You Are My Light Part II

317 - Impending Loss

A/N - Before we get started, this one is a little more rated R than my usual forte. I'm trying to make it as Wattpad friendly as possible, since my usual frary smut lives on Fanfiction.net, rather than here. But it would be weird if I didn't write anything alluding to it, considering what's actually happening in the scene. So, here ya go, mild smut and sad/hopeful Frary warning :)

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Francis has to convince her to do it, nowadays. Beforehand, after their marriage, the pair could hardly know their hands away from each other's buttons and ribbons, and it had been a miracle that the two of them had not broken any of their temporary beds on their two month sabbatical from French Court. But that was barely two years ago, and it feels like so much time has passed considering the state of her husband now compared to his glory and grandeur on that winters day.

Mary, please He begged her, feverish hands clammy with sweat as they run over her ribbon strings. We have to, you have to. We need to take every attempt to protect you and Scotland when I'm gone.

Mary cannot deny him anything these days, not when he looks so sick and pale and sweaty, yet he implores her to use his body to protect her, even as his showings at Court in the day grow shorter and shorter. He rules France from his sickbed, his frustration at his body's weakness evident by the way his hands shake when he cannot make out an legible letter to the Duke de Bercloux regarding his regimental army.

Mary tries her best to smile for him, even though her tears begin to roll down her cheeks as she pushes off the bed and walks over to her dressing table for the tub of almond oil Catherine had gifted them in those precious few days wherein the first child of the King and Queen rested. But that was so long ago that this pot of oil has long since served a new purpose.

This isn't like on their honeymoon tour, when the two of them could not keep their hands off of each other, nor when he returned from Callais or in his two week self banishment from court the morning after Henry died. No, although Mary adores her husband, her heart breaks to see him  like this, and she cannot desire him for fear of hurting him. He's so weak that he can only stomach courtly life for a few hours every day, before he can no longer stand or listen to the nobles pester and scheme.

Mary tries her best to stand in as regent, she and Catherine share the responsibility whenever Francis retires with his physicians. Whenever the former consort of France holds court, or whenever court sleeps and her King cannot, the Queen of France and Scots tries her best to grant her husbands' wish.

She pours a handful of the oil onto her hand, eventually climbing up into his lap, trying to ignore how hot his feverish skin is, nor how he gasps when they finally join as husband and wife. Her core aches from her impending loss, and from how much she must clench her thighs and midsection so she does not put weight onto his weakened body.

She will rock her hips until he has reached his body's limits, and he will beg her to stay atop him so he may touch her hands and arms and hair in the ways he cannot when his body screams for rest. His illness has never cooled his longing and his lust for his firey Scottish wife, but his body has limits that weaken everyday, and it's a new kind of torture to not be able to please his wife in all the ways he could just weeks ago. Not only does his sickness pain him, not only his grief about his life ebbing before his eyes, but it hurts him so much to be denied this simple pleasure after so much unrest.

Later, when he has given all he has, he lays his head on Mary's abdomen, watching the tracks of sweat and tears slide down her stomach, his hand resting on the curve that all women have as she strokes his hair, silencing her own tears with her other hand.

You're going to be a beautiful mother, Mary. He whispers. I'll do my best to get you there, I'm just sorry I won't see you with our child.

It's different with Jean-Philippe, they all know it. He is the personification of the worst decision that Lola and Francis ever made, and as he toddles around French court, the awkwardness of who his parents are still stings, even almost two years after his conception. The unspoken words in the looks of Sebastian, Catherine, Claude and Greer as they glance at each other in the rare days wherein they all gather together in the nursery to give the child the proper family Sebastian never had. As they all pretend that Francis did not father a child with his wife's lady in waiting, and said lady in waiting now brought his blackmailer and the cause of his wife's horrific trauma into their lives in such a prominent way. And that his own mother had not been carnal with that man in the first place.

Jean may be loved by his mother and father, but he is not the son of the Queen of Scots. He is not Mary's son, and Godson is hardly a strong foundation of fealty, when betrayal and pain flows through his veins with his bastardy blood.

They've carried on this routine for weeks, when Mary finally begins to show signs of imminent life. Queasy, her breasts tender whenever her husband finds a bout of strength to run his fingers over the skin he has exposed a thousand times. Her monthly blood stops, and her breakfasts make their way into the world once again, and Francis cries tears of joy and presses kisses to her stomach when the physician tells them that the Queen is again with child.

Catherine throws a party big enough to cover the gossip of the King's declining health, and Sebastian does not say anything when he steadies his brother when the younger of the two nearly keels over at luncheon. It's a private affair between the royal family, to inform them of the Queen's long overdue conception, so they may keep the secret for a few more weeks.

I was right, Francis whispers to her one night, his skin pale from fever and sickness after spending almost an hour heaving into a bucket. They're still lucky enough that the court simply thinks it is the child in the Queen's womb that sickens her, not the fever and blood that plagues their King. You will certainly be the most beautiful mother, and it's a comfort that I managed to get you there. I only wish I could see our child, but I fear I will not.

Francis, you will.

Mary, my strength leaves me more by the day, we must make the announcement. So I may claim the child inside you, and protect you one last time. Please, make sure he knows his father loved him. That to be a family with you was the one thing I ever really wanted.

And upon that night, with her King weeping into her growing abdomen, clutching the space where he may feel his child kick, the Queen of Scots knows that this cannot be the end. She won't allow it to be.

Court celebrates with gusto at the news of an imperial heir that only strengthens France's claim to England. They drink and dance, while Baron de Portiers is sent out by his Queen to find the pagan girl that the pagans whisper can control life and death. A demi god with the power to change the world.

There's no guarantee she can help him.

And even if she can, there may be a price.

What do you mean "a price"?

The price of someone else's life.

You can't be sure.

And even if there is, he's your brother.

Your husband.

The king of France.

And what's the cost of a king's life, Charles?

Your life?

Yours?

If the price is my life for his, I will give it.

Bring him back.

Are you certain?

Yes, I am! Do it now, do it!

Please, hurry!

A King gasps, his heart beating hard and steady in his chest.

And a Queen gasps, three hundred miles north, her heart still in her chest, red hair flowing across the floor as the world changes again.