I don't even know. Please don't hate me. Here we go…

She was cold.

So cold.

Her vision became blurry at the edges, the teacup slipping from her hand to fall to the floor. Instantly her mother was on her feet, her hand on Mary's shoulder, peering at her worriedly as her grandmother looked on. Mary tried to speak, but the words seemed impossible, slipping through her fingers before she could grab hold. Only one word fell from her lips, again and again as she sobbed and shook in her mother's arms…

"Matthew."

In the days that followed, Mary wandered the halls of Downton Abbey like a ghost. Wounded, the telegram had said. Badly wounded, but on his way. Every possible string had been pulled to get him sent to Downton for his recovery, but Mary was still having a hard time believing that it was true. The ache she had felt in her chest the day he'd been wounded was still all too real, as if every fiber of her being was being ripped apart. She had come so close to losing him, so close that she still woke up screaming in the night, begging for him to come back to her. Her family noticed but said nothing; Carlisle avoided the estate altogether, apparently not wanting to witness the happy reunion. He had already cornered her once since the news that Matthew was on his way, grasping her by the shoulders and asking her once and for all whether or not there was anything going on between herself and Matthew. Mary had been saved by the appearance of Anna on the stairs, fleeing from her fiancee's grip without giving him an answer. She had not spoken to him since.

Matthew was unconscious when they carried him into the hospital on a stretcher, looking pale and thin and more dead than alive. She had never seen him like this, and she sat by his bedside and gently dabbed his forehead with a damp cloth, murmuring softly to him as she stroked his blonde hair back from his face. His eyes seemed sunken, his face marred with tiny cuts here and there that broke her heart. She barely heard the diagnosis as her father and Doctor Clarkson spoke outside the door. All she cared about was the man on the bed before her, so drastically different from the man she had seen board the train in his uniform…but still her Matthew.

She thought she imagined it at first, the slight flutter of his eyes behind closed lids. Then, slowly, they opened to reveal blue that she had been so certain she would never see again, and her own eyes fill with tears.

There are so many things she wishes to say to him—things that have been bottled up for so long, things she should have said ages ago. Things that, a short time ago, Mary had been certain she had lost the chance to say forever.

She wishes she could say them—all of them, starting with the most important one of all. But its him she needs to be concerned about now, not herself. What comes out instead is,

"Are you feeling a bit less groggy?"

He almost smiles, but the motion seems to pain him. When he moves to sit up (apparently not recalling that he can't, and perhaps never will again) Mary stops him with a gentle hand on his chest, helping him settle back down onto the bed. He looks at her a moment, working dry lips to try to speak. "Where's—"

He never finishes his sentence. In the next moment Mary recoils in horror as a knife is plunged into Matthew's chest, cutting his words off with a sound that she swears will haunt her for the rest of her days. She leaps up, clamping her hands over her mouth to stifle the scream. There is a puff of smoke, and Rumpelstiltskin appears in front of her, his hand still on the knife that is protruding from Matthew's chest. "There you see, dearie!" he crows, his voice triumphant. "You see the price of your choice now?"

"NO!" Mary screams. "I didn't—I didn't choose this! I didn't! This wasn't my choice!"

The Dark One leans in to her, his face grave, his eyes piercing. "Isn't it?" he asks her, his voice eerily calm. "Look closer."

When Mary looks again, it is no longer Matthew lying lifeless in the bed.

It is Killian.

Her scream is loud enough to hurt as it tears from her throat as she sits bolt upright, panting for breath. Her face is wet with tears and she shivers, pulling her cloak tight around her even as her body is soaked in sweat. There's a rustle nearby and suddenly Killian is beside her, shaken awake from her scream, his tired eyes and scratchy voice begging her to tell him what is wrong, but she can't. She can only see the blood staining the crisp white hospital sheets, hear the Dark One's bloodcurdling giggle and see the lifeless blue eyes…

They both have blue eyes.

"Love, what is it? What's happened? Mary…" he sighs and curses under his breath, pulling her into his arms. She stiffens for a moment before curling into his embrace like a child, gasping for breath as he strokes her hair and tries to soothe her.

They stay like that for the rest of the night. But she does not tell him what horrible dream it was that woke her, and he does not ask.