Don't Let Me Down

Part 1

"You are going to a village which has likely been exposed to plague. If you bring back people who may have been infected with it..." she had begged him.

""People"? " he had sounded flabbergasted and outraged."Your friend. My child, perhaps my only child." he insulted her greatest insecurity without mercy. He knew how desperate she was for a child, and yet he insults her baroness as if it a common disease.

She had chilled her voice, putting all her feelings aside. "You're not just risking your life, but everyone in this castle. If you leave, and you return with anybody who is ill..." she had begged him to not risk his life. His countries future, her countries' future, the future of a third whom watched them with bated breath. Her future, their future. 

His voice had softened whereas hers had hardened. Perhaps he knew he had said wrong with the next phrase as he forced her watch her own abandonment."Mary, you said you felt yourself growing harder. Don't let it happen. Listen to your heart, and you will hear it as clearly as I do." 

"You are the king of France! You no longer have the privilege of obeying your heart!" she had tried to earnestly to stop him, but it was no use. He was going to run into death. She was going to loose him to not only her, but to death. She would never see him again. Without a thought for her or her safety, of not just the plague, but from the people within the castle. They had come before her. She knew his priority and her place upon his list. She would always know.

"That's not the kind of king that I want to be." and then she was alone. Forevermore. Alone.

The Queen of Scotland and France watched from her chambers as the King returned, to the delight of his people. He got off his horse and embraced his mother, who clung to him so earnestly that she was afraid he'd leave her once again. She watched him guide Lola towards his mother, as if introducing her once more. The Lady curtseyed as much as she could, but she was holding a bundle in her arms. Her child. His child. Their child. A family unit that would never include her.

The Queen's breath was taken from her as she watched his arm find a place upon her shoulders protectively. She inhaled sharply, albeit shakily. Her chin rose. She fought back the urge to rush downstairs and greet him in her own right, the need for his arms that made every problem not so bad. She fought back the pain of the girl and refused to feel the longing for him. He had made his choice. He had abandoned her for weeks. She had thought he had been lost to her forever, no longer in the land in which the living walked upon, instead in a strange, foreign land that she would have to wait a lifetime to see him again.

And yet. here he is. All gallant, ignorant and reckless and weak and sentimental, celebrating with his court that he had managed to evade the plague in which he ran himself into to save two beings which would permanently worm themselves into her marriage. Making it rot and weaken, withering away until there was nothing left to salvage. Why would he do that to a union he had worked so hard to attain in the first place? Did she know him at all?

A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. She stamped her heel down onto the floor, making the door open.

She could see the reflection of a guard on the glass pane of the window.

"Your Majesty," he bowed low. Mary's chin rose, indicating him speak. "The King has returned, he wishes to see you in the courtyard." the guard finished, awaiting his true King's response.

"You may tell the King that I do not respond to the demands of a man so foolish and sentimental that he could  would put my life and my country in danger for the sake of a bastard and a harlot." she hissed. She heard the guard gulp audibly, but he nodded and bowed low, exiting the room. The door clicked back into place and Mary let out a breath, awaiting the guards' form in the courtyard. When had the King sent summons? And why would he think she would obey? Why would a man so foolish that he would run into plague, risk the life of a trifecta of countries and their stability in their individual realms, think that the woman who had ruled in his stead, kept the dying relm of France afloat and protected from any threat from Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany for weeks whilst he gallivanted with his sinful family, would bend the knee? 

She watched the man appear in the courtyard and walk right up to the blonde King who conversed with his bastard half brother, his harlot and bastard nowhere to be seen. He spoke her words and watched Francis' expression change tenfold.

He looked up at her, perhaps feeling the ice of her gaze upon his skin. Mary swallowed back the feeling as his gaze locked upon hers. She watched it change, perhaps setting the nails in the coffin of her marriage, and willed herself not to let her own gaze waver or wilt underneath the intensity of his own.

Betrayal flowed through her. He had insulted her desperation for a child of her own. He had abandoned her when she needed him the most. His arms had been around Lola and their bastard when his wife had craved them after the nightmare she had been living inside for weeks upon weeks. How could she forgive? How could she forget?

His foot extended out towards her, for the first time wanting her above any of the others. Without choice, forcing the feelings to become the null of the air, constraining herself to feel no feelings at all, Mary stepped backwards.

~~

That was so therapeutic to write! I actually really like how this turned out, which is really surprising. How did you all like it there in Wattpad land? Comments please!

Anywhoo, this is based in 2x02, if you can't figure it out. This is kinda a fix-it piece since I really really hate how Mary let Francis get away with not only insulting her childlessness -he would have undoubtedly been aware of her sadness and desperation of wanting a child, a son, yet he says that when Mary does what he wants and tells the truth and goes for the jugular? What the hell?- but for abandoning her when she needed him the most. It's brought up like twice in ten episodes with no lingering resentment? How does that make sense? I love Francis in reign, but nobody ever admits when he messes up or acts stupidly sentimental. I can admit that he wasn't perfect and made just as many mistakes as any of the others in the show. He's not some angel, but I do love him in the show. 

If Francis died in the plague, then the support that Mary had only just attained for Scotland would have gone down the drain, and her country could've been taken over by England. The hopes for an heir for not only France, Scotland and England would have been pushed back for years, making all three countries weaker in the worlds' eyes. And France would have been weakened by the plague, it was because of Mary that they weren't taken over in their own right by their enemies. Charles was never going to be a good King off the bat because of his age, and Catherine just wouldn't have had the support to become regent. Francis' choice and death would have been the catalyst for the fall of the Valois family and civil war with a protestant King upon a mainly Catholic country, how is that okay?! He puts not only his own, his wife's and his countries' futures at risk all for a child that his mother didn't even want to have, and kept her pregnancy a secret from in the first place? How is that okay?

And in case you missed it, Francis wanted to take John and Lola back to the castle even if they were sick, which would probably cause Mary's death! Way to go, Francis! That's being a good husband! In the small chance that they survived if ill, then they'd be in for a life of ridicule and unhappiness anyway! I love Francis, but in this circumstance, he was so selfish and sentimental.

Rant over, guys! I just have a love hate relationship with this story line. I hate it more than any other in the entire show (it was so counter productive history wise and made no sense all for a bit of drama that turned so many on Lola and a side character they remembered they hadn't gotten rid of yet), literally I'd take Monde over that, and I feel pretty strongly about Monde in the first place. But I love writing about it for some reason.

Anywhoo, I'm gonna try and get a few more onshots up today, so keep your eyes pealed!

Love you all!

C

:)