was crying out for the kind of love she truly believed she could have had with her darling Francis, had he not been so sickly; not been so like a brother to her.

But she couldn't have that. She had a country to rule and an infant son to protect. She couldn't afford to be sentimental, to follow her heart. It was those kinds of games that everyone expected of her, because she was a woman, because she was a Catholic raised in the licentious French Court, because she was beautiful. She couldn't afford to play them. She couldn't afford to be seen as a temptress, as a vain, flirty, empty-headed girl. She had to be seen to be a Queen; to have her country under control.

It's got to be perfect
It's got to be worth it
Yeah.
Too many people take second best

But I won't take anything less
It's got to be
Yeah
Perfect.

She and Francis would have been able to play those games, Mary was sure, had they only lived in Scotland and not France, for they had been so in love as children. She had been his darling Marie, the one he could never get enough of. He had been her Francis, her wonderful, wonderful Francis. But they had just been children. They'd been young, so young. And he had been so fragile and so determined to do his duty, even when it cost him his health. She had always had to protect him; protect him from himself, from the Court, from his mother, Queen Catherine de Medici.

God, that woman! She'd been spiteful, ruthless, driven by naught by ambition. It was hardly surprising that her husband, Mary's beloved father, King Henri, had preferred the company of his mistress, Diane de Poitiers. Though, Mary had to admit that it hadn't exactly presented the most united front and right now, that was what her country needed. Not disunity, not complete felicity, but above all, not passion. That was what Scotland, if not Mary herself, would call a perfect marriage.

Young hearts are foolish
They make such mistakes
They're much too eager to give their love away.
Well
I have been foolish too many times

Now I'm determined I'm gonna get it right.

Oh, Mary had had her share of passion in her time. Her second husband, Henry, Lord Darnley, had been her greatest passion and her greatest folly. She'd married him for love and look where it had got her.

He'd been charming enough in public, true, which was she'd fallen for him at all, but in private, he'd been selfish, greedy and poisoned by ambition. He'd made her grant him the title "King of Scots", just as she was "Queen of Scots" and insisted that, because he was her husband, he deserved the lion's share of their power, not her. He'd tried to take her power from her; her, God's anointed Queen!

To give Henry his due, he had at least managed to do what Francis had not and got her pregnant. He had given her an heir, her infant son, James, Duke of Rothesay, or Jamie as Mary called him, who was now almost a year old, and as bonny a babe as any mother could wish for. But even his lusty wails and strong kicks weren't enough for Mary to be able to reconcile herself with his father. He was too jealous for that. By the Virgin, he'd even killed her own Secretary before her very eyes, whilst she was pregnant, even though it could have caused her to miscarry, just because he was jealous of her friendship with the poor man!

Mary prayed that God would understand and forgive her, but she hadn't been able to quash an overriding sense of relief when she had heard of Darnley's death. And now, just months later, she stood before the altar with his likely murderer, James, Earl of Bothwell. Most would condemn for this, Mary knew, but she couldn't help herself. She might not love the man, the way she had loved her first husband, Francis, or even her Henry, who had turned against her so quickly, but at least he was strong. At least he could help her bring her country under control. At least, if the worst came to the worst, and she died before Jamie became a man, he could help her son become the great King that Mary knew he would be. The King who could unite England and Scotland under one rule and rule both halves of this island, as no man or woman had ever done before him.

"Yes", Mary assured herself, "I'm doing the right thing. The right thing by my country."
That thought in mind, she turned her attention to the priest who stood before her and began to take part in the service that would unite her in marriage with James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell.

It's got to be perfect

Young hearts are foolish
They make such mistakes

It's got to be perfect

It's got to be
Yeah
Worth it
It's got to be perfect.