A/N: I needed to write this because honestly, I am really starting to get bored of Reign. Naturally as a Mash shipper I am missing their moments, but it's not just that: in the last episode everyone seemed like zombies. I was waiting for Mary and Lola to fight about the baby and for their to have been more of an impact. But it seemed like Mary was perfectly fine with Lola and Francis' child which seems so unrealistic. All the good things about Reign in S1 seem to have disappeared and unless the love triangle returns I am seriously considering whether to continue watching the show. Even if I shipped Francis and Mary, they are together so it doesn't feel like there is a couple to root for.

Anyway, since there is a serious lack of Mash fics recently (or even any type of fics at all, which is another indication about how other people feel about Reign) I decided to write this. If I'm honest I am not completely happy with how it turned out but my Mash feelings are going mad, so I had to write SOMETHING. Hope you like it!

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Reign or any of the characters

Sacrifice

When his heart breaks it is after he is married, because that's how things usually work. They are fighting about everything as usual: one little pet-peeve about the other's forms of ruling, and suddenly they are at each other's throats.

Before, when he was still only a prince, their fights had been just as bloody, but they had been mended. Sometimes easily, sometimes with difficulty, but they would always come back to each other. Now though, with him a king and therefore the same level as Mary, they struggle. Their fights pushed them apart but, instead of making up they distance themselves from one another. The next time he sees Mary is when they are in the throne room and she sits stiffly, regally, angrily.

Please, he wants to say, let's not become my parents. Let's not be in a marriage where we don't have a kind thing to say to each other. But his pride beats him, because, after all, he is King, and it should be her that makes the first move.

When he was a prince he would have settled the argument himself; but he is King, and things are different.

The fight that breaks his heart started out about children. Or rather, the lack of children he and Mary have. The longer it takes to give him a child – even a girl would be welcomed at this point – the more Mary's position at court weakens. She knows this. He knows this. And even though they would both have denied it, it changes their behaviour to one another.

"You have to give me a son-"

"Oh thank you! I had no idea that I needed to give France – and Scotland, I might add, because you wouldn't – an heir. It's not like the servants keep coming up to me every five minutes to tell me what worked for them or their daughter or their cousin or their mother's sister's niece-"

"I don't mean it like that! You know I don't-"

"No I don't know! I'm finding, Francis, that there are quite a number of things that you haven't told me. For example, I had to find out from Lola that she was pregnant with your child-"

"It was an accident-"

"Oh please, explain to me how sleeping with one of my ladies was an accident-"

"Sort of like how you and Bash almost walked down the aisle-"

"I did that to save your life!"

"You based it on a vision that turned out to be wrong!"

"Well, I came to my senses, didn't I?"

But when Mary says this her eyes are firm and the corners of her mouth are turned down. It should be said lovingly by a wife, not with anger and perhaps, is it his imagination or, with a hint of bitterness?

"You made the right choice," Francis says, almost to himself more than Mary. But as soon as the words are out of his mouth he realises how he sounds: so smug and conceited, like the pompous man people claim he is.

She turns away, and this is what scares him. No quick-witted reply, no sharp look – she looks away as if she can't bear for him to see her face.

"Bash would have made a terrible king." He watches as Mary seems to fold in on herself. "Can you imagine? King Sebastian? King Bash?" For some reason he is desperate for her to laugh, he needs to end the argument because he doesn't like the look on her face, the way she has suddenly closed off from him.

"You're right," she finally says. "He would have been an awful king."

There is something in her words, something that she is not saying. "You would have been having to do everything," says Francis. He moves closer to her as he says this, his hands behind his back, acting like this is a normal conversation. "Bash would have been useless at being king. He said himself that he doesn't know how I put up with the nobles." He lets out a forced laugh. "I bet he would have stormed out and started another war. You would have been driven mad."

Finally his wife looks at him. "Bash would have been a mess," she says. Her voice is low but strong. "He would have had half the noblemen is arms against him, and gotten sick of the pretences and the lies. But he would never have driven me mad." She pauses, her fingers clutching her gown like a drowning woman clutching at string, and whispers delicately, "He would have made me happy."

And there it is: the cause of all their arguments, the reason their bickering has gotten worse; the reason he cannot seem settle this feeling in his stomach, the reason he cannot seem to settle her.

"Do you love me?"

She turns her head instantly, her face shocked but not her eyes. "Of course."

"Is that why you picked me?" She nods but there is something she isn't saying. "The truth, Mary. You owe me that much."

She should have flared up at that, should have snapped that, if anything, he owed her. But her eyes were calm when she said, "I chose you because I loved you. I didn't choose him because if he had become king he would have changed. Bash is so honest and fair and…" She closes her eyes, pressing her hands to her mouth. After a deep breath she starts speaking again. "You can't be honest and fair when you rule a country. I knew that he would have to change if he became king and – I couldn't let that happen."

"You didn't choose him because you loved him," Francis realises.

Mary nods, eyes closed.

This is the moment he feels his heart break into a hundred pieces. He knows now that he never could have won Mary's heart, even though he had believed he had. He is a fool to think that marriage would make her his. Love, after all, is about sacrifice, and that is what Bash and Mary have done for each other. Francis looks at his wife, really looks at her, and sees that by letting Bash go, she has allowed him to stay the man he is, able to watch him from a distance.

She has never let him go.

"Leave me," he says. He wants her to protest but pale-faced, she nods, and starts out the room. "Send Lola to me, would you?" he calls back, collapsing into a chair.

She should have glared at him. Instead she gives him a distant smile that seems almost pitying. "Yes, my lord," she replies, and closes the door behind him.

When Lola arrives he kisses her, because while Bash may have the luxury of remaining the man he is, Francis doesn't.

Hours to make. Seconds to comment.

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