Disclaimer: I don't own The Tudors - it is a Showtime original series based on real people, none of whom I created.

The drabbles in this fic are a mix of the Showtime series The Tudors and the actual historical characters of the Tudor period.

Princess / Lady Mary Tudor & Charles Brandon

Smile.

Sometimes when Lady Mary smiles she reminds Charles of his dead wife.

The niece may have a very different character to her aunt but the smile, he thinks, the smile is the same.

It makes him wistful for the long dead Mary and sorry for the one still living (older every year and yet still unmarried, a victim of Henry's desperation for a son).

She looks younger when she smiles, and he remembers happier days when life was merry and cares were few.

But Lady Mary doesn't smile much anymore.

Dance.

Lady Mary is trying to project confidence on her return to court following her signing of the oath, but he can see the strain beneath the mask of serene calm she wears.

Queen Jane is kind and the King magnanimous, but poor Lady Mary has enemies at court, as well as countless men and women who would use her to further their own ends.

He sends a particularly ferocious glare towards Thomas Seymour – he may be the Queen's brother but Charles is brother-in-law to the King too and he doesn't like the leering covetousness he sees in the younger Seymour's eyes when he looks at the King's eldest daughter.

"My lady," he steps up beside her and is pleased to note that she appears more comfortable at seeing a familiar face, "shall we dance? I am sure your talent far surpasses mine but I will try my best."

"I would be honoured, Your Grace," she tells him as she places her tiny hand into his own larger one.

As they begin to spin among other courtiers, Charles notes that Lady Mary seems far more relaxed and he breathes a sigh of relief.

She has endured much and he still feels guilty that he has constantly chosen the King over his conscience and not offered her (a true princess, his dear departed wife's niece, his best friend's daughter) more assistance.

He vows to do what he can now, to try and atone for the sins of his past.

He will do better. This dance is a start.

Forgiveness.

Charles is dying.

Not that anyone actually says that to him (who would dare suggest that the King's best and oldest friend might soon leave this earthly plane?), but he knows.

Edward Seymour visits in an attempt to get him on side regarding Prince Edward. There's no point really – Charles rather doubts he will ever live to see Henry's son as King.

It does not bother him. He's rather heartsick for the old days, when life was simpler.

He has a far more agreeable visitor the next day in the form of the Lady Mary.

"Princess," he says when she is shown into his bedchamber (they are left alone, which perhaps is not exactly correct but everyone knows he is far too ill to attempt an assault on the lady's virtue, if he was so inclined, and, besides, Mary is family).

Her eyes widen at his use of the title she long ago lost, but she has the pride of both her parents and she takes his greeting as her due.

Besides, what is anyone going to say to a dying man like him? It is only the title she deserves as a daughter of two great royal lines and the result of a marriage made in good faith (irrespective of whether Catherine of Aragon's marriage to Prince Arthur was consummated).

"I heard you were unwell, Your Grace," she says softly, watching him with sad eyes.

"Rather unwell, as you see," he says wryly, "but honoured that you have chosen to visit me."

"Your Grace has always been a loyal friend to my father … and I would not forget the one who took the time to play games with me when I was at court as a child."

He remembers those times. Henry was a doting father, but only when he had the time, and it fell often to Charles to help entertain the little princess while her parents attended to matters of state. She'd been a bright, clever little girl, always delighting him with a new tune she had learnt on her virginals.

He wonders if she still plays.

He sighs. All these memories make him melancholy.

"Are you quite well, Your Grace?" asks Mary, "should I fetch the physician?"

He shakes his head. There is not much point in medicines and remedies, not now.

"I must ask your forgiveness, Princess," he says instead.

"Whatever for?" she looks confused and concerned.

"I should have done something," he says, "anything to try and persuade the King against his more severe measures. I admit that I was scared, that I let my earthly loyalties take the place of the spiritual. Do you believe God will forgive me?"

He is getting maudlin in his old age, contemplating the afterlife and all it entails.

"God is a benevolent being," she tells him seriously, "and I am sure he always forgives, when one is truly sorry."

"What about you, Princess? Will you forgive my sins against you, and against your sister?"

Mary and Elizabeth, both pawns in a dynastic game surrounded by enemies. He knows that even if did not directly cause their suffering, he was certainly complicit in it. They deserved better.

She leans forward and presses a gentle kiss to his cheek, then takes a seat next to him and squeezes his hand, "I forgive you, uncle Charles," she murmurs, using the familiar title he has not heard from her since she was a child, "of course I do."

"Thank you," he whispers, "thank you, Mary."

She stays with him until he falls into a fitful sleep, holding his hand all the while.

And his heart feels a hundred times lighter.

Strength.

At first she doesn't seem at all like Charles' previous wife, her aunt and namesake Princess Mary.

This younger Princess Mary (Lady, now, though it makes her mouth tighten in anger every time she hears someone say it) seems too quiet, too delicate.

Her aunt had been fierce and argumentative, loud and bright.

He supposes circumstances are different. This Mary has suffered greatly, after all.

It takes him a while to realise that she's actually just as strong as her aunt, perhaps even more so, in her own way. He watches the stubborn set of her jaw, the way she refuses to ever call Anne Boleyn the Queen no matter how many people try and force or persuade it from her. There will be no changing Mary's mind when it comes to her mother's position, no matter how much Henry might wish it.

Charles cannot help but admire his new wife. Mary is far too young for him, and deserving of a royal suitor rather than a man like him, but these are the cards they have been dealt (the path he has chosen so that he might best protect her) and he will make what he can of it.

He hopes she will understand that he is an ally – after all she needs as many of those as she can get with Anne Boleyn as Queen.

She will need to be strong too, to endure what is likely to come.

It is lucky then, that she is a fighter.

She is her mother's daughter.

And that, Charles thinks with satisfaction, is just what Anne Boleyn and her supporters are afraid of.

Kiss.

Their wedding is ordered by the King to try and help neutralise the threat his Catholic daughter poses to the new order he has built with Anne Boleyn. It is hasty and quiet so that none of Mary's great relatives and friends can protest it.

There are no guests, only a priest and two witnesses sent by the King.

The groom is a man who feels terribly guilty for his role in this farce while hoping he is doing the right thing to protect the princess turned lady. The bride is a scared but defiant girl whose whole world had changed.

No one attempts to suggest that the bride and groom kiss once they are pronounced man and wife.

There is no lying about what kind of marriage the King means this to be.

Mary isn't quite sure what to make of her new husband.

He is decades older than her, previously married to her aunt, and is her father's childhood friend. Even in a world of dynastic marriages and large age differences, their marriage is a peculiar one.

She knows his reputation with women as well, and it makes her nervous.

He is gentle with her, though, and does not push. The marriage remains unconsummated and will do so, he says, until she is quite comfortable with the idea.

Very few other men, she thinks, would have acted so honourably.

But he holds her hand sometimes, almost as if it soothes his mind to do so.

He tucks her hair away from her face when they walk outside in the wind, and grips her waist firmly when he helps her off her horse.

Such things, she finds, are not unpleasant to her.

And his boyish smiles, when she bests him at chess or he wins when they race their horses or she laughs at some jape of his, make her feel warm inside.

It's a slow thing, their ease with one another. It comes in time, however, and she appreciates him all the more for his patience.

He kisses her for the first time nearly three months to the day of their marriage.

There is no particular reason for it. She just happens to look particularly pretty that day, and wears a smile instead of the serious, solemn expression that often graces her features (he cannot blame her for that – she has much to be sorrowful about).

They walk around the garden as she chatters happily to him about her plans for the visit of his daughters (her cousins) Frances and Eleanor, enjoying the fresh air and the sunshine.

And he just leans down to kiss her softly and quickly, looking almost abashed when they break apart.

She quite likes it. It makes this odd situation feel more like the romantic dreams she'd had so many years ago about the marriage she might make.

When they begin to walk again, their hands are intertwined.

Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it.