The One Winged Raven

Part 6

"How are you and Francis doing?" Kenna asks Mary, slowly walking towards her friend, passing her a mug of hot tea. She feels awkward, she feels awful. It's been two months since Kenna talked to Sebastian about what had happened to Mary and the baby, and the two haven't seen each other since. Francis and Catherine thought it best to take a trip away when the investigation hit a snag, so the Valois' took a trip to Catherine's families' Italian estate. They've just came back last week, so while Francis and Catherine -and a lesser extent, Henry- took on the new details of Mary's inquiry against her rapists, Kenna had came over to try and smooth the tension between she and her distant cousin.

"Better." she says, taking the white mug from her friend. Unable to not to, Mary's eyes catch on Kenna's bump. She's showing show, what is she, three months gone? A little more? She stares at it quickly, her shirt is loose and the leggings she wears do nothing to cover where the little child lays inside its mother's womb. With her own pregnancies, she had never gotten that far to even start showing. Mary had lost them both before the first trimester ended, she'd never had the luxury of a bump, even just a little one. That thought burned, but she quickly looks at Kenna to cover it up. "The trip was a good thing. I-I even made it a couple nights with him sleeping next to me." Mary reveals. "It didn't go well the first time we tried it. I had a nightmare and ran to the other side of the room, but he comforted me and we managed to spend the rest of the night in bed together. Obviously no-nothing else happened like that," she clears her throat, sipping the hot green tea. "but even just sleeping next to each other is something, right?"

"It is." Kenna breathes. "Look, Mary, I wanted to apologise for what happened. You know, with the baby." Sebastian's future wife glanced at her stomach. "I wasn't very sympathetic, and I know how much you want a baby, I just-"

"No, no." Mary says. "It's okay, I mean, just because I can't have kids, doesn't mean that you're not allowed to. I'm sorry, too. I was upset and my head was everywhere at that time. With-with the rape and the break in, I was jealous and-" Mary trails off. "I want a baby so much, but I've already lost two. I'm still not ready to be with him like that," she says awkwardly. "so we have to wait, I guess. But we're women, we have a clock. Every day I have to wait makes it less likely that I'll ever get to that point, every day we wait makes it less likely that I'll ever get that, you know? I'm already less likely to have one anyway, but seeing you so easily getting what I've always wanted, I was angry and jealous and I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to make it out to be your fault. I just wanted-"

"No, no. I get it, Mary, I do. For the longest time, I felt like I betrayed you by missing that pill, and with everything you're going through, I was making it about me. Like-like you were going through so much fucked up shit and there was me and Bash, getting married and having a baby, I just-"

"Let's stop this, yeah?" Mary whispers. "We're getting nowhere by blaming ourselves and trying to apologise for it. Let's just forget about it, hmm?"

"Okay." Kenna whispers. "Mary, you do know that you'll get pregnant one day, too, right? You'll see that positive sign on that pregnancy stick again?" she asks, cocking her head to the side as Mary reacts unfavourably to that.

Mary chuckled humourlessly. "If there's one thing I hate in the world, it's the notion of maybe, one day, someday." she says. "In all honesty, I don't know that, Kenna. It's not even about the rape and trauma and being with Francis again. I've lost two kids already, I'm at a lower percentage of getting pregnant full stop. And on the off change I do, the chances of miscarriage is high."

"How high?" she whispers.

Mary shrugs. "Twenty, thirty percent?"

"Mary! That's not that high at all! You're at seventy or eighty percent of getting and staying pregnant, that's good odds." she says, putting her mug on the coffee table and looking at her friend in the eye.