Downton Abbey 1. Chapter 1

_A/N: I am still working on _Grace _and a chapter is forthcoming. But I had this done, and an informal poll from my tumblr (ladonnaingenua) revealed that readers would like more to read, even if it is not another chapter of _Grace _at this exact moment. Remember, the M and M of this story are not the M and M of _Grace_. Consider this AU just as their kiss shudders to a stop and Lavinia interrupts them. Stylistically, I want it to feel different too. Also, this will not be an adultery story (thought I would throw that out there). And there will be angst galore. But I only write happy endings. Thank you to all the supportive readers, here and on tumblr. Also, thank you to Faeyero. All grammar mistakes in this are my own, but she listened to me on end this Spring when this idea hit me. _

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Chapter One

Mary watches the wedding dispassionately–or tries to.

The colors are obvious–blue for spring, the wedding delayed a few weeks until Lavina's health improved. The bride's dress is beautiful–typically and unoriginally beautiful–and Lavinia looks typically and unoriginally waif-like and delicate, the tiny waist, the red golden hair. She is smiling so much, with so much feeling and softness, that Mary feels as if she is watching a play and in a minute the curtain will come down. Something is wrong with Mary's eyes; there is no sharpness only pastel softness everywhere she looks. But the wedding is all very real, the vows repeated back–Lavinia's voice shaking a bit in nervousness–and the cloying smell of flowers.

The groom...Well, the groom.

The groom's thick blonde hair is combed back, his morning suit, gray and impeccable. He looks...Mary does not want to examine how he _looks_. She knows some would say the groom looks happy but they do not know him as she does or did (the words she uses, the tenses, are as messy as her life). Mary especially does not want to examine how he _feels. _She finds him frowning at odd moments, his lips down turned in seconds that could be ticked off with a loud, annoying watch. Someone else could mistake it for the seriousness an occasion such as this requires. But he keeps looking at her, at Mary, and she wants to scream: _Stop looking at me. This is the ending–the bride–you've chosen. You, you, you cannot look at me. You've looked enough and you've chosen. You've danced enough..._

Mary wills herself to forget the last time they touched–dancing with him, his whispered _"you are my stick,"_ his hand pulling her closer and closer, her own attempt at humor–_we were the show that flopped._ She forces herself to forget how close they danced (were they dancing by then or just embracing?), how his body was as real to her as her own, how all the parts they were made of matched and fit together. She pushes his apology to the farthest recesses of her brain and then, of course, his admission that however much he wanted to marry _her_, marry Mary, he _just _could not (and of course, the kiss, the unmentionable dramatic kiss with furrowed brows and hands that ached to take hold of more, the brevity of it taking her breath away and his hand holding her gloved one, their fingers caressing, never parting...)...and the interruption of his fiancé.

Don't forget the interruption of his fiancé.

She laughs a little, into her dove gray gloves–which truly is inappropriate during the ceremony. Some people look at her. Who cares? She is used to caring but she doesn't anymore. But then _he _looks at her–Matthew–even as he holds Lavinia's hands in his own and continues on with the ceremony and the vows. _Vows, Matthew, vows._

Does he want her to cry? Well, she won't.

It takes all of Mary's strength (not to stand up and stop the wedding, as some people suppose she might) but not to stand up and yell at him: _Do not look at me with longing. This is the ending _you_ have chosen! You chose it. Lavinia and I–well, we are just doing what you asked of us._

Finally, the ceremony is over and the new couple–the new Mr. and Mrs. Matthew Crawley–walk back down the aisle from which they came and Matthew glances at her one last time. Mary realizes that not only is this an ending, the one he has so _nobly _chosen, but it can be a beginning too–_her beginning. _Goosebumps break out along her neck.

He does not get to choose _everything_.

If she stays...If she stays, she knows the way the story ends. They will be two magnets pulled towards one another. It will torture them–the desire and the ache. Eventually, it will happen–in an unused room, outside in the trees, in the sitting room at Crawley House when everyone else is at church, all those pieces of themselves will fit together again and one of them (who can guess which of the two of them it will be?) will unbutton the first button, slide the first strap from her shoulder, slide her hand... It will be hurried and rushed. It will be illicit and secretive. And their hands will grasp and they will cover one another's moans with open mouths and gasps. It won't mean anything except that it will mean everything. Later, he will look at her across the dinner table and then away, afraid someone will read it in his eyes. He will touch her hand when no one is looking and name a time, a place. She will go; they are two magnets, after all. All the pieces of themselves match. And it will happen again.

It won't ever be tender or sweet; there will be no love drenched kisses because that would be true adultery. This way they are only two bodies, not even bodies, but magnets. Their kisses will always taste of sadness, of something lost that can never be found again, of misery that cannot be undone, a message lost in a bottle never to reach its intended, a love poem, unfinished.

Then, one day he will grow to blame her. If she wasn't so–and he will fill in the sentence with some hurtful adjective. She will storm off, after coldly stating something like: _I never asked for this, Matthew _or _why don't you save your pithy arguments for your wife? _The word _wife _will sound like a curse because to her, even to him, that's what it is. One night, he will get drunk and call her a whore–or some variation of that. There are so many variations of that word.

She will cry. If she stays...she will cry often. She will taste misery on the tip of her tongue, even after he's gone; the smell of it, of him, will cling to her once he is home with his wife. She will feel unglued, without his pieces fitting into hers. Her shoulders will shake from the weight of it all and one day, Lavinia will see her swollen eyes and smile her tiny smile as she smooths her hands over a swollen belly, the belly with the heir inside it. Lavinia will ask what is wrong but she will know. The _wife_ always knows.

Mary hears Granny's voice in her head: _you've read too many novels. _But Mary knows that if she stays, if she is here when they return from their honeymoon, her story will already be written. She will be helpless to it, a little boat in storm tossed waves. Mary hates to be helpless. She refuses it, like a particular dish she does not like. _No, thank you; I'd prefer to choose my own main course. _

Mary is still supposed to marry Sir Richard but they both know that it won't happen–not this summer or the next. They both know she would have rather pushed Matthew's wheelchair around the grounds the rest of her life than married and left him. But now Matthew stands on two feet; Matthew has left her, because he is noble, because he is honorable; only before he left her, he kissed her. He marked her. He cannot stay away from her. They are two magnets. And the story begins again...

It's a music box. And when the song stops, Mary or Matthew set it to rights again and dance to the music coming from the gramophone.

She thinks Sir Richard suspects this. Before the wedding, Sir Richard was called away urgently on business. He sends his regrets. Mary thinks he just wants to avoid her tears because Matthew is marrying someone else and she wants to smirk and poke Sir Richard in the shoulder until he snaps at her. She would like to say: _You don't know me at all. Nobody does. Not even _him. Just recently, she has thought about pushing Sir Richard, and pushing him, and pushing him until he strikes her. Just to see if she could do it. Just to see if she could win.

Something has to change. She cannot go on like this. Her story cannot be written without her own permission.

The bride and the groom look at one another. The bride is glowing. Mary already knows the way the story will end only...Only she doesn't want to be a part of it anymore. And she doesn't have to be, not if she doesn't want to be.

She wants a new story.

She wants her own story.

This wedding is not just an ending, it can also be her beginning.

All through the toasts, she plots her way to freedom and when she sips her champagne, there is a curl to her smile. She throws her head back and laughs because _she is getting out. _It's a secret that no one tells–that a young woman from a rich home _does _have a way out, if she is brave enough, if she is desperate enough, if she wants it badly enough. Sybil knew the secret and now Mary knows it too.

The next time Matthew looks at her, he does not recognize her and a little voice inside of him reminds him: _you don't recognize her because you've never made her happy; when was the last time you made her laugh? _There is a flood of people offering congratulations. He tries to reach her, but he cannot. They are two magnets, pulled together and pushed apart. But then, she is gone. He tells himself that they will talk when he returns from the honeymoon. The word _talk _doesn't mean what it should and he knows it, even with his hand on Lavinia's waist. Guilt is just another thing he has grown used to, like the ache in his back after a long day. He is as resigned to the story as Mary is, if a bit more realistic. After all, he will always have one of them–Mary or Lavinia. And for the first time in a very long time, he has no idea what Mary is thinking or planning. None at all.

Up in her room, Mary knows what Matthew is telling himself. It makes her laugh–to know how wrong he is. When he returns, she will be long gone. She does not know if she is coming back. She does not know if she will ever see him again. It makes her sad to know it but it is not sadness enough to keep her for trying for her own happiness. This is a sadness she can bear. Except, at this moment, in her lovely gown, the wedding guests all aflutter downstairs, it does seem like she should give herself at least a moment to mourn, to grieve. And when she cries, she tells herself it is the last time, the final time she will cry a single tear over Matthew Crawley.

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_A/N: I would LOVE to know what you think. It is very different than my other piece. Let me know if you want more._


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: I talked about this in my tumblr and I hate to repeat myself so for expectations of posting and all that for this story go there. Also, THANK YOU so much for your support. I worked hard for every word in that chapter to be intentional so your support was like a giant hug. In fact, it encouraged me to take the outline I had for this chapter and turn it into a chapter. Again, if you've read Grace, shake that Matthew out of your head. This is the Matthew who danced with Mary and kissed her. The Matthew who then (AU) married Lavinia. You might not like him. I'm not sure if I do. (Okay, I do, but it's against my will). Just know that this chapter and the characterization of Matthew in this chapter is just as intentional as the other chapter. Each word, or lack of them, matters. Again, thanks for the support. I just couldn't help but write after seeing your excitement since I have been excited about this story for months!_

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Chapter Two

Robert sends a car for them when they arrive at the station. As Lavinia accepts the driver's hand with a shy nod, it is one last hurrah to the newlyweds, the honeymooners, returned from a fortnight in Italy. Matthew helps load the bags in the car. He wants to be outside for a moment longer, to move his arms, and shake his shoulders. The status of newlyweds allows for a certain closeness when riding on trains and in automobiles. Lavinia's navy gloves look lovely against his camel colored suit, tucked along his wrist. They look very fine against the gray, as well. But they clash with the black. Today, he wears the black and her tiny hand, so fine boned and small knuckled, entrapped in its navy leather, winds itself around his arm. He stares at the blue on black, while she sighs with a delightedness that makes him smile a smile that is half a grimace.

"Back home." She squeezes his wrist. "It was a wonderful time. I think I could have stayed with you, there, forever." Pausing, she looks up at him through her lashes and he smiles at her coyness because they both know what she is talking about and it isn't Italy. "But I suppose...the honeymoon doesn't really have to be over."

On the honeymoon, Matthew found himself at a loss, a drift, as if all his limbs were paper thin, momentary objects, as if the whole of him could be washed away. Though Lavinia was beautiful that first night–waiting for him– especially sitting in the nightgown stitched with blue, her copper hair around her shoulders, his hands did not feel like his hands. His lips did not feel like his lips. He had to think about everything before he did it–his palm on her waist, removing her clothing, kissing her until she let out a contented sigh, using his tongue, almost as an experiment.

It was the first time he made love with a woman and that woman was his wife. But he did so with so much thinking throughout the act (and in the subsequent acts) that he woke up each morning, in Italy no less, feeling as if he'd drunk too much wine–and not in a good way.

Comparisons are the root of all evil.

He never had to think with Mary. His hands were his hands and her waist was her waist and those two things were one in the same, the fabric separating them immaterial. Her lips were her lips and then they were his as well. When he pulled her closer, it just happened. His hand sliding lower along the satin of her gown just happened. His tongue was not an experiment. Things fell into place as if it were a dance. And when they danced, his arm pulled her closer until it was torture, so close he could feel every part of her and he knew...he knew she could feel every part of him...she knew how badly he wanted her...and he did not mind because her lips were his lips and there was nothing to do but to press together as tightly as possible. If they let go of one another, even a little, if they seperated in the slightest it would be like cutting his own body in half...The thought of it, even as they kissed, even as he placed her hand against his heart (could it beat any faster, when one finally did the thing one longed to do?) hurt him physically even as the pleasure of _her _traveled through every vein in his body.

_I want you._

_I want you so badly. _

He had not said the words but he had wanted to. If he had time to drag his lips from hers (how much time would he need until he was satiated?) and find the curve of her neck to suck (the word alone made him weak in the knees) he would have whispered it, heaved it out into the open: _I want you so badly._

Lavinia. It is very different with Lavinia. She welcomes him, her arms encompass him. She whispers words of adoration into his ears. But he wants her breasts to be Mary's breasts, her hip to be Mary's hip.

When they woke naked next to one another in their hotel room, he wanted to find the birthmark on Mary's shoulder (her cream dinner dress had revealed to him, dazzling him and making his throat raw so he had not been able to eat dinner at all that night).

It is wrong. The honeymoon was wrong. It is still wrong. His thinking is so very wrong.

Lavinia clings to his arm as they return. There is a spring in her step and she smiles at him as if he has turned back the sun and hung the moon in the sky and told her it was all for her. _I am not a hero, _he longs to tell her. _I miss a birthmark I never knew in the first place, a birthmark I never had a right to in the first place. I miss a birthmark I never traced with my finger or kissed with my lips._

But Matthew isn't cruel; he does not say it; he is only entranced against his will. He never wanted this–to want her. He is honorable. He knows Mary is probably angry; she will probably make some cutting remark about his _so called honor _and that will be his excuse to grip her too tightly and then they'll...

_It's like a disease._

No, but it is true. He expects Mary to be angry. She should be. They must talk. And they will. Away from everyone else. He will be honest with her.

_I couldn't help myself._

_Damn it, Matthew. Grow up!_

He can imagine the curse curling from her lips, the disdain in her voice but the desire in her eyes. He wonders what it will be like to see her again, at dinner, tomorrow night. Of course, the newlyweds were invited to dinner...the day after their arrival, so they could rest up. So he can prepare for Mary's wrath. Matthew smiles thinking of it, knowing he has no excuse. It's a sad smile, the kind one gives beneath an umbrella at a funeral, while it rains.

Yet there are little reminders everywhere that he is a married man–the larger bedroom, for two to share, the ring on Lavinia's hand, how she pats him, like he belongs to her because he does. The navy blue gloves against his black sleeve. They belong to each other. Husbands and wives belong to one another. Yet, it makes the back of his head itch because this is touching that is allowed and what he would like, what he _wants_, is the kind of touching that is not allowed.

He never thinks the word _affair._

He never thinks the word _adultery._

Of course, he would never do that. That would be sordid. He wouldn't have tied himself in knots convincing himself he had to marry Lavinia just so he could...do _that _to her with Mary after the banns were read and the vows declared to a church full of people. He has responsibilities now. He is a husband. God, a husband.

But he remembers the dance, the silk of her gloves in his own hand. He wonders what her bare arm would have felt like, his hand skimming down it and into her hair, the pins falling out. And the music is playing...

He thinks of the birthmark on her shoulder and the cream gown.

_We were the show that flopped. _Her droll, cynical voice.

"We had a wonderful time!" Lavinia chirps to his mother as she pats his arm. Pat, pat, pat. "Although we're tired from the journey back," she admits their secret. _We. Theirs. _What strange words in a strange land. It was different in the church, dressed up as if it were a play. And it was different in Italy, her giggles over sharing a bottle of wine a night, and the comfort she gave him when he sunk into his arms. He never figured out what she was comforting him over, until the last day, when he realized he would be seeing Mary again. He'd been missing Mary and her arms, her skin, the golden peach flush that came to it, was a comfort. He should have hated himself more than he did, the flesh of his own wife a comfort for Mary. God.

_Damn it, Matthew! Grow up._

Still, even his own admonishments are in Mary's droll, cynical voice.

"I'm so glad." His mother stands at a distance and watches the two of them as if they are a painting she will have to sketch later. Her head quirks to one side, watching his son. "It's so good to have you back, though. Really."

"Well..." Lavinia's voice hangs in the air, a question mark drawn there with her voice. And when Matthew doesn't answer it, she goes on, "I'll go up to bed then."

Matthew looks at his mother; her hands are folded in front of her. "I'll be right behind you," Matthew promises.

He promised her a lot of things, standing on the altar, the hairs standing up on the back of his neck, knowing Mary was watching and listening too, trying not to look at her but looking at her anyway. What was she thinking? Where was Sir Richard? All the while, reciting his vows.

_If you were the only girl in the world, and I was the only boy..._

When Lavinia is upstairs, and Matthew and his mother hear her heels click-clack on the floor above them, she speaks: "I have something for you."

"Oh?" he grins. "Shouldn't I be the one with the souvenirs? We got you this lovely..."

"Matthew," she snaps, under her breath, hushed. "I'm your mother and I love you. The only reason I agreed to do this is because she told me it would be the one and only time. She said she owed you an explanation and I happened to agree, even though I also happen to agree she owes you nothing at all."

His mother goes to the bureau and takes out an envelope. "She came to me and she said, _Cousin Isobel, I'll never ask again. But this will be the only goodbye he'll get from me. There is nothing in this letter that Lavinia couldn't read, I promise...It's just..._And her voice drowned off and she whispered–_Matthew and I. _Then, she shrugged, Matthew. Lady Mary shrugged.I don't know what–"

"Mary? What about Mary? What's all this you're talking about?" Panic is inside his adam's apple and all this time he thought there was no purpose for that bump in his throat. No, that is where panic lived and slept. His voice rises. "The last time? _Goodbye_?"

"Here," his mother says with as much dignity as she can muster. "It wasn't for me to read."

"Wait one second," he grabs his mother's hand. "Where has she gone? For how long? You make it sound...permanent. What's gone wrong?"

His mother sighs wearily. Above them, Lavinia click clacks and puts things aways. Their things. This is her home now. "It is permanent as far as I know."

_Dear Matthew,_

_I debated whether to write you this note but however things ended, we were friends once. I'm going to live with Grandmother in America. I've broken my engagement with Sir Richard. It was time._

_Brace yourself. You may recall Mr. Pamuk's death. He did not die in his bed but in mine. It's the secret I've been keeping for a long time, an expensive secret. It cost me you, once, before the war. It cost me two years of my life engaged to a man I did not love so he wouldn't print it in his newspaper. Don't worry; I do not consider myself a martyr._

_I'm not going to America because of the story. I'm going to America because I want to go to America. But a consequence is that Sir Richard will probably print this story. The family knows and I thought you deserved to know as well. I leave it to you to brief Lavinia and your mother should any uncomfortable social situations result in my indiscretion. _

_It is my wish that this be our last communication. Maybe it seems odd, after what I told you in this note, for me to be concerned with propriety...but let this be our final private word with one another, as you are married now. _

_I hope your honeymoon was lovely and marriage is everything you dreamt it would be. _

_Most Sincerely,_

_Cousin Mary_

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Lavinia's hands, smoothed by her night cream, creep beneath his pajama top and press themselves against his stomach. His shy wife has grown more bold each night they've spent together and with each bottle of wine. But tonight there is no wine and Matthew is thirsty for it. He cannot. He cannot. He cannot. He grasps her hands in his own. They are warmed by his own flesh.

"Darling, today has been such a long day..." His ellipses hangs in the air just as her question mark did earlier. Is this how they will communicate? In the dark? Words left unsaid, written in smoke, in invisible ink, in the space between them.

Pithy letters written as if they are strangers with short sentences and signed _most sincerely _by a cousin?

Lavinia hides her disappointment, gathers her hands back to herself and presses her lips briefly to his. "Goodnight, Mr. Crawley," she giggles, not youthfully, but happily. She is happy; somehow he has made her happy even while he is imagining Mary's very porcelain skin against the tan of Mr. Pamuk's. Had the man seen the birthmark before he died?

Had he died happy?

Could she have written a more distant letter?

Matthew does not sleep. He finds port. He drinks a lot of it. Glass after glass, holding her short letter in his hand.

If Mary can do it, then so can he. If he can feel pain like this, a ripping pain in his chest, as if he is coming apart, then so should she. He betrays Lavinia and Mary in one foul swoop and writes a letter to America.

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_A/N: Could she have written a more distant letter? What do you think of this Matthew? Do you still want more? Even when he is not a knight in shining armor? _


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: So, seriously, your comments have been overwhelming. You've been AMAZING! This story has been in my head for so long that I am excited to finally write it. I want to answer a couple of common questions quickly though. _Grace _will continue. Most likely, (but I cannot say with 100% certainty) there will be a chapter up this weekend. Secondly, like I said at the beginning of chapter one, there will be no adultery in this story but it will have a happy ending. I know those things see incongruous at this point but trust me? I've had this story in my head for months! I hate movies with sad endings. And I'm not playing coy either. A happy ending means Matthew and Mary together without adultery. But right now, that seems impossible and I get it. But my job is to show you how it happens and it will happen without adultery. Thirdly, Lavinia will have a voice in this story. She will not be a cardboard character. I promise. Give her a bit of time. She's not as brazen as our Mary. Finally, I knew some people were not going to like Matthew or even disagree with how I portrayed him. It's okay. I cannot defend him. But I think Matthew is not perfect. He married Lavinia, knowingly made a huge mistake. He's living in the consequences and he's Matthew so yes, he did the honorable thing but he's a bit naive. I don't think he expected it to be this hard doing the honorable thing. It's only going to get harder. Also the formatting is off in Matthew's letter. I couldn't show the strike throughs. Consider everything crossed out but the bold parts. So Mary can still read what he has crossed out. Does that make sense?_

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Chapter Three

**_Dear Mary,_**

_Your letter was completely_

_I cannot say_

_To express my feelings over your letter_

**_I found your letter to be completely disturbing, from the detached tone to the signature of _cousin.** _You are too smart for your own good.__** I told you a long time ago not to play games with me. I am not so stupid that I cannot tell what you are doing.** __You have always been good at playing hot and cold, Lady Mary, haven't you? I'm sure Mr. Pamuk could attest to that. _

_**How could you leave without saying goodbye to me? Who are you? Where is the Mary who held the bowl as I was sick and pushed me around the grounds and anchored me to a world I wanted no part of?** Where is the Mary I danced with? Where is my stick?_

**_I don't know how to _be _without you near. I know I shouldn't say it. I've drunk too much and I am so angry at you. So, so, so, angry. Mary, what were you thinking? Not just the leaving. But Mr. Pamuk. Announcing it that way. Are you proud? Most of all. Most of all, I am angry that you did not tell me so long ago. I would not have been happy to hear the news about the woman I intended to marry. But _we _might have been happy _now.**

_**I have drunk too muchh. I've spilled on this paper and I do nott even care.** I do not even even care. I do nott care about you at all._

**_I really think you must be a wrretched person. Something inside you _must_ be wrong. I think you're a life ruiner._**

**_MC_**

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"You're awfully quiet."

Mary is at a party filled with young people, _people her age, _as Grandmother terms them. She forces Mary to go to every picnic, every silly American party where young men and women mill around and laugh together without a care in the world. She isn't _friends _with these people. Grandmother is friends with their parents, their grandparents. They are all so god awful rich and love showing it off. They talk about money constantly. They wear pink too often. There are girls showing bits of their ankles. Chaperones are always scarce. They are expected to laugh and joke and have fun and when one of the men (the boys) pulls a hair pin out of a woman's (a girl's) hair, she laughs as she threatens, "Oh, I'm going to get you, Tommy." She bites her lip and pretends to pout and then runs after him when he teases her with it.

Mary is always apart from them, standing on the edge, watching cooly, sometimes with a glass of champagne in her hand. Some of the girls try to include her but their giggles are shrill and Mary has never been a giggler. They've already given up on her. To be honest, they never liked her to begin with–a gorgeous girl to compete with, a mysterious accent, her stillness.

Today it is a picnic and Mary is standing in the shade alone, cupping her elbows, trying not to think about the letter she received that morning–the scratchy handwriting, the uneven lines, the piercing words. She wanted to sob. Her body convulsed as if she was sobbing but no tears came. She promised herself. She promised herself that his wedding day would be the last day she cried over him. So she only crumpled the letter into a ball.

_Something must be wrong with you._

The boys have taken off their jackets and are playing some _sport _with a ball. The girls are on blankets, sunning themselves and giggling. A few have taken off their shoes. Mary thinks she is alone in the shade (she has no intention of turning brown) until she hears: "You're awfully quiet."

He is tall with dark hair, lean but confident. The first impression Mary has of him is that he is so comfortable with himself–his tanned skin, eyes the color of Diamond after a good run, shirtsleeves rolled up, and a grin that reveals dimples. He is so comfortable in his own body, his own self.

She is suddenly aware that she...is not. Hers is the body of a life ruiner.

"We always try to get up the nerve to talk to talk to you at these things, you know," he continues, hands in his pockets, smiling. "And today, I told the fellows that I was going to speak to you. They didn't believe me," he adds ruefully.

"It's nice to know I've been talked about," Mary replies dryly. "And that my personality is so unapproachable."

"I think it's the accent. Everything sounds so serious." His smile widens. She raises her eyebrow at him. "That was a joke," he clarifies. He waits a moment for her response and when there isn't one, he kicks at the grass a bit. "I'm very charming, you know. People tell me all the time it gets me into trouble."

"Really." There is not a question mark at the end of her reply.

He laughs a little at her, shaking his head. "For example, here I am, trying to get a smile out of a girl, maybe a tiny laugh out of you." He winks. "You're trouble. I can tell these things."

She has had one glass of champagne and it is hot outside in the summer air. "You're right." The words roll off her tongue, the first time she hasn't thought carefully through before speaking them aloud upon coming to this godforsaken country. "I'm actually a life ruiner."

He raises both his eyebrows comically. "My life seems to be perfectly fine."

"Oh, just wait," she assures him. His arms are very tan, revealed by those rolled up shirtsleeves. "If you talk to me long enough, I'll ruin your life."

"I think you're wrong," he announces. The man just doesn't stop grinning. He reminds her a bit of one of Papa's dogs, a puppy. "I think I'll make you laugh before you ruin my life."

"It's a bet then," she replies flippantly.

He sticks out his hand. "Mackenzie."

"Mackenzie?" she asks, leaving his hand in the air alone.

"Are you really going to make fun of me when one of your country's most beloved characters is named _Fitzwilliam _Darcy?" he retorts, his eyes dancing, his hand still extended. "And it's Mack. To my friends. Are we friends?"

"I suppose we are," she says slowly, reaching out to take his hand. "Since we've made a bet. I'm–"

"Lady Mary Crawley," he interrupts gently. He does not release her hand. "I know. I've made it my business to eavesdrop and find out."

"That's not very polite," she responds, untangling her hand.

He takes a step closer and his grin becomes less silly and more gentle. There is still plenty of space separating them but it alarms Mary nonetheless. _She is a life ruiner. _

"I had to know you. When I saw you." His words make her blush, even though she doesn't care about this Mack character at all. She is done with romance. She is not good at it. She is a life ruiner and she is done ruining lives. Especially with an American. God.

"Mister..." she begins.

"Uh oh." The smile is back and this time it's a bit sly. "I didn't tell you my last name. However will you address me in such a formal manner without my last name?"

"Sir–"

"See, you're much to good at this," he laughs. "But if I insist that you call me Mack? What then? How would you do it in jolly England?"

"To a man who approached me at a party?" she asks. She doesn't know why or how they are still even talking.

"Yes. How would you do it? If I say, I insist you call me Mack." She finally realizes that his silliness and his attractive features are completely disarming, that they've been talking for several minutes now, that she told him she was a life ruiner (for god's sake?).

At the same time, it is a game and she would rather play than think of the letter crumpled in her room at Grandmother's. "I would say, _Sir, forgive me if I have given you the impression that we are of intimate acquaintance. It would be inappropriate to address you as such_."

He throws back his head and laughs. And laughs. And laughs. "Fancy," he is finally able to reply and she finds, against her will, really, a smile creeping across her face. "Uh oh." He takes her hand. "We better get you out of this heat, you life ruiner, you. You're smiling. Something terrible must be wrong with you."

She stops smiling. "Laughing at someone is just as impolite as eavesdropping."

"Lady Mary." His face turns serious. "I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing with you."

"You're very tenacious," she sighs. For the second time, she untangles their hands. She forgot he was holding onto her.

"So my professors have always said. And precocious. I'm precocious," he smiles again. "Do you like ice cream?" he asks suddenly and out of the blue.

"Not particularly," she replies, looking up at the sky.

"You don't particularly like ice cream?" he cries. "Stay right here." He takes her shoulders in his tan hands as if he is holding in place before he turns away.

He returns with a cone of green ice cream and chocolate chips. He tells her it's mint chocolate chip and that she has to taste it. When she argues, he argues back...with a smile on his face, of course. He practically (gently though) shoves the ice cream in her face, holding the cone, his arms tan, his shirtsleeves rolled up and she finds herself leaning forward and opening her mouth to taste it. She tries to be discrete but she is suddenly aware that she is using her mouth and tongue, with his hand holding the cone. But he doesn't watch her mouth. In his own way, he is polite. She laughs when he says, "You liked it, didn't you? You just don't want to admit it! Stubborn English girl" and nudges the cone closer to her mouth she takes another bite. Because he is right. She _does _like it.

His friends put their jackets on and the ladies shake off their blankets but he walks with her slowly, as they share the ice cream cone between them, passing it back and forth (it's so intimate and yet he makes it so silly that she laughs). Once, upon passing it, she trips a bit in the grass (Mary, tripping!) and lands a bit of green ice cream on his shirt. "Well, you haven't ruined my life but you've ruined my shirt," he exclaims in laughter and she shouldn't laugh but she does. She does. When they've finished it and he's told her she has ice cream on her nose (she thinks he is joking and is mortified to find that he is not) and he laughs _with _her some more, he tells her his last name Banks-Duncan and that his family _makes _that ice cream and sells it across the country.

"Well it's a good thing I said I liked it," she replies cooly. He laughs some more. He is always laughing

"You made a joke. My life is complete."

He walks her to Grandmother's car and takes her hand, in lieu of the chauffeur, to help her inside. "I'll see you again," he promises. And it is no surprise that he is smiling when he says it.

What is surprising is that as the car drives away, Mary lifts a hand to her cold lips and finds they are curved, that her grin is wide and foolish. But she doesn't feel foolish. She feels...

It takes her so long to think of the word.

Happy.

* * *

Mary sends a telegram to Matthew's office the next day:

_You ought to be ashamed of yourself STOP Do not write again STOP Just STOP_

As she leaves the building, she does not feel empty or as if she has lost something She remembers ice cream and the sound of her own laughter. She does not feel much like laughing now. But the sound of it, knowing that she _could, _that she is _capable, _is more than enough. It is more than enough.

More.

* * *

_A/N: So, Mack. What are your thoughts? I don't want to give you mine because I don't want to influence you. But try and give him a fair shot, even though we all are M/M forever. Right now, Matthew is not at his best. But what do you think? What about Matthew's letter? (Bummer about the format) And Mary laughing? And her telegram?_


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: Here is the next chapter. Thank you to Faeyero for her advice on writing in the fandom and to Chickwriter for her thoughts in and help in making sure that I portrayed Lavinia exactly as I meant too. I wanted to make sure the characterization was what I felt it needed to be._

* * *

Chapter Four

Lavinia believes a woman knows when a man is thinking of something else as they kiss–papers left at the office, a loose button on a shirt, the unfound cufflink. These are small insults. Or worse yet, there is always the possibility that as they kiss–Lavinia and Matthew–and she feels his mind wander, as if it is separate from his body, separate from his hands and his lips, he thinks of another woman. His lips leave hers. Lavinia realizes she is thinking of that other woman herself.

_Mary._

Later, they make love, his face in the curve of Lavinia's shoulder when he finishes, sweaty from the effort. On their honeymoon, Lavinia discovered she liked lovemaking. Her favorite part, however, comes just after. When inevitably Matthew rolls over and pulls her near for a cuddle, all of their skin touching. One night, they left the lights on and it amazed her to discover the differences in their skin colors. How could it be, since they were both pale, that one could tell the difference in the tangle of pale legs–two more golden than the other two blushing limbs, like the inside of a seashell?

Tonight, when he finishes, he sighs and rolls over on to his back quickly. He covers his eyes with the back of his hand. He drank too much again tonight. Or not too much, she corrects. Just _more_ than she ever witnessed him drink before. He is not out of control, by any stretch of the imagination. Yet, he prefers a drink when he arrives home now, and at dinner of course, and then after as well. He appears tired, not from the lovemaking, but a kind of exhaustion that lives inside his bones.

"Darling?" she asks in the dark. Their legs remain a distance apart, the smallest bit, but it might as well be the world between them. At least that is how she feels. But now, that isn't right either. Not every movement and flicker of an eyelid means something.

"Yes, darling?" he asks, his voice is gruff and slurred. She chooses to believe it is not from the drink but from sleepiness.

She wants to ask: _is everything all right? What has changed? _Or worst of all: _do you miss her? _But she is not even certain that something is wrong or that something _has _changed. Instead, she says, "I love you," leaning over to kiss his forehead. He is already asleep.

But Lavinia is not tired.

A woman knows when a man is thinking of something else as they kiss. Lavinia tells herself, as she rises from bed and quietly exits their room, that even in her limited experience, a woman _knows. _It is a sweeping statement so she alters it as she steps lightly down the hall in her bare feet after shrugging on her nightgown, heaved into a ball on the floor. _Lavinia _knows when _Matthew _is thinking of something else as they kiss.

How does she know, the mouse of the girl, with the pert nose and the pretty hair she brushes a hundred strokes a night, who loves her father, and was willing to sacrifice everything for an ailing Matthew, who speaks so softly one must lean in a bit closer to hear, who is so gentle? She shakes her head at her own description of herself, knowing some of it, most of it is true, but that so very few people ever bother to discover more about her.

In a very strange way, Lavinia misses Mary–the Mary who asked her about the Marconi scandal and did not tell Matthew, who listened to her when she cried. Mary tried to know the real Lavinia as know one else in that family had. Now they are Lavinia's family, too. Mary is gone. It is both better and worse this way. It is strange to lose an ally and a foe all at once.

She counts Matthew in the group of people who know her, who went out of his way to know her from the very first. When they met in London, he in his uniform, so dazzling, and he asked to call on her again, she laughed nervously, agreeing. He shook her father's hand when they met and he ate with them, the weekend of his leave. In the library, they spoke to one another on divans separated by a table. At first, they conversed so politely. But then he asked of her mother. She asked of the war. Before she knew it, the weekend was over. He asked if he could write. Then, he promised to write.

He did. He told her things: _I think of you all the time–the shine of your hair and smile. I try to remember something beautiful in all this ugliness so that I can remain whole._ _Some of the men ask if I have a girl back home, I hope you do not mind that I say yes. Even if I am only kidding myself that someone as pure and gentle-hearted as yourself would want to be "my girl." _

She told him things: _I've never been special to anyone, I think, excepting my father. And if I am special to you, when you are cold or wet, then I am glad. I pray for your safety, not only because I want you to live, but because selfishly, I want to see you again. And again. Perhaps I want to see you all the time. _

When he returned to London, again so dashing, he asked her father for her hand. When he asked Lavinia to marry him and share his life, the yes burst from her lips. They leaned forward toward one another hesitantly and kissed, his roughened hands gentle on her cheeks, his lips seeking, tenderly. She opened her eyes slightly seeing his squeezed shut, his brow furrowed in concentration. His fingertips touched the back of her neck. She leaned in closer. The intensity of it–of the kiss, of the war, of the fragility of their entire way of life–left her feeling weak. Most of all, the way Matthew seemed to make that kiss his whole world for the length it went on, left her staggered.

That is how a woman knows...how Lavinia knows when Matthew is thinking of something else when they kiss, because of the first kiss, when he could think of nothing else _but _her–not the war, not his birthright, not _Mary. _Only Lavinia. She supposes, as she enters Matthew's small den, like a ghost in her white nightgown, that is how any woman knows a man is thinking of something else. Because of the first kiss. Every subsequent kiss can be measured against it.

She sighs as she sits in Matthew's chair and smooths her hands over his blotter. She likes this room because it smells of books and something male she cannot name. It reminds her of Matthew. It makes her ache for her father because it reminds her of him most of all and he is gone. There is no one here to kiss her forehead and tell her: _My dear, don't worry so. Everything will be all right in time. _

But is anything really wrong?

Lavinia thinks of Mary, strong Mary, who probably, in her entire life, never needed anyone to kiss her forehead and murmur such sentiments. To leave and go to America, to end her engagement with Sir Richard (the vile man) and suffer the repercussions...Lavinia imagines that bravery. Without meaning to, she remembers how the previous winter and fall, Mary could be called the bravest woman Lavinia knew. It had been as plain as day (eventually, at least) to see that Mary still loved Matthew but she bravely and genuinely befriended Lavinia; she bravely and genuinely offered the happy couple congratulations; most of all, she bravely and genuinely kept her love locked inside of her, silent, completely releasing Matthew into his own life, leaving him free and unfettered to marry Lavinia. She could not imagine what Mary suffered in remaining so stalwart. Really, Lavinia never doubted Mary's intentions.

And at the time...Lavinia never doubted Matthew's intentions either. Until the night...She felt so ill she went up to the bedrooms for a spell. She did not want to bother anyone so she walked down the hallway after a brief lie down and from her perch, she watched _Matthew _ask _Mary _to dance. Even then, Lavinia did not worry. She saw brave Mary try to put him off, square her shoulders and keep their bodies a cousinly distance apart. Without meaning to, Lavinia crept down the hallway and down the stairs.

_You are my stick._

As he pulled her closer and closer and closer...

_Oh, God, Mary, I'm so, so sorry._

And closer...

_You know Cousin Violet came to me..._

_I couldn't give her the brush off..._

Lavinia held her breath.

_However much I might want to._

The kiss.

Lavinia did not want to remember but she did. She interrupted them because she knew Matthew. She knew he was a man of honor. She had letters upon letters to prove it (did Mary have letters?). He would hate himself. He'd confessed to Lavinia once that his relationship with Mary had been like that–loving her and hating himself, constantly, over and over again.

Of course, Lavinia was so sick she didn't think clearly. Not for several days. He tended to her so well. He would not leave her. When she recovered slightly, on the day they moved her from the Abbey, to Crawley House, she asked him, "Do you love me? Do you want to marry me? _Still_?"

"It may sound strange," he replied, "And thank God, you are better. But this episode has convinced me..." He drew in a breath. "...that I must marry you more than ever. I could never lose you. I cannot imagine losing you and going on without you...a hole would open up inside of me...I don't know what kind of man I would be if I lost you."

So they married.

Mary remained more brave than ever and avoided Matthew at all costs and Lavinia took Matthew on his word.

They honeymooned and laughed over her fumbled Italian in Rome, sharing a whole bottle of wine each night, holding hands across the table without care. One night, she drank more than usual. Back in the hotel room, she pressed against him. "I finally managed to learn some Italian," she purred against his neck.

"Oh?" he laughed. "_Finalmente, cara_?"

"_Sì_," she kissed his neck and shivered against him. "_Ho fame."_

"We've just eaten–"

She unbuckled his belt and he quieted. She looked him in the eye. She could not remember ever being so brazen before.

"_Ho fame,_" she repeated. _I'm hungry. _More literally_, I have hunger._

Afterwards, he held her, their limbs tangled. He kissed her hair. She kept her hand low on his belly.

It is different now.

Like the kisses, it is different.

Lavinia tells herself, as she pushes the chair back and inadvertently knocks over Matthew's briefcase, which spills, that not every kiss can be like the first, not every night can be like that night in Italy. His papers are everywhere and she stoops in her nightgown to pick them up. She does not have someone to talk to. She cannot explain...even to herself.

She opens the crumpled telegram, without thinking, only wanting to smooth it.

_You ought to be ashamed of yourself STOP Do not write again STOP Just STOP_

From Mary. Of course. Brave Mary so forcibly telling Lavinia's _husband_ to leave her alone and that he should be ashamed of himself. What had he done?

She looks through the rest of the papers without hesitation or guilt. When she finds an unaddressed envelope, she opens it and reads her husbands unsent, unwanted letter to Mary. Later, she addresses it herself and licks a stamp. She will put it in the post in the morning.

* * *

_A/N: So there are some answers here but also more questions. I would love to know your thoughts! xo, LDI_


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: Hello! I happened to have an update of this and so in the midst of vacation weekend with the fam, I am posting for your enjoyment. For Grace fans, I am sorry but there was no way for me to do the final chapter justice (it will be a long one) before my fam invaded. To the anon poster who hates everything about this story I say: if ya don't like it and it's so bad, don't read it. To EVERYONE else, no matter if you are pro Mack or anti Mack or pro Lavinia or anti Lavinia, your comments have been so thoughtful and have spurred me on to write even what I felt would be complicated chapters. I try to reply to all of you because you are all great and I am in the process of doing so...Please continue to tell me what you think. _Constructive _criticism is welcome always. You don't have to agree with me. In fact, don't. You are all darling and kind and I think you are great and all I can say is haters they gonna hate. 99.9% of you are supportive readers who spur me on. Thank you. Thanks to _Faeyero, _for her sound advice. __All grammar mistakes are mine alone, however. :)_

* * *

Chapter Five

_Dear Mary,_

_I know you asked–demanded–that I not write to you. But I feel as if I must apologize for whatever I wrote in my previous letter. I am afraid I cannot recall what I eventually stuffed into an envelope, haphazardly addressed and stamped since frankly, I drank too much that night. I am ashamed to admit that I drank so much I do not know how I made it back to bed. Mother asked me the next morning why her address book was strewn on the desk. I don't remember posting the actual letter so Molesley must have seen it and done it in my stead. I do not want to make excuses. But you must allow me to explain–if I ever decide to post _this _letter._

_Regardless of what was written, I can tell that it upset you and I am so very sorry. I wish I could apologize more specifically but I'm afraid I cannot. Whatever I said, I am sorry. Even as I write this letter, I do not know if I will send it since your wishes were perfectly clear in both your letter to me saying goodbye and your telegram. I can only imagine that my letter was fueled by anger and grief over your departure and much too much alcohol. _

_Still, I find myself asking: what does Mary _really _want? _

_You know, when I think consider the whole saga that is _us_, I realize I've spent years asking myself that question, seemingly every day since I met you. I know you so well–better than most, I would say–and yet you remain a mystery to me, just out of my reach, always out of my reach. Now, you are even farther away, in America. _

_I cannot imagine you being happy there, not after your comments over American sensibilities and your mother. I want you to be happy. I know that is true, even if there is so much I do not know. What do you_ really _want, Mary? Name it and it's yours. _

_Since you left, it seems as if the world has changed and I do not know how to exist in this world, the new world without you in it. I should not send this letter. Because all through Lavinia's recovery and the wedding preparations, you were here but you were not within reach. You never allowed yourself to be alone with me. I remember trying to catch your eye so many times. Were you already planning a life without me? I know it's asinine–this letter, my words and thoughts–because_ I_ was planning a life without you. I was planning my life with Lavinia. _

_But you must know, what I told you during the time we danced (you must remember) remains true. I could not win. If I broke my promise to Lavinia, I would not be the man you know and (dare I say it?) love, supposing your granny's hypothesis is true and that our kiss meant something to you. Lavinia is good and loving. I love her. There was and remains no reason not to love her. _

_But my world is not the same without you in it. That is all I know. I'm sorry._

_What do you _really_ want, Mary? Name the terms._

_Yours,_

_Matthew_

Mary only reads Matthew's letter on accident, since feminine handwriting she does not recognize adorns the front. Her stomach rises and falls with each sentence and she must sit down as she goes dizzy, as soon as she recognizes the writing within. Her anger is something fierce and it eats at her belly, like some sort of acid, insidiously killing her from the inside out.

How dare he write her after she asked him not to do so _twice_? How dare he write her such an intimate letter? How dare he have feelings for her at all anymore when he is married? When he _chose_? It was always _his_ choice! How dare he! And how dare he fantasize that their love was ever something to be nurtured, when all it ever did was hurt them–hurt _her._

Mary knows a part of her still feels something for him. It is impossible not to. She never stopped loving him from the moment he rescinded his proposal at the garden party, perhaps before that. She spent years, loving him, praying for him, knowing they could never be together. She resigned herself to a marriage that did not include that kind of all consuming, selfless love she felt for Matthew–whether she married Sir Richard or some other man. It did not matter.

Of course, she remembered the dance. How could he even ask? It was and remains the sweetest and most painful moment of her life.

Then, he continued on the path to marry Lavinia and all that love that she held inside for all those years could not be repressed and shoved back inside her into a little box. Every day was an agony of its own.

As Anna took down her hair one night, Mary asked: _Do you remember when I said that I don't have a heart?_

Anna's hands comforted as she sought out pins and Mary's hair fell around her shoulders. _I do, milady._

_Well. _She watched herself in the mirror as she broke. _Well, it turns out that I do. And it's broken and I don't know if I will ever be able to pick up the pieces and mend it. _Anna held her as she sobbed, rocking her, making soothing sounds.

Her decision to go to America at the wedding may have been rash. But it was also right. From the moment she dried her last tears over Matthew, she set her mind on mending that heart and somehow moving on. She could not live with these feelings anymore. Everyday, even in America, included a struggle to love Matthew a little less.

(His drunken letter, though hurtful, moved the process along quite rapidly.)

The thought that she might always feel something for him scares the life out of her as she sits at her vanity with his letter in her hands. She cannot afford the vulnerability. Allowing Matthew a portion of her heart is expensive; it is unaffordable. Though her feelings are no longer killing in their intensity, a small part of her, a part she wishes she could surgically remove, wants to keep the letter in a box somewhere so she can read it again later. And again. Just one more time. Again. Naturally, she tears the letters to shreds as soon as the impulse hits her because love for Matthew can never be nurtured again, and as the destroyed paper pieces float to the floor, like snow or ash, she hears her grandmother's voice: "Why, Mackenzie! It is _so _good to see you...Oh, for Mary? Why, let me go and find her. I'm sure she will be _delighted_ to enjoy that ice cream in the garden."

He is properly attired this time and she finds herself surprisingly disappointed not to see his tan forearms though her mood is soured and if she is honest, sadness weighs heavily on her over Matthew's words.. As soon as they are left alone (well, as alone as they can be with Grandmother spying out the window), Mary bluntly asks, "What are you doing here?" Naturally, she decides, quite purposely, to take it out on him–every horrible feeling in her gut. Perhaps it will help her to feel better and if it does not help then he will leave her alone and she will not ruin his life. She does not want to be courted. She does not want to banter flirtatiously with _any _man.

She is trying to keep her head above water and _live. _All her energy, every morning goes towards that goal.

Mack smiles and his eyes crinkle at the corners. "I've brought you ice cream."

Everything about him is appealing and would be to any woman–his voice, his eyes, his smile, and his laugh. His dark eyes captivate and exude both confidence and fun; she understands why all the girls flock to him: _Oh, Mack,what would you like to do? Mack, the ribbon's gone from my hair...Can you fix it? Mack. Oh, Mack. Mack, won't you...?_

Mary is determined not to be charmed by him. "Mack," she retorts in a very different tone than all the other girls, folding her arms over her chest and sitting back in the chair as if she is a child.

His smile drops away. She is sad to see it go and yet she must continue to tread water and cannot afford distractions. Very seriously, he looks her in the eye, folding his hands on the table in front of him. "It occurred to me, having recently moved here, that you may not have many friends. I'd like to be one."

"That would be inappropriate," she snaps at him.

He quirks his head and changes the topic immediately, as if he finally gets a good look at her. "What's wrong?" he asks, peering at her. She looks away.

"Nothing, except that you are here and–"

"No," he shakes his head. "Something is wrong. Something that has nothing to do with me. Something that is hurting you."

"It's nothing," she repeats much more softly. "Nothing at all." Because that is what Matthew must be, what Mary is determined for him to be, even if she remains so far from achieving that goal.

"Someday, when we are better friends..." Mack's grin reappears as he opens the ice cream tub. "You can tell me about it. And I'll listen. Because that's what friends are for. Now eat your ice cream before it melts."

* * *

One night, after dinner, Lavinia finds Matthew frantically going through his things. The papers from his briefcase are strewn everywhere and he methodically opens each drawer of his desk.

She stands in the doorway. His _wife_ stands in the doorway. "What are you looking for?" she asks softly.

He looks up, a bit of his hair falling in his face. She would like to touch him and push it back where it belongs and tell him that she loves him and ask, beg him to love her too. "Oh, nothing, darling. Nothing to be concerned over."

His smile is edged with sincerity and it scares Lavinia that the same man can look so genuine and write those words to Mary. "Are you looking for the telegram from Mary?" she asks patiently. "And the letter you wrote in response?"

Matthew stills and looks up at her. "Lavinia..." he begins cautiously.

"I sent the letter to her. I addressed it, stamped it, and posted it myself," she tells him levelly as his eyes widen. "I don't know what you wrote to her to procure such a strong response in that telegram but if nothing else, she deserved an apology." _I deserve an apology. _"And even though she asked you not to write in the first place–"

He blanches. "How do you know _that_?"

"I read her goodbye letter to you, the one you keep in the drawer by her bed," Lavinia replies. She looks for things now. She cannot afford not to. Mary's letter was startling in it's lack of sentiment. It made Lavinia, feeling Mary's sadness and desperate need to detach in each an every word, even as she defended Lavinia and the Crawley's marriage. Lavinia felt as if Mary handled things appropriately, correctly, and the stark contrast between Mary and Matthew's words only left Lavinia more confused and angry. For days she waited for the moment he realized the letter was gone. She waited.

"You've been in my things?" he replies angrily. "Invaded my privacy?"

"Matthew, I found the letter and the telegram by mistake but then...it made me think...and I do not wish to fight with you but I do not think you can be angry at me after I've read the words you wrote to her." She planned each word in the days she waited. Waited to speak. Waited to defend her shreds of respect.

"Lavinia..." He begins to walk towards her.

She holds up her hand. "I saw you, you know, dancing the night I became ill. I saw you embrace her. I saw you kiss her. And I heard what you said, that you had to marry me." Matthew stops in his tracks. He looks so confused, so sorry, like a little boy and it is so easy to want to comfort him. "But then when I was better, you looked me in the eye and said you wanted to marry me, that if you didn't, you didn't know what kind of man you would become, that I made you better and that you love me."

"That's true," he replies frantically. "That's all true. You must know that all of what I said was and remains true. You _do _make me better."

"Maybe," Lavinia whispers. "Maybe it is true. But a part of you is tied to Mary and I don't know what to do about it." A single tear leaves her eye and she feels weak. If Mary were confronting Matthew, she would never cry.

"Why would you send that letter?" he exclaims. "After knowing all this, why? _I _hadn't decided if I was going to send it."

She meets his eye. Her voice is the hardest he has ever heard it. "I may be gullible. I may be easily swayed. But, Matthew, I am _not_ stupid. We both know that as soon as you put pen to paper you were going to send that letter." He leans heavily against his desk suddenly. He cannot stand properly. "Isn't that the problem when it comes to Mary? Isn't that why she went all the way to America? You just can't help yourself, can you?"

Lavinia turns and leaves him. Some small strange part of her feels as if she is fighting for both of them–Lavinia and Mary; they are the wronged parties. And in some strange way, she thinks Mary would be proud of her. Lavinia is hurt, of course. This is the first fight they've ever had and a part of Matthew she did not know existed was revealed to her in his letter. Yet, he is her husband. In his own way, he loves her. As she walks up the stairs, murmuring goodnight to Isobel, Lavinia tells herself marriage is long and time can heal even the most piercing, aching pains.

Later, on the verge of sleep, for one crazy moment, she envies Mary and her freedom to go to America. She tells herself that it's crazy, that Matthew married _her, _that she would be miserable without her. But yet she cannot deny that for a single second, she is jealous of Mary, not because Matthew feels so strongly for her, but because she is _free._

* * *

Strawberry.

Chocolate.

Pistachio.

Butter Pecan.

Vanilla.

Sherbert.

Mint Chocolate Chip.

There are so many flavors of ice cream and Mary finds herself enjoying the coldness on her tongue, the roof of her mouth, her lips, as the freezing spoon enters, as she swallows Mack's family's ice cream. There are so many flavors of and twice a week Mary tries another. Twice a week, Mack arrives with a tub and over the cold and delicious bites, they talk as friends.

She continues to tread water. She keeps herself afloat. Sir Richard does not release the story yet but Mary knows he will. She waits and she treads.

It takes her a very long time–the whole summer–to realize just how much ate, how many times she tasted: _Strawberry, Chocolate, Pistachio, Butter Pecan, Vanilla, Sherbert, and of course, the infamous Mint Chocolate Chip. _For someone who did not like ice cream, she ate a lot of it, all through the summer, with Mack sitting across from her, making her laugh.

Mary keeps treading, gasping for breath with her head above water. The stakes are not so desperate now. It is not _as _hard to keep herself afloat. But she must always keep treading.

Perhaps this is why she does not realize that she looks forward to tasting ice cream until the leaves have turned and begun to fall from the trees and the staff is on the verge of beginning the process of closing up the house in Newport.

One day, she smells the upcoming arrival of autumn in the air and she realizes that while she has been treading, Mack has become her closest friend. All over ice cream.

* * *

_A/N: PS...based on canon, I do not believe Matthew lied to Lavinia. If he had not married her, he would not be the man he is. He would have become, at least partly, the sullen and sad man that declared Mary cursed. Okay, enough of me. I am _dying _to know what you think!_


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N: You guys have all been so great! Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments. I am still in the middle of replying to them and will continue to do my best to reply to most, if not all. I really appreciate you all! Thanks to Faeyero for her thoughts on this chapter and letting me bounce my idea off of her. Though all grammar mistakes remain my own. XX, LDI as an addition to this Author's Note after a few comments: this is a marathon not a sprint...I would not have promised an M/M ending if that wasn't in the cards. And as someone who loves Mack, I don't think it's disloyal to enjoy him for what he is and what he has done and will do for Mary. Just trust me and trust the process...or maybe this story isn't for you._

* * *

Chapter Six

Richard publishes the story, on the second page (perhaps as a concession?), naming only Lady Mary Crawley, and leaving her mother and Anna out of it (perhaps as another concession?).

Richard never did like kicking a horse when she's down. After all, he experienced that very thing for much of his engagement to Lady Mary.

So the telegrams of warning and comfort fly over the Atlantic over two days time.

From Mary's mother: _R published STOP Second page STOP I love you STOP Be happy STOP Mama _

From Edith: _I'm sorry STOP Really truly sorry STOP Never wanted this STOP Edith _

From Sybil: _Mama told STOP If you need a thing STOP Kisses from Baby Dec and me STOP Tom thinks sloppy stupid journalism _

From Granny: _My advice STOP Enjoy America STOP Yes you read this message correctly STOP Your dearest grandmother _

From Isobel: _You are a smart brave strong woman STOP Do not forget STOP Cousin Isobel _

From Lavinia: _Oh Mary STOP I loathe R STOP So very sorry STOP Wish I could help in some way STOP Lavinia _

Even Papa sent something. Mary wonders how Mama told him and how he reacted. For one moment, she chews on her fingernail in worry. Then, she decides to enjoy his telegram for what it is, even if he did shout with rage when told: _Find a cowboy STOP From the Middle West STOP Then come home STOP At least he will know how to ride STOP Papa_

She takes all the telegrams and smoothes them. She places one on top of the other, the pieces of paper, the reminders that she is loved and is lovable, that each of these people love her uniquely. She watches the clock. She allows herself two minutes to miss them, to ache for Mama's tinny voice, those debates with Papa over a book, Sybil's sweetness, her baby nephew, Declan, Tom's passionate speeches, even arguments with Edith. Two minutes. One hundred and twenty seconds to miss these pieces of her old life. Then she puts the telegrams in her desk drawer.

One piece of paper is already in the trash; one piece of her old life she does not allow herself one second to ache over, let alone one hundred and twenty seconds: _Mary STOP What can I do to help STOP Wish you weren't so faraway STOP Maybe it is better after this for a time STOP Thinking of you STOP MC_

She does not give the trash a second glance.

She has to go. She promised Mack that today they would go out on to the lake, before the summer ends, and the heat and sun fade away completely.

* * *

The small boat slides across the body of water, somewhere between the size of a pond and a lake, which Mary's Grandmother claims convinced Mary's Grandfather to purchase this house once upon a time. Mack rows with an effortlessness Mary envies, his jacket left on the grassy shore, his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows to expose his even tanner forearms, the muscles tightening all up and down his arms. Though Mary wears a hat, she lifts her hand to shade her eyes as she continues their banter, "I am not going to that wedding."

He grins, one side of his smile sliding further up his cheek. Regardless, he does not stop rowing as he insists, "You have to go."

Mary is hot beneath her hat. Propriety wars with comfort. "Why?"

He goggles at her a bit. "It's the last event of the summer."

"That's not a reason," she argues. "I don't understand your obsession with _summer_."

"Well, for one, when summer is over, it's back to work for me," he says seriously which makes Mary laugh since he is the heir apparent to the ice cream fortune and for him, work is a luxury. He nudges her foot with his own but then gives into laughter as well.

"Try harder." She nudges his foot back.

He never stops rowing them. "Mary, even you have to admit there is something magical about summer...Endless possibilities?" He pauses. "Ice cream?"

Before this summer, she never thought of it that way. For Mary, _this_ summer means allowing a part of herself to die away so that the rest of her can go on living and yes, in this row boat, with Mack, she can feel all the possibilities in the heat and shimmer of sun on the lake. She smiles at Mack. "Well, I did enjoy the ice cream."

He watches her and she meets his gaze. She knows that he knows that is as much as she will give him, can give him, even though she doesn't know what she would have done without his friendship and laughter this summer. It buoys her up as she treads water; keeping afloat grows easier. But she can only tell him that she enjoyed the ice cream.

"So the wedding." He stops looking at her to gaze at the horizon. "All of our friends will be there."

"All your friends will be there," she retorts. "They don't like me." They don't like her, at least all the girls, because Mack is their favorite and they believe Mary must have designs on him. How could she not when all of them do? They envy the easiness of her friendship with Mack and cannot take it for what it is, believing something much deeper and complicated than friendship is between the two of them. Mack knows this as well as her. He may laugh at social conventions but he isn't without intuition.

"Mary," Mack pleads, his brown eyes adorable. "Come to the wedding."

She removes her hat from her head, smooths her hair back from her face. "Why is this so important to you?"

For the first time, Mack looks uncomfortable. He stops rowing, as if the rhythm of the whole endeavor is off, only to begin again. "Well, it will be fun...and as your friend, Mary Jo, I have to be an advocate for more fun in your life."

She rolls her eyes and chooses not to address his hideous nickname for her. "Be serious, Mack."

His rowing is haphazard at best now. "My family...they will be there...I want them to meet you and I want you to meet them." As she asked, his voice is serious, though he does not meet her gaze which does not matter since Mary is avoiding looking at him as well. She feels as if they are on the edge of the something very important, something she cannot name and cannot face, something inevitable, something scary.

"Why do you want me to meet your family?" Her voice catches a bit in her throat. She is used to laughing with Mack, dipping her finger in strawberry ice cream and wiping it on his nose, making fun of his ties, throwing mock tantrums at the name Mary Jo. It is so easy to be with him. It is so easy to be a Mary who laughs often, who laughs so hard and so often, her belly aches as she falls asleep at dinner. This feels so different.

"Well, you know my sister. She's a huge anglophile and has been begging to meet you. She thinks life is a Jane Austen novel–" When he sees Mary's face, he stops. He stops speaking, stops trying to make a joke of it, stops rowing.

"Mack."

He starts over. "Because...this summer...you became my best friend and I want you to know them and I want them to know you."

The edge of this _something_ grows closer. Mary's heart skitters backwards away from it. "As your friend."

"As my friend." He agrees, nodding, before jumping up to stand, the boat tilting back and forth as they watch one of the oars float away from them.

Her voice is shrill and girlish and she does not care. "If you tip this boat, I will kill you, Mackenzie. Did you hear me? _Kill you._"

"I heard you." He waves a hand at her. "I think everyone on the coast heard you. I lost the oar; what do you want me to do, row us in a circle?"

"I want you to get that oar."

"Well, Lady Mary Jo," he laughs at her, helpless against it, against her. His face creases into a smile and the wrinkles at the edge of his eyes appear. While usually charming, Mary is not charmed by his expression this time. "How do you suggest I do that?"

She holds her arms over her chest, in deference to the laugh that wants to bubble out of her own throat. She knows she is being ridiculous. The difference between Mack and everyone else in her life is that not only does Mack know she is being ridiculous, he knows that she knows as well. He has unique leverage. It's difficult for her to speak with a straight face: "I suggest you take a swim."

He laughs some more. "You aren't serious. This lake is disgusting."

She bites the inside of her cheek. "Well, if you like your shoes you can remove them before you go after the oar, but for propriety's sake, you'll have to keep the rest on."

"I didn't think proper ladies could even speak of men's clothing," he taunts her, leaning forward.

She takes his chin in her hands and pushes his face away, making the boat rock, as they both laugh."You have one oar, Mack. Get in the water." She starts to giggle, reaching to take his single oar from him. He holds it out of her reach.

"I'm not getting in the water." Gently, he shoves her away while she continues to giggle.

"Then we'll just stay out here forever, will we?"

"I'm thinking." Indeed, his brow creases which makes Mary laugh harder. A serious Mackenzie. What could be more funny.

"You're being ridiculous," she insists. "Give me the oar. I'll hold it while you jump in." She is laughing so hard, she would like to hold her belly and yet she reaches out towards him with shaking hands to grapple for the oar. He laughs with her as he argues but with a quick push forward she is able to get her hands on part of the wooden oar. She feels a single second of triumph, Mack's hand on her waist, her nose brushing the skin of his neck, before the boat tips over completely.

* * *

They are dripping, wet from head to toe as they walk towards the house. Mary's hair is a disaster. Mack's shirt is plastered to his skin. Their shoes both make squelching noises. "I was serious, you know," Mary tells him. "I now have to kill you."

"You can kill me after the wedding," he agrees as he grins and swings his arm around her shoulders and neck in what can only be called a friendly way. She has long since grown used to the way he touches her as a friend and nothing more, or as used to it as she will ever be.

"After the damn wedding," she tells him.

"Oh, it's serious. Mary Jo is cursing..."

"You know," she informs him, "At a dinner party, I once compared myself to Andromeda."

He laughs until he is bent over and she bends as well since his arm is still around her neck. For some reason, she loves that he laughs at her, that she is funny to him, instead of serious, or sad, or lonely. He makes her feel very young, very happy. "Only you, Mary. So, what does that make me in this lake scenario? The Sea Monster or Perseus?"

"You certainly _smell _like a sea monster," she retorts with too much dignity and her nose in the air. They collapse together in a fit of giggles, their clothes already drying in the sun.

* * *

_A/N: Sooo...what do you think? Dying to know._


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N: So...I don't really know if anyone will be in the mood for this after that first episode. I still haven't finished it. Eeek. So good! But anyway, like I said, here we go: it's Mack's POV. I love him and I love Matthew. Don't you worry, I am sticking with the plan and promises I set up in chapter one._

* * *

Chapter Seven

"Wasn't the ceremony lovely?" Mack asks as they hold one one another in the standard dancer's form with plenty of room between the two of them, the tension held completely in their arms alone. Except for Mack, the tension is everywhere.

"Of course," Mary replies drolly, turning her cheek slightly so Mack smells a bit of lavender. "If you go in for that sort of thing."

Mack grins and mocks her accent. "What sort of thing is that?"

"Oh you know." She lets go of his hand for a moment, to twirl it in the air. "Weddings."

"Oh, so now you're too good for weddings?" Mack mocks. He would like to bring her closer, to rest his cheek on the softness of her hair, close his eyes, brush his fingertips against the blush beading of her gown. Though, he does not do any of these things. He cannot. He smiles when she looks up at him because that is what she expects and because he cannot help smiling when he looks at her.

"No," she scoffs. "I'm not too good for weddings. I'm just never getting married."

He manages to keep dancing though he feels as if she punched him in the gut. Mack never thought he would be dancing with a girl, hoping that she would look at him with a glimmer of romance in her eye, hoping for a morsel of feeling from her, instead of side stepping commitment. His hand slides along her back, touching the smallest bit of skin. He loves Mary. He wants Mary. It is a strange and unique feeling for someone who has lazed his way through life, indolently picking and choosing who is and is not worth the effort.

"Mary, I feel–"

"Why, Mackenzie!"

Mack closes his eyes as soon as he hears the voice. It is the worst timing. It is the very worst timing. He stops dancing, removes his hand from Mary's back, but when he turns, he takes Mary with him, keeping their hands locked together. He nods. "Emily."

"Mackenzie! It's so good–" Emily's china blue eyes travel down the length of him and stop at his hand, the one holding Mary's. Her eyes narrow in on it and Mack knows there is nothing he can do to stop the claws from coming out. "And who is this?"

"Lady Mary Crawley," Mack sighs out the introduction even as Mary looks at him as if he is crazy. "She's–"

"Oh, I know who she is." Emily's smile winds up her face. "Lady Mary Crawley? The Earl of Grantham's daughter?"

"Yes," Mary breathes out. Her hand twitches in Mack's and he is so confused as to the tension that seems to rise between the two women. He is not immune to the stares, to what party goers will assume is last summer's fling meeting this summer's fling. The room is much too silent. Any words spoken will be much too loud.

"Don't worry about introductions, Mackenzie," Emily chides, briefly touching his chest. "Your escort's reputation proceeds her."

"I'm not his escort," Mary replies, tugging her hand out from Mack's.

"Well, that's good news for Mackenzie!" Emily giggles and covers her mouth. "From what I've heard your escorts tend to end up in your bed..." She lets the sentence drown out in the silence of the room. "_Dead_."

Mack watches Mary's face turn white even as Emily goes on. He waits for Mary to defend herself but it is Emily who continues to speak: "Isn't that what happened to Mr. Pamuk? I read about it in the English papers while I was there this summer. The Turkish diplomat died in your bed, didn't he?" Mary presses her lips together until they are white. "Rather brave of you to wear such a pale colored dress with that reputation, don't you think?"

Mary's hands link together. It happens slowly. Instead of angling her neck and bestowing a verbal smack that would likely mortify the entire room, Mary begins to fade into someone Mack does not recognize. Without thinking, he takes her hand. For a moment, she glances at their joined fingers and then his face, shocked and surprised. He knows her well enough to read her eyes: _Let me go. I'm not worth saving. _He has to look away. He has to because he cannot imagine a situation when Lady Mary would be so thankful to be saved.

"Well, Emily, if I would have known you had so much information at your fingertips, maybe I wouldn't have been so bored last summer."

Before he knows what he is doing–Mackenzie–the boy, the man, who has been sure never to make a statement like this before, takes Mary from the room, away from the prying eyes, grabbing a bottle of champagne on the way. For the first time, he does not think of himself; he thinks only of Mary and getting her out of the room as quickly as possible.

* * *

"Maybe you should slow down," Mack suggests as he drops his jacket to the sand and sits so he can lean on back on his elbows and watch her. Even as he cautions her, he feels his heart beat in his chest, each separate excruciating thud. He swallows and his palms are damp. Mackenzie can not recall a single moment in his life when a girl made him nervous, when he wasn't the one in control, steering the relationship in whichever direction he wished–all with a smile on his face._ Love them and leave them. _It's not so hard to do. Until here. Until now.

But Mary, in her glittering blush dress, is different. Mary at all is different. He is all nerves and hope, a boy sending his first love letter. It would frustrate him, how she could render him so juvenile, if she wasn't so...

"I don't need to slow down," Mary tells him, raising one eyebrow while she kicks up sand on the beach and twirls lazily, the champagne bottle in one hand. "Can you avert your eyes for a moment, good sir?" she asks him cheerfully.

"If you agree not to do anything stupid, like swimming after drinking champagne," he concedes. He smiles at her.

"You." She points at him and then steps nearer, bending down to touch her finger to his chest. "You are not my keeper."

He takes her hand in his own. "But I did give you the champagne. So I will close my eyes, if you promise not to go swimming."

She rolls her eyes, whispers, "I'm only going to take my stockings off. So, please just close your eyes." She twirls away from him and dutifully he closes his eyes, even as he gulps. He tells himself to think of his grandmother, how she smelled before she died, the way her skin felt as if it would fall off her. He tells himself to think of death by swimming, death by burning alive, death by...imagining Mary removing her stockings beneath her dress with her delicate and perfect hands, rolling the silk down the legs he'd only caught impressions of, but considering the rest of her, must be perfection. Something is flung in his face and he hears a giggle.

"I take it I can open my eyes," he says dryly. No matter what, he is her friend. No matter what, he will make her laugh until the sadness leaves her eyes. No matter what he wants. No matter how he loves her. No matter that she threw her stockings in his face and even as his fingers touch them, he knows he will slip them into his pocket to keep.

"Of course," she agrees, humming in her throat as she dances on the beach. "I've never been drunk before, you know."

Again, dry as the champagne she is drinking: "I could have guessed, which is why I cautioned you to slow down."

"I can't go slow," Mary replies, twirling, twirling, twirling. "If I slow down, I will think and remember. And I don't want to do either of those things." She opens her eyes and kneels near his waist, facing him. He tries to make a subtle grab for the bottle but she wags her fingers at him and takes another swallow. "You know one of my worst secrets now, Mackenzie." Her eyes soften as a sober Mary would never allow. "And you're here. You're here."

"Where else would I be?" he asks her and bites his cheek to keep from saying it the way he feels, with a passion and frustration that is difficult to explain.

_I am not like the people who hurt you. _

"Oh, lots of places," she replies. "Far away from me. My sister called me a slut for what happened, though she's since apologized." She shifts, so she is spread out like him, her chin resting on her hand, elbow propped.

"What _did_ happen?"

He speaks without thinking. It's none of his business. He waits for her reproof but again, her eyes only soften. Her fingers touch his wrist and stay there. "Y'know, you're the first and only person to ask me that, in all of this."

She closes her eyes and lies back. "Why is it, Mack, that it's always you who manages to do or say what no one else in my life ever has?"

_Because I love you._

_Love you._

_I'm in love with you._

"He was visiting with a friend. Pamuk. The turk. I was attracted. Perhaps that makes me a slut–"

"It doesn't," he interrupts.

She waves him off and takes another drink of champagne. "I was attracted but when he tried to kiss me, I pushed him away. I was very inexperienced; I never would have dreamed of acting on any feelings. I still–" She shrugs. "I pushed him away but then that night he came to my room. I still don't know how he knew where to find me. I certainly didn't tell him. When I threatened to scream, he told me I would be ruined either way. He was right, of course–"

"He told you what?" This time Mack cannot help that his voice raises in anger.

"Shh," she soothes, brushing his cheek with the back of her hand. "I just...It just happened and then it was happening and I was so naive, Mack. I mean to say," she stops to rub at her nose, "really so very much...What was I saying? Oh, and then he was dead."

"People just assumed then, what happened. They never asked you? You never told anyone that you asked him to leave, that you didn't invite him?" Mack is so angry and Mary's fragility as she shrugs and a strap of her dress trails off her shoulder is heartbreaking. She doesn't even realize how badly she has been wronged. She just accepts it.

"No." Before he can reach for her, she is standing with the near empty bottle of champagne. "But don't feel sympathy for me. Don't you dare, Mackenzie. You're forgetting the first thing I ever told you about myself."

He repeats the required phrase, "You're a life ruiner."

"Exactly!" She drops the bottle in the sand to clap. "I am that."

"You aren't," he insists, shaking his head.

She dances away from him. "I am. And now you know two of my biggest secrets so I might as well tell you some others." She twirls and sand flies. Her hair is coming out of its pins. "Hmmm," she taps her chin. "All right. I've got one. I do not enjoy Shakespeare. I actually loathe him." She laughs at his expression, his lack of laughter. "Mack, don't be serious. I can't be serious. You've never asked that of me and please..." There is a note of desperation in her voice. "_Please_, don't ask it of me now."

He swallows it–his anger on her behalf, his sadness on her behalf–and smiles (for her, always for her). "Obviously I understand the necessity of confidentiality with _this_ secret. An Englishwoman who hates Shakespeare..."

"It's so stupid," she sputters and sits with a thud beside him again. "All his sonnets about love. Don't get me started about Romeo and Juliet_. _That isn't real. Love is not like _that."_

His mouth is dry. "What is it like?"

She shivers and closes her eyes. "Like dying. Like dying from the inside out."

"Do you want my jacket?" he asks because he wants to hold her. He wants to tell her that it does not have to be like that, that with him, it would not be like that. Though he's never been in love before, he is now. It isn't easy but if she could just see...

"Yes, please," she murmurs and allows him to help her put it on. "What was I saying? Oh! His sonnets. I prefer my poetry honest." She grins, cupping his face in her hand. "Just as I prefer my friends."

_I don't want to be friends anymore._

It's not the time or the place but if he doesn't tell her soon, he will be endanger of lying to her, something he refuses to do.

She lies down and rests her head on her chest. "I'm dizzy," she complains. His arm comes around her. "And tired."

"Just close your eyes for a bit, Mary Jo," he whispers up into the night sky, when he would like to murmur the words into her hair (God, it smells of lavender and her stockings are in his pocket and she is curved into his side, her naked toes brushing his trousers). "Close your eyes and have a good dream."

"What shall I dream of?" she asks drowsily. "What do you dream of?"

_Us._

"Whatever makes you happy," he replies. "That's what you should dream of."

Mary lifts her head from his chest and meets his eyes. "I forgot to tell you another secret," she whispers. "I would never have the nerve without champagne." Her face is so adorably genuine that he cannot help but smile back. "You. You make me happy." And before he can do or say anything, she snuggles back into his chest, stills, and breathes evenly.

* * *

_A/N:Drunk Mary! Pamuk Scandal hits America! Mack has FEELINGS for a GIRL? Drunk Mary! Dying to know what you think._


	8. Chapter 8

_A/N: Thanks for patiently waiting for the next chapter as I put my full energies toward finishing _Grace. _I appreciate it so much. It's been awhile since we've been on this side of the pond in this story so you might need to orient yourself._

* * *

Chapter Eight

The sounds of the dinner table are the same–the clinking of the silver spoon (polished every day) against the delicate porcelain of the china, the hiss of a knife as it is dragged across the table cloth, the subtle clearing of one's throat between courses. It is the same and yet even now, after so many months, it is different because Mary does not sit at the table with them. The family shifts chairs to fill the gap and certainly fills in the conversation without her.

Even still if Matthew lets himself he can imagine her into being, as real as his own flesh, turning her head and laughing into her napkin, their eyes meeting after Sir Anthony's _Good God! _and the salt incident heard round the world but Matthew does not let himself imagine her. Everything is the same and yet everything is different. He sits next to his wife and his mother. There is no room for Mary at this table anymore or in his life, for that matter. There may not be room for her ever again. And yet...

"I _cannot_ believe Mary has decided to spend the holiday in America," Cousin Violet asserts a bit gruffly as she spears a piece of asparagus. "By choice."

Matthew sits up straighter, tensing and then relaxing, knowing Lavinia's eyes are on him now that Mary's name is brought to life like an incantation. She watches him whenever Mary is mentioned; she looks for signs and clues. He knows she wants reassurances and he gives them to her readily. He wants her to be assured. He wants to assure himself, to assure himself that he made the right choice, that he is a good man, that he can be a good husband. Still, he cannot help the slight jolting at the mention of Mary. He can only reassure Lavinia (and himself) when Mary is far from his mind.

"Well, if it makes you feel better Mother says that Mary is doing wonderfully," Cousin Cora replies as she sets down a glass noiselessly, before adding, "Despite the turkish scandal reaching America."

"Oh, yes, Cora," Cousin Violet retorts, rolling her eyes. "This is a perfect topic for the dinner table."

Cousin Cora smiles tightly. "Never fear. Mother believes that...well, I told you earlier."

"Oh yes." Matthew can hear Edith's sarcasm, as thick as the cream sauce over the duck they just finished. "Let's hear all the gory details of Mary's ice cream Baron."

"Edith," Robert warns.

In less then one minute–sixty seconds of a ticking clock–Matthew learns Mary will not return for Christmas and that she met someone else, another man. However important or unimportant this ice cream Baron may be, he is someone else. On his thigh, beneath the table cloth, Matthew flexes his hand uselessly. Lavinia's eyes trace his face and features as if she may draw him later.

"I just want to point out that Grandmother claims there is romance between them but Mary has repeatedly told me that they are only friends," Edith replies a bit more quietly and it is so strange to hear such welcomed news from Edith's mouth. "Repeatedly."

"I only hope that your mother knows how to chaperone, Cora," Cousin Violet quips and pats her mouth with a napkin.

"Mother chaperoned us," Cousin Cora smiles and looks nostalgically at her husband.

"Exactly," Cousin Violet grunts and even Robert clears his throat at the awkwardness.

Lavinia's eyes linger. Matthew does not move a muscle she can see. Internally, there is a chant: _Mary met someone else. Mary met someone else. Mary met–_

Then, Lavinia speaks, "Mary seems very happy in, the few letters we've exchanged."

Matthew starts. He cannot help it. Though his lips quiver and a thousand words want to leap from his tongue, he manages to remain quiet. His hand does not shake when he reaches for his glass of wine. Betrayal is the wincing pain when he's drunk too much but nonetheless cannot stop. It is the knowing he will be sick and continuing to drink what ails him because he has already come this far.

They have already come this far.

The conversation continues without him but all he can think is that Lavinia has written Mary and moreover, perhaps more perplexing, _Mary _has written Lavinia. In his life, Matthew has loved two women. Though that is a lie. In his life, Matthew loves two women. He cannot be whole without the either of them but they can be whole without him. In that moment, his throat is so dry, and it is brutally unfair.

_Mary met someone else. Mary met someone else. Mary met someone else._

_And Lavinia knows all about it._

* * *

It is a strange game they play that night. He knows she waits for him to ask. He does not ask, will not ask, or give her the satisfaction. But inevitably, they know he will lose _this _game because _he _must ask and he must know. So the winning of this game can only come from the length of time between her admission at the dinner table, that Lavinia and Mary have corresponded, that Mary wrote _Lavinia, _and when Matthew will finally bang his fist down on the side table, next to the their bed, harder than he intends with that extra glass of brandy after dinner, and says: "You've written to Mary?"

It is a strange game because in winning, Lavinia also loses. "Yes, a few times," she replies as she turns on her side, the light from her lamp already gone out. She turns away from him because she cannot turn towards him, not during a conversation like this.

"You'd think you would have told me," he replies tightly, his fist still tight on his nightstand, his torso still upright in their bed. "Don't go to sleep. We need to discuss this."

"Must we?" she replies, sighing into the dark. "We exchanged a few letters. I hardly think that every bit of my correspondence needs to be vetted through you."

"You know this is different," he spits into the dark.

"You mean _she's _different," and Lavinia's teeth shred the words.

"I don't want an argument," he retorts but his words are brutal and prove otherwise. "I just think–"

"Oh, Matthew!" Lavinia nearly growls and sits up in bed. "She doesn't belong to you!"

"What did you just say?" he whispers.

"I only meant–she, Mary," Lavinia sighs and lies back down. "I shouldn't have said anything."

"I _know _she doesn't _belong _to me." Matthew's fist pounds into the wood again. "She's my cousin; I'm concerned for her..."

Lavinia sits up and whirls on him, her bright hair flashing, her pale skin alight from the moon through the curtains. She grabs his wrist, the one by her side, rigid with tension. "Ask me anything, Matthew," she begs, "but don't lie to me. Please. Please don't lie to me."

"I'm _not_ lying; I know she doesn't belong to me."

He longs for the numbness that comes to his tongue and mouth and face and chest after enough gulps of brandy. Eventually, with enough longing and enough silence in their bedroom, he gets up and reaches for his dressing gown. He walks down the hall to the small room that houses his books and office things, as well as a small bar, and pours himself a snifter of brandy.

When he swallows, he tells himself that the thing he is longing for is quenched.

He doesn't believe himself until the bottle is finished.

* * *

_A/N: Don't know which is worse for Matthew...knowing or not knowing what is going on in America..._


	9. Chapter 9

_A/N: Thanks for all the encouragement to continue this. I just need a brief break after finishing Grace. Thank you anyone who nominated me for the Highclere awards. I encourage you to go check them out because I'm just excited for the great reading lists to get through. And if you'd like vote for what you think is best in each category. I just want to thank you all for the support in general. (As an aside, a Grace short story should be coming soon!) As for this chapter. Edna St. Vincent Millay is one of my favorite poets and the title of this story–A Girl You Knew–comes from one of her poems. Lucky for me, one of her books "A Few Figs from Thistles," where that poem comes from, was published in 1920 which fit in perfectly for the story's timeline. Lucky me. Also, dear old Edna was a bit controversial for her time. ***The Author's Note at the bottom has been updated._

* * *

Chapter Nine

Mary realizes she is in danger too late. It reminds her of the first jump she took on an old horse, Ace of Hearts. Ironically, Ace was past the age of jumping and according to Mary's father, Mary was too young. But of course, Mary thought she knew better; that is until, mid-air, she realized she over estimated the old horse's momentum and was leaning forward too far in the saddle. She knew she would fall from Ace yet she could do nothing to stop it. She may have recognized the danger but it was much too late to avoid it.

Somehow, things with Mack become like that in mere seconds. One moment, she is excited, directing the horse towards the convenient fallen branch, so proud of her handling of the animal; the next moment she knows her father was right. It was too dangerous. But it is too late with Mack, too.

They are saying goodbye–Grandmother and Mary–after Christmas dinner. The Banks-Duncan family have taken them under their proverbial wing, inviting the Crawley/Levinson women to Thanksgiving and Christmas and dinners in between. Grandmother, who never took an interest in Mary's social life before, suddenly seemed keen on all the invites. Of course, all of this would make sense later, once she was mid-air, preparing to fall. But now On Christmas, she is happy, content. She does not have to struggle to keep afloat anymore. She has come to terms with her life. She never lets herself think his name. At first it took so much practice, but now it is as if he never existed. Maybe it is something she tells herself but it is his true: his name is gone from the halls of her memory.

Instead, Mary finds she likes the Banks-Duncan family. They are much like their son, Mackenzie, funny and open. They wear their smiles genuinely. They touch one another–on the shoulder, the back of the hand; their affection for one another is palpable and there is a certain joy they find in spending time with one another that even cynical Mary cannot make fun of. She likes them, the same way she likes Mack, mostly against her will, while they explain the tradition of Thanksgiving to her and she demurs that _no, her American mother never told her about the tradition of going round the table and announcing what a person is thankful for_, without adding that she never cared to learn her mother's American traditions. Mary listened to each person, her heart beating with panic. Mack's mother is thankful for her two children and her husband and their health. _Mother_, Mack's sister interrupts from across the table, t_hat's more than one thing!_ Her mother only smiles and shrugs her shoulders, looking at her husband with adoration: _then I am very lucky, aren't I?_ Mack's grandfather, Mary's (secret) favorite, is thankful for ice cream and his daughter, Mack's mother, clucked under her tongue because _isn't that the same as being thankful for money?_ _So what if it is,_ the old man replied. Mack is thankful for new friends. Everyone was silent at that. And then it was Mary's turn.

She cleared her throat. "I'm thankful," she began slowly, completely uncertain as to how she would finish the sentence, "for a fresh start."

It's one of the truest things she has said in a long while so no, that was _not _the moment where she realized there was danger ahead. It wasn't at the countless dinners at Mack's family's home or even Christmas dinner, either. It's just as she is walking outside, Grandmother already in the car. It's sleeting, half rain, half snow so she is surprised when Mack calls out her name. "Mary Jo!"

She turns, slipping on the sidewalk so he has to catch her arm. She is so clumsy in America. "Yes?" she laughs because there is a rainy mist wetting her face as she looks up at him.

"You forgot something," he tells her and then hands her a package.

It's a present.

Friends do not give each other presents.

He knows this.

She knows this.

So _this _is the moment, mid-flight, where she realizes: _I won't end this jump still on the horse; I'm about to crash to the ground. _"Mackenzie," she murmurs. Her gloved hands refuse to reach for it.

"Please," he asks and there is water in his hair, darkening it. He has no coat. He must be freezing. "Take it."

"But," she stutters. "I didn't get you anything."

Of course she didn't get him anything. It would be inappropriate.

He grins, but only one side of his mouth rises and only one dimple appears. He is uncertain. He is nervous. She aches to soothe him, because they are friends. "You said you like your poetry honest. I saw this and thought of you. All right?"

Mary reaches for the package and both of their hands hold on to it for a moment. " All right," she agrees. "Thanks. And Happy Christmas."

"Merry Christmas." It's so awkward, as if his body is stuttering as he leans forward towards her. He must rethink the action two or three times in the few seconds it takes to gently take her arms above the elbows and press a chilled kiss to her wet cheek. "Merry Christmas," he murmurs again, near her ear, his face turned slightly towards her, his nose brushing her cheek.

She nods then walks to the car.

Oh, this is so dangerous.

* * *

She forces herself to wait a day to open it. It is a book of poetry, as he said, by an American writer she's never heard of–Edna St. Vincent Millay. She opens the front cover, partly expecting, partly hoping, partly dreading an inscription from Mack but there is nothing but crisp white pages waiting to be turned and the title of the collection, _A Few Figs from Thistles._

She starts to read the first poem: _The Philosopher._

_And what are you that, wanting you,_

_I should be kept awake_

_As many nights as there are days_

_With weeping for your sake?_

_And what are you that, missing you, _

_As many days as crawl_

_I should be listening to the wind_

_And looking at the wall._

She is crying. She can hardly read through her tears but she cannot stop reading the poem because it is exactly as Mack said it would be: honest. So honest. Too honest. She only knows she must finish the poem, this poem that this Edna St. Vincent Millay woman must have pulled out from Mary's chest with bloodied hands filled with gore.

_I know a man that's a braver man_

_And twenty men as kind,_

_And what are you, that you should be_

_The one man on my mind? _

_Yet women's ways are witless ways,_

_As any sage will tell,–_

_And what am I, that I should love_

_So wisely and so well?_

When she finishes the poem, she reads it again. And then a third time. His name comes back to her, words to a song long forgotten. Matthew. How sad they made one another. The ache. She is surprised to also think of Mack, who is _only_ her friend. He must only be her friend. It would kill her if she ever ached for Mack as she had with Matthew.

She keeps reading more poems. She does not stop for a long while.

* * *

Mack rings to invite her to his family's New Year's Eve party. Mary knows this because he said he would and Mack always does what he says he will. He is a good friend like that. But his whispered _Merry Christmas _and kiss to the cheek make her think of danger while his beautiful book filled with gorgeous poetry reminds her of all that she has to lose.

"Please tell him I am indisposed," Mary tells Grandmother's butler.

What she wants to tell him is that he is a risking his heart and she refuses to risk hers along with him. She can only be that foolish once.

* * *

She does not go to the party. She sends a card to his mother with her regrets. She lies and says she has come down with something but on New Year's Day the butler informs her that Mr. Mackenzie is in the foyer and seems quite upset.

The butler is not wrong. It is raining again and the collar of his suit, the part his coat could not hide, is wet and his hair is sopping so she knows he forgot a hat. He is pacing. When she stops on the last step, her hand on the banister, he looks at her as if stricken. "Mary."

"I'm sorry I missed all the fun last night," she replies calmly. Words unbidden come to her mind: _Women's ways are witless ways..._"I wasn't feeling–"

"I have to speak to you," he declares. "Alone, if possible."

"Mack," she murmurs, touching her throat.

_I can't._

_I can't._

He reads her thoughts. He knows her so well. "It's not what you think." She trusts him. He won't talk of feelings but at the same time he does not say he doesn't have any.

"Alright." And they walk very politely to the sitting room.

"You remember Emily?" he asks quickly, as if he wants this to be over.

She gives him a wry smile. "The girl who told everyone about my past? At that wedding this fall? Hard to forget that."

He folds his hands, his elbows on his knees. He won't meet her eyes. "I should have told you this a long time ago. I've been trying to get up the courage now for a long time."

"Mack..." Mary starts with panic in her voice.

His words sound strangled. "I told you I wouldn't talk about that." He means his feelings for her. They both know this but she ignores it. "I keep my word. You know that."

She swallows. "I do."

"Before I–" He shuts his eyes. "I have to...I can't before I–"

"Mack," she murmurs, moving to sit next to him. There is distance between them still but she can't bear to see him so worried, in so much pain. She is used to his laughter and gaiety. He has buoyed her up for months; the least she can do is the same for him. "Whatever it is, it's all right."

His voice is wry. "So long as I keep certain feelings to myself."

Her mouth is dry but she is firm. _Women's ways are witless ways. _"So long as."

He blurts it out. He must. "Emily and I have a history. And people would have told you sooner–everyone knows but they would prefer not to look out for you. They'd prefer to see you fall from grace and not tell you so I have to be the one to tell you...about this horrible thing I've done. Because you're my–you deserve to know."

She touches his hand. "You know all my secrets and you've never judged me."

He takes a deep breath, soothed at least a little. "Thanks for that. Maybe my own secrets made it easy to hear yours. But I don't know what you'll think after you hear. Last summer, I got her–Emily–pregnant." His words hang in the air. "I–I liked girls, women, but I didn't like to be tied down. And then she tells me she is pregnant." Mary removes her hand out of shock but he is too lost in the story he is forcing himself to tell. "She thought about seeing someone for...but she was afraid and I was too. We told our families and I asked her to marry me. It was all kept very quiet. I wasn't excited. I didn't like her. I didn't want to be tied down either. But I'd made my bed and I had to live with the responsibilities."

"You are a good man," Mary intones. His honesty doesn't make her wince as it would have months ago. No one, in her entire life, has ever spoken to her as open as Mack always has.

"I'm not done, Mary." He won't look at her. "I don't know if there ever was a baby or if she lost it. Either way, there wasn't a baby anymore but in the mean time, people found out. I could never be sure but I think Emily was the one who started the telling, another way of trapping me. But there wasn't a baby anymore. I didn't _have _to marry her anymore. I didn't want to. I knew I would make a bad husband." He shrugged. "What my parents have...I didn't think I was capable of it, especially with her. And I still liked girls." He laughs unkindly at himself. "So I broke off the engagement. It was a huge scandal. I'd gone back on my word. I embarrassed her and her family and my own. People said I forced her to have...to have one of those ghastly surgeries but that wasn't true. Emily expected me to continue to fall in line, to go through with it. The wedding."

"But you didn't," Mary whispered.

"No," he replied. "I didn't. She spent this summer in Europe to ride out the scandal–"

"And you spent the summer with me."

"Mary, no! It wasn't like that. Don't you see why I am telling you this, why you have to know–"

She interrupts him. "Your promised."

"You're right," he nods with sad eyes that make her want to wrap her arms around him. Of course, she cannot. "You're the best friend I've ever had. The only girl I ever...You told me secrets and now you know mine. And you know why Emily was particularly vicious towards you at the wedding."

She is quiet for a moment, then two. _I know a man that's a braver man..._She takes Mack's hand again and he turns his palm so they link fingers. "I don't think of you differently, if that's what you want to know. And...you're my best friend too." She pauses. "I think–I don't know for sure but...I think it was very courageous that you didn't marry her. It would have been easy to have done."

He laughs as if he is being strangled. "Not for me."

She peers at him. Is she seeing him for the first time? Or has she just stopped lying to herself? "Exactly."

* * *

She can't stop reading. The words are honest and beautiful and true. They hurt and wound her and then then they heal her all in one sitting. For so long, she has tried to be numb, to forget people's names, to forget a certain dance, to not feel anything and now she is feeling so much. She goes through each poem slowly, reading them again and again. This Edna woman is a doctor dissecting Mary's heart. It is difficult and exacting work.

In between reading, she sees Mack and his family. They laugh. He does not talk about the things which scare her.

There was no inscription scrawled inside the book, no secret message. But then one morning, she finds his secret message and she sets down her tea and drops her feet from the bed to the floor (no one cares that she is single if she wants to eat breakfast in bed). The poem is untitled and it feels like a metaphor since they are very much untitled. There are no titles for what they are to one another.

_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._

Someone has underlined the last line, hesitantly, unevenly. Someone has written: _I will wait for you as long you need._

And suddenly Mary is moving, moving, moving. Not staying afloat but moving. She calls for her maid. She is in quite a rush.

* * *

_A/N: Up until now, Mary and Matthew have been on paths *away* from one another. Now we begin to go back the way we came...Updated to add this: It is supposed to be completely unclear what or who is Mary's next move in this chapter. I hope after reading it you can see that it can be read multiple ways. When I say M and Matthew will be journeying towards one another, I DO NOT mean that Mary is dropping Mack. I just mean that you will soon be seeing M and M in scenes together again. Sorry for the confusion. Can't say more without giving it away._


	10. Chapter 10

_A/N: So sorry for the delay! Thank you to everyone who "nudged" me here and on tumblr. Always, always nudge me! Things have been crazy at work and I am working on a huge, huge project that I will share with you all as soon as it is ready (here is a clue: imagine a place you could go everyday with an update...BUT we are getting ahead of ourselves.) Anyway, much thanks to everyone who nudged and who still has interest in this story. For a little while, I told myself that people were over it (bc I was kind of over some Downton Canon stuff) so if you are still invested...great! Let me know because writing time is limited with this other project happening._

_Take it away, Lavinia..._

* * *

Chapter Ten

For Lavinia, the room feels like the single glass of champagne she drank at her wedding, simmering with bubbles that rise to the top of the glass. But she can find no reason for it, except perhaps the clue of Cora's secret smile–demure yet effervescent, much like the champagne. She tries to sort out Robert's expression, the darting eyes that keep resting on Matthew, or Edith's pale face that watches Lavinia herself, but she cannot.

Lavinia takes a small sip of wine instead.

"Well, I can't hold it in any longer," Cora begins.

"Cora, I think, perhaps..." Robert interrupts but his sentence simply runs on top of Cora's announcement.

"But Mary's coming home!"

The Dowager Countess's fork and knife slip through her graceful fingers and fall with a clatter. "Mary? She's coming back?"

"She says for a visit," Cora replies and her face is alight with excitement and unless the light is playing tricks, brimming tears. "But I hope," she whispers this last bit, her hand on her heart. Lavinia is sure she is the only person who notices. "I hope."

Lavinia's husband clears his throat, raises his glass in a silent toast. "Well, that's wonderful then." His voice gives away nothing. Lavinia thought that once they were married she would grow to learn how to read him like her most treasured book but he only grows more and more distant, more and more flat, like a character that is easily forgotten.

Lavinia does not examine her own feelings. She cannot. She has learned to lock them away, in a secret place, to be taken out and unlocked when she is ready to rifle through them and actually feel them. This way her face remains emotionless. For a brief second, Lavinia wonders if this was Mary's trick.

_Hide it all away, where no one can see what love or grief one bears._

Isobel, ever practical, speaks next. "And what is the reason for this return?"

Cora starts to speak but Robert lays his hand on top of hers so it is his words to fill the dining room. He, like Matthew, clears his throat. She knows Robert thinks of Matthew as a surrogate son and wonders if gestures like these are learned–the tilt of the head, the adjustment of a cufflink. She wonders if Robert still wishes it was Mary sitting in Lavinia's place. "She's coming with another family...the Banks-Duncans. The parents are staying in London and Mary is bringing the brother and sister to stay. She said...she said, the parents may join us later." His words are rough. Yes, there is a part of him that is happy, Lavinia can tell, thrilled at the idea of seeing his Mary but there is something else too, some dread, some hidden wish he forgot to lock away that Mary is coming to take away and it's almost as if Robert cannot catch his breath.

_Men do not know how to lock things away as women do._

"Well, that's very strange," the Dowager finally picks up her silverware. "That is just very strange. Who _are _these people?"

"The ice cream baron," Edith says aloud, like a humming in the room. "You remember, Granny, Mary said she wasn't interested, that they were only friends..."

The Dowager scoffs. "You don't bring a friend on a trip back to see your family."

"Exactly," Edith replies.

The Dowager lays down her wine glass. "You _do not _bring a friend on a trip back to see your family, with his family in tow." Her eyes flash to Cora and Robert. "Is she engaged?"

Lavinia and Matthew both wince at the same moment, though for different reasons. Their marriage, already on a lacking foundation, is only shakily growing, each of them giving into compromises out of guilt and helplessness, neither one of them as blissfully happy as she imagined they would be while she laid with her head on his heart on their honeymoon in Italy. _Ho fame_, she said. _I'm hungry. _And she was and he filled her. Now, she is ravenous, the wounds or holes in her are gaping, and there is nothing to nourish her.

Cora's smile returns. "No, she isn't."

"_Not yet_," Edith retorts.

"Well, that explains it," the Dowager adds and even her breath appears shaken. "Mary would want things done correctly and the boy, the baron, the whatever-may-have-you has to ask Robert before he can officially ask Mary for her hand."

Lavinia hears Matthew suck in a breath.

"I hope he isn't a great bore," Edith snaps. "I hope I don't have to hear about how wonderful this ice cream baron is either. I simply could not bear it. And I wonder if they'll get married h or..."

Matthew exhales.

_I simply could not bear it. _

"I'm sure Mary has chosen wisely, if she has chosen at all," Robert asserts. "We can only guess as to why she is coming–"

"Oh, Robert," Cora laments. "I know she is your little girl but it is painfully obvious, isn't it? And isn't this better than if she didn't involve us at all? I think it's marvelous, this effort she is making. Isn't it better that she wants us to meet the man she loves?"

Matthew swallows the rest of his wine.

_Isn't this better?_

* * *

Lavinia is not privy to the words Robert and Matthew murmur over cigars and port. More importantly or less importantly depending on one's point of view, Lavinia is not privy to how much port Matthew ingests.

_You are not his keeper._

_You are not his keeper._

But she is, in a way. When did she become a measuring jar, measuring every sip and glass, dividing the amount drunk by the amount of time elapsed, and of course, the subjective part–his behavior, the darting of his eyes, how he touches her or doesn't, what words he uses, what he does or does not say.

The women are silent, thinking their very loud thoughts. Mary's mother and grandmother, Lavinia can only imagine, are equal parts elated and worried. Who is this man she is bringing home? Edith is jealous, for form's sake. And Lavinia is...

She wonders if Mary will be able to see how unhappy Lavinia is. She wonders if Mary will look at Matthew and Lavinia and their marriage and think: _I could have made him so much happier. _Lavinia doesn't know what would be worse, if Mary sees them and thinks that or: _I'm so glad I got away._

* * *

He has more to drink when they arrive home. His mother, who holds her tongue as often as Lavinia can imagine, says, "Matthew," in the same tone of voice she probably used when her boy was seven. But now he is a man. He is head of the house, the future Earl, and he continues to pour, a smirk on his face.

"I think I deserve it, don't you?" he asks. His voice is just a bit mean. She's read the stories and heard about them–the men who came back from war changed–and a part of Lavinia hopes that this is what the drinking is, a delayed reaction. She lies to herself. She is no better than him. She lies because everyone knows it is about Mary. They are all pretending. "After the shock we've had?"

"I don't think it is shocking" Isobel replies cooly, "for a daughter to return to the home she grew up in, to her family, for a visit. By the time she comes, it will nearly be a year since she left."

_The Spring. Their one year anniversary, _Lavinia realizes.

"Oh, Mother! It isn't a simple _visit_ and you know it." He raises his voice.

"I won't talk to you when you are like this," Isobel replies quietly and walks away, leaving Lavinia to her husband.

"Matthew," Lavinia murmurs and touches his elbow. "You are right. It was a shock. Understandably–"

His head hangs forward. "Let's just go to bed, Lavinia."

They do just as he says. No one ever talks about the awkward moments in life–when you know your husband has some type of feeling (at the very least) for another woman and you must go up to bed and sleep beside him. No one talks of the walk up the stairs, or the turning of the knob, or the changing of the nightclothes. It feels hot in the room, though it is winter and there are crystals on the windows. But it feels hot, as if she cannot breathe.

And then his hands are on her face, his thumbs brushing away tears she never shed, as if she is made of porcelain. He murmurs her name: "Lavinia" against her mouth and Lavinia is only thankful that he says the right name and she kisses him back with all that thankfulness, which feels close enough to love, until they rolling across the bed and grabbing at one another's clothing.

"Oh, Matthew."

It is a sweaty bout and sloppy, like they are strangers kissing, bashing noses and biting lips on accident, and when it is over, Matthew falls forward. She thinks he says, "Thank God," against her shoulder.

_What does he mean? Thank God. What can he mean?_

But he is already asleep. There is no room or time or space for questions in their marriage and Lavinia falls asleep wondering if all marriages are like this, the husband's sweating body coldly pressing the wife's into the mattress, tears in the back of the throat she does not have the energy to shed, with the husband's last words before sleep _Thank God_ and meanwhile, the wife cannot even ask what he is thankful for. She only knows it cannot be her.

Something wakes her in the night. It is not a sound or a noise. Matthew only grunts as she rolls him over so she can move. Her monthly courses have started again, on time. There is no baby. Again. She starts to feel the usual sadness and grief for what could have been but it is not there. She only remembers her husband's words: _Thank God. Thank God. _

And then she remembers that this is what Mary is coming home to and for a moment, Lavinia wishes she could warn her: _don't come back...if you're coming back for him, he isn't worth it...your life can only be better for being gone._

Of course, these thoughts startle and upset her. They aren't right. She goes back to bed and Matthew is too deep in slumber to reach for her and Lavinia thanks God, hating herself as she does.

* * *

_A/N: So it's very interesting to write from these different points of view and not third person because Lavinia/Matthew etc are not privy to what is going on with Mary and you, the reader, are not privy to what happened to Mary after the last chapter...But you will be...if you still care. Are people reading this? lol_


	11. Chapter 11

_A/N: So I posted last night and literally thought, "Wow, I am so glad I did that. Now I don't have to worry about it for awhile" and then I got the most incredible outpouring of support and excitement about the story that I was sure most people forgot about (thank you, thank you, thank you x 12). And things like that really get me going. They really make me WANT to deliver. But I told myself, "No, no. You're really getting into some tough parts of the story. You need time to think things through. You can't have anything ready even if you want to."_

_But then..._

* * *

Chapter Eleven

Mary thought it would be difficult but in the end it is as easy as unclenching a fist, exhaling a breath in the middle of the night, allowing herself to laugh at a joke. It certainly isn't difficult _now_, sitting on the train, a bit too close to Mackenzie, his head turned so his nose grazes her cheek, her ear, the wisps of her hair that escape her pins. They are so close to the place she left nearly one year ago but she is right _here_, in this seat, sitting too close to this man...this man who...

"Stop," she says but she doesn't mean it and he knows it. That's the whole problem with Mack except it isn't so much a problem as a miracle.

"You don't mean it," he replies automatically and she rolls her eyes. "I just love these little bits of hair that escape from the rest." His nose grazes her cheek. "I can't help it."

"You can help it." She bites her lip to keep from smiling. "And you certainly will help it when we are with my family."

"Will I?" he asks, taking her hand in his, and even through the glove she can feel the heat and warmth of him. He smiles at her. He is always smiling at her as if she is the best prize he has ever won. "Will I really?"

"You will," she confirms with as much seriousness as she can muster. "And you won't step forward and say _all my friends call me Mack _either."

"So what am I to be called?" he asks.

"Mr. Banks-Duncan–"

"Why, Lady Mary Jo!" he sighs. "How could you ever conspire with an American man without a title?"

"Americans don't have titles at all," she points out after she finishes laughing.

"But everyone will know that I have a mother who is crazy for women's rights and hyphenated her name to my father's. Isn't it a law in England? Don't you shoot Americans without titles and mothers who hyphenate their names?"

She bursts into laughter before whispering. "It's not a different world, Mack."

"That's Mr. Banks-Duncan to you," he corrects. "And what will your family think of my name? Do you think they'll notice?" His lips touch her ear. It cannot be called a kiss but it is filled with a yearning that matches her own.

"I'm sure they'll notice once we share it," Mary replies gently. The words come so easily it still amazes her. The happiness does not leave. There is a constant warmth in her chest, a laugh bubbling from her mouth.

He leans his nose against her hair briefly. "If your father gives his permission."

She turns her head slightly, her eyes on the other passengers, before she quickly shifts her head and brushes her lips against his. "Or without it," she whispers.

"Should I be nervous?" he asks, as his hand squeezes her own. She's already turned her head back to face forward. "_Will _they approve?"

"I'd like them to," Mary tells him honestly. "But I don't need them to. I'm happy, Mack." She has gotten used to saying this these last few months. "You make me happy."

His voice is low, serious. "That's all I ever wanted, you know. From the first moment."

Mary knows.

* * *

And she knew _that_ day, weeks ago, when she read the poem for the first time and his annotation.

_I will wait for you as long you need._

For what? For what was he waiting for, she wondered.

In the poem, the woman regrets so much, wishing she gave the man a true chance because she might have loved him "in a day or two."

_I will wait for you as long you need._

_I only want to make you laugh._

_I only want to see a smile from you._

_I only want you to be happy._

How many times had she heard Mack say these things? From the first moment, from the very first moment they met, when she _was _sad, when she believed she was a _"life ruiner," _he'd said these things and a thousand times since. More than that, he'd lived up to his word in a thousand ways.

_I will wait. _

Matthew, the hidden name she doesn't think or say, the secret she must keep from her own heart, did not wait. Ever. He did not wait as she struggled for words at the Garden Party. He did not wait after either; instead he asked Lavinia to marry him. How many memories has she carried of Matthew's back turned to her?

And suddenly that picture dissolved in her mind and she saw only Mack smiling at her, in that urging way of his, so that she smiled too, so that she had to stamp down the need she to reach up and touch one of his dimples.

_I know a man that's a braver man_

_And twenty men as kind_

That was the first thing she said to Mack, _that _day, when she rushed to get ready and burst into his study, her hair a mess from the chilly wind. "You're very brave." She wanted to stick up her nose at him or raise her chin but she had no armor against him and could not muster up any distance between the two of them. It was no use.

"I'm not," he replied, as if her appearance and strange words were not strange. "Not at all."

It burst out of her. "You said you'd wait. You wrote–" she whispered.

"And I will," he told her seriously, standing without walking any nearer to her.

"For what?" she asked hoarsely. When had she lost her voice?

"Are you sure you are ready to hear the answer?" He took a step closer to her. She knew she would never forget the look of patience on his face.

She unclenched her fist; she exhaled in the middle of the night; she let herself laugh at a joke. "Yes," she whispered.

"I'll wait," he began, "for you to realize that we are best friends, that we make each other happy, that we could spend our lives making each other happy, being lovers and best friends. I'll wait until you realize I'm not like the others. I'll wait until you are ready to marry me–"

"Stop," she whispered.

"I'll wait," he replied. "I told you."

She walked to him then. Her hands felt funny as she lifted them. She tried twice before she was able to set them gently on his shoulders. "You want to _marry _me?"

He leaned closer into her touch. "Haven't you been listening? Haven't you been paying attention at all?"

"I knew you had feelings, Mack, but..." She could not meet his eyes.

"I want to stand in front of our families and marry you. I want to make you laugh so loud that the reverend looks on disapprovingly and I want to kiss you too early during the ceremony. And when you have a baby, I want to make you giggle over how fat you are–"

"Fat?" she laughed and realized that tears were falling from her eyes.

"Rotund," he corrected. "Large."

"Large?"

They moved closer yet to one another; her hands slid from his shoulders into his dark hair but he still didn't touch her. "Semantics." One side of his mouth curled. "But I'll wait for you. Until you're ready. You're worth it. A life with you is worth it."

She paused. She considered. She watched him watch her. "I don't think you have to wait anymore," she whispered.

His hands reached up to cup her cheeks, his thumbs brushing away her tears. "You think or you know?"

She leapt. "I know."

And when he kissed her, she truly did _know_.

* * *

Now, on the train, sitting too close, she grins at him. "They'll love you. And don't believe a word Edith says about me."

"Right," he nods. "And I must win over Carson, of course."

"Of course. And Granny." She cannot help smiling. She wants to run her hand through his hair but doesn't. It's not the place or time.

"And Matthew?" Mack asks suddenly serious. "What of him?"

"I explained that all to you," she replies calmly, patiently, softly. The ground they tread is new and fresh but at the same time, it doesn't hurt anymore. She is not drowning anymore and the man that did not save her, but instead helped her to save herself, is sitting beside her. "I hope you understand. I know it may be strange. And maybe it is hard to believe that I don't-"

"I believe you," he replies so seriously she _believes _him. She believes in him and his belief in her. Then he winks and her heart stutters a bit in her chest. "But just tell me one thing. Who would win in a fist fight? Me, right?"

"Of course," she murmurs, grinning. "I've no doubt.

_I have no doubts._

"And I have no doubt that if I kissed you the way I wanted to right now several English men and women would be extremely affronted."

"You're so wise, darling," she replies and tries to ignore the ache in her belly at his words. Still, she cannot help staring at his mouth either.

_I have no doubts. _

Even as the train pulls into the station, she does not think of Matthew, of his face, of how he will react, how he will feel, how she may feel. He is a ghost, someone she once knew, only an imprint.

_I have no doubts._

* * *

_A/N: I wanted this chapter to be a prequel to some major doozies. And for you to see the dynamic between Mary and Mack. And for you to believe that she really loves him. Because she does. BUT LISTEN, some stuff is really going to hit the fan. BIG TIME. MAJOR TIME. You have no idea. So all you Matthew lovers/Mack haters and Mack lovers/Matthew haters, don't get your panties in a bunch because things are about to get CRAZY & SERIOUS. YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE. Oh, the mess I am about to create. PS Thank you (x 12) to everyone who commented on the last chapter. _


	12. Chapter 12

_A/N: First, do _not _get used to this updating schedule. It is a combination of a training week at work (so it's_ slowER _but still crazy)_,_ incredible reviewers and supporters (and some crazy twitter discussions), and tumblr encouragement. I think this is the moment a lot of you have been waiting for..._

_I'll let Mack tell you about it._

* * *

Chapter Twelve

For Mack, it all feels a bit like a fairytale. Except when it doesn't. Like, for example, when the Dowager Countess (though truthfully he can only think of her as Granny) took Mary aside by the elbow and without lowering her voice announced, "Mary, you're positively _glowing_."

"Granny," Mary censured as she blushed. "I'm _not_."

"You are," the Dowager continued so that everyone could hear. "I have eyes, Mary."

"Well, if I am _glowing,_ it's not what you think. It's simply because I am happy and _for no other reason._"

The Dowager then turned to Mack and looked him up and down appraisingly. "He doesn't look like the type to wait," she whispered to Mary (but not softly enough that everyone could not hear).

"Granny," Mary hissed. "He has. We have. Stop. Please. I'm so happy to be with you, Granny." And Mackenzie, the infamous boy who could not be made to blush over anything all of prep school, blushed like a school boy.

"Hmph," The Dowager snorted looking him in the eye, her lips thinning. "We'll have to see, won't we?"

But the house is unlike anything Mack has ever seen, like out of a fairy tale or one of those Jane Austen books his sister is so fond of. Mary takes him around and shows him the paintings and explains each of them to him. He is delighted to find that her accent has only become more exacting and _English. _He is happy to listen to her but all he can think is that normally their hands would touch all through the lecture of the house and now he is lucky if they even graze, electricity running up his arm.

_No, Granny, we have _definitely _not done what you think. _Believe _me._

Mary's mother loves Mack. She is so happy to see her daughter and to see her daughter happy that Mack could be a ghoul and the Countess would still cling to his arm and look up at him adoringly. Her father is more difficult to read, more reserved, or perhaps somehow resigned to Mack's presence and what it can only mean. Edith calls Mack the Baron and laughs at her own joke.

He is quieter than usual. This is about Mary seeing her family again, for now. Their time, together, will come. He remembers the first time he saw her, in the shade, holding her champagne, so aloof and so sad. Alone. He remembers her drunken admission that _love is like dying_ and he cannot imagine what state Mary was in when she left her home and family. As for the person who made her feel that way, Mack has other feelings about _him _all together.

"You're quiet," Mary whispers while showing him a tapestry.

He smiles in his familiar expression, his eyes warming. "I'm taking it all in. This place. It's where you grew up. It's a part of you. I want to know things."

"What things?"

"Did you ever play hide and seek with your sisters?" He places his hands in his pockets to keep from touching her as she grins.

"Of course not." Her accent and diction are perfect and he would like to teach her dirty words just to hear her say them and laugh together until his belly hurt. "Especially not in the attics. And especially not when we wanted to hide from the governess."

She winks at him.

Mack wishes he could tell her father the truth of it all: _I love your daughter so much that when I look at her my heart nearly bursts and I didn't think I was capable of this until her. Her laugh is my favorite sound. I will never make her cry because I could not bear to shred my own heart in two. _

But those words hold too much sentiment for an Englishman. They hold too much sentiment for Mack too. It took him a very long time to realize it and admit the truth even to himself. He knows that Mary loves him but he also knows she will never love him as much as he loves her and it is all right because just to hold her, to know she is his and he is hers, is enough, is more than enough.

He tries to get through dinner with the family as best as he can. The Dowager continues to watch him. The Countess continues to smile at him. Edith continues to call him the Baron. And Mary's father will not look at him at all. It is as if Matthew's name is floating around them and the Earl would like to grasp it in his hands and remind everyone that Matthew is close by, Matthew is his surrogate son (so Mary has told Mack), Matthew was supposed to marry Mary and now there is this other character at _his _table, in _his _house, with _his _daughter. And of course, Mack and Robert both know what is coming, after the dinner, when it is just the two of them, over port and cigars.

Mack is not someone who gets nervous. He wasn't nervous to talk to Mary in the first place when all the other fellows were intimidated. He wasn't afraid to tell her she was being ridiculous when she was being so. And so far those nerves of steel have only given him good things. But Mack is not stupid either, despite his foolish, joking manner. He knows that in the dining room, over port and cigars, it will not just be Robert and Mack but also Matthew–the impossible dream.

And Mack can tell that it doesn't matter to Robert that Matthew chose someone else. It's that now Mary has chosen someone else–that's the _real_ end to the dream. It's over, completely and totally. And that is who Mack is to him, the end of the dream.

Mack can feel compassion for Mary's father but at the same time, it is _Matthew. _It is the man who left the woman Mack now loves torn up on the beach, talking about love and dying inside. _He_ is the ghost that chased Mary, so stubborn and proud, all the way across the Atlantic. Mack does not consider Matthew competition in anyway; Mary has been very forthcoming but Mack hates the man for what he did to Mary and yet he must forgive Matthew in the same breath because the best man won and Mack has Mary and Matthew does not.

There is only one spot of trouble at dinner and it comes from Edith. Mack knows Mary is thinking: _of course._

"So," Edith begins, "Won't you ask after Cousin Matthew, Lavinia, and Isobel? They'll join us tomorrow, you know."

"Edith," Mary warns. "Must you?"

"Of course I'll ask after them." Mack surprises them all. "How are the rest of the Crawleys?"

The table is agog.

The Dowager is the first to recover. "Aren't you the bold one?"

Mack smiles. "I don't think it's a topic that can be avoided for the totality of my visit."

"You're quite right," the Dowager (Granny) asserts and nods in agreement with him. "Isobel is the same, in love with her causes. Lavinia is unhappily married but bearing her cross. Matthew drinks too much."

"Mama!" Robert raises his voice at her in warning.

"What, Robert?" the Dowager (Granny) replies. "Should I lie?"

"Mama," he repeats.

"It doesn't matter," Mary interrupts. "That's what I want to make clear, here with all of you." She looks pointedly at Edith. "It doesn't matter. I wish them all well. But I don't _think _of them. I don't need to _ask _about them."

"Lavinia said you wrote to her," Edith retorts.

"Twice, before Christmas," Mary answers. "Lavinia wrote to me and I replied. As I said, I wish her all the best but–"

"But they aren't Mary's problem anymore," the Dowager completes and gives a silent cheers. "And in the time Mack has been here, I have seen Mary laugh more than I ever have. So, please, let's put this to rest. Let's put the idea of what could have been to rest."

* * *

"You know what I'm going to ask," Mack begins.

"I'm not stupid," Robert complains. "You want to marry my daughter. I don't know why you bothered to come all this way to even ask. She's lived her own life in America."

"Don't be ridiculous," Mack retorts and takes a sip of port. He won't be intimidated. "You know she loves you dearly. You know she would have stayed if she could. She couldn't. She just couldn't. Would you have wanted her to?"

Robert sets down his glass and sighs. "No." He shakes his head. "No, I wouldn't have wanted her to stay. Do you know what it's like to watch your daughter's heart break?"

"No," Mack replies softly. "I can only promise that you'll never have to watch that happen again in any way, ever. Again."

Robert is silent. His mouth is set. Then he meets Mack's eyes. There is a softness there for the first time. "Then you have my answer."

* * *

The next day is warm enough for a walk and when they are far enough away from the house, Mary takes his hand. "What do you think so far?"

"I think I like seeing you here," Mack replies, taking her other hand and moving her in a circle before pulling her towards him and framing her face with his hands. She is still shy with him; they've talked about it a little. He has never regretted his _experience _when it came to women until now, until Mary is anxious when they kiss, when their breaths mingle, that she won't be good enough and he has to reassure her.

But now here, she kisses him back, her lips cool from the spring air. Her hands find his waist and she holds onto him so that they are moving closer together, so they can feel one another, and his hands slip down to the diamond of her lower back.

She bites his lower lip.

Mack pulls back and looks at her.

"I'm sorry," she begins. "I didn't mean–"

But Mack is already taking her hand and pulling her along behind him, to a big tree, as wide as he is tall, where they will be hidden from the house. "Don't be sorry," he says and pulls her to him, closer than they have been before, so she is standing in the juncture of his thighs and they are kissing with tongues and lips and he tastes her moan before he hears it. "God, don't be sorry," he whispers against her mouth, his hands knocking away pins from her hair. He feels the desperateness in her own hands as they reach for the buttons of his coat so that she can slip her hands inside it, wrap her arms truly around him and he can press her to him, feeling her breasts against his chest and urging her even closer with his hands moving lower down her back.

A branch snaps. They wouldn't have even heard it (so lost in each other) if it wasn't followed by a loud curse and a slurred, "Well, I didn't expect _this._"

Mary drops her hands from Mack's waist but does not move. Mack keeps his hands on her. He knows how they must look, swollen mouths, mussed up hair.

"Matthew," Mary says.

"So, you remember my name. I wasn't sure if you would." He grins cheekily. "Just trying to clear my head before the congratulatory dinner tonight." His eyes are half closed and he won't look at Mary but Matthew does look at Mack. "Have you asked her yet?"

Mack is silent. There is not point in this conversation, no real outcome that can be good when the man is drunk and looking for a fight.

"Well, have you?" Matthew repeats. "Just be sure you get an answer right away. Just be sure she doesn't string you along for months and months for nothing. Then again..." and now Matthew takes a step forward though he is still yards from them. He looks Mary straight in the eye. "You never kissed me like that. Didn't need to, did you? To keep me interested. No wonder you rushed home. Probably had to get married."

"Matthew," Mary gasps.

"You're drunk," Mack says evenly. "And probably sad. More than that, you're embarrassing yourself."

"It looked to me like you two were the ones embarrassing yourselves," Matthew snaps and Mack reminds himself that Matthew may be drunk but he is not stupid. "Maybe I should go to the house and tell Robert what I saw."

"Matthew," Mary repeats for the third time and she starts to move but Mack holds on to her.

"Go," Mack urges. "I dare you. Your pathetic state speaks volumes on your motives." Matthew peers at him, watches him. "Well?" Mack asks.

And Matthew turns and walks toward home, toward his wife, toward his life. A coward.

* * *

_A/N: So begins the first climax (there will be many, apparently I only write sagas). I really want to know what you guys think because I know you have been waiting for this. It's just a taste but I thought Mack deserved a say. Again thank you x24 for being so great. _


	13. Chapter 13

_A/N: So. Here is thirteen. I really wanted to get into Matthew's head, not just my Matthew, but canon Matthew, and what drives him (especially during season 2). The thing about a TV show is you don't get to see every thought and moment of a character's life. So I wanted to explore that a bit here. And of course, I wanted to show you, through Matthew's perspective, how he has gotten to this place, so very far from where he started and so very far from where he would like to be. I would also consider this chapter the end of Part I of the story. We have lots more to go but this is one stopping point. I know people are very attached to either Matthew or Mack. In a way, I understand. But please remember that this is my story and the wiggles and twists and turns and loops I take it on are my choices. I'm not going to change my plan (I am referring to the endgame...see my tumblr "Dear Mack Shippers"). For some reason, I seem to always write stories that are huge long journeys for the characters themselves. Mary & Matthew, the characters this story is centered on, have a long way to go. I can only hope when you see the whole, you will understand my vision, as opposed to now when you are in the dark with only a candle or an iphone :) to light the way, one single step at a time._

_Here's another step in that journey._

* * *

Chapter Thirteen

Matthew looks in the mirror and does not recognize the man staring back at him. He hasn't recognized this face in a long time, he thinks, as he splashes water on his face. And it's not just the slightly bloated cheeks and bloodshot eyes but the very heart of him, the flesh and the bone of his character whittled away to dust and bones. He feels like dust and bones–ancient, really.

It's funny though. Or not funny but sad, as most things are these days. He feels ancient but all he can think of, the person constantly on his mind, is his own father, young and light of hair with eyes that winked at Matthew as a boy. One memory, of course, pounds into him like waves against the shore, over and over again. He can see his father come in through the door and kiss his mother lightly on the mouth, setting down his black doctor's bag after he finishes his hello to her. "Hello, Matthew!" his father greets and they have dinner which isn't the important part of the memory. It's what comes after. When he was small enough, his father would take Matthew on his knee and ask, "How was your day, son?"

Matthew cannot recall his youthful responses. _I played with the yo yo you got me. The cat next door got loose. _But Matthew can remember his father's blue eyes, the kindness and attention there when his father says, "You are growing up to be such a good little man."

"I am?" Matthew asks in the memory, only because he likes the rumble in his father's chest and the singular attention of the man who is so tall and strong and brave. "What does that mean?"

His father's answer is always the same. "It means doing the right thing, even when it is hard."

On his father's deathbed, the man gripped Matthew's hand and begged him: "Be a good man. Be an honorable man, my son."

If only his father could see Matthew now.

Or when Matthew snaps at his wife for no reason and pours another drink.

Or when Matthew spills wine all over Cousin Violet. Twice. Or was it three times?

Or two hours ago when he saw–

And said–

_God. _

_Be a good man. Be an honorable man._

For so long, Matthew did just that, even if he didn't feel like it, even if his peers never esteemed him or if it cost him a promotion at work.

_Be a good man. Be an honorable man._

Then he met Mary Crawley. God, they'd been young. She'd been so proud and he'd been so stupid. Except when she softened in his arms, in that black dress, over sandwiches for God's sake, as if she had been waiting for him to hold her there, and Matthew knew then why his father gave him that constant, same advice.

_Be a good man. Be an honorable man. _

Because in the end the most beautiful girl in the room, the girl who makes your breath catch, the girl who keeps you constantly on your toes, ends up in your arms, breathless at your touch. A gift. A reward. More than worth whatever it takes to live up to his father's advice.

It all makes sense.

Until it doesn't.

_I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. _He never told her that. He never really explained the most important part.

It was not honorable to dance with Mary, to know it was wrong before he even took her in his arms and her hair brushed his chin, and he felt the silk of her dress, bunching a bit beneath his fingers as he pulled her closer, little by little, moment by moment becoming less honorable of a man. It felt like his last chance; it felt like his life depended on admitting the truth (that it was _always _her) and pressing his mouth to hers. He needed to kiss the woman he loved but could not have.

Marrying Lavinia was the honorable thing. He knew it and felt it, as if his father's very hand was pressed to his shoulder in agreement. And in time, he would be rewarded. He could love Lavinia like he loved Mary, more than he loved Mary, because this was an honorable love. But it ached and hurt terribly, as if his tendons and muscles were pulled from his very bones. But no matter the pain, he could be soothed (at least a little) by knowing he kept his promise to his father and knowing that his father–the most honorable man he ever knew–proved that acting honorably always ended well, ended happily.

It ended with you kissing the wife you love and then dropping you black leather doctor's bag and taking your son on your lap after dinner.

It would be worth it, Matthew knew, in the end.

And then he returned from his honeymoon and read Mary's letter and she was water slipping through his fingers. Gone. He could not explain the loss to anyone, even himself. It was not an honorable loss; a good man would not feel Mary's loss so keenly. Somewhere in the midst of it, he realized he could not be happy, not the way his father had been with his mother, with anyone other than Mary.

And the premise Matthew built his life upon became shifting sand beneath his feet.

* * *

Sometimes when Matthew drinks enough, his father comes to him.

They don't speak though.

Both are disappointed in one another.

How could his father tell him such a lie?

How could Matthew misunderstand so great a point–an honorable life does not lead to a happy life?

Drunk, Matthew would like to ask his father which is more important–honor or happiness–but he is too angry to speak to the specter.

* * *

He didn't mean to come upon Mary and the man she'd brought from America. He only drank a little and then went for a walk, to clear his head, to clear his heart, to prepare for the sight of her–after so long, _God_–with another man. He must relearn to smile and nod in congratulations and raise his glass without spilling his wine when the engagement is announced. It would be his gift to her. If she could handle his engagement so magnanimously, then he could handle hers in at least an average way.

But what happened on the grounds is not average.

He didn't really care about the man, even now that he was sober. Though he could tell the man loved Mary, would protect her, and that the man knew about Matthew, knew how Matthew hurt her. But Mary's eyes, which were so hard to meet, were filled with such hurt and worry.

_God._

_Be an honorable man. Be a good man._

_Love a woman you can never have. Hate her for having a life without you. _

He doesn't want to go tonight. Of course, he doesn't want to go. Lavinia knows it. He can tell she is equal parts excited to see Mary and worried over Matthew's reaction to the whole situation. He does not want to meet Violet's disapproving eyes, the woman who told him once that _marriage is a very long time _and woke him from a drunken stupor in the library with her cane. _You're killing yourself, _she hissed. _You made your choice; now _live _with it._

_Marriage is a very long time, _he repeated to her drowsily, thinking himself hilarious.

_I warned you, _she snapped. _Perhaps you should start listening to me and stop spilling wine all over me at dinner. And by the way, I told Carson never to sit me next to you again. I don't want another frock ruined. _

She looked very young for a moment. _Now go home. And _stop _drinking. You're ruining your life and your wife is miserable._

_What do you know about Lavinia, _Matthew spat. _You never even liked her._

_I know more than you think_, she replied while peering at him. _Now get up. _

No, he did not want to face _that _tonight.

Let alone Mary.

_God, Mary._

* * *

He sweats all through dinner. He wants to drink so badly but he does not want to be the man Mary saw and pitied behind the that tree hours ago. He cannot be that man to her. He has some dignity left. Perhaps.

"And to Mack and Mary," Robert toasts, his voice even and carrying, his face devoid of a smile or a frown. "And their happy engagement. Another generation of an American and English couple," he jokes and looks down at his wife who squeezes his free hand. Matthew knows that this is not easy for Robert. But he is trying. He is trying, out of love for Mary. "And now we look forward to the wedding."

They all toast and Matthew takes a small sip of the wine in front of him. He wants to gulp it but does not. Mary will not look at him but Mack (the American) has no trouble meeting his eye; his look is a warning–_if you hurt her..._

Robert and Matthew's father were the same. They valued honor and so it was Cousin Violet who came to Matthew and asked him to reconsider marrying Lavinia and not Robert himself.

Robert and Matthew are _honorable _men.

"Where will you have it?" Lavinia asks. "The wedding? Here or in America?"

Matthew would like to dunk his head in a bowl of ice cold water.

"America," Mary replies smoothly and with warmth as she looks at Mack. "That's home now."

Robert winces.

Cora begins to tear up.

"Of course, you'll_ all_ come, Mama," Mary reassures her. "Mack's family has the most wonderful grounds..." She realizes what she just said at the table. She invited them all without thinking and even after she opens her mouth to say something, anything, Lavinia speaks.

"I'd love to see America," her voice is quiet, like voice she used to use with the wishes she no longer expresses to Matthew because he doesn't listen.

"Then you should come," Mary replies and everyone sees the pity she tries to hide.

It is silent. Carson stands on guard. A knife scratches a plate. How awkward. How dismal.

"And of course you'll have to eat your fill of ice cream, Mrs. Crawley," Mack interjects into the silence, smiling widely and genuinely. "It's my family's form of hospitality, you know."

What a top-notch man to invite Matthew and Lavinia. _God._

Mary laughs a little into her hand and looks up at him. "And what is _my_ family's form of hospitality?"

_Drunken men who call you a whore when you kiss the man you will marry._

Robert holds his breath. Matthew can't imagine that Mack was overly welcomed when he arrived.

"Giving their permission for me to marry their daughter and granddaughter," Mack replies lightly and quickly. The man is smart and funny, someone Matthew would like, if only...

"That's quite a bit of a hospitality," Cousin Violet quips.

"Well, I'll have to repay you with quite a bit of ice cream. What's your favorite flavor?" Mack asks and winks at Dowager Countess so she disguises a laugh as a cough.

It goes without saying that the men join the women immediately and forgo the port and cigars.

Matthew realizes he sweat through his shirt.

* * *

It is dark but for the moon shining through the bit of window some maid forgot to drag the curtain across. Matthew waits in the library, several hours after Lavinia has gone home, along with his mother. He told them he wanted to borrow a book. Lavinia did not meet his eye but glanced toward Mary who immediately said, "Well, I'm exhausted. The time change, you know. I'm off to bed."

But he knows Mary. He knows that she likes a book to read before she sleeps. He can only hope, can only bet that even now, an hour since the family retired, she will come down to find a book, any book, to take her mind off what was probably the most wonderful and the most awful day.

He waits and he hopes. He hopes and he waits. It's a little challenge as well. Does he still know her? Is she still the same? Could she be?

Then she appears, like a ghost in her white robe and white nightgown, her hair plaited down her back. She walks on her bare tip toes, as if she would wake someone, though she is so slight, she never could.

"Mary," Matthew says aloud.

She starts, and jumps and presses a hand to her heaving breast before pulling her robe more tightly around her. "You scared me," she breathes.

"I've been waiting," he swallows, "for you."

She shakes her head. "Matthew."

"No," he stands. "It isn't what you think. Today–what I said today...I'm so, so sorry, Mary. I was very wrong. I didn't want you to think that I thought you were–"

"A whore?" she asks, her eyebrow lifted at him, her chin angled up.

_I wouldn't want to push in._

It is the same face she wore then.

"I don't think that," he retorts passionately. "That's what I'm trying to say."

"Oh, Matthew," she shakes her head again. "You don't know anything. What if I am in trouble and have to marry him? What if I am exactly what you thought I was?"

He shrugs. "You've never been what I thought you were, Mary. Never."

Her mouth quivers for a moment as if she might speak but then it stills. Finally her whisper is full of life and passion. "I love him. I love _him._"

"You loved me once too," Matthew tells her without meaning to and takes a step towards her. "I know it."

"Of course I did, Matthew," she complains rather loudly. "Of course I loved you, Matthew. But you married Lavinia–"

"What if I hadn't?" Matthew can't help but ask. He never meant to speak of this but it's a circle. They keep coming back to it. No matter what. No matter how far away she runs. No matter whose rings they wear.

"You don't want to know the answer to that," Mary replies. "You really don't."

"What if?" he persists and takes another step nearer.

She won't meet his eyes until those brown eyes of hers are suddely boring into his. "I would have married you. I would have walked down the aisle toward you and believed in happily ever after and I never would have known that love...love isn't..."

"What?" he takes his shoulder into his hands.

"We never laughed," she snapped. "Do you know that? We never joked or touched or just, God, _laughed_, Matthew. Everything was dramatic. Everything was hard."

"So I wasn't funny enough for you?" Matthew asks bitterly. "Really?"

"No!" She pushes him away with her palms. "We made each other miserable and if we would have married I never would have known that falling in love with a man doesn't have to be like that. It can be..."

"What?" Matthew would like to shake her. "What?"

"Easy," she whispers, wrapping her arms around herself. "Freeing. Like laughing until your belly hurts. Laughing until your belly hurts from laughing instead of aching from wanting one another when we couldn't have one another."

"I was stupid. I should have–"

"Stop," she begs. "If I would have married you, I never would have met Mack!"

Matthew is silent. He has no cards left to play. She pulls the rug out from under him in a second.

She loves Mack _more. _It is as easy–_as difficult–_as that.

Her eyes fill. He doesn't know why until she tells him. "I still can't stand to see you in pain, though. Still." She shrugs. "Tell me what that means," she says helplessly.

"I wish I would have married you right away, before Pamuk, before the war. I wish..."

She takes his hand very gently and with her other hand she traces her fingers along the veins on top of his. "I want to give you some advice," she whispers. "You'll be the next Earl and Lavinia will be Countess someday. You can't _afford _wishes. Believe me, _I know_." Her tears spill down her cheeks and she lets his hand go and turns away. "We can't go back," she says with a stronger voice. "Only forward. And Mack is my forward. Just please, only, don't hurt yourself...Don't drink yourself into..."

"Whoever told you that exaggerated," he insists.

She turns back to him. She is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. There are curls near her temple. There are tears on her cheeks. "No one told me. I _saw_ today. That wasn't you. That wasn't you at all."

"I miss you," he whispers and wants to touch her but doesn't. She holds herself so tall and straight he knows his touch would not be welcome and he is an honorable man.

"You miss someone else," she tells him shaking her head. "You miss the girl you knew. And I'm not her anymore. _I'm not_." And then she flees.

* * *

_A/N: It's been a very long time since we've heard from Matthew and even longer since Mary and Matthew had a conversation. Please let me know what you think._


	14. Chapter 14

_A/N: Hullo! I don't have much to say except thank you x a million for all the lovely reviews and thoughts. Your ideas about honor and duty were really well thought out...I tend to agree with most of you. It's just that Matthew had one belief about what being an honorable man meant and well...that belief is now crumbled to bits. How could he have gotten it so wrong so on and so forth...Remember this is the beginning of Part II of the story. I believe there will be 4 to 5 parts of varying lengths. Oh, (I always say I have nothing to say and then I do), please remember that in the last chapter, that entire scene was from Matthew's point of view. He could only hear what Mary said, not what she was thinking. Thanks in advance...The updates will probably start to slow down, I'm sorry to say_

* * *

Chapter Fourteen

Mary runs the nail of her finger around and around the button of Mack's shirt. They brought a blanket but it is a waste in the summer wind, on the night before her family will descend for the wedding, on the night he convinces her to sneak away after midnight. He is always convincing her of things.

_It will be our last chance to be alone until I watch you come down the aisle,_ he begs.

_You'll be facing forward, _she informs him as she twists his hair between her fingers, debating if she should take the risk of sneaking out and around her Grandmother. _That's how it's done in England._

_That's silly, _he replies and kisses her hand, _how will I know the right girl is walking towards me?_

Her eyebrows rise: _How will you know whether to run away?_

He grins. _I do want to run away. Now, with you. Let's go._

So he convinces her.

There is sand in Mary's hair and when she lifts her mouth to kiss her soon-to-be-husband, his lips taste of salt and memories and she knows he still sometimes keeps her stockings in his pockets from that first night from when she did pirouettes in the sand, a champagne bottle in her hand. "Where's the champagne?" she murmurs against those lips.

He rubs his nose to hers. "I only promise to tell you where it is...if you promise not to drink it all this time."

She smiles and kisses him again–a long, lingering kiss that goes on and on, her hair whipping out of her pins in ribbons. A part of her feels completely invincible. "Of course not. My family is coming tomorrow. I can't be walking around with an aching head."

She's practically in his lap when they sit up so he can pop the cork and he lifts the bottle to her lips for her. "Do you want to make a bet that one of your family members _does _have an aching head tomorrow?" Mack jokes. "And which one too?"

She hands the bottle to him though a wrinkle appears on her forehead. She knows he means it to be funny but to her... "That's not very kind."

"I meant it to be a joke," he insists as he he presses his lips to the skin of her neck. They are clothed; they waited but that doesn't mean Mack isn't eager for the wedding vows to be said either. Mary knows it and anticipation makes her belly hum while she fears the honeymoon at the same time. She tries to bring it up, halfheartedly really, but it's too hard and the words won't come out. _You've been with so many women..._

"It's just that he–" Mary begins and stops when she feels Mack stop kissing her neck.

"What?"

"I just don't like when you make jokes about him," Mary replies softly. She doesn't say his name, not out of protection of her own heart as it would have been before, but to respect Mack, who goes rigid when _his _name is murmured aloud.

"Do I talk about him _that _often?" Mack retorts.

"No," Mary admits and shrugs her shoulders. "No, you don't. But when you do...It isn't exactly complimentary."

Mack pulls back further and looks her in the eye. She can practically see the heart of him there, searching her for something he may have missed before. Ever since he met Matthew, Mack looks at her this way more often. It's that look that keeps Mary from telling Mack of the scene in the library–so he won't worry. "He didn't exactly make a complimentary impression. I didn't enjoy hearing him talk to the woman I love that way and–," he pauses. "You know, I don't think we escaped the mayhem of the house one last time before the wedding to talk about _him._"

"You're right," she whispers and slides her hand into the thickness of his dark hair and tries her best to convince him with her mouth. It isn't as if she is very confident in her abilities. She's kissed three men in her life, other than Mack, the first died, and the second is the very reason for the kissing, to remind Mack that Mary did not choose Matthew but Mackenzie, and the third–Sir Richard–with his dry lips barely warrants a mention.

She is sitting in Mackenzie's lap and no one else's; she is tasting champagne on Mackenzie's lips and no one else's. Still, Mack has never asked her the question she knows he would like to: _what if Matthew did not have a wife...who would she choose then?_

He shifts so they are rolling and laughing, the blanket completely superfluous now. His hands are everywhere and nowhere at once. "Mary," he whispers. She can feel that he wants her, she knows that much of anatomy. They roll again and his fingers (so dexterous) unbutton the tiny buttons at her back. She arches into him because she does love him, she does want him; there are only stupid insecurities that bat at her every now and then. His fingers loosen the corset beneath and the ease at which he performs the act–his bare hand against her bare back–makes her gasp in pleasure and pull away at the same time.

"Mack," she tells him and struggles to speak. Her voice is hoarse with desire and need and bits of fear.

"You're right," he replies. "Plenty of time for that in a few days." He smiles at her, endearingly so, a piece of hair flopping onto his his forehead. But then he pulls back further. "What is it? Did I hurt you?"

"No," she assures him as they sit up together. She reaches for the champagne to wet her tongue. "It's only...Oh, Mack."

"Don't tell me you're backing out on me now, Mary Jo," he jokes but she sees real nerves there, in his dark eyes, the nerves he so rarely, if ever, let's anyone other than her see and she wonders if this is by choice or simply because he cannot hide from her like he hides from all the others. Is that what makes her different from the other girls like Emily?

"Mackenzie," her hand fits to his cheek, over the stubble of his day. When they are married, will she ever see him shave? She would like to, knowing that if she asks, he would let her and laugh at her all in the same breath. She can imagine him, cream on his face, gently wrestling her to the bed until she is shrieking in laughter. It has always been this way with Mack–since she realized she loved him. She can imagine the smallest of moments and they almost always come true."I'm not backing out on you. I couldn't. You _must _know that."

"I do," he replies slowly.

"Oh," she cries out. "It's just that you have so much more _experience _than I do in this area. I'm worried...When we're together, a part of me wants," she hesitates, "you as much as you want me. But another part of me is so very worried, just so nervous–"

Mack takes her hands and kisses the back of each one of them. "You can tell me anything, Mary. You know that."

"I don't hold all the other girls against you," she murmurs at last, staring at his chest. "I really don't. And I never have. It's only, you'll be so good at this and I...the only time I came close to _this_...a man died."

Mack laughs and tries to quiet it against her shoulder.

"I mean it," she says, her eyes lifting to his. "I know I'm not the first girl you've brought to this beach...I knew it the first time you brought me too..."

She sees the admission, the guilt in his eyes. "Mary–"

"You don't need to feel badly," she tells him immediately. "I don't want you to feel guilty. That's not what I'm asking. I'm trying to tell you...I'm nervous. What if I do the wrong thing? What if I'm a disappointment?"

"You couldn't be." One dimple appears, one side of his smiles slides up. "You couldn't be."

"I could be," she insists. "What if?"

"No," he murmurs against her lips and he stays there, his hands in her hair, kissing her, until her lips are plump, until she realizes that his hands move to the back of her dress. She is laced back into her corset; the buttons are all done up.

"I love you," he whispers into the shell of her ear.

_Yes, _she thinks. _You do._

She turns away from the memory of Matthew saying more than she dared in the library: _I miss you._

"I love you too," she replies to the man she will marry in just a few days time, the man who waited for her, the man who knows her, the man who will rub shaving cream on to her own face and wrestle her onto the bed until she shrieks with laughter.

* * *

At night, Mary worries about Matthew. She does not worry over his attendance at the wedding, that he will become a stumbling drunken buffoon and embarrass her. No, the worrying began when she saw him those few months ago and saw how changed he could be in less than a single year, less than three hundred sixty five days a year.

She lies awake and worries over him, as she used to do during the war. She even prays for him again, though she does not do so on bended knee with his photograph in front of her (which would feel more like a betrayal to Mack for reasons she will not explain to herself). She doesn't need a photograph–the red rimmed eyes, the swollen face is burned into her memory–to touch and caress and wish for. She does not pray against Germans and bullets but his own hand and the bottle he lifts to lips.

She does not blame herself. She cannot. When she decided to leave home a year ago, she could only think of keeping herself above water and if there was anything tying her down, pulling her beneath the waves, she escaped it. She wanted to live. She wanted to _live. _Even if it hurt. She learned to live in the pain and with it, every day waking up and pressing her hands to her chest, to her heart where it hurt. But Matthew cannot learn to live in the pain; he needs the numbness. Or perhaps men are less inclined to learn to live in the pain, to grow out of it, when they hold all the cards and can make all the choices.

In the library, she could have yelled at him and shouted and told him he made his bed and now the drinking and mockery behind his back is what he must lie down in. She didn't and doesn't have the heart to tell him that. She never did. She cannot see him hurt. She still remembers the stillness he had in his hospital bed, unawake, no one sure if he would wake, and her eyes so brutally dry. Brutally dry. It isn't as if Lady Mary Crawley, soon to be Lady Mary Banks Duncan, is afraid to say a biting thing, to tell him he deserves all he's been dealt. But to Matthew...a hurting Matthew...

Even now she dreams he drinks and falls and hits his head and dies. Or he drinks and takes a bath only to drown. Or he drinks...(there are any number of scenarios and she never knows which one will come to her when she closes her eyes to sleep, but one will come)...and he dies.

He dies.

She cannot imagine a world without Matthew Crawley in it.

It doesn't have to be _her _world. Just _the _world.

Sometimes, she wonders what will happen when she sleeps beside Mack in a few days. When she wakes from her dreams, or nightmares, will he see Matthew's face in the pupil of her eye? Will he know the truth–that though she loves Mack, she loved Matthew once too and it was not her choice to stop loving him?

_I'll wait for you, _Mack said.

Somehow Mary thinks it is easier to wait for someone who is sad instead of someone who is still in love with someone else. But she isn't in love with Matthew–not the old version or the new version, either.

_You miss someone else, _she told him. _You miss the girl you knew and I'm not her anymore. I'm _not.

She tells herself the same things now: _You miss someone else. You miss the boy you knew and he is not him anymore. He isn't. _

_He isn't._

And Mack makes her laugh. He makes her laugh so hard.

But he doesn't understand everything. He doesn't understand that Sybil, Tom, and Baby Dec cannot come for the wedding. She talks around it for as long as she can: _Mack, it's not convenient for them now. We'll see them in six months when they go to Downton. _

But Mack does not understand. _It's your wedding, Mary. She's your sister. And from what I can tell, you're closer to her than to Edith. You would think she would want to be here for you._

How do you explain a lifetime of family dynamics to a man like Mack? It is impossible and the weight of it hurts her chest.

_She does want to be here for me, _Mary insists.

_Then she would be here, _Mackenzie retorts.

She snaps: _Oh, Mack! They can't afford both trips!_

He shrugs. Just shrugs. _I can pay for them to come. It's nothing. I can pay._

Mary presses her fingers to her forehead. _Sybil and Tom would never allow it. They have pride, you know._

He doesn't understand, does not see her shoulders sink. _What's more important pride or family? _he asks.

She grumbles and stomps away and tells him not to do a single thing and he can meet Sybil in six months. But the whole time she can only think: _Mack does not understand at all. But Matthew would. _

But now it is time for sleep and she wonders which nightmare she will dream. Will he slip and fall from his bike? Will he hit his head coming down the train steps? How many ways can the drink kill him?

She cannot imagine a world without Matthew Crawley in it.

It doesn't have to be _her _world. Just _the _world.

_I'll wait for you, _Mack said.

Only now, she raises a hand to wipe the tears streaming from her eyes. They don't count if you shed them in the dark. They don't count at all.

* * *

In the morning, just before midday, she walks to the front door of Mackenzie's house, where everyone from the family will be staying. She watches her mother step from the car and then her father. When she sees Granny's cane, handled in that steel grip, and then Granny herself, Mary grins, her whole face alit with something mixed with joy and anxiety. The next car holds Lavinia, so very pretty as always, and Matthew, blinking blearily at the sun.

She barely gazes at him. She cannot afford it.

_I'll wait for you, _Mack said.

"Hello," she cries and walks over to Granny. "Oh, thank you so very much for coming!" When she embraces her grandmother, she swallows the lump in her throat. "I can't believe you're here for my wedding."

* * *

_A/N: And let the games begin, I say...In the meantime, please let me know your thoughts on this chapter. It was interesting to write and get inside of the heart of Mary at this point. Love to you all. XX_


	15. Chapter 15

_A/N: So here is the next chapter (obviously ha). Thanks for your patience as the updates slow down to something more manageable again. Also, feel free to check out my tumblr ladonnaingenua dot tumblr dot com if you are ever curious about updates or other nuts and bolts. I'm a bit sick so I think that's all I've got. It's Matthew this time._

* * *

Chapter Fifteen

She is a vision.

She is a vision, slightly obscured by Robert and the doorway, her hair wild and free, curly and long down her back beneath the ghost of a veil, wearing trousers Matthew knows must be an homage to the absent Sybil.

"I don't know," Mary says, leaning forward as she gazes into the mirror to look more closely at something he cannot see. "Mama. Granny. Are these earrings too much?"

She is a vision–all in abstract, the trousers and blouse, the loose hair, and the misplaced veil that does not match all the rest. She is made of pieces and the whole knocks the breath out of Matthew's lungs.

He's never seen her with her hair down before.

"Matthew," Robert breaks the spell and shakes Matthew's hand. "Thanks for coming. I didn't know this room would be commandeered by the women."

"I'm the bride," Mary teases. "I can commandeer anything I'd like." She turns then, half laughing at her papa and Matthew sees her face for the first time.

"The earrings aren't too much," he says dryly before Robert pulls him away to discuss the _urgent, serious, information_ that brought Matthew to Robert and Cora's room in the first place. He only sees a brief flash of Mary's hesitant smile, as if she is not sure bestowing him one of those once rare treats (now common occurrences, so everyone _says_) is allowed, before Robert hustles him away.

"It's urgent that we speak," Robert whispers tightly, barely moving his lips, but Matthew is still thinking of Mary, sober enough (thanks to American prohibition) to know she isn't an angel or Andromeda bathed in midst but a very real woman, in trousers and a veil, with curling hair and a shy smile. He knows the warmth of that body, of _her_ body, drawn close to him, the fission of electricity all down his back, the smoothness of her skin, how she let him lead the dance (an unexpected generosity knowing her), that she will acquiesce, soften, warm, let herself be pulled closer, how the yearning will thicken between them until it snaps too tight and he kisses her.

Such a short kiss in the scheme of kisses. Barely enough time to taste her. Just enough time to want her.

He is sober enough to remember every bit of it.

He doesn't understand how he is here, in America, at Mary's wedding. When did it all stop making sense? At the Garden Party? When she wished him _such good luck_? When in the trenches, her little dog meant more to him than any letter? When he could not use his legs? When the _show that flopped _danced its final dance?

That's the thing, though: it cannot be pinpointed, that exact moment, when everything came undone, when the ball of yarn fell and unrolled completely. It's the knowledge of _that, _which keeps him reaching for the bottles.

"You won't believe what I'm about to tell you," Robert conspires in the hallway.

And Matthew nearly responds: _you won't believe what I'm thinking._

And yet Robert knows, knows Matthew wants Mary, and knew Mary once wanted him. Yet Robert never did anything about it, just like when it came to the entail, the inevitable failure or some high brow sense of honor (or who knows what, really?) kept him from acting on what he knew, what could have been saved.

God, what could have been saved.

Everything feels too real–the sweat between his fingers, the chapped skin on his lips, his pants against his the skin of his leg. He wants a drink.

He wants a drink so badly.

_I love your daughter and I always have. I always have. I always..._

He will make friends with one of the staff. Matthew already knows that Mack's grandfather bought cases and cases of champagne for wedding (illegally, from Canada) but that won't be enough. He needs something less celebratory and more debilitating.

"I've had Murray do some digging," Robert goes on, his eyes looking left then right. "And I don't like what he's found."

"About what?" Matthew asks. A headache plagues him. He wants a drink. He wonders if he just asked for one, if he'd get it. Mack's family clearly doesn't know what role he once played in Mary's life; they treat him with asmuch hospitably as they would treat any of her cousins. _Cousin Matthew. _

"About_ him_," Robert corrects.

"You can't be serious," Matthew retorts. "It's much too late for skeletons."

"She's my girl," Robert shrugs helplessly. "It's never too late."

_Yes, it is! _Matthew would like to shout at the top of his lungs because it _is _too late. No information Robert thinks he found can make Mary love Matthew again. They can never be together. He is married. They can never be together. _Ever_. Hope cannot be bred here. There is no fertile ground for it. The earth is torched.

"Robert," Matthew cautions. "It has to be truly ghastly for you to even consider–"

"I only know for sure that there were many women before Mary. Many, many, many women. A complete playboy–"

"That's not a crime," Matthew objects. "She had to know his character before she accepted him. And furthermore, Mary...There were many women _until _Mary."

Robert grabs Matthew's arm. "And I know there was a baby with one of them," he continues. "And then there was no baby, no wedding, only ugly rumors. The ugliest."

"What do you mean?" Matthew cannot help but ask.

"The kind no one says in polite company, illegal, horrible surgeries–"

"Robert."

"_That _is not the man I want for my daughter," Robert explodes.

In the silence that follows, words almost form in the air between them: _I wanted _you_ for her. _

Finally, Matthew asks wearily, "How sure are you?"

"I'm not," Robert wilts. "That's why I've come to you."

"Me?" Matthew exclaims.

"I need your advice," Robert huffs. "Once you knew her best of all."

"And she was engaged to another man then, too," Matthew snaps, speaking of Sir Richard.

"Over time, you convinced her of his character, didn't you?" Robert dabs at his forehead. "You could do it again."

He could do it again.

Only this time, Mack doesn't raise his voice and hold her in bruising grips. This time she is not fading away into herself but coming alive. This time she is happy.

This time he would not be freeing her. This time he would be breaking something.

* * *

In bed, his wife is turns away from him and he turns away from her. This is their way, in the bed far from home, in the bed at home, in beds in general, when he is sober, or just sober enough. They are in Mack's house. This bed belongs to Mack and Matthew hates this bed, though the butler (obviously not as fastidious as Carson) offered Matthew a few pulls of whiskey earlier, it is far from enough.

His mind is whirling, not numb how he likes it. He is thinking. He is thinking of the man he considers a kind of fatherly figure asking him to do something, asking him to talk to Mary, to tell her..._what? _

_This time he would not be freeing her. This time he would be breaking something. _

His motives are all confused. If he did it, would it be for Robert? Would it be for Mary? Or would it be for Matthew? Would Mary's face stiffen, would she ask her maid to pack her things, would she sail back to England with them? Would he be freeing her or breaking her?

"Lavinia." He speaks his wife's name aloud without meaning to. They are not friends. They do not whisper secrets in the dark. They do not giggle beneath the sheets. When they touch, it is with thought. He does not lift a hand automatically to push her hair away from her face. It is not easy. It's work. And it hurts sometimes.

He wants another drink.

"Yes?" she replies in the dark.

He wets his lips. "If there was a secret about me...would you have wanted to know before the wedding?"

Again, he is hardly thinking of his words or the potential they have to bring up the wounds they've gone over and over again. _If you knew I loved Mary, would you have wanted to know before the wedding?_

There is a great silence between them.

"I'm not sure," she says at last.

He rolls his eyes. _For God's sake, at least have an opinion!_ But then she surprises him. She never used to be able to surprise him.

"I saw you, you know," she whispers. "I heard you tell Mary you wished you could marry her and I saw you kiss her the night I was so sick. So I _did _know your secret." She pauses only for a moment. "I tried so many different ways for _you _to tell _me. _That's why I asked so many times if you still wanted to marry me. And so I took you at your word. I believed you."

"Lavinia," Matthew hears himself gasp.

"Perhaps it is is unworthy comparison," she sighs. "You speak of secrets and hearing myself say the words aloud, it's as if we both lied. And secrets and lies are different, aren't they?"

Matthew could kill for a drink. _Secrets and lies are different, aren't they?_ "Are they?"

Lavinia shifts and turns to face him. She speaks to his back. "Don't ruin this for her, Matthew. We've made our bed. She has a chance...She_ is _happy. Please don't embarrass her." _Or me, _goes without saying. "If you...if you ever loved her...let her be happy."

Matthew throws back the covers and leaves their room as quickly as he can.

* * *

He is unfamiliar with the house and it is gigantic (though nowhere near the size of Downton Abbey). Still, he manages to find his way to the library, where he spots a comfy enough chair he thinks he might be able to doze on for a few brief hours before the staff wakes and he returns to the bed he shares with Lavinia.

How could she know? How could she marry him after hearing? After seeing? The show that flopped. Truly. Honestly. It could not get anymore pathetic than Mary and–

"Matthew," Mary hisses from another corner of the library. "What are you doing down here?"

Matthew closes his eyes. He could kill for a drink. It is too much. The knowledge that Lavinia knew, the weight of telling Mary...what?, and now Mary herself. These few days may be the worst of his life, besides the trenches. Or perhaps they are just a different type of trench, champagne instead of mud, but booby traps and death nonetheless. Letting Mary go, watching her love Mack, feels like a sort of death.

Hope cannot be bred here. There is no fertile ground for it. The earth is torched.

"What are you doing down here?" he replies softly. "Shouldn't you be getting your rest for tomorrow?"

"I couldn't sleep," she admits.

He could tell her now. It is perfect. They are alone. The words can just come out of his mouth. He could do it right now.

"Why?" he asks instead.

She exhales loudly. "I suppose...I suppose it's just that I'm nervous for the day to finally be here. I made him wait a long time," she admits. "If he had his way, we would have been married a year ago. But...I wanted to be certain. I had to be certain."

He swallows the lump in his throat. He is not used to such candor from her. "And...are you? Certain, that is."

He watches the smile bloom across her face. "I am," she admits. "I never expected to be certain about something like this ever. How could one be, really? But I am. He knows the worst parts of me. And he loves me."

"And, you...do you know the worst parts of him?" He cannot ask if she loves him because the thought alone pierces him (however true it is). God only knows what the words would do now in the darkened library. Forget bullets. Forget the awful gas. Forget explosions. Forget aching invisible legs.

"Yes," she replies and she must be kinder, softer in America because she does not say _and I love him as he loves me, _as if she knows that Matthew dreads that very declaration. "And I'm certain."

"Well." He does not know if she knows _the_ worst of Mack. She thinks she does but Robert wants him to contribute to a more fuller knowledge of her bridegroom. He opens his mouth and then closes it, remembering her in the trousers and veil. God, she is beautiful. He should tell her _now. _"Well."

He stops.

This time he would not be freeing her. This time he would be breaking something.

"Well," he repeats for the third time. "I'll only repeat the advice your Granny gave me once: marriage is a long business. So it is good that you are certain."

He leaves as quickly as he can, more quickly than he even left his wife.

Hope cannot be bred here. There is no fertile ground for it. The earth is torched.

* * *

_A/N: Really interested to hear what you guys think about this one. From my sickbed. lol. xx, LDI_


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

Lavinia watches the wedding passionately–or tries to. In the back of her mind, she worries for her husband, the seat absent beside him, but yes, she watches the wedding with passion, surprising even herself.

The colors are deep and dramatic–the lush green of the the grounds, like an emerald, are the background for Mary. Her dress is delicate and beautiful. Mary appears soft and dreamy, as if she is painted in watercolor while the greenery of summer around her is done in oils. Nonetheless, Mary is the one everyone's eyes are drawn to. She glances down and smiles, almost shyly and it shocks Lavinia because she's never seen any expression like this on Mary's face before. She's beautiful, stunning–carrying the the flowers as tenderly as she would a child.

The groom is grinning so widely, his dimples so pronounced, Lavinia is shocked his lips do not split. There is a sparkle in his eye as he repeats his vows to her even as his voice turns serious with every word he speaks. Mary's voice is calm and slow. She is careful over every word. She deliberates over the vows, making them count. But her eyes never leave Mackenzie's. They are certain and sure, locked together, and the people sitting in the pews are just lucky to be there at all. They chose one another and they are certain and sure.

Lavinia wills herself not to think of her own wedding, the jittery nervous feeling in the pit of her stomach, the hope living and breathing in her chest. After all, it is so very hard to kill hope, especially a hope like Lavinia's, she who hoped against the overwhelming evidence that Matthew loved Mary because he was marrying _her. _He _chose _her–after she gave him a million ways out, after she tied up the letters they wrote one another with a blue bow and set them aside, after she asked him if he still loved her. _Matthew chose Lavinia. So today, Mary chooses Mack._It is hard to kill hope, especially the stupid kind.

_So, so, so, very stupid!_

Don't forget the stupidity of it.

She presses one hand to her heart without meaning to and tears gather in her eyes. She realizes it is a little inappropriate, quite dramatic to cry at the wedding of a cousin by marriage, a cousin her husband loved more than her. Lavinia is not sure if he still loves Mary; the only thing she is sure Matthew loves is the drinking. The Matthew in their marriage now is one Lavinia does not know and does not want to know. She never planned on this Matthew. Sometimes, when she is very tired, when Matthew is so still she listens for his breath, she wonders if it is her. If Matthew married Mary, would he be this man? It makes her so very angry because _he chose. _She would like to scream at him: _you chose me! And for what? For what? For _this? But she doesn't.

Does he want her to just take it_? _Well, she won't.

It takes all of Lavinia's strength not to march up the aisle and grab Mary by the elbow. _Where is your cousin, _she might say. And they would find him, somewhere, in a drunken stupor. And then Lavinia would say, _why, oh, why would you ever want to get married? They change, you see. _But Mary does not glance her way. Mary doesn't think of Lavinia or Matthew. There is no triangle. There is only Mary and Mack.

Finally, the ceremony is over and the new couple walk back down the aisle from which they came, Mack raising their joined hands in jubiliation. For a moment, Mary's eyes ghost over the empty chair beside Lavinia.

And Lavinia realizes that not only is this an ending, the breaking of an everlasting, god awful triangle, but it can be a beginning too–_her beginning. _Goosebumps break out along her neck.

He does not get to choose _everything_.

If she stays...If she stays, she knows the way the story ends.

It won't ever be tender or sweet.

Then, one day he will grow to blame her. If she wasn't so–and he will fill in the sentence with some hurtful adjective.

She will cry. If she stays...she will cry often. She will taste misery on the tip of her tongue, even after he's gone; the smell of it, of alcohol, will cling to her skin and clothes, as if she is drenched in a vice that does not even belong to her.

She will be helpless to it, a little boat in storm tossed waves. She's never been very good at taking a stand but, _oh. _She cannot go on like this and her eyes fill.

She tells herself she will change. She tells herself all sorts of things to get through. She is always trying only to get through.

She tells herself that this is the last time she will cry, over Matthew Crawley, over Mary, over the whole mess of them.

She lies.

She drinks champagne.

When people ask where Matthew is, she lies.

_Are you all right, dear? _someone asks.

And Lavinia lies.


	17. Chapter 17

_A/N: I didn't know if I would need to raise the warning for this chapter to M but ultimately decided that it could continue to stay T for now. Also, just an update, I am pretty sick, work is getting out of control, and I feel like I just wrote a lot of chapters in a short amount of time. Just prepare for much, much, much slower updates. I don't want know when the next chapter will be._

* * *

Chapter Seventeen

She doesn't mean to, but Mary falls asleep waiting for Mack, in her white negligee beneath the white sheet of _their _bed. She put on her lotion and her perfume behind her ears, at the base of her neck, behind her knees. She imagines Mack finding it in all of those places and nearly forgets the most obvious of places–her wrists. Tonight, she danced with her husband and with her father. Her father, oh Papa, he danced so stiffly, held her so tightly by the elbows, as if he did not want to let go. "I love you," he told her finally, as the music fell away. "I don't say it nearly as often as I should but I do. And I've always wanted the best for you. I hope you married Mackenzie because he is the best for you and not because you think you deserve less–"

"Oh, Papa," Mary replied and did not care at all that people saw her lay her cheek on her father's beating heart. "He is the best for me. I love him."

He pulled her up by her shoulders. "But do you _know_ him?"

"Papa," she censured. "What have you done?"

He admitted, "When you have children you'll understand. You'll worry about them. All the time."

"I know about him, Papa, and he knows about me and we don't love each other because of it but because we just...We just do. Don't worry about me," she kissed his cheek. "Worry about Edith." He laughed but she wanted to say: _Worry about Matthew. Worry about him until he gets better. Oh, please, Papa!_

She drank champagne and she danced with one of Mack's cousins. She danced with his father and his grandfather; he offered her a lemon drop and another glass of champagne. She looked at the stars and sighed. She actively, very actively, did not think of Matthew, where he'd been during the ceremony (the gall of him; she'd sat all through his stupid wedding) or even worse. The images of him falling still haunted her.

Nonetheless, she actively doesn't think of him now. She finds the nightgown she chose for her wedding night. It is white and maybe she doesn't deserve it but it is beautiful and delicate and she loves it so she chooses it, with it's tiny pink ribbons. Her cheeks blush at the idea of what is to come; anticipation curls in her belly. She feels new; she feels loved; she feels wanted.

She falls asleep and she dreams of rain, falling, wetting her hair and her eyelashes, rain so bright and blue she has to turn away from it even as she drowns.

"Mary," Mack whispers, his hand on her thigh over the sheet. "I'm so sorry. My grandfather stopped me and wouldn't let me go." She smiles sleepily at him. "He felt I needed a lecture about how lucky I am to have you for a wife."

"I love your grandfather," Mary whispers at him hoarsely, her eyes heavy lidded. "He is a very wise man."

Mack leans down in his pajamas and kisses her briefly. "He told me to tell you that you must call him Grandpop from now on." He makes a sound in the back of his throat and leans down for another kiss, lingering over it. "Remind me why we're talking about Grandpop on our wedding night?"

She winds her arms around his neck, pulls him down beside her. She is still beneath the sheet and her nerves are humming but something else is humming, too. She kisses him sleepily, drowsily. It's as if the entire wedding, the nerves, the planning, the tension of her family, the activity of actively not thinking of _him_, suddenly hits her. "I'm sorry," she tells him. "I'm tired. And I'm nervous."

"Why?" Mack asks and kisses the corner of her mouth, one side and then the other, her nose, her chin. "Explain it to me. Isn't that what marriage is? And now, isn't that what we have?"

She grins at him. "We're married." She kisses him fully, and he moans a bit. "But I am nervous. Because you've been with a lot of woman–"

"Mary Jo," he whispers, his forehead furrowing.

"I told you I don't hold it against you," she hurries on. "It's only...It's only that...I'm afraid I'll disappoint you. I'm afraid I won't be as good at it as–"

"Mary," he tries to soothe.

"I thought about not saying anything." He kisses her chin, the hollow of her throat, her ear, her temple, her bare shoulder. "But then I would be nervous the whole time, and then I _definitely_ wouldn't be good at it..." She takes his cheeks in her hands. "Wait. Listen. I know you're good at it. Obviously."

"How do you know that?" he asks with a twinkle in his eye.

"Because when you kiss me my eyes roll into the back of my head," Mary exclaims.

"And when you kiss me," Mack replies, kissing her closed eye lids. "The same thing happens to me. Maybe it isn't me, maybe it's _us. _Maybe we're so good at it. Now, do you want to find out or not?"

She grins, brushing her nose against his. "I do," she whispers.

It's like a dream and it has nothing to do with the fact that she is sleepy. His hands are light, like brush strokes on a canvas, until they aren't, until they grip, until she knows he is taken under just as much as she is. And every piece of clothing that is removed, feels like a layer being shed, a weight to hand off, until they are finally seeing one another fully and completely. He tells her he is going to worship her body for awhile and she laughs, because even the most sacred moments between them involve laughter, and she tells him that isn't possible, that he must be crazy. He says that he will do his utmost and he does. _He does_. He kisses every part of her he can find; he uncovers spots of herself she didn't know existed. She gasps and moans and when she reaches for him, she is surprised into a giggle when he gasps and moans too. She is shocked that her touch arouses him and when he sinks, sinks into her, and kisses her so that her toes curl into the bed, and she grasps the skin of his back, she can only exhale the words: _I love you. _Her brain cannot process anything more than that, even after it is over.

_I love you. I love you. I love you. _

"Mackenzie." She kisses his tanned shoulder. It turns out he is tan all over.

"Hmm?" He replies, winding her hair around his hand.

"We _are _good at it." Though winded, they both break into laughter and it starts all over again.

Later, she asks him for her nightgown. "Where is it?"

"You don't need it," he replies. They are both bleary eyed, exhausted.

Her toes reach for him. "I do. I can't sleep naked beneath this sheet."

"And why not?"

"Because what if someone comes to our room?" she pokes him but can barely lift her hand to do it, she is so tired. "And I've never slept naked before.

"Never?" he asks and tickles her. "Who would come to our room?" he wraps her arms around her, sliding his hands along her naked skin. "You'd think they'd know better."

She is already asleep.

She doesn't know it but he strokes her hair back from her face until exhaustion takes him under as well.

* * *

She is only half aware of a horrible knocking at the door as light streams through the window. She has never known exhaustion like this, so completely tired and carefree about the world around her so no, she doesn't open her eyes or even move. Mack makes some type of miserable moan while the knocking continues and she hears his bare feet hit the floor.

There is some whispering at the door. And again, Mary is so blissfully tired she does not care because nothing can be as important as what happened with her husband last night. And to think she never thought she would get married.

"Mary," Mack whispers and she raises her head slightly, blinking at him. "Lavinia would like to speak to you."

Mary feels as if cotton is in her mouth. Have two worlds suddenly collided? "La-Lavinia?"

"Mary," Lavinia weeps in the doorway, holding her hand to her chest. "I am so sorry. I wish I didn't have to bother you. The butler–I just don't know what else to do. I don't know where he is, Mary. I can't find him and I'm worried and I just..."

Mary is aware that Mack is pulling the comforter up over her naked shoulders and holding her hand. "I'll...I'll be out in a moment Lavinia," she tells the other woman as the door closes.

Mary sits up, her feet don't touch the floor, and brings the sheet with her so she is covered, even though Mack saw it all the night before. "Mary," he whispers, touching her hair. "Are you awake?"

"Yes," she says and stands, bringing the sheet with her. "Why is Lavinia so upset? Why is she so upset and at our door so early?"

"It's after noon," Mack tells her then let's out a huge sigh. "And Lavinia hasn't seen Matthew since the middle of the night, the night before the wedding. She seems...She seems to think you'll be able to find Matthew." He pauses, looks into her eyes, as the sheet slips lower. "No one will think less of you either way."

"Either way?" Mary cries out, suddenly, startling awake. "Do you know how many times I've imagined this? He's hurt. He fell or slipped, drunk and hit his head. Or he's hurt himself on purpose."

Mack goes very still. "No, I don't know how many times you have imagined this."

"Not now, Mack," she squeezes his hand. "This doesn't mean anything except that this is Matthew and something is...where is he?"

Mack hangs his head, then presses a kiss to her palm. "All right. We'll go look for him."

She knows she loves him then, loves him even more than before. She knows that love is ever expanding, ever evolving, because on the day after their wedding, after a night spent touching naked skin to skin, he is willing to put on a pair of pants and find Matthew, the man Mary loved before him.

* * *

Lavinia is nearly hysterical and believes that somehow Mary will know where Matthew is. "I swear I don't know," Mary tells her. She wears a skirt and a blouse but her hair is only plaited. Her hands shook as she did it.

They search the grounds, all of them, Mack's family and her own. Mary is embarrassed beyond belief and she is shamed by her father's lack of response. She can only be glad that Isobel did not come. And of course, Lavinia is no help at all and more than that, she is panicked as the minutes go on and on and there is no sign of Matthew. Mary wants to panic. She wants to shriek. But she is still and silent. So she goes on walking, and walking, as she and Mack used to do last summer. Mack's family compound skirts the very edges of the Mary's grandmother's and Mary keeps walking, trying to breath, and heads directly to the pond.

_What if he tripped? What if he fell into the water? What if he slipped stones into his pockets–_

"Matthew!" she cries. He is on the ground, his calves in the water, his forehead bleeding from a rock. "Matthew!"

He doesn't stir and for one startling beat of her heart she thinks he is dead.

Her world does not have a Matthew in it.

The ache is intolerable. She cannot breathe.

And then he groans. Just groans aloud and Mary's eyes smart with tears. "I hate you!" she spits and then goes to her knees beside him, shaking him. "Are you all right? What's wrong?"

"...Much s-stronger than I thought..."

She sees the two bottles of the moonshine beside him. "Oh, Matthew. What were you thinking?"

"You told me that I made you sad. You told me we never laughed," he blearily opens his eyes. "I love you and I've always loved you. And you told me you were glad that I chose Lavinia, even though I was telling you it was the wrong choice. You told me," he wets his lips. "You told me you were glad that I chose Lavinia because otherwise you would not have met Mack."

"Matthew..." She is crying. She doesn't mean to be but she is.

His finger touches her cheek briefly, her braid hangs between them. "I'm sorry I didn't go to your wedding. The better man won, I s'ppose. But I just couldn't..."

"Are you all right?" she asks as her tears fall onto his shirt.

"You told me you were glad I chose Lavinia because otherwise you would not have met Mack."

"Oh, Matthew," her chin drops to her chest, her braid falls onto his chest. "What am I always telling you? You must pay no attention to the things I say."

Matthew cups her cheek and there is a gasp.

When Mary looks up, she sees Mackenzie and Lavinia just close enough to hear.

Mary moves away from Matthew. "I found him," she whispers as tears stream from her eyes. "I found him."

* * *

_A/N: That's all I got for you folks. I am all out of words and need to go take some nyquil. Comments/Reviews would be much appreciated._


	18. Chapter 18

_A/N: I am very sorry for the length between chapters. Thank you to 98% of you who supported me through the hiatus (although I never officially called it that). I will tell you that I very seriously considered stopping this story and quitting fanfiction altogether during my time away from AGYK. That is not me exaggerating. I was so serious, in fact, that I felt it would be a disservice to write another chapter before I knew whether I was quitting or not, even though people have threatened me through PMs, anons on tumblr, and the like (which kind of sucked if you were wondering). But I guess I am finishing this thing. Thank you very much to everyone who has supported me and sent me a kind word. Every single one has warmed my heart even as I was so scared to tell my lovely friends (not the rabid people with the PMs and the anon tumblr comments) that I really wanted to quit. Thanks. _

_As to the story, consider this chapter to be the end of yet another section; there will be a bit of a time jump next chapter. I will address this at the bottom. Also, thank you to the reader who pointed out that Isobel did not come to the wedding yet asked Lavinia if she was all right during the wedding. That has been fixed. Isobel was never there. Thanks._

* * *

Chapter Eighteen

Lavinia thinks she may be like the gramophone they received as a wedding present, only she cannot play music. She is hollowed out; so if someone were to put his head through the hole where the noise comes from (her very mouth) he would not find anything inside of her except all her bones rattling, rattling about in pieces. Someone has taken a spoon and carved out her insides, her flesh giving way like a ripened peach.

They are almost home, the journey long and taxing. Yes, it is very taxing to avoid a husband on a ship. He is a little apologetic (his expressions are apologetic; there is never anything said on the matter of the lake incident) but he still drinks at dinner. She still wakes up to the smell of his sweat in the middle of the night and it reminds her of port. He doesn't stumble and fall nearly into a lake, hitting his head, nearly killing himself; he does not confess his love to someone else on the ship but he doesn't stop drinking either.

Her heart is not broken because it is not a beating thing anymore. It is as dry as dust, crusted without use. When she saw Mary and Matthew together, it didn't even hurt the way she thought it might. She could only think: _of course. _It was the night the Spanish Flu struck her all over again.

The gramophone was there that night too, playing a song for Mary and Matthew to dance to. Lavinia doesn't even remember who the present is from, if she is honest, and now is a time for honesty. She imagines they picked it out thinking the newlyweds would turn it on and dance, his hand pressed into her hip, her arms drawing him closer. You know, they never even used it. Not once. Mary and Matthew are the only ones ever to hear sound out of it.

And Lavinia, in the corner, listening. She heard too.

Lavinia wonders why she married him and she knows the answer but she hates it because it is the wrong one. She wanted to save him from himself and she loved him. Oh, she loved him and she wanted to save him from himself. For so long, that is the reason she watched how much he drinks, divided by hours and amount eaten, why she begged him to stop drinking on multiple occasions, why she cried at him, her voice going hoarse.

But she realizes (on the ship, the train, the car) you cannot save someone from themselves. You just can't.

Lavinia watched Mary's wedding and suddenly so many things made sense. She was so angry at Matthew, the seat next to her empty, worried and angry and wondering how all of this worked out for Mary when less than two years ago it appeared Lavinia had it all. And then they opened the doors to the church and there was Mary on her father's arm, looking so lovely and vibrant. The duo took a step forward and Lavinia saw it on Mary's face. Here was a choice.

_I am choosing to love you, to walk towards you._

Another step.

_I am still choosing to love you, to walk towards you._

Another step

_This is me choosing to choose you._

All the way down the aisle, that is how it went, Mary's eyes on Mack's back.

For quite some time now, Lavinia feels quite a connection to Mary, as if they are twins, as if Mary broke her arm, Lavinia would feel that same sharp pain. So she sees it all on Mary's face: she is choosing to move forward and choosing to let go at the same time. She is choosing Mackenzie with every part of herself that matters. She is choosing to let Matthew go, with the same same tempo of the same music, and Lavinia knows if there is a heroine in this sick and twisted story it is Mary.

Maybe someday Lavinia will tell her: _You were braver than all the rest of us combined._

Lavinia remembers quite clearly the control and steadiness in Mary's shoulders and the lack of emotion as Mary set down her tea, cradled in the small dish in her hand, back at Downton so long ago, before _the dance with Matthew, _before Lavinia married him.

_Aren't all of us stuck with the choices we make?_

Even then, Mary understood what everyone else refused to recognize: it came down to choices, and the harsh truth of it, the way everyone stared at her aghast _as if _she was the strange one, _the unfeeling one, _showed just how much denial filled the room. But _that _Mary with the teacup and the expressionless face used the word _stuck_ and surely, now, Lavinia knows Mary felt stuck then. But she's fixed that too. Each step towards her new husband is a choice that is made freely and during the wedding Lavinia aches and hopes Mackenzie knows this is a choice Mary is making because what a gift to be given.

Lavinia and Matthew finally arrive home and it is as if they are two strangers. Lavinia tries to think of the letters they wrote to one another during the war, sharing intimacies and secrets, falling in love but it exhausts her and she cannot remember that girl at all anymore. She is a woman with a heart that cannot break. It is only dust packed solidly together.

She remembers her father instead. How he loved her. Her eyes well up with tears as she changes for bed. He loved her so much. Reggie chose to take all of his love for her mother and give it to Lavinia. He chose to read to her at night before bed, to kiss her before the room darkened, to say, "Goodnight, my little lion."

She never told anyone that her father used to call her that–his little lion. Sometimes, she might laugh and say, "Oh, I am nothing like a lion."

Her father's face would grow serious, lax, almost as if he knew the future. "Of course you are. You are a lion and my darling girl."

Anyone else would have called her a kitty cat with quiet smiles and demure replies and a downturned face when Matthew asked her to leave and cheeks blushing with color when she returned upon Cora's insistence. _Look at me, I' m helpless and pretty. I come and go whenever you call._

Lavinia could not be a lioness. That was Mary, all boldness and brashness in equal measure, perfect breeding to the point of pain, sipping her tea with a coldness that left the entire room silent.

_Aren't all of us stuck with the choices we make?_

"Goodnight, Lavinia," Matthew murmurs into the silence as they both settle in the bed.

There is an empty space where the _I love you _should go. But it does not hurt her anymore.

"I want a divorce." Her voice is not soft or demure. She is not sleepy but completely awake. This is not a spontaneous announcement, though her timing could be better. Where is my tea, she thinks, almost hysterical (although her voice gives away nothing; Mary would be so proud), where are the judging onlookers to remark later on my cold acceptance of harsh truths.

"Yes, well..." He listens so poorly sometimes. When her words finally hit him, he sits up and turns on the lamp. "_Lavinia._"

"Don't say my name like I am a little girl to be placated," she replies. "I've made a decision."

He almost laughs at her, the cad. "Go to sleep. Everything will look different in the morning."

_Will you be different in the morning? _"Listen to me, Matthew. I want a divorce."

"Lavinia–"

"You can tell the courts that I was unfaithful to you, that you caught me. All I want is what was my father's. And I will go away. It doesn't matter where."

"You don't know what you are saying!" He stands, agitated now. She watches his hands fist and clench for a glass.

"I do know what I am saying," Lavinia replies with a measure of calm that unnerves him all the more. "I want a divorce."

"Will you stop saying it like that?" he demands, pulling at his hair a bit. "You don't even sound like yourself. You don't even know what that would mean for you. You would be–"

"We are all stuck with the choices we make," Lavinia tells him levelly, shoulders straight beneath her nightgown, face removed of feeling. "I shouldn't have married you. And I can't go back but I can go forward. And there are consequences. I know I won't be accepted in English society." She shakes back her hair, as if it is a mane. "That is the price I will have to pay and I am more than willing to pay it."

"That's how much you want to be rid of me?" He is a little boy. Oh, she would like to push the hair off his face. She would like to save him from himself but she cannot. Look how well that turned out the first time she tried. And the second. And the third. And the fourth.

"That's how much I want to feel anything but what I feel now," she replies. She reaches over and turns off the lamp. "Go to sleep. We will talk more tomorrow."

"How do you feel now?" he whispers in the dark, still standing. He does not return to bed. "How bad is it?"

"It's like I am dying from the inside out," she says in that same calm, patient, yet firm voice. "And I don't want to die while I am still alive. I'm willing to pay the consequences, whatever they are."

"In the morning–"

"In the morning, I will tell your mother my plans. In the morning, we will talk more of how it shall go, but in the morning my choice will still be the same," Lavinia interrupts.

"That is not the type of people we are!" he declares. "We don't get divorces. We don't just announce things like that. We–"

"I don't want to talk as if we are a_ we_. There is you and there is me and maybe that is not who you are. You are a drunkard; you are in love with another woman. That is the type of person you are," she pauses and takes a breath, takes another plunge. "I don't know what type of person I am. I thought I knew but now the only thing I know for sure is that if I don't leave you, I will never find out."

"Plenty of people live in unhappy marriages." She cannot believe he even has the gall to say such a thing to her. Is he so far gone that he is willing to live like this? But what does he have to lose, after all. Mary is already lost.

"They do." None of her disbelief shows in her words. She is Mary holding her teacup. _Aren't all of us stuck with the choices we make? _She is her father's lioness. "_I _don't. I won't anymore."

"The consequences for you–"

"I don't care." For the first time she speaks fiercely and passionately. "I will pay whatever consequences are demanded of me. But I'll have a divorce, Matthew. Now, I am going to sleep."

He never comes to bed. But in the morning, her eyes open to greet the day with a refreshment she hasn't felt for quite some time.

* * *

_A/N: Before everyone jumps on my back, Lavinia (and I) know exactly what she is demanding. We (Lavinia and I) know that getting a divorce then had major consequences. Serious consequences. They will be addressed throughout the rest of the story. But Lavinia is that desperate. She is that willing. That's what I wanted to come through here. I understand the differences between divorce then and now but I am trying to show just how much she wants out. She wants out _that _much. She cannot go on this way and survive...very much like Mary in the first chapter._

_I won't beg for reviews but I mean, they would put some balm on all the threats I received. Joking/Not Joking_


	19. Chapter 19

_A/N: Surprise! Okay, I am surprised as you. You _**cannot**_ get used to this, okay? You cannot. Because you will be disappointed and for that 2% who are mean, I am just warning you, you will be disappointed because I will not meet your expectations. _

_But for that other 98% of you, I just love and adore you. You have literally showered me with support and for that I thank you. It's strange (actually, __it's not__) but _that_ actually motivates me to write much more than the second approach. _

_Which brings me to this. I don't want any more PMs like this: _Hi. I really like your a girl you knew story. I was wondering when you where planning on updating? I don't want to tell you how to run your story but I would really like it if Mary got pregnant. She could get pregnant have the baby and Mack can die (NOOO) before or after the child is born I know you said Matthew and Mary are endgame but Mary and Mack deserve some happiness, like I said it's your story I don't want to tell you how to run it I was just saying what I would like to happen, I like Mack/Mary but I like Matthew to.

_That is a literal copy and paste and I have many others (too many) to choose from. Please do not tell me how to write this story. Please _do_ give me constructive criticism. But the amount of messages I receive exactly like the one above, with different content, is excruciating and makes me want to delete this story entirely. I don't know why it is like this with this story. It wasn't with _Grace.

_Okay. I am glad we have that cleared up._

_I actually made a mistake in my last Author's Note. This chapter, not the last one, marks the end of another section. I think Part III._

_Again, thank you so, so, so, so, so much for your support and love. I love you too. And this story is for you, not the haters. MUAH._

* * *

Chapter Nineteen

"Mack," Mary murmurs, trying not to laugh as he slides his hand around the front of her waist and pulls her back to him, so he can nibble on her neck. "I'm trying to get undressed."

"What a coincidence," he whispers against her skin. "I'm trying to undress you." His hand moves upwards, so his thumb is splayed between her breasts and for a moment, she tilts her head and sighs against him, but then the ache in her feet reminds her that she is tired from the party tonight. Her brain is fuzzy with all the small talk around her honeymoon and the way Americans appeared to have a different views on the sense of privacy. She made her way through the night bypassing questions with charm that took effort, almost as if during the honeymoon she forgot how to speak to anyone other than Mack, in their own language. In the back of her brain, somewhere, amidst the love for him and pleasure of him, she worries about caring for him too much, needing him too much, even now.

Mary is a woman who knows what it is to lose.

"Well." She straightens but doesn't pull away. "If you're back there anyway, would you mind undoing my necklace for me?"

"With pleasure." With a final kiss, his lips leave her skin and his hands go to the clasp. "If I didn't already say it–"

"You did." Mary smiles at the two of them in the mirror.

"Now, Mary Jo, don't get ahead of yourself." His brow furrows over the exacting work of the clasp. "What I was going to say, the part you expected, was that you looked beautiful tonight..."

"Which you've said tonight, several times." She tries to hide the grin, to stifle it so it fades into her face.

"But what I didn't say was that you looked beautiful tonight _in spite of the fact _that you were wearing clothes. I'd grown so used to seeing you naked, you see." He pouts a little which makes Mary blush and laugh at the same time. He is still struggling with the clasp, three strands of pearls, a gift from him, her husband. She sighs at the word.

"Over a month long honeymoon will do that to you, I suppose," she murmurs, arching her eyebrow at him. His excess, his need to show her luxury always makes her raise an eyebrow.

The necklace is undone. He places it on her vanity and then turns her in his arms so she faces him. She realizes he's been busy back there, unbuttoning her dress so now his hands slip inside of it. "Oh and was it so horrible for you then?" he asks, his lips a breath away from hers.

"Nearly intolerable," she replies and closes the space between them, slipping her own arms around his waist, inside his jacket, swaying a bit because sometimes their kisses can make her feel a loss of balance. Her emerald concoction of a dress slips to the floor; his jacket goes next.

"I love you madly," he tells her as he sinks into her, his hair messed from her hands, breath heavy, and she thinks that if this is madness, it is the same as a fairy tale, or the snow globes she saw last Christmas in New York. It is only the two of them, protected and kept apart from the rest of the world, living perfect lives beneath the glass.

Later, just before she falls asleep, skin to skin with Mack, she wonders that if marriage is like those snow globes, how awful it must be to be trapped with someone who does not make your heart turn over in your chest.

* * *

The next day, in her negligee and robe, she goes through letters from their past week home. The thank you notes ate away her time, not including the correspondences they missed while away. Mack has left to go into work: "Just for two hours," he told her while diligently kissing her until her head spun. "Don't change out of that. Promise." She laughed at his attempt to "work" after weeks away.

"I promise, Mack," she smiled at him.

She smiles now, seeing Mama's handwriting but quickly raises an eyebrow when she sees Lavinia's handwriting in an envelope just behind it. Lavinia's letters are always unexpected, something is always off with them. They are perfectly normal but then she will make a strange remark that makes Mary raise an eyebrow. She doesn't like to dwell on Lavinia. It is uncomfortable. It is hard enough not to dwell on Matthew, let alone his wife, so she opens Mama's first.

_My Dearest Mary,_

_If you are reading this, you are home from your honeymoon. I hope that it was lovely and everything you hoped it would be. Don't blush, Darling. You're a woman now, and we can talk not _about _some things, but around them. Don't you think?_

Mary shakes her head but doesn't blush. Women don't blush. And she laughs at her own joke and her mother's love of the book _Little Women, _as if the world works that way.

_...But I don't wish to embarrass you, my dear. I cried all through the ceremony, you know. My nose was quite red and your father made a joke about it for which I could not properly punish him because my heart was brimming with happiness for you, my brave, brave darling. Mackenzie is many things–charming, handsome (yes, I notice such things), wealthy. But best of all, he loves you so much. He loves _ you, _not a version of Mary, or the face you give to the world but the very heart of you. And what more could a mother wish for than that?_

_Forgive me. (How funny it is to me that you used to make such fun of my American sense of nostalgia and now you live amongst it.) As I said, please forgive me and my blubbering. I beg that you write me and tell me that marriage is more than you hoped it would be. I know what you once hoped it be, when you were, in essence, engaged to Cousin Patrick–a duty, a means to an end. So I hope when you write me, it is with great joy over the discovery that marriage can be something beautiful when it has nothing to do with necessities or duty, when you allow it to be more. And something tells me Mackenzie is not one for duty. Dear me, I am laughing as I write this. _

Mary is laughing too.

_I keep getting off track, you see. Because there is more to this letter than simply my well wishes (though I wish that was the only information I had to impart). I am afraid I do not even know where to start. _

_I don't know what state you found Matthew in, the day after the wedding. I just know that the four of you–Mackenzie, Lavinia, you, and a wet Matthew made your way back home. Lavinia's face was devoid of emotion. Mackenzie: it is not for me to say how he looked...And you, your face appearing as if you had been crying. That is all I know and for the first time in my life, that is all I wish to know about it._

_We returned home, the lot of us, and things went back to normal, or so I thought. Isobel came to dinner that week but left early. She seemed out of sorts but I attributed that to headache she mentioned. Several days later, Matthew came by the house in quite a state, asking to speak to your father. They sequestered themselves in Papa's library for several hours. I knew better than to ask what was so important. _

_It was only that night before we went back to bed that your father told me the news. _

Mary bit down on her lip, her heart beating hard in her chest. Lavinia was pregnant. It had to be. And Mary ignored the ache in her own womb, ignored the old dream of rocking blue eyed babies to sleep.

_Matthew is divorcing Lavinia. _

Mary gasped, held her hand to mouth.

_...Please, Darling, don't let this upset you but I felt you had to know. Your father is a mess. Your grandmother...I cannot begin to explain the chaos and pain that has somehow weaved itself into our family. I don't even know what to tell you except what I already have written because I have no precursor for such an event, no idea for how things will go from here. Your father has given me no further information and it seems best that I know nothing further either. I implore you to act as I have, and not ask for more detail, from your father...or Matthew...for the benefit of your own marriage. _

Mary knows very well what her mother is "imploring."

_I cannot bring myself to ask your father what this will mean for us, when obviously Matthew, Lavinia, and Isobel bear the pain. But the fall out will land on us, as well. And while we have borne many a storm before, this is a scandal I have no story to call upon from some other's experience. I don't even know anyone who has been divorced, let alone a future heir. And then there is, of course, Edith, who has grown quite close to Evelyn Napier. You remember him? We had hoped that...Well, now we aren't sure what to do. Do we wait for him to ask for her hand and then tell him? Or do we tell him now, with the assumption that he wants to marry her? You won't be shocked to know that Edith has taken to her bed and only comes out when he rings her. I ache for her. First, her crush on Anthony Strallen and now this...And Mary, not by any fault of your own, always in your shadow, with both her sisters happily married. But I suppose each of those marriages all began with a bit of a scandal too, when you think about it. So there is hope yet. _

"Oh, Mama," Mary says aloud, rolling her eyes.

_Well, do write me back, Darling. I love you more than I can say. You must get used to this American love of expressing feelings as I am sure your husband (oh, the word alone thrills me) is a product of it. I am sorry to include such horrible new but you needed to know. Give Mackenzie our love and his family as well. His grandfather charmed even your grandmother. Think of that! Oh, think of that and do not dwell on what else I have written here. Remember you are loved, even if we are an ocean away. And that I will see you soon, if only in my dreams._

_Your Mama_

Mary rips into Lavinia's letter. She cannot help it. She is not like her mother. She does, quite hopelessly, want and need more information. It makes no sense–Matthew divorcing Lavinia. And what state is Matthew in? Has he stopped drinking? She thinks that is impossible at this point. And his reasons for divorcing Lavinia? Mary cannot imagine it. She cannot imagine the story, their story...because isn't it in some ways, though she hates to admit it and never would to Mackenzie, _their _story–Lavinia, Matthew, and Mary–the three's story.

_Dear Mary,_

_Please accept my well wishes for your wedding, honeymoon, and marriage. You will notice that I use the word "my," instead of the word "ours." I can imagine that you have heard the news from your family. And I suppose it is very strange that I am writing to you–me, a soon to be divorcee, once a Crawley but no longer._

_Please do not think I write these words with levity. I do not. I never wanted this. I never hoped for this. I never planned for this. I am writing you this letter because if anyone deserves the truth, it is you. For so long, you went without what you deserved. At least, I can give you this. Of all the things I have taken (without malice, I beg of you to understand), I can give you this._

_He loves you. He will always love you. And once upon a time, you loved him and I am sure you thought you would always love him. Maybe you will. But he married me. Your bravery and courage to choose another life has always been something I admired. You could have wallowed in it. No one would have blamed you, not even me. You could have tried to take him from me, which would not have been very hard at all, I think now. But you chose something different. _

_Do you remember telling the group of us: "Aren't all of us stuck with the choices we make?"_

_You probably don't. But it has always stayed with me. You made your choice and you went head on into a storm and made it through. I am not one for lyrical language but I do so admire your courage. _

_He loves you. He will always love you. But your married Mackenzie. And he does not have your bravery, your courage, your fortitude. I write these words without the bitterness I once would have felt because it seems that is beyond him now–the need for numbness, the need for oblivion. It is beyond all of us, really. _

_So I made a choice. Matthew is divorcing me. It is the easiest way. I am going abroad. Paris, first, I think. I am only taking what my father left me but it is plenty. I don't know if I will ever come back to England. I don't know if I will ever see you again. So I suppose this letter doesn't just serve as giving you the truth, but also a goodbye._

_Once we were friends and rivals at the same time. We never acknowledged it but we both knew it, perhaps you more than I. And then he chose me. How hard it must have been to realize he himself was stuck with the choice he made (that is, me)? And then somewhere along the way you became a woman I wanted to be like, and not because he loved you best, but because you were willing to start over. Even as you bled with the pain of it, you left with dignity and bravery, that same dignity and bravery that I muster now. God Bless you, Mary. I never thought I could fill your shoes and I never will because I am not you. But. (Please excuse my sentimentality here because I am sure you have not thought about me as I have thought about you while living your life in America). But you have become a touchstone to me, a hope...that there is, that there can be...more. _

_Most Sincerely,_

_Lavinia_

Mary is not stupid. She can easily read between the lines of Lavinia's letter. Lavinia never said his name, the very name Mary fought so long to forget and now Lavinia is erasing it too. She sits very still with the papers in front of her. She is startled when she feels Mack's hands on her shoulders. He kisses her hair. "I didn't mean to scare you," he tells her.

She stands and turns in his arms, clutching him in a hard embrace. "You didn't. You didn't. You don't."

"What's this?" he asks her, pulling back a little to look at her face. She is very pale but her eyes are dry. "What's happened?"

"I–I don't have the words to...I..." She rubs her brow. She feels sick to her stomach. "Here," she hands Mack her mother's letter and in the same turn, as he reads, she shuffles Lavinia's letter into a drawer of her vanity.

* * *

_A/N: I am dying to know what you think. I am trying to balance all these character's many, many mixed emotions and allegiances and I hope I am doing them justice. Please let me know. Can you read between the lines, like Mary must? I hope so. Otherwise, I am failing. _


	20. Chapter 20

_A/N: So we begin Part IV. Some time has passed. And if this chapter seems a bit all over the place that is on purpose too. When it comes to Matthew puzzling out his drinking, there is no straightforward way about it. Thanks to **La La Kate** for great writing talks and support through this chapter and life in general. _

* * *

Chapter Twenty

This is Matthew's life now.

He wakes in the middle of the bed, on his back, all spread out, feet flung from beneath the covers, as if he is an overgrown child or as if he is trying to fill the whole space of the bed by himself. He opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling. He wipes the sleep out of his eyes. He feels everything–the sheets on his back, where his pajama top rode up during the night; dryness on the pads of his fingertips; cold air on his toes. Even these little things hurt, as if someone is blowing a dog whistle constantly and Matthew is the only one who can hear it. It pierces his ears yet his hands are bound by a thick and nasty rope; he cannot reach up and press his palms to the side of his head. There is a constant ache in the back of his neck. This is shame.

When he thinks of Lavinia, his stomach heaves as if he could vomit. When he thinks of Mary, his eyes water as if he is chopping a whole, raw onion. When he thinks of his mother, he closes his eyes so tightly, he loses his balance. When he thinks of Robert, he picks at his fingernails until they bleed, just because he can. This is guilt.

He would not like to think of the people he failed (and this is, of course, is the shortlist; it does not even include the Dowager Countess and the number of times he split wine on to her frocks) but he cannot help _but_ think of them. There is no numbness now, the one thing he sought for months and months and months. He feels _everything _so even the air upon his skin hurts, as if he is made up on millions of paper cuts.

This is Matthew's life now.

He sits up. He puts his feet on the floor. He stays like that for a few moments, head hung low between his shoulders, before he rises. The worst part is always soon after. He must look at his own face with his own eyes in the mirror. He hates the mirror.

The first time he looked, really looked–the day he found his stalwart mother crying in her room–he did not recognize himself, the sallow skin, yellowed, the reddened eyes, his jowls swollen. Who are you, he wondered at himself, until he grew so dizzy he vomited into his own hands, held out, a benefaction to his shadow self.

He didn't knock on his mother's door that day because the only ever time he heard his mother cry was the day the relatives all left, after his father died. He touched her shoulder. "Mother," he said gently. Before dinner, his breath already reeked of what he drank. "I am so very sorry about all this. Lavinia...leaving. The divorce. But you must see I never wanted–"

"Oh!" she pushed his hand off of her shoulder and stood up to look at him with eyes brimming with angry tears. "You think I give a fig about the scandal of a divorce when I have _this _to watch?"

"What are you watching?" he asked, so confused by the intensity of her reaction. "I don't–"

"You!" she sobbed. He never saw her like that in all his life, wretched, beyond distraught. He thought she might pull her hair from her own head. "I'm watching you kill yourself! Every single day. Can you possibly know what it is like to watch the person you love most in the whole world kill himself slowly, no matter how many lectures, no matter his wife leaving him when that–" She struggled for words. "...Do you even know what it means that she left you? It means that she will be a social pariah for the rest of her life. It means people think of her as an adulterer. All of those things were preferable to her than being your wife." She let out another sob, weeping, weeping, weeping. He did not know his mother's face could look like that. Even when she cried after his father died, they were slow tears, burning trails down her cheeks, completely quiet, under her sole ownership. But he owned a stake in these tears, on this night. "But even that. I don't...I can't care because _you _are _my child. _And you are killing yourself. And there is nothing Lavinia or Robert or I can do."

"I'm sorry," he whispered and did not realize he cried too.

"You stop that immediately, acting as if it isn't in your control! I've known people addicted to drink. It's that, an addiction, and I know you, Matthew Crawley, and that's not what your drinking is. And don't look at me like that! No, not even your precious Mary could fix this." She covered her face with her hands, her shoulders shaking. "You lie and tell yourself that if only you and Mary could be together then you wouldn't be in pain. But that's not true, Matthew! Damn you. She made the only choice she could, the only choice you gave her. And what about her, Matthew? If you can't think of me, then think of her? What will Mary feel when you drink yourself to death?"

"Nothing," he replied morosely. "Nothing."

His mother grabbed onto his jacket and tried to shake him. "Matthew! You know that isn't true. I can't talk sense into you. Because no matter what I say, the lies the drink tell you are stronger." She let go, wiping her eyes. Her voice was as abrupt as a knife to his skin. "Now leave my room."

He drank his last drink that night.

Not because of the divorce. Not even for Mary. Or his mother. But because for a moment, in her rage and tears, he saw himself in her eyes–the first true reflection of himself–and he saw that his mother was right: the man he saw _was _killing himself. Slowly. Torturously. By degrees. Out of sadness or boredom or because he simply could.

Matthew doesn't want to die. In the trenches, that single thought kept him awake at night. He held dying men in his arms and he told them, "You are going to be fine." He lied. He lied for them as often as he could. "Tell my mother I loved her, tell her I didn't cry," one boy said, his cheeks bloodied but smooth, without even hair to shave. He did not even need a razor yet. So Matthew lied: "You can tell her yourself when you see her. You're going to make it, man." But he wasn't a man; he was a boy, too smart and too young to die, his last words: "You are a bad liar, Crawley."

_You are a bad liar, Crawley. _

He own memories are merciless, his brain searching for a pattern somewhere.

"I mean it, Matthew," Lavinia said, after she caught the show that flopped dancing, kissing. "Don't ever let me be a nuisance."

And after too, while she was still recovering: she asked him, "Do you love me? Do you want to marry me? _Still_?"

"It may sound strange," he replied then, not even truly aware of the words he spoke, "And thank God, you are better. But this episode has convinced me..." He drew in a breath. "...that I must marry you more than ever. I could never lose you. I cannot imagine losing you and going on without you...a hole would open up inside of me...I don't know what kind of man I would be if I lost you."

Somewhere else in the midst of her recovery, her hand fluttered to his. "Edith came by. She said," Lavinia swallowed. "She said many of the men, after the war, have nightmares. Do you? Do you have nightmares?"

"No, darling." He smiled at her.

_You are a bad liar, Crawley._

Matthew's nightmares began long before he left for the front. _"Would you have stayed? If I accepted you?" Mary's voice, over and over, tears catching in her throat, as lovely as the strand of pearls around it. _

That's when the doubts started, the nightmares of what if. What if he asked her why she cried? If she didn't care? What if he asked her why she seemed so certain she wanted to marry him and yet unable to give him the word he wanted most of all: yes?

If he is honest with himself, yes, if he is truly honest, it might have started then. Actually, enjoying drinks at dinner instead of just for show, asking for nightcap just because he needed Mary erased from his memory desperately. And then there was the war, nerves frayed, holding young boys who didn't know how to hold a razor: "You're a bad liar, Crawley."

On his honeymoon with Lavinia, they drank bottles of wine because they were in Italy and married and happy and alive. God, yes, they were alive after she almost died and he almost never walked again. So he poured more into her glass as she giggled and told her they were celebrating. It wasn't a lie because they were. Only he needed the wine for the ache in his back and he needed the wine so he didn't wake in the middle of the night scaring his new wife with his tears and his ghosts.

So it's all a blur, you see.

He can still remember sitting and receiving Robert's letter, announcing to his mother, "He wants to change our lives." How young he was, impossibly so. He did not yet know how completely off course one could go.

_I wouldn't want to push in. _

So he learned that it is not only a letter that change the course of one's life, but a beautiful face with a raised eyebrow and too much gumption.

_You are a bad liar, Crawley. _

It isn't Robert's fault anymore than it is Patrick's fault for buying a ticket for the Titanic. It isn't even Mary's fault.

He stops drinking the night he finds his mother crying. But he doesn't stop looking for a cause or a reason or the start of it all until weeks, months later, his throat still dry. Everything plays on a loop in his own brain, one thing leading to the other until he realizes it's no use. He will go mad trying to find a reason and often does, in the middle of the night: _it started with the pain in his back, and then the nightmares he wanted to subdue. Then, on his honeymoon, he numbed his mouth from calling out Mary's name. And when he came back, only to realize she was gone. Only to realize later, how really gone she was, in love with another man. Yet, he and Lavinia–_

So, you see, it really could drive him mad if he allowed it to–his own mind, his own need for answers. So he lets it go. He lets it go and when his father comes to him now in dreams at night, at first, just as before, there are no words shared between them. But then, one night, months after his last drink, he wakes up, feeling his father's hand on his shoulder and he knows, somehow, it will all be all right again.

It will never be what he once wished. It will never be what he once dreamed. But it will be all right: this he learns from his father in the dreams without recriminations. There is hope for something else, something never imagined.

His friends, the men at work, look at him differently. Behind his back they may say things like: _cuckold by a woman, I say, man! _But to his face they are all docile smiles because though things might not be so rosy in their own gardens a divorce: _good god, salt! _(even now he cannot rid Mary completely from his head or his heart; he can only accept that she is there with their shared memories and jokes, even if he the only one truly there to laugh). He is made different by the divorce, in their eyes.

But Robert puts his arm around Matthew again, recognizing him again, calls him, "My dear chap" again. His mother forgives him without words or tears. Even Violet appears to thrum up some respect for him, someway, somehow.

And each day, he wakes up in the center of his bed, limbs all flung out, alone, beginning again.

It is Violet who tells him, which shouldn't make much sense except that Robert can be a coward too. Tonight he would not meet Matthew's eyes. So Violet asks if Matthew will walk her to the door, she leans on him a bit more heavily than usual, as if she needs him, gripping his forearm. "You know," she says at last, "you know Mary will come for Edith's wedding."

"I know," Matthew tells her.

"We are all...things have not gone the way we could have predicted, Cousin Matthew," Violet continues as they wait for her car. "But you've righted them, haven't you?"

He allows her a small smile. "Well, I haven't spilled anything on you in sometime."

"Yes," she allows him a smile in return. "Quite some time, now that you mention it. Only, now that Mary is coming–"

"Excuse me," Matthew whispers and clenches his jaw, not out of anger but because he must get these words out. "Cousin Mary is married to Mackenzie, something I have long come to terms over in the recent year and I..."

_Oh, Matthew. What am I always telling you? You must pay no attention to the things I say. _Even a year later, her tears and her braid come back to him, specters in his memory while he stinks of drink.

"To be honest, Cousin Violet, I love her and I think I always shall. But we won't ever be together, will we? I've made sure of that. And now the only thing to be done is make sure that she is happy and if Mack is the one to make her so...then. Even if he wasn't the one to make her so...I know for certain I never can."

"Oh, my dear," Violet whispers wretchedly in the dark without recrimination. Her hand slips from his wrist, to his hand, where she squeezes. He can practically feel her bones through the thinness of her skin and the lace of her glove. He is suddenly aware that someday she will die; they will wear black for her and lament the loss of her but who will capture the essence that is Violet? Who will say just the right thing at the right moment? He thinks of his father, the last three years of his own life, and he knows that nothing lasts forever. Nothing good or bad lasts forever, not people, things, or memories, not even love.

What can be said in such a fragile, hushed moment? Only something irreverent, as Violet herself would say. "And don't worry about your frocks. I'll only spill if someone trips me."

"My good man," Violet whispers so quietly, Matthew thinks he may have imagined it.

* * *

This is Matthew's life now.

He wakes in the middle of the bed, on his back, all spread out, feet flung from beneath the covers, as if he is an overgrown child or as if he is trying to fill the whole space of the bed by himself. He opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling. He wipes the sleep out of his eyes. He feels everything–the sheets on his back, where his pajama top rode up during the night; dryness on the pads of his fingertips; cold air on his toes.

When he sees her (after work, dressing, the walk to Downton), he makes sure that his eyes go first to Mack's face. Though this is very hard, it is the first test. He shakes the man's hand and this is hard too, though not impossible. "Welcome back to Downton," he tells Mary's husband. He allows his eyes to glance towards her, allows himself a single nod. His voice is warm (but not too warm), welcoming (but not too welcoming), when he says, "Cousin Mary." His chin dips at the end of her name.

"Cousin Matthew," she replies. He does not analyze her voice for secret messages to be decoded later. "How very fine you look." She pauses. He does not think of what such a pause could mean except that it is an absence of sound. "You have survived Edith's wedding preparations admirably well."

He smiles, averting his eyes to somewhere the left of her face.

They do not touch. He never really sees her.

This is Matthew's life now.

* * *

_A/N: Just a warning in general...some rough tide ahead. I appreciate you all and all the support you've given me and the story. I know this chapter is fuzzy...The less fuzzy I made it, the less realistic it seemed. Anyway, I don't have much else to say today...Rough tides in the story and in real life._


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Downton Abbey, Angst, Romance