AN: An unrequited Henry/KOA to The Clock Ticks On by Blackmore's Night. Starts in 1510, then flashes forward to after Mary's birth. Sorry to any KOA/Henry fans...I will do a happy one someday. I promise. For now, enjoy and please R and R!

As the wind chimes play along the breeze
Singing songs to stir the soul,
Rainbow colours entwined in fairytales
On the maypole...

Katherine of Aragon, England's new Queen, twirled under her young husband's careful hand, laughing as her hair, freed from the confines of her gable hood by the exertion, swung out around her, the bright auburn ringlets mixing with the fluttering ribbons of red and white, green and blue, silver and gold that were hanging from the Maypole.

To look at her, one might have thought that Katherine was the happiest of all the women there. Unless one knew, one would never have guessed that all her smiles, all her high, pealing laughs, were forced; that her boyish husband wasn't the fair knight who held her heart in the palm of his hand.

Sing the songs of lands from far away,
Other times and another place,
The wind can carry us all away from here
Charmed in her embrace...

"Harry, Harry, stop!" Katherine pleaded, laughing breathlessly, "I can't dance anymore. I can't!"

"Oh, but, Katherine. Catalina! We've barely started!"

"It doesn't feel like that!" Katherine panted, dragging her husband to a halt. "Come on, I'll sing for you instead, if you like."

Henry hesitated, but, not wanting to spoil this, his first May Day as King with a Queen at his side by having such a petty argument, reluctantly agreed. "We'll rest for a while," he conceded, snapping his fingers at the musicians to stop and calling to a page boy, "Bring the Queen her lute."

Swinging his own cloak off his shoulders, he spread it out underneath a tree and helped Katherine to sit down on it.

"There, Cata. Are you comfortable?"

"Yes, thank you," Katherine smiled up at him, trying to hide her distaste for the way her nickname sounded on his lips. She tuned her lute, running her fingers over the strings, fighting her own memories, wishing she could forget the last time she had sung the song she was about to play. The night she had sung it for her real husband, Prince Arthur of Wales.

Locking her eyes with Harry''s, she forced herself to focus soley on his merry blue eyes; to forget, even if only briefly, the way a light grey gaze had once burned into hers just as eagerly as the blue one now did.

"Forgive me, Arthur," she pleaded in her thoughts and then began.

"Paz en la tierra,
Paz y amor,
Que ya ha nacido el Rey,
Cantemos con el coro en los cielos,
Adoremos al nuevo Rey,
Adoremos al nuevo Rey,
Al santo Rey

Al nuevo Rey
Al santo Rey."

Her voice was clear and true; for a moment, she could almost sense her sisters joining in, just as they had always done at home at the Alhambra, or at Court in Castile. As Maria and Francesca and all the other ladies had done when she sang this song for Arthur.

But her voice was too thin to maintain the fiction for long. With a jolt of disappointment, her eyes snapped open again. She wasn't in the warm gardens of the Alhambra. She wasn't the Infanta Catalina, her mother's youngest and favourite daughter. She wasn't even Katherine, Princess of Wales, safe at Ludlow as the future King Arthur's beloved new bride. Not anymore.

She was Queen Katherine of Aragon, wife to King Henry Tudor. She was sitting in the middle of the forest at Windsor and she was trying to survive in her place at the centre of a Court of wolves. If she was ever to do so, then no one – no one other than beloved, trusted Maria, at least – could ever learn her secret. She had better die first than betray herself like that.

Leaves turn to red, the nights are getting colder,
Seasons will change, the clock ticks on...
Leaves fill the trees as the days are getting warmer,
Days turn to years, the clock ticks on...

Six years later, Katherine held her precious daughter, cradling the infant close and rejoicing in her lusty strength. Not for this one a life too short, snuffed out like a candle before either she or Harry were ready. This one would live, she was sure. She would be as fine a Queen for England as Katherine's own mother, Isabella, had been for Castile.

There were pounding footsteps and, all of a sudden, Harry burst into her lying-in chamber, crying out her name in exultation, "Cata!"

"Harry. We have a daughter. A beautiful, healthy daughter. Come and see her."

A shadow of disappointment crossed Harry's face; why couldn't she have been a boy?, but as Katherine coaxed, "Come," and held out the tiny babe to him, he yielded, stepping forward to take the child and dandle her in his arms as he stared down at her little face, mesmerised despite himself at her deep blue gaze.

"She's perfect. My perfect pearl."

"Aye, she's an angel straight from heaven, is she not?" Katherine agreed, smiling at the sight of the immediate bond that was so evident between father and daughter. Harry looked up at her words.

"Then let us name her for the Queen of Heaven. Let us name her Mary, for my sister."

"I'm sure Mary would be honoured," Katherine kept her voice soft and low, determined to show no sense of triumph at all.

Nonetheless, she had to admit that it was something of a relief when Harry placed the child back in the cradle and dropped a hasty kiss on both their foreheads, racing from the room to visit his youngest sister, who also lay in confinement, and deliver the news of so great an honour to her.

At least now she didn't have to pretend anymore; didn't have to pretend to be his devoted Queen.

A cloak and dagger, no fear of freedom
When hearts beat in another time,
Ever changing, the clock ticks on,
If only in your mind...

"Oh, Arthur," she whispered. "If only you'd lived. If only I could have been your Queen instead. Things would have been different. Mary wouldn't be our only child. We would have had a whole nursery full of Princes and Princesses, I'm sure of it."

For a moment, Katherine closed her eyes and let herself imagine how many children she and Arthur would have had.

A boy first, of course, to secure the Succession. Maybe even two. They would have been Arthur and John, one named for his father, the other for Katherine's brother. Then the girls, three of them. Mary, for the Queen of Heaven, Margaret for Arthur's favourite sister and Isabella. Isabella for her grandmother. Isabella for the Queen of Castile. If they'd been lucky enough to be blessed with a fourth girl, she would have been Joanna, for Katherine's favourite sister, Juana. If a third son had come along, he would probably have been Edward or maybe Charles.

They would have married; married well. One would have married into Scotland; Joanna probably. Then another would have been matched Imperially, Spain or Portugal. Arthur would have had his pick of the Princesses of Europe, while John could have married an Englishwoman, if he'd wanted. Katherine would never have stood in the way of true love. Not for a second son, anyway. Not for one who could never take the throne.

She and Arthur would have been the best King and Queen England could ever have asked for. They would have guided it through a Golden Age. They would have grown old together and handed over the reins of power to their eldest son upon the hour of Arthur's death. He would have died in his bed, not alone and stricken with the feverish shaking of the Sweat, but peacefully, surrounded by his children and grandchildren. Katherine would have been at his side. That was how it was supposed to have been.

That was how it could never be.

The wind has died and the chimes are still again
The trees stand tall as they cover me in shade
In the mirror a maiden stares at me
As the secret fades...

Six weeks later, preparing to re-enter Court life after her cleansing Mass, Katherine stood before a mirror, watching as Maria tightened the laces on her purple damask gown. Purple for Lent and purple for Royalty. Diamonds sparkled around her throat and glistened in her hair and ears. She looked every inch the Queen.

For a second; the briefest of seconds, something flickered in the glass behind her reflection.

Katherine's heart leapt. Was it Arthur? After all this time, was it Arthur? Had he come back to her?

No. Of course not. He could never come back to her now. And God forbid anyone ever found out that she had loved him, loved him as any woman loves a man. That she had been a wife to him in truth as well as in name. She had lied about that because he had asked her to; because it had been his dying wish to see her crowned and anointed as Queen of England, even if it wasn't by his side.

She had married Harry with his blessing and one day, they would see each other again in God's blessed Kingdom. That thought was enough to sustain her. It would have to be enough.

Breathing a silent goodbye to her true husband, she walked out, burying those thoughts so deep inside her that even she barely knew where they were. Walked out to take her place beside Harry on the dais; walked out to play the role she had always been coached for. That of the one and only Queen Katherine of England.

And though the clock ticks on to the future
It´s in the past my heart will stay
In a time so far from me
I´ll return someday...