Author's Note: In recognition of the oft forgot Bennet sister. Mary is the Bennet I most identify with and in recognition of Talulah Riley's brilliant performance as my favourite Mary I bring you this fic.

My mother said I broke her heart...but it was my integrity that was important. Is that so selfish? It sells for so little, but it's all we have left in this place. It is the very last inch of us...but within that inch we are free.

-Valerie Page, V for Vendetta

She does not smile, nor does she is graceful because she is not Jane. She will not be Jane, no matter how hard she tried for a brief period when she was six and realised Jane was everyone's favourite. She starts to hate Jane when a boy who seriously discusses Plato and Machiavelli with her and who turns her legs to gelatine after her eleventh birthday gives Jane a card on St Valentine's filled with beautiful poetry and a childish sketch of her sister's profile (He goes off to Oxford a few years later but the damage is done.).

She never attempts to be witty and plonks away at her piano forte with a steady determination because she is not Elizabeth. Elizabeth the Witty. Elizabeth, their father's favourite. Elizabeth, the only one with common sense. Elizabeth, who has good friends, sisters who listen to her and pay attention to her. Elizabeth, who has three marriage proposals in a little over a year (It doesn't matter that Mr Collins was a fool, he was the first man who she'd ever seriously considered marrying.). She plays all day because because that is something Elizabeth was never good at; practice. She will never be Elizabeth, despite how hard she wishes on a star every night before she goes to bed long after she is too old for that sort of thing. She's hated Elizabeth ever since their papa gave Elizabeth the books she'd asked for for Christmas when Elizabeth was six and all she got was a new embroidery hoop and a pair of gloves.

She never whines or simpers because she will not be Kitty, she refuses to be Kitty (She does not want to be Kitty, most of the time). Kitty, who is ignored nearly as much as she is but makes so much more noise. Kitty, who shared a room with her until Lydia was born and Kitty threw a tantrum demanding to sleep with her new sister. Kitty, who follows Lydia around wherever she goes. Kitty, who wants to be loved more then she does (She cannot blame her sister, at least nobody has mistook her for Lydia).

She does not laugh, dance, whine, sigh, smile, run, flirt, gamble, love, preen, shop, or squeal because she refuses to be Lydia. She hates Lydia. Lydia, who mocks her. Lydia, their mother's favourite child. Lydia, who humiliates her in front of others. Lydia, who puts her whole family's reputations on the line for some silly little soldiers. Lydia, who always gets her way. Lydia, who dances with any man in the room. Lydia, whose very name is wildly exotic in comparison to her own. Lydia, who tells her she is plain (It's the truth but that doesn't make it hurt any less.) and that she shouldn't bother with men whenever she gets the chance. Lydia, who told the first man ever to ask her to dance that she was 'Bookish and likely to talk his ear off about Shakespeare and that he'd better come dance with Lydia instead'. Lydia, who is the first to get married and 'grow up'. Lydia, she loathes Lydia.

She knows who she is not (JaneLizzieKittyLydia) but she does not know who she is. She reads because her sisters see it only as an amusement or way of gathering knowledge, she plays because nobody else does, she writes because nobody needs to know (She pays no attention to the fact that her chosen pursuits are solitary ones).

Above all this though, she is Mary Bennet and she will endure.