A/N: A belated birthday present forRiene, to go someway towards making up for all of the angst I have inflicted on her.

Sometimes she looks at her husband and wonders how she was ever so blessed to get to have him in her life. She can look back and trace any number of moments where something might have happened to prevent it. Just one change in a long list of moments and they would not be here now.

He could have been sent to a different dressing station, a different clearing station, and never come into her hands.

Another nurse could have been the one attending to him when he asked after Konstin, or Commandant Daaé as he called him.

He could have been under a different officer.

Konstin's protests could have prevailed and prevented them from trying to cross in the fog.

Edouard's heart could have failed in surgery.

It could have been a bullet wound or shrapnel, and not blunt trauma.

He could have haemorrhaged from his leg, or his stomach.

His infection could have developed into peritonitis.

He could have been sent on to a different hospital in Paris, or one somewhere else, and them never crossed paths again.

He could have been sent away with shell shock.

He could have forgotten her, refused to see her, pushed the point that it is inappropriate for him to become involved with his commanding officer's cousin, never mind that they are not blood cousins and Konstin was never anything but happy for them.

She could have had better control of her feelings and not fallen for him.

He may never have been wounded.

He could have died in No Man's Land, or in the trench, or in the ambulance, or a thousand other times before ever reaching the hospital.

And on and on, the list ever expanding in the multitude of ways that could have driven them apart. And sometimes when she thinks of it all she can feel her skin crawl, sweat break out on her forehead, and it is as if another world has brushed up against her, just for a moment, a world without him in it.

(It happened more than once during her pregnancy, in the early days of morning sickness. And the thoughts would make her feel even more nauseous, made her retch, and she could not bring herself to tell him what it was she was thinking, but he lay his hand on the roundness of her stomach one night, when it had passed, and kissed her softly on the cheek, and whispered, "I think we are very lucky." It was the closest they have ever come to speaking of it.

Marguerite never believed in Providence before the war. She thought it belonged solely to the realms of opera and fiction and Antoine's poetry. But that was before she met Edouard, before she realised she loves him, before they married.

And today is their anniversary. Today it is seven years since they pledged their lives to each other, and each one is a treasure, every moment with him one she holds close. Papa (dear old Papa, God rest him) was hesitant over her courting a crippled man (and it was her courting Edouard and not the other way around, because it was easier that way when he was confined to hospital and then the country with his family. He could never show up unannounced, never appear and surprise her the way another man might, but still he managed to keep it a secret from her when he asked Papa for permission for her hand, and Konstin and Antoine were his co-conspirators.) If she closes her eyes (and they are closed now, because she has not yet opened them to the early morning sunlight, to Edouard curled up beside her), she can still see Edouard as he was when she walked through the church doors on Papa's arm and up the aisle, him sitting in his chair before the altar, his hair carefully slicked back, with his younger brother François and Konstin both standing tall beside him. Konstin half-turned, and for a moment she could see the faint twitch of his lip as he smiled, before he turned back and lay his hand on Edouard's shoulder.

(How Konstin managed to stay standing for so long she will never know, but he refused to have his cane for the ceremony and all that morning as she was getting ready Antoine was extra fidgety. She knows he slipped out of the house at one stage, and he was a little easier when he came back so she knew he had been to see Konstin, but the moment she asked him about it he feigned ignorance. And during the dancing at the small reception afterwards, she pretended not to see them slip away together.)

To think, it is a whole seven years today. And every day since she has been blessed to wake up to the knowledge that Edouard is beside her, is here either in their bed or elsewhere in the house.

The light brush of his fingertips against her cheek is enough to make her sigh ad she leans into his touch. He chuckles softly. "There's no use in pretending to be asleep, Marguerite," his voice is slightly rougher than normal but she can hear a faint smile, "I knew you were awake when your breathing changed." And a giggle bubbles up inside of her that she fights to contain. His fingers trace over her lips and she kisses them softly. "You're not even trying anymore, are you?"

And she smiles against his fingers. "Not at all." She sighs and shifts, and now, at last, blinks her eyes open.

In a moment his arm is wrapping around her, drawing her closer, and his lips are gentle pressed to her own. She swallows and kisses him back, her tongue slipping between his lips. He tastes of butterscotch, of the throat soothers he keeps on the bedside locker, and his tongue lightly traces along the edge of her own, tickling just slightly, and he sighs into her mouth, pressing himself closer, so close she can feel his heart beating against her, that heart whose every beat she has hung on since the moment they met, since the moment she squeezed his hand to reassure him, his eyes hazyy with morphine. "My love," he whispers into her mouth, "my Marguerite."

And she smiles against him, and nips his lip lightly, gently. "My Edouard." And there are no greater words that she can speak. He is hers, and she is his, and that is how it has been for seven years, and if she could she would keep it like that for seven hundred more, seven thousand, until the ends of the earth, just the two of them, his green eyes, softly creased, gazing into hers forever.

Her thoughts are interrupted by the patter of little feet down the hall, and Edouard groans. "I knew his lordship would soon wake." And at that Marguerite cannot suppress her giggle a moment longer. Edouard smiles at her again, and presses one light kiss to her lips as they move away from each other, just a little, and Marguerite stretches, sits up and smooths out the bedsheets. Edouard grimaces as he pushes himself up with his arms until he is sitting, and they look perfectly proper as the door creaks open, and a little face framed with golden curls peeps around the edge.

"Mamma! Papa!"

"Marcel!" And Marguerite can hear the grin in Edouard's voice, the faint laugh. Marcel smiles, his little teeth looking so white, and the next thing he is across the room and clambering into bed. Edouard helps him in, and then Marcel is wriggling in between the two of them, burrowing under the covers like some small animal in a nest. Marguerite smooths his curls back and drops a kiss to his forehead.

"Did you sleep well, darling?" she asks, and he nods vigorously. Another smile spreads across Edouard's face.

"And do you remember what day today is, son?" And Edouard presses his own kiss to Marcel's forehead.

"Yes! Auntie Anja is coming and I'm going to stay with her and Val and Frey and Ber and little Row ad Stin will show me his violin and Twon will tell me a story and we'll visit Nanna and big Row and Chri-Chri-Christine and Gee will tell me about the sea and Meel will show me one of his books and…" And on he goes, listing out all of the things he will do in the few days he is away from them, the anniversary gift from all of her family so that she can spend some time with Edouard, just the two of them alone without a handful of little boy to contend with.

She does love Marcel, loves him with her whole life, and he is all the more infinitely precious for being the only one they will have, his very existence something of a miracle, and she will miss him while he is away but it will be so lovely just to have some peace with her husband, with no chance of being interrupted. Edouard will trace little things into her skin, and braid her hair as he kisses her, nuzzles her, and they will hold each other beneath the sheets, just hold each other, and there will be no need to speak, not when each breath, each touch, each kiss, says more than any words possibly could.

Her lips twitch, and Edouard's eye catches her own, as if he can read her thoughts, and he smiles at her over Marcel's head as their little boy rambles on, and leans in and presses another kiss to her cheek. And it does not matter, all they ways that they may not have had this. None of that matters. Edouard is here, and they have Marcel, and her little family is all she needs in the world, all she cares about, and she presses her lips gently to Edouard's rough stubbled cheek, and smiles.

And nothing could ever be better than this.