A/N. Hello TSOM fans! I'm back for the foreseeable future, as this story is likely to be a bit of a mammoth - so I hope you'll join me on the journey! A few things to note (and I hope I've managed to make this clear in the first chapter) this story is set two years after Maria comes back to the Von Trapp villa. Everything has happened as it does in canon (the party, Maria's flight to the abbey, her return, Elsa's subsequent departure, M&G's betrothal etc). However, in my story the Anschluss hasn't yet occurred and so the Von Trapps haven't fled Austria.

I've named it 'The Black Spider' because that's how Marta refers to the Swastika and the Nazi influence is a big theme in this story.

This chapter is a strong T rating but I envisage that the story will become M at some point down the line.

Lastly, please forgive me for any historical/political inaccuracies. I try to do my research but I may be off the mark in places!

CHAPTER ONE: THE STUDY

Captain vonn Trapp was in a dangerous mood - a mood that his children hadn't witnessed in full force since the months following their mother's passing. Stooped over his desk, knuckles bleached white against the mahogany surface, he considered the papers spread out in front of him, anchored by two paperweights at each end to stop them curling inwards like the crest of a stubborn wave.

The British had it all wrong, yet again! With the potential threat of warfare looming over Europe like a guillotine suspended above a fragile throat, there was little time to waste. And yet the blueprints in front of him spoke of fundamental flaws. They were minuscule defects - mere pinpricks in an otherwise faultless design - but if there was one thing a life in the navy had taught Georg von Trapp, it was that it only took one pinprick to burst a seemingly impenetrable bubble. A minuscule defect of any kind in a submarine vessel could mean the difference between returning home to one's family and succumbing to a watery grave - and he'd never been one to take chances.

He was beginning to regret ever getting mixed up with the likes of the British Royal Navy, but it could no longer be denied that the Nazi Party's influence had spread across Germany - and most of Austria - like a parasitic infection. The impending Anschluss was no longer just a rumour - he was sure of that. And the realisation had left him itching with the need to do something, anything - just to feel useful in some way. He simply couldn't sit idly by while a madman threatened his homeland. In any event, the Brits had given him an offer he couldn't quite refuse, thanks to the connections of one John Whitehead - a man whose father had invented the torpedo and whose daughter just happened to have been Georg's first wife.

No - the Anschluss hadn't occurred quite yet, Austria was still Austria, and the whispers of war were still no more than rumours - but the Brits were preparing for the worst. And therefore, so was Georg. Feeling his mood darken further at the thought of an imminent annexation, he whipped his fountain pen across the room in frustration, hearing the pathetic crack of fragile metal and watching the subsequent flecks of ink spatter the wall in protest.

He snorted bitterly at the irony as a memory from months passed rose unbidden in his mind: that of Elsa Shraeder's last-ditch attempts to salvage their relationship: "then I thought perhaps a fountain pen - but you've already got one!"

Two years had come and gone since that fateful moment - the moment Georg had chosen his heart over his head. The decision had defied all reasonable logic at the time - but then again, love often did. Barrelling into their world from the sheltered safety of Nonnberg Abbey, Maria Rainer had been a force to be reckoned with from day one, poking holes in his armour with little more than a few words and a battered hand-me-down guitar. She'd won the children's hearts first - and his had soon followed, much to everybody's astonishment - most of all his own.

Oh he'd fought it with every ounce of his being, stubborn old mule that he was - until the moment she'd surprised them all yet again. The moment she'd come back to him. When he'd followed the sound of excitable chatter and discovered her near the lake on that midsummer afternoon, adorned in another dress the poor didn't want and surrounded by the protective entourage of his children, his heart had soared and his stomach had dropped like a rock in a stream all at once. He'd known straight away that she'd heard the news of his engagement. Her face had revealed feelings that she would've vowed to never speak aloud, he knew - not when she'd just discovered he was promised to another. Nevertheless, she'd held his gaze with brave determination in the breathless few moments of their reunion - and he'd found himself rooted to the veranda simply aching for her, all of her, and only her. He'd known then there was no going back.

They'd planned a grand wedding - mostly to stop the tongues from flapping - followed by a fiercely passionate honeymoon during which Georg's convent-sprung bride had proven herself his equal in all manner of unexpected and deeply satisfying ways.

A subsequent two years of married life spent learning more and more about one another had only left him falling more deeply in love with Maria Von Trapp - even despite the occasional but vigorous clash of wills. Arguments like the one that had taken place by the lake were rare these days, but when they did happen, his wife could still give as good as she got! Tiresome as these occasional disagreements could be however, Georg always relished the subsequent reconciliations: heated and deeply intense encounters that were almost as explosive as the fights themselves.

Yes - somewhat surprisingly, Maria had taken to the intimate aspects of married life like a duck to water. The running of the household however - and the seemingly endless social obligations that came with being a baron's wife - were responsibilities she'd made clear she could do without.

"Sometimes, I wish we'd just eloped and started a new life up in the hills as humble dairy farmers!" She'd joked one evening, after a particularly dull dinner party, "you'd make a very rogue-ish woodsman, you know. All unshaven and disheveled."

A chuckle had bubbled from his throat then as she'd appraised him approvingly from across the room, "and here was half of Salzburg and most of Vienna suspecting you'd married me only for my money!"

"Well of course, there was that too!" She'd laughed heartily, a rich, joyous laugh that always bathed him in honeyed warmth.

Despite such an abrupt and startling change to her life, seemingly overnight, Maria had never once complained about the path she'd chosen to walk by his side. In fact, she often told him that he and his children were the most wonderful of blessings, a gift that she'd never envisaged was possible for a girl like her. And he was eternally grateful to her for it - for her persistence in making them a family again and later, for the sacrifices she'd made to become a part of it. The centre of it. Their anchor. His anchor.

Without warning, the clock on the mantle struck 2am, taunting him out of his reverie with the sharp ping of each chime. The fire in the grate continue to crackle heartily below it, and Georg's eyes burned with fatigue as the flames licked light into each corner of the room. Deciding he'd been locked in his study long enough, he packed away the troublesome blueprints and made his way upstairs, finding his wife sound asleep in the four-poster bed they now shared. Exhausted, he undressed quickly, eager to join her in peaceful slumber and forget about the frustrations of the day. It wasn't until he slipped under the covers and spooned himself against her warm, supple frame however, that he realised his body had other ideas.

Unable to help himself, he pulled her closer and nuzzled his face into the crook of her neck, inhaling deeply. It was a small gesture, but enough to calm him while setting his blood to a steady simmer all at once - and when she stirred sleepily against his body he had to bite back a small groan of approval. Eager for more of her, he pressed open mouthed kisses to her bare shoulder and felt nothing but relief when she finally stirred again, turning into his arms in the darkness.

"Wharra you doing..?" she mumbled groggily, still half asleep - but he had no answer for her, instead capturing her lips with his own in a way that left no room for questions. Almost instantly, she responded to his urgency in kind - as though his kiss was breathing life into her - and she laced her fingers firmly into his hair, all thoughts of sleep apparently forgotten. Before long, he was questioning who out of the two of them had actually initiated their encounter - for his wife already had him on his back, anchored at the hips, nails raking across the plains of his chest and mouth slack with pleasure.

"I've missed you," she gasped in the middle of everything, head thrown back, moving above and against him with torturous languidness. Gritting his teeth, fingers digging into her hips to aid her movements, he tried not to think about the subtle meaning behind her words: that he'd been working too much, had been absent in his own home for too long, and that their intimacy as husband and wife had suffered recently as a result. Hit by a sudden and intense wave of need at the thought, he hooked a firm hand around the nape of her neck and pulled her to him for a desperate kiss, surging wildly upwards until they were both crying out from it.

Some time later, while lying with Maria in his arms, he attempted to broach the subject of his absenteeism of late, knowing that he owed her some kind of explanation besides the feeble excuse that the English were working him to the bone and Hitler's threats had left him feeling compelled to oblige them. But like the safety of a favourite comfort blanket, sleep claimed them both before he had the chance.

In the morning, he awoke alone, surprised to find that Maria had risen with the sun and that he - the decorated sea captain of twenty years - had failed to do the same. Then again, it had happened a few times in recent weeks - when the late nights had left him so fatigued that he overslept and his wife - who loved the comfort of a lie-in and was notoriously late for everything - managed to beat him to breakfast. Annoyed and overtired, he forced himself from bed and managed a quick shave before joining his family in the dining room, barely looking up as he scanned the headlines of the newspaper on the way to his seat.

"Father!" Friedrich beamed hopefully upon his arrival, "you're not taking breakfast in the study this morning?"

WILL SCHUSCHNIGG CALL FOR INDEPENDENCE PLEBISCITE?

Georg scowled at the article, wanting to tear the newspaper to shreds as though it were the Nazi flag Itself.

"Father?"

Were the majority of his countrymen so brainwashed that they'd actually vote for a madman to rule over their homeland? The very idea was simply absurd...

"Georg," he vaguely heard his wife's censorial tone from somewhere in the vicinity.

"Hmm?" He murmured distractedly, the words on the page still jumping out at him as he looked for any sign of good news.

"Friedrich just asked you a question."

Eyes glued to the article and brow knitted in concentration, Georg grabbed blindly at a slice of toast from a nearby plate, but made no move to answer, nor to take his seat.

"Georg!"

Impatiently, he wrenched his gaze from the newspaper only to discover that all eyes in the room were on him - seven pairs glassy with disappointment and one alight with restrained anger. He heaved a deep sigh - the dull throb of a headache was starting to spark between his temples and guilt seeped like spilled oil in his stomach. But he needed to speak to John urgently about the latest developments. Breakfast would have to wait.

"I apologise my darlings, but I have an urgent matter I need to attend to," he explained with solemnity, folding the newspaper and tucking it under his arm, shrinking from his wife's disapproving gaze, "If anyone needs me I'll be in my-"

"-Study." His brood concluded in melancholic harmony.

A/N: I know it seems bleak and I won't deny this story will be very angsty but I hope you'll all enjoy it. I'll try to post as often as I can but work is manic at the moment so please do bear with me!