Mary barely reaches home when she is stunned by another arrival from France.
"Sybil?" she manages to say, astonished enough to nearly lose the power of speech. Sybil squeals at the sight of her and runs, stopping herself at the last moment from hugging her, suddenly mindful of Mary's injuries.
"Mary!" she exclaims. "You look so much better! Tell me, how do you feel? How is Matthew? How are you two dealing with everything?"
"One thing at a time!" pleads Mary laughingly. However tired and worn she is, it is marvellous to see Sybil here, safe. She missed her little sister horribly. "Tell me first, what are you doing here? For how long have you come?"
"For as long as you need me," answers Sybil firmly. "I was half mad since they brought you and Matthew to the CCS, and I was climbing the walls after you were put on the train to England. When Mama sent a telegram that Matthew's diagnosis was confirmed, I just could not stay there. I knew you would need me here. And after all, you were only there for me; there was no way I could abandon you now."
Mary feels her eyes welling with tears. She blames extreme exhaustion for that.
"Thank you," she says with feeling. She looks around to ensure they have a relative privacy and asks:
"What about Tom?"
Sybil's face falls.
"He had to stay, obviously. It was horrible to leave him there, but you need me more, and with how things are going, hopefully it won't be long before that awful war ends and he is free to follow me."
Mary takes Sybil's arm and leads her away from the house, toward her favourite bench under the cedar tree. She is exhausted and overwhelmed, her head is splitting and her arm throbs with pain, but this is important.
"Do you have a plan? For the aftermath of the war? He isn't coming here to claim his job as a chauffeur back, is he?"
Sybil shakes her head.
"No, he is not. We considered it, but it would just get us back to where we started. Mama and Papa will probably never accept him, but he needs at least a veneer of respectability for any minuscule chance we have of it."
Mary raises her eyebrows.
"So? What is it you two intend to do?"
Sybil looks at her warily but answers honestly.
"He had been working on different articles and letters to the editor and sending them to several newspapers he would like to work for. He had some encouraging responses and he is nearly certain that, after the war ends, he can secure a job with a paper in Dublin."
"A journalist," says Mary thoughtfully. "I bet Granny could work with that."
"That's what we hope for!" says Sybil with enthusiasm. "After he is established there, he will come to get me and we will tell Mama and Papa. Then, whether we have their blessing or not, we will get married, and I will get a job as a nurse."
Mary bites her lip.
"And you are certain, absolutely certain, that this is what you want?" she raises her hands defensively when she sees Sybil's eyes flash in indignation. "I know you love him! This is not what I ask. I just want to know, need to know really, that you are aware of what your planned course of action means. There will be no going back, you must know that."
Sybil nods seriously.
"I am certain, Mary. I thought long and hard about it, for years. It took me a long time, but now I am sure. I could never be happy going back to the life I had before the war. Paying calls, changing my clothes four times a day, feeling useless and bored. I could not stand it; I would go mad. I love Tom and I know I will be happy with him. There are no doubts left, just fear that my freedom will mean the loss of my family."
Mary grasps Sybil's hand.
"You know there is nothing you could do to lose me," she implores. "I told you before and I will keep telling you until you believe me. I do not approve of your choice. I think you are throwing your life away. But you are my little sister and I love you. However much I disapprove of your choices; this will not change."
Sybil looks at her with shining eyes.
"Thank you, Mary!" she smiles, eager to lighten the mood. "Now, let's go back and let me see how your wounds are faring. Last time I saw them they were perfectly dreadful; I must make sure you were taking care of them in the meantime."
It's when Sybil checks Mary's wounds and, satisfied with their progress, redresses them again, that she goes back to her original questions.
"How is Matthew?"
"Devastated," answers Mary quietly, trying not to think how heartbreakingly much. "But he only learnt everything today. None of it had time to set in."
"And you?" inquires Sybil with concern, tying the end of the bandage over Mary's arm.
"I had more time," answers Mary evasively. "I've known since yesterday and suspected this outcome for longer."
Sybil huffs impatiently, giving Mary a disapproving look as she reaches for the sling.
"And how do you feel about it?"
"How do you think?" snaps Mary. "I've been better, but there is nothing which can be done about any of it."
Sybil's gaze softens with compassion.
"I know, darling," she says soothingly. "But I just want to make sure you're taking some time to care for yourself in all of that. Matthew is not the only one hurt and grieving."
"It's still not comparable. Not at all."
Sybil drops the subject and instead goes for another, no less fraught in the circumstances.
"Have you told the family about being married?"
Mary's eyes go wide.
"No! And you need to keep it secret for now."
"Why? Are you still planning to have another wedding here?"
Mary shrugs then immediately winces at the sharp pain in her arm. She will need to remember to avoid such movements.
"I don't know what we will do about it, but we certainly are not ready to deal with that on top of everything else," she says tiredly. "Not now."
She barely holds in hysterical laughter that the first obstacle is going to be convincing her husband that they should stay married.
xxx
"So Isobel is back? How is she holding up?" asks Cora when Robert joins her in their bedroom.
He sits on the bed, wiping his face tiredly.
"They were thankfully able to put her on a fast boat. At least she knows now he's safe and… She knows everything…" his voice cracks slightly, which makes her look at him questioningly. "I can't really talk about him yet, or I'll start to cry."
Cora lays a comforting hand on his shoulder.
"He's alive, Robert. He'll be healthy in every other way –"
"Not, I'm afraid, in every other way. Clarkson says… there can never be any children."
Cora's eyes widened.
"Oh, no… How tragic."
Robert is too upset to elaborate, but Cora's mind is working fast and draws its own conclusions.
"Does Mary know?"
Robert laughs through his tears.
"Oh, yes, she knows. She absolutely insisted on being told everything."
Cora nods and purses her lips.
"That's good. I know it will break her heart to end their engagement, but maybe she will be better off in the long run."
Robert turns sharply and stares at her.
"Don't ever say that to her. Or anything like that."
But Cora hardly pays attention to his unusually harsh tone.
"How can I not?" she insists incredulously. "Robert, don't you want to have grandchildren? Do you want your daughter to be her husband's nurse throughout her whole life? Is this the future you want for her?"
Robert collapses against his pillows.
"I want it all to be a dream," he says miserably. "I want somebody to wake me up and tell me nothing of it ever happened."
xxx
Mary nearly groans when she sees Anna's agitated face that evening when she's helping Mary to get ready for bed that evening.
"What is it now?" she asks, hearing the exhaustion she feels plainly in her voice. "Please don't tell me it's more bad news. I honestly don't think I can handle it now."
Anna looks at her apologetically.
"I'm so sorry, milady," she says and Mary can see that she is indeed very sorry. It only scares her more. "But I really think you should be told."
So she is told about Vera Bates' threats to sell her story to any gossip rag which will take it.
"Whom is she going to sell it to?" Mary asks, trying to wrap her mind around the fact that she is going to have her life ruined by somebody she's never even met.
"She didn't say. Just that there was nothing we could do to stop her. Mr Bates has given her every last penny to keep her quiet, but she's tricked him, and now he's got nothing left to bargain with."
"If it's the money she wants, I can pay her plenty. It's never a good idea to pay a blackmailer, they will only come for more, but just so we can buy some time… Do we know where she is, or how to contact her?"
Anna looks at her miserably.
"We don't, milady. She has Mr Bates' mother's old house, but he heard that she was renting it out and staying somewhere else, possibly with a lover."
She understands it alright then: there is nothing any of them can do to stop her. Not in time.
Mary closes her eyes and tries to calm her breathing. She thinks whimsically that now she knows how the characters of the Greek myths felt when confronted with an unavoidable fate.
"I will think of it tomorrow," she tells Anna finally, opening her eyes slowly. "I must sleep on it first."
"Maybe she won't do it, after all," offers Anna desperately, but with evident lack of conviction. "You've never done anything to her. She doesn't even know you."
Mary smiles at her wryly.
"I should hope to be so lucky, but we both know better."
Anna doesn't have anything to say to that.
xxx
It's hard to say that Mary slept on it because she hardly sleeps at all.
She can hardly breathe too, her whole body tense in fearful anticipation as visions of utter ruin flow through her head. She hasn't really thought of Pamuk or the threat of the scandal since she confessed all to Matthew and he didn't care; it scarcely seemed to matter anymore, at least in France. But she is not in France anymore and she is painfully aware that if the story gets published, she won't be able to show her face outside of the house. She laughs bitterly at the thought that at least she is married now, so there is this one thing less to worry about. She still dreads the unavoidable scorn she's going to face with as much faked equanimity as she can muster.
She needs Matthew. She keeps reminding herself that this is the middle of the night and she can't go to the hospital now; even if she somehow managed it without anybody stopping her, he surely must be dosed with morphine and asleep, and God knows he needs his rest after the shocks of today. But so does she and her brain just won't switch off, it keeps raising one horrible scenario after another until her breath gets so fast she's afraid she is going to hyperventilate.
Instead, she reaches with a shaking hand for the last thing Sybil gave her back in France with the rest of the contents of Matthew's pockets: a letter, addressed to her, but never posted.
She remembers looking at Sybil questioningly, as she delicately explained that soldiers often carry a letter just like that – intended to be the last one, in case they don't survive the battle. Like the letter Major Summers handed her before his death, which she dutifully sent to his wife.
She recoiled from that letter then as if it burnt her. Matthew's fate was still uncertain, she didn't know if he was going to pull through; the last thing she wanted was to treat him in any way as if he was dead already, including reading his last words. But Sybil urged her to take the letter, just in case, and hopefully give it back to Matthew when he recovers.
Which Mary should have done, but now, when she doesn't have to fear for his life anymore, but instead is faced with the loss of the future they dreamt of and his subsequent rejection of her, she yearns to read the letter he wrote before it all happened.
In the end, the temptation turns out to be too much and she tears open the envelope. It is addressed to her after all, isn't it?
"My darling,
I hope you will never read those words – but of course if you are reading them right now, my hopes were in vain and I failed to keep my promise to come back to you. I'm so sorry, my darling. I'm more sorry than I can express. If only I could go back to you, I would. The thought of leaving you behind breaks my heart and I know I just broke yours. I recoil from this knowledge so badly that I find myself having fanciful visions of finding some way to return as your guardian angel, to watch over you at least in spirit if I was prevented from doing it in body. I can see you rolling your eyes at such sentimental ideas and I'm smiling, despite the seriousness of this letter. I can't not smile when I think of you like that. At the risk of sounding like a besotted fool I am, I admit I love those eyerolls of yours, even if they are directed at me (and sometimes especially then).
Oh darling, we had so little time. I find it most unfair, even if it was chiefly my own fault. When I think how much of it I wasted due to my pride and cowardice, I'm cursing myself bitterly. If only I gave you more time you asked for back in 1914, if only I listened to you! Or at least wasn't such a coward and came to see you before getting engaged to Lavinia. It's useless now to dwell on it, I know, but I regret every lost second we could have had together.
Please know that I treasure every hour we've spent with each other, but especially our wedding and honeymoon. To be your husband, even for mere three days, has been my greatest joy and privilege. To be allowed to love you openly, passionately, properly, without a trace of guilt or need for restraint has been pure bliss and I don't think even death would make me forget it. I'm certain Heaven must seem dull and lacklustre in comparison (assuming I managed to get there, despite all my sins).
There is one matter which I hesitate to raise, since the scenario it concerns remains hypothetical for now and if it never came to be, it might be painful for you to read. But in case it did, in case I left you with child, I feel I must speak of it, since it would be my only chance to do so. If I didn't, maybe omit the rest of this paragraph if you think it will bring you additional pain. Oh Mary, but if I did! My heart breaks all anew at the thought of never seeing our baby, of never holding him or her or seeing you as a mother. I'm utterly certain that you will be a wonderful one. Please let our baby know that I loved them with all my heart, even when they were just an idea of a baby, and that while I do my very best of watching them from Heaven, I would love nothing better than to be their father here on Earth if it was at all in my power to do so. I have no doubts it's going to be the most perfect baby in the world, just by virtue of being ours, and by being conceived in the deepest love possible. I'm just so very sorry I didn't get to meet them.
Please be happy, my darling, when you can. I know you won't be able to be, for a time, and it saddens me very much, but please, let yourself be happy eventually. I dearly hope you will find someone who will love you in my place and whom you will love back. You deserve to be loved, Mary, you deserve to be happy. Please don't settle for a man like Carlisle – you deserve so much better than that. Find someone worthy of you, who will love and appreciate you as the wonderful woman you are. I have certainly never met your equal.
God bless you, Mary.
Your loving husband,
Matthew"
Mary drops the letter on the bed to wipe tears falling thickly down her face and reminds herself forcibly that he did come back, he did. He didn't leave her behind. He didn't die. He came back broken, in body and spirit, but he came back to her, and she will never let him go. He obviously needs time to heal and reconcile himself to everything. He needs patience and reassurance and care, and Mary has never considered herself good at any of those, but it's Matthew. Her beloved husband. For him, she will find as much patience and reassurance and care in herself as will be necessary. She will show him that they can still be happy together. Even if it's going to take forever.
She picks the letter carefully and reads it again and again before putting it safely away.
xxx
She approaches Matthew's bed warily the next day, but gains hope when he greets her with a smile.
"My darling," he says, his eyes as loving as always. "It is so nice to see you."
"Are you going to keep pushing me away and insisting I commit a crime?" Mary asks suspiciously and Matthew laughs sheepishly
"I think you were right yesterday, it must have been the morphine speaking," he says, but then his face gets grim and pained in the way Mary doesn't like at all. "I know there is no way out for either of us. I'm just so very sorry for it."
Mary grasps his hand, relieved that he allows it. In fact, his own answering grip feels rather desperate.
"It's just such a bloody waste," says Matthew bitterly. "You would make such a wonderful mother."
He bites his lip for a second and then continues quietly, even though the beds immediately next to his are empty, the patients moved to Downton Abbey to free space for the expected load of new wounded from Amiens.
"Now I really regret that I didn't get you pregnant. I stupidly hoped I didn't, before – I wanted us to have that proper wedding and well, I was rather afraid of everyone's reaction – but now, when I know it was our only chance..."
Mary bites her own lip to stop herself from blurting out what she's been pondering ever since she read his letter last night – that they don't know if she isn't pregnant yet. She hasn't had her monthly since early July. But she's not sure if raising Matthew's hopes now, most probably just to dash them cruelly in a day or two, is a good idea. There was so much stress and her injury too. She's normally very regular but during those awful months of German Spring Offensive she only had her period once. It was as if her body was so focused on surviving this nightmare, or maybe just too exhausted, to function properly. She can't trust that the delay now means anything quite yet, not with circumstances being what they are.
"I'm not at all sure I would make a wonderful mother," she says instead, striving for indifference. "I'm not very gentle or caring in general."
"You would," insists Matthew quietly. "Not that it matters much now."
She can't stand the despair permeating his whole demeanour.
"If you want children so badly, we may think of adopting one when you're feeling better," she says impulsively, surprising herself. Adoptions are not at all common among her social circle; the weight put on bloodlines much too big for them to be, but if it makes Matthew feel at all better, Mary is ready to adopt a whole orphanage. They will certainly have enough space after the convalescence home is closed. It won't solve the issue of the heir, unfortunately, but they could experience parenthood this way. For all the doubts she harbours about her own suitability to be a mother, she has none about Matthew as a father. He's born to be one.
Matthew looks up in shock at her sudden proposal.
"You would be willing to do it for me?" he asks, clearly realising that it would be Mary's biggest, if not only motivation.
Mary nearly shrugs, before remembering that this is a very bad idea right now.
"We obviously need to think and talk about it," she says matter-of-factly. "It's a big decision. But it is something to consider."
There is awe in Matthew's gaze now as he caresses her knuckles with his thumb.
"You really are a stormbraver," he says. "You're just incredible."
"Good thing you married me then," answers Mary with lightness she doesn't truly feel, but also with all the love she does. "You're a lucky man to have me."
Her heart soars when Matthew laughs and pulls her hand to his lips.
"I truly am," he admits fervently after he kisses it. "Whatever else happened, I am beyond lucky to have you."
For a moment, Mary pushes away all the present and looming troubles and concentrates on feeling loved and at peace.
She knows that it inevitably won't last.
xxx
Mary leaves his side only when his mother comes to relieve her, none of them willing to leave him too long to his own devices. Matthew notices it with a sort of detached amusement, although he is of course not going to complain about their company. Being stuck in this bed, unable to move due to paralysis of half of his body and tremendous pain in the half which he can still feel, is enough to drive him mad as it is. Any distraction is welcome.
He woke up in the early hours of the morning, despite the morphine he was generally dosed with, and took this time to properly take stock of his situation.
He is an impotent cripple now and he will remain so for the rest of his life, however long or short it's going to be. This will not change.
He is married to Mary. This will not change either, however much he may wish it could. Whatever schemes he concocted in the first shock of his diagnosis, they were of course impossible; he could hardly expect Mary to risk scandal and prison by pretending to be free of him. Even if he convinced her to leave him in the first place, which he starts to realise might be much more difficult than it should be. His Mary is a person of honour, of principles, just as much as he strives to be. Of course she will do her best to honour her vows.
He loves Mary desperately, however painful this love is now, with all they have lost when that shell fell near him, and he is certain this will not change either. He loved her through anger, despair and engagement to another woman; he's not likely to stop now just because he's become a burden to her. However pathetic it makes him, he needs her. He can't imagine his life without her.
He just can't imagine how this life is going to be at all bearable when he takes all three of those facts together.
xxx
This is the first day Mary joins the others at breakfast instead of taking a tray in her room. As it turns out, only Robert is present when Carson hands The London Gazette to his lordship with the proudest feeling he ever has felt in his life.
"His Majesty the KING has been graciously pleased to award the Military Medal for bravery in the field to the undermentioned Ladies and non-commissioned Officers and Men: — The Lady Mary Josephine Crawley (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry)" reads Lord Grantham aloud and feels as if his chest is going to explode from pride.
Mary blushes.
"I've been just invited to Windsor Castle to receive it," she says, folding the letter of notification awkwardly due to her bandaged arm immobilised by a sling. Robert looks at her in concern.
"When?"
"In a week."
"Will you be up for that?" he asks, his brow furrowed. Mary shrugs, then winced at the resulting pain in her arm. She really should have learnt by now, but it's so easy to forget!
"I should be. My arm will still have to remain in the sling, most likely, but I guess it will make me look more heroic."
Carson and Robert give her the same reproaching look.
"There is no need to act flippant," chides Robert. "You earned this medal."
"Did I?" asks Mary pensively. "I really wonder if I did."
"From what I understand you drove the ambulance to a middle of the battlefield, under heavy fire, and managed successfully to retrieve four wounded soldiers back to the field hospital, in all probability saving their lives while endangering yours. And you had to take a corporal from Matthew's unit with you, because the orderly assigned to your ambulance refused to go, didn't he?"
"Yes," answers Mary quietly. "But Papa... it was Matthew. I knew it was Matthew there, wounded, needing help. If it was anybody else... I probably would also refuse and wait for the shelling to stop before going for the wounded any further than the very edge of the battlefield."
"It doesn't make you any less brave or any less deserving, my dear," says Robert seriously. "Men do all kinds of brave deeds for personal reasons and the Army recognises the value of that. That's why we try to instil the bonds of friendship and brotherhood in the ranks. Because when soldiers care for each other, they are much more willing to act bravely to help each other. What you did was no different than what Matthew did in February. He endangered his own life to rescue you and the other people trapped with you. Would you say his Military Cross should be revoked because it was you he did it for?"
"Of course not," Mary shakes her head immediately. "But I know he would have done it for a stranger if I wasn't there. While I know I would have never volunteered to do anything like that until Matthew's life was on the line."
"We don't know whether Matthew would have done it for a stranger or not," objected Robert. "When it came to his most brave deed during the war, it was one he did out of concern for his fiancee. And it wasn't just Matthew you saved. There were three other men, including William. Why didn't you leave them there? Wouldn't it have been easier to just get Matthew out?"
"How could I have?" asked Mary incredulously. "I was there, I had the space in my ambulance – how could I have left them?"
"Because it would shorten the time you spent under direct fire?" asked Robert. "Maybe save you from that bullet or shrapnel? And yet you didn't just save Matthew, even if your initial decision was motivated by his well-being. You got Matthew out and you stayed until you filled your ambulance with other wounded. You acted like a true hero, Mary, and you deserve being recognised as such."
xxx
The family might admire her for saving Matthew in such a valiant fashion and bringing fame to the family, but it turns out that no medal is making them more likely to accept Mary marrying him now. Mama and Granny, with reluctant participation of Papa, ambush her one evening in the small library, trying their best to talk her into breaking her engagement in the circumstances.
Her blood is boiling so much that she can hardly hear their last sentences. She just feels rage, overwhelming fury really, at how much they don't understand. They have no idea, no idea, what she and Matthew went through, what she has done for him or he for her. Matthew may be willing to play the martyr, to sacrifice his happiness for hers, but even if they weren't already married, if they were not even engaged, there is no force on Earth which would make her abandon him now and whatever he says she knows, she is completely sure, that if their positions were reversed, Matthew wouldn't have abandoned her either.
Thankfully for Crawley family relations, Papa speaks before Mary manages to. In hindsight she is rather glad he stopped her from saying the first things which came to her mind.
"Mary faced bullets and heavy artillery for Matthew," scoffs Robert. "Do you really think she did it only to abandon him now?"
Mary sends him an approving look. At least Papa understands! He might not know everything which happened – thank God! – but he knows or suspects enough. She thinks about his bond with Bates, how he was unable to sack him neither for his disability nor accusations of theft, and she finds herself understanding him better too.
Cora however purses her lips unhappily and Violet makes a scoff of her own.
"She didn't know in what state he would be in until after she rescued him from the battlefield," she points out. "We all hoped for a better outcome."
Mary's blood boils all over again. There is nothing she would love more than to throw the news of their marriage in their faces, but she can't. Not with Matthew so fragile. She can't stand the thought of throwing him under the bus of family's anger and disapproval until he is stronger and better equipped to handle it.
"He is alive," she hisses. "He survived the war and so did I, and now we will be married when he feels well enough."
"Mary, nobody questions your love and devotion to each other," says Cora patiently. "It is commendable. But think, just think, how your life will look like in five, ten, thirty years. You will be his nurse, not his wife. There will be no children, no grandchildren. No proper intimacy in your marriage. Mary, you will be miserable. We all love Matthew, but we do worry so about you."
"It doesn't matter to me," says Mary through clenched teeth. "I would marry him tomorrow if I could. I will be a thousand times happier with him, as he is, than I would be with any other man."
"Would Matthew marry you tomorrow though?" asks Violet shrewdly. "He is a man of honour. I cannot believe he is willing to trap you in a marriage like this."
Mary grits her teeth.
"He is a man of honour and he will honour his word to me," she states firmly. "He did ask me to release him, but I refused. So don't even try to gang up on him. It won't work and just end up hurting him. The situation is hard for him as it is."
"And you're sure you are not making it harder by trying to force him into a marriage he no longer wants?" asks Violet, as usual hitting straight where it hurts.
"Enough!" cries Robert, visibly distressed by the turn of the conversation. "Mary obviously knows the challenges facing her if she decides to keep her promise to Matthew. We should give them the respect they deserve and allow them to make their own decisions."
He looks seriously at his daughter.
"Mary, I will only ask you not to rush into marriage. Give yourself and Matthew time to face the reality of his condition. If, after that time, you will both remain determined to marry, you will have my blessing."
Cora opens her mouth to object, but Violet silences her with a timely tap of her cane.
"Thank you, Papa," says Mary gratefully, throwing her Granny a suspicious look. She rather doubts her intervention was due to her agreement with Papa giving them his blessing. No, it is the idea of time she likes. Most likely time to be used to plot how to pull Mary and Matthew apart.
Mary fervently thanks God for the marriage certificate hidden in her writing desk. With the security it provides her, she can give them all time to come to terms with the marriage. Matthew included.
xxx
After that confrontation, she needs Matthew, desperately, so even though she has already visited him earlier that day, she storms out of the door and walks back to the hospital. She has no patience to wait for the motor to be brought and she hopes the walk will help her to work out some of her fury.
It doesn't, and she's still shaking with it when she settles on the chair by Matthew's side.
Of course, he notices at once that she's upset and asks for the cause, but it's the very last thing she wants to confess to him.
"I'm getting a Military Medal," she says instead, making him raise his eyebrows.
"And that is why you look ready to murder somebody?"
She again forgets not to shrug and hisses in pain, but waves away Matthew's concern.
"I just need to remember not to move it this way," she says, then sighs. "And no, it's not why I'm angry, exactly… It's the reactions of everybody else."
It's partially true, after all. It has been bothering her as well.
"How did you deal with it?" she asks, looking at him inquiringly. She wishes she could just curl up next to him on his bed and lay her head on his chest as she used to whenever they had an opportunity to be so close and once again curses the lack of privacy. "With them all looking at you like some great hero when you felt anything but?"
Matthew snorts.
"You told me I deserved my Military Cross," he reminds her drily. Mary glares at him.
"Of course you did," she says impatiently. "But did you feel that way?"
He shakes his head slightly.
"No," he admits. "Of course not. All I could think about was how it felt to dig through the earth and hope to God that I was going to find you alive. The decoration seemed so…"
"Disconnected from it all? Irrelevant?" asks Mary and Matthew looks at her with shared understanding.
"Exactly. Looking at it objectively I could see why what I did could be considered brave and noble, and I was glad we managed to save all those people besides you, but emotionally, especially in the first weeks after…"
"That was simply not what you were thinking about," Mary again finishes his sentence. "And it's not what I think or feel when I remember driving there to get you out."
Matthew looks at her intently.
"But Mary, you do realise that you deserve your medal even more than I did?" he asks seriously. "You were a non-combatant. You had no obligation to be there in the first place. You shouldn't have been so far in the line of fire, really. I was."
She waves her hand dismissively.
"I had to," she says simply, then admits quietly, painfully. "I dream about it, you know. Nearly every night. Only in the dreams I never find you or I'm too late. Just as it was when I shot that German."
She feels Matthew capture her hand.
"But you did get me out. I probably am alive only thanks to you."
"But you're not at all happy about it, are you?" she blurts out, making him gasp. He does not deny it though.
"Not yet," he says finally and Mary thinks she should be grateful for his honesty, but she's not. She wants to strangle him. Or at least beat him about the head.
"Do you think you will ever be?" she asks because apparently she wants to torture them both.
Matthew winces.
"I don't know," he answers again with this raw honesty which is tearing Mary apart. Why has she asked? She's known his feelings about it even before he answered, he's made them plain enough.
He looks at her apologetically – he has noticed her distress, like he always does – but doesn't retract his statement.
"At the front," he says instead. "We've all prayed to be spared, of course. But if that was not to be… We've prayed for a bullet that kills us cleanly. What happened to me instead is something I have been praying for years to never happen."
"And it doesn't matter to you at all that my prayers were different?" she demands more than asks. "That I just prayed for you to come back to me, whatever happens?"
"It does matter," he says seriously, his eyes holding hers, even though Mary knows hers are glaring at him. "I love you so terribly much for looking at it like that. But…"
He trails off, then takes a big breath to continue.
"But I don't know, I can't imagine, how either of us is ever going to be happy," he finishes finally. "Not with me as I am now."
"Ohhhh!" she huffs, tearing her hand out of his grasp and getting up. Maybe coming here in the mood she's in has been a mistake because now she is more furious and despairing than she was before. She tries to remind herself that she is supposed to show patience and kindness, but she finds herself woefully incapable of it at present.
"I think it's best if I leave for now," she shoots icily over her shoulder as she briskly leaves the ward, not caring about the curious stares of other patients and nurses or about the way Matthew covers his eyes with his hand.
She stalks into the Abbey, sweaty and tired from another fast walk through the heat of an August afternoon, and still ready to spit nails, when Carson hands her a telegram. She waits until she's in her bedroom to tear it open and she's glad for it when she reads the contents, her hat falling out of her suddenly numb fingers, the letters swimming in front of her eyes.
I HAVE ACQUIRED A CAPTIVATING STORY ABOUT A TRAGIC DEATH OF A TURKISH DIPLOMAT STOP AWAITING YOUR COMMENT EAGERLY BY THE END OF THE WEEK STOP R. CARLISLE