A/N: Hello! Me again. I have to admit I've been inspired by a few other stories on here that confront the idea of what would've happened had Maria never returned. This is my take on it – which I believe doesn't step on any toes – but please do tell me if I'm wrong!

In this story, everything happens as it does in canon, except Maria doesn't return and Georg doesn't go after her either.

I'd also like to give a special shout out to Anthony and Lolita Marchesi for the absolutely lovely messages they've sent me about my stories. It means a lot!

Anyway.. enjoy! Or not – as the angsty case may be…

Georg turned up the collar of his jacket slightly against the mild wind that seemed to be moving through Salzburg like a restless sea. Though it was early June and there wasn't a cloud in the blue hue of the sky above, there was nevertheless a certain... disquietude in the air that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Something stirring below the surface, as though the trees themselves were humming with the rustle of an unspoken riddle, as though the cobbled stones beneath his feet were vibrating with the weight of a secret he wasn't privy to.

Perhaps it was the nature of his visit to town that had him feeling so unsettled. For the last few months he'd been collaborating with the British Royal Navy in response to the rumours of imminent war looming in Europe. For whatever reason, his British associate was in Austria and had requested to meet Georg face to face for the first time since their correspondence began. While it was an odd request - and normally one that Georg would avoid at all costs - Lieutenant Alfred Norden had insisted, and the threat of Nazi surveillance wasn't yet so prominent that Georg would deem the business meeting too risky. The Anschluss was yet to occur after all, despite the fact that a Nazi invasion seemed inevitable. Nevertheless he had voiced his niggling concerns to the Lieutenant, but Norden had brushed aside any lingering worries with a jovial scoff down the phone.

"No one need concern themselves with an innocent luncheon between two acquaintances, Captain," Alfred had chuckled in eloquent English, "bring your wife along and I'll bring my beau. They can busy themselves with feminine chitchat while we discuss more important matters. It'll look like nothing more than a couple of old friends catching up."

While Georg had reluctantly agreed to the luncheon, he'd doubted his wife would want any part of it. His wife. Elsa had made it rather clear during their short few months of marriage that she thought it wise that Georg at least pretend to get on with those affiliated with the Nazi party - much to his displeasure - and so he had endeavoured to keep his dealings with the Royal Navy to himself. What his wife didn't know wouldn't hurt her. And in any event, she would most likely have some other social engagement to attend, in which case he could easily slip away for his luncheon unnoticed.

But perhaps he was doing Elsa an injustice. In many aspects of their marriage, she had been a welcome and attentive comfort to him. She was always amicable and charming company, the perfect hostess in fact. She was desirable and provided a warm - though sometimes passive - body whenever he needed a physical escape. She managed to draw him out of his dark moods on the odd occasion that he would retreat to his study to brood about past mistakes. She'd even tried her hardest to become a good mother to the children - a role that didn't quite come naturally to her but that she nevertheless accepted as part of the Baroness Von Trapp title.

It was funny really, how his marriage to Elsa would be considered a happy one by anyone else in his shoes. They'd married in the new year just gone, a lavish affair the likes of which Vienna hadn't seen in years - and then they'd settled back in the villa in Aigen where the children continued to go to school. Elsa had toyed with the prospect of sending the seven of them to boarding school but Georg had put his foot down immediately, a response to which Elsa had begrudgingly acquiesced. At first he was concerned his new wife would grow bored in Aigen, driven bitter by the meddlesome presence of the children and their somewhat cold attitude towards her. But much to Georg's relief, Elsa had decided to keep her house in Vienna even after the wedding, giving her the opportunity to retreat to her salons whenever the quietude of Aigen became a little too suffocating. Sometimes he would go with her for a mindless event or two, other times he would stay home to be with his children. It was an arrangement that worked well for them all - and for all intents and purposes, he was happy, he supposed. Or as content as one could be on the surface, at least.

And yet... the comforting routine his life had fallen into did nothing to ease the hollow emptiness he sometimes felt in his heart. It did nothing to mask the crushing longing that confronted him in his darkest moments. It did nothing to stop the haunting image of sapphire blue eyes and golden hair from rising unbidden in his mind when his wife lay underneath him...

He often wondered where the owner of those blue eyes was now, 10 months to the day since she'd left him with nought but a scribbled apology and seven heartbroken children. But of course - she was ensconced away in her little abbey, fulfilling God's purpose. Just as she had always dreamed of doing. A simple life. A cloistered life. A wasted life. Other times he would torture himself with the question of whether he ought to have gone after her that night.. whether he ought to have written to her.. demanded an explanation.. insisted on seeing her.. apologised for the part he'd potentially played in her absence... something. Anything.

But the reverend mother had reassured him during his frantic call to the abbey that fateful evening that Fraulein Maria had indeed returned, that she was safe, and that she didn't wish to speak to anyone. And so with a heavy heart he had respected her wishes, he had kept his distance - until eventually too much time had passed to justify any more calls to the reverend mother. With nothing to go on but Fraulein Maria's cryptic note, he'd had little choice but to accept her words as truth: she had missed the abbey and so she had returned. That was all there was to it. To have questioned her decision, to have meddled in her life any further would have been to act selfishly.

The bleak days that had followed her departure were hazy now in Georg's mind but somewhere along the way he had angrily resolved to snap out of his apathetic mood and set his ship back onto its rightful course. It was on a particularly rainy afternoon, most uncharacteristic of mid-August, that he had made up his mind and marched into the drawing room to find Elsa poring over a magazine. The lashing rain had been pelting against the windows, he remembered - the heavy sound hammering around in his skull as she'd lifted her head and looked up at him with a warm smile.

"Elsa," he'd said somewhat awkwardly, despite his best efforts to the contrary, "do you think it's about time we-?"

He couldn't recall ever finishing his sentence, but within a week their engagement announcement had been placed in the local paper. Somehow he'd expected to feel as though a weight had been lifted, but instead he'd been confronted with a disturbing sense of unease that he'd never quite been able to place since. Either way it hardly mattered now, he reminded himself - he was married and settled. He'd done the right thing by everyone.

Hadn't he?

Glancing at his watch, Georg realised he had at least twenty minutes to spare before his luncheon and so he decided to pop in to the local bakery to pick up some treats for the children - mainly as a distraction from his unwanted thoughts. Settling on some cupcakes, he paid the woman behind the counter and accepted the box with a grateful 'danke' before hurrying out of the shop and joining the busy flow of people heading down Domplatz. Growing impatient and cursing Salzburg's popularity during summertime, he rounded a corner that opened out onto the sunny Residenzplatz square - when suddenly he spotted something near the fountain that made the ground hollow out beneath his feet.

He froze instantly, the box of cupcakes slipping from his numbed fingers. Breathing suddenly became a struggle, shock causing his heart to gallop on an off-beat in his chest. It was possible, he reasoned, that his mind was playing tricks on him.. it wouldn't be the first time since her departure that he'd conjured her up as a familiar face in a crowd of strangers. She was far away after all - on the other side of the square in fact. But there was something about the golden halo of her hair that was painfully familiar to him.

He'd always suspected that if he ever saw her again, she'd be clad in her habit and wimple - a subdued and obedient shadow of her former self. But the woman he could see on the other side of the square was dressed in a light summer dress, her long legs and porcelain skin glowing in the sunlight. He couldn't quite make out her face, the bustling crowd making it difficult to keep sight of her - but a desperate part of him felt bizarrely compelled to find out one way or another whether it really was Fraulein Maria. Before he knew it, before he could talk some sense into himself, his legs were moving of their own accord, carrying him mindlessly forward as he darted through the busy square, struck with equal parts panic and relief every time he lost sight of that golden halo and then spotted it again.

It seemed to take an age to move anywhere, and when she didn't reappear amongst the sea of heads before him, he felt his stomach roil. Frantically he rounded a corner in the direction she'd been walking in, spinning in a circle and scanning the streets for any sign of a familiar face. But whoever the woman had been, she was nowhere to be found. The sudden sense of loss was great, the disappointment overwhelming, and he swore angrily at himself for his foolishness. Of course it hadn't been her.. it just wasn't possible. Surely he was going mad.

It was a minute or two before he managed to gather his composure, but once he did so he realised he'd at least ended up on route to the restaurant where he was supposed to be meeting Lieutenant Norden. Sure enough there the little venue was, on the other side of the street, and he endeavoured to put his stupidity behind him as he made his way to the entrance in a somewhat dark mood.

Stepping inside and twitching his fingers impatiently, he waited at the reservations desk, looking around for a member of staff to come and seat him - and it was at that precise moment that he suddenly felt the world shift on its axis. There, sat alone at one of the tables in the far corner, was Fraulein Maria - and this time there was no mistaking her porcelain face, that glow of hair, those sapphire eyes. If he thought his reaction to seeing her across the square had been overwhelming it was nothing compared to what he felt right there in the middle of the restaurant - his stomach dropping and his heart lifting all at once. On closer inspection, he realised her summer dress was of a light blue hue, much like the dress he'd once secretly adored.. and she'd grown her hair a little, the gentle waves framing her face. It occurred to him momentarily that surely the abbey wouldn't allow such alterations to her appearance.. but there was something else that was different about her too. A confidence in the way she held herself, as though she had matured, become more comfortable in her own skin. And suddenly he found himself inexplicably breathless.

Driven by the sudden and bizarre compulsion to say hello, he took an eager step towards her - only to halt immediately in his tracks when another man he didn't recognise hurried past him and rushed straight to Fraulein Maria's table. The smile that had been pulling at Georg's lips vanished in an instant and he watched, frozen to the spot, as the Fraulein looked up from her menu, her face breaking into a wide smile of recognition before she launched from her seat and wrapped her arms around the man's neck. The embrace was an intimate one, the man's hands grasping her waist as he whispered something in her ear with a grin, evoking a song of laughter from her lips that Georg recognised all too well.

For reasons he didn't dare confront, he suddenly felt as though he'd been punched square in the stomach - and he had to turn away, had to grip the closest piece of furniture to steady himself. So many times he'd thought about seeing her again, thought about how nice it would be to ask how she was faring, to find out whether she was happy with the path she'd chosen - but never in any of the imagined scenarios had she been embracing another man. And though his confusion, his surprise, was jarring, the many questions rattling around in his head like loose stones, he didn't think he could bear to find out the answers. Not yet. Not like this.

Suddenly hellbent on getting as far away from the restaurant as was humanly possible, he hurried back to the reservation desk before the Fraulein spotted him, grabbing the attention of the nearest waiter.

"I have a lunch appointment with a Herr Norden," he confirmed a little too sharply, "but when he arrives will you please tell him there's been a change of plan and I'll meet him at the cafe in the square instead."

Why wasn't she in her habit? Why wasn't she at the abbey? What had she been doing since she left? Who was she with? Why had they embraced?

"Herr Norden?" The waiter repeated with a polite smile, checking his list as Georg fidgeted with unease, "ah yes. He's already arrived sir. Please, follow me."

"Wait! I-" Georg panicked, but the waiter was already moving through the restaurant amidst the sea of tables. Swearing under his breath, dread churning in his stomach, Georg followed helplessly, ducking his head with a scowl in a desperate attempt to avoid being seen by his former governess and the man she had so affectionately greeted. With any luck he would make it to Norden's table, convince the lieutenant to relocate elsewhere, and then get the hell out of there unseen.

But it soon became apparent that he was only ever destined to suffer, for - to his utter horror - the waiter steered him as if in slow motion right into the path of Fraulein Maria and her companion. Cold dread cloaked his body - and it was only when they came to a halt directly at the couple's table that the reality of the situation suddenly struck him, the cruel twists of fate hitting him like a tonne of bricks.

"Herr Norden sir," the waiter addressed the man at the table politely, as Georg set his face in stone, "your acquaintance has arrived."

A/N: I hope I haven't devastated too many of you? I really have no idea where this story is going to go just yet, but that's half the fun. I'll try to update as regularly as I can, despite my lack of direction!