Tampered Beauty

"Would you like me to sing you another song, my love?" Mary whispered into the wall she had her back to and had been singing to for the past few hours. Her voice had been choked with tears, but even in this state of illness and unease, Francis had been gallant enough to not point it out. They were in different rooms, now. Mary was hidden away by a thickened wall, in a small closet conjoined to the royal bedchambers. Her husband, King and Emperor sat behind the other side of the same wall, sickened and dying.

"I-" he began, after long moments of silence, each one slowly tearing at Mary's heart. It had been days now, almost a week, since he had became stricken with plague. It was more or less past now. Court was slowly emerging from her bedchambers to wearily explore the awakening hallways, a horrid silence like a plague of it's own around the royal court of France. "I need to ask you something."

Mary's lower lip trembled and she nodded, trailing her fingertips down the wall where she she sat with her side propped up against, swearing she could feel the heat from his own body through the three and a half feet thick walls. She sniffled, wiping her cheeks as her head lay upon the wall, begging him to allow her to hear his voice once more.

"W-was I a good husband?" he seemed so unsure and afraid at that point. Mary's heart broke even more and she placed a hand upon her growing bump where his unborn children grew inside her womb. The two babies who will probably never know their father, just like she never knew her own. 

His voice broke her revere. 

"Everything I did to you, all the bad things. Am I a good husband? Or was," he breathed. Mary sniffled.

"A good husband?" she repeated, not knowing why he was so unsure about it. Sure, the first few years were tumultuous, but he had proved his worth tenfold ever since their second son and child's birth. She loved him. She loved him so much. And she was going to loose him. "My darling, you were the best husband I could have ever asked for." Mary promised him, leaning her head upon the cold wall. "I love you so much, I always will. You made me so happy, you gave me the best years of my life. You gave me our children and I will be forever grateful." she sniffled. "Don't leave me."

She heard his thick swallow and her heart ached more. They didn't have much time left. "I-I wish-"

"Please," she begged. "You must save your strength."

"No, Mary. We don't have much time left," she felt the warmth move, and felt her hand raise to follow it. "I don't want anything to be left unspoken between us." she shook her head, choking on yet another cry.

"I can't do this without you," she prophesied. "I can't rule without you, I can't raise the children without you. I can't live without you. Please, don't-"

This time, it was he who interrupted her.

"Yes, you can." he insisted. "You are so strong, Mary. So strong." he breathed. "You did it once before, now do it again."

"It wasn't real that time," she moaned. "You were in Italy, alive and breathing. But now you won't be." she sniffled, despising to acknowledge his mortality.

"I won't be in the land of the living, but I'll always be with you." he promised. Mary gulped. "In our empire, our children." he took a shuddering breath, seeming to be in tears as well. "I'll always be with you." he promised.

Mary could hear the heave in his breath and her heart ached to hear it. "I love you." she whispered.

"I love you, too."

Mary looked up as the door opened and there stood Baron Sebastian de Portiers, depressed by grief yet standing through strength. He silently held out his hand to her.