A/N: I've always wondered just why Anna keeps on chasing Bates despite the fact he is married. If it was me, I'd have moved on and kept well away. However, I do feel Bates is a lot to blame; he seems to me to lead her on, encourage her affections and torment the poor girl.
However, surely she must get to the point where she thinks, "You know what? It's not worth the heartache!"
As a major Anna/Bates shipper, I hope in S2 she doesn't think this but then again I wouldn't blame her if she did!
Hope you enjoy!
A Better Man.
She'd walked away from him on that sunny August afternoon and her mind had been made up. Her hands were filled with trays of food but her mind was filled with only him. How much more of this was she expected to take? How many more times could she offer him her love, only to have it returned graciously without any hope? How many more times could she offer him a positive, only to have it torn to pieces by his negative?
So many times she had thought there was hope, so many times she thought she'd seen that glimmer of returned affection and yet so many times, it seemed she had been wrong. How many more times should she make a fool of herself?
For that was how she felt, walking across the lawn, walking away from him. A fool. A silly, foolish girl who knew nothing of life and the world, who thought she could change everything to suit herself only to find that some things are impossible to change.
She couldn't change him.
There had been a time when she thought she could, thought that with a bit of help and encouragement he would become the man she knew he was. She believed (foolishly) that nothing stood in their way, that love would conquer all. But she hadn't bargained on his deep sense of nobility, or his wife.
That had been a particularly hard blow to take, a wife. She'd assumed (well he'd not said differently) that he had no prior attachments; she believed he was free to love. How wrong one can be! Looking back, she wondered how she could be so stupid not to work it out sooner.
"I'm not a free man"
The realisation dawned.
"Are you trying to tell me that you're married?"
"I have been married, yes."
In all her girlish dreams she hadn't imagined him being married, she hadn't visualised a wife standing in her way, the realisation of being in love with a married man came as a surprise to her, she thought that only happened to a certain type of girl, certainly not to her.
Despite the wife – she was surprised at how quickly she put this to the back of her mind! – She still believed there was some hope for them. Even when he had revealed the details of his murky past, she still believed in him. He was not the man he made himself out to be, of that she was certain. She believed that all she had to do was clear his name, clear his past and he would be hers. It seemed so simple at the time,
Again, she was right of course, but she still didn't bargain on the wife.
"I have been married, yes."
Have. She had assumed (who wouldn't?) that the wife was no more, that perhaps some terrible tragedy had befallen her and she was now dead. She'd even (naively) fantasised she would be his saviour, the one to help him get over the death of his wife; she'd help him to move on.
But have, should have been am. It seemed the wife still lived and he was still married.
Even then, when others would have given in, she still ploughed on, determined that there was more to it than met the eye. She had been right of course and this is where her thoughts of him turned a little sour.
For, though she may be young and inexperienced in the art of love, she was by no means completely foolish. She recognised signs when she saw them and she truly believed she had seen them. Had he not brought her a tenderly prepared tray of food when she was in bed with a cold? Had he not talked of being in love but not being able to speak it? Had he not talked and sat with her for two years, sharing private jokes, smiling only for her?
And, here was the big sign, had he not leaned in to kiss her in the servant's yard only a mere few months ago? If they had not been disturbed, she knew it would have ended as a kiss and possibly, she wouldn't be thinking in this way right now.
But it hadn't ended in a kiss; he'd not followed her, not mentioned it to her and certainly not made any attempt to repeat that action. So what exactly was his game?
She'd not had him down as a tease but it seemed now, as the party continued around her, that he was exactly that. He'd led her on so many times, built up her hopes in so many ways and she had given him everything. She'd laid out her heart to him, told him she loved him and when she had been at her most vulnerable, what had he done? Nothing. Spoke of her being a lady to him, but what did that mean? What use was that to her? It was a rebuke of the gentlest kind, if only she had taken the hint then!
As she handed out perfectly cut sandwiches to the guests, her mood turned angrier. She had been led on by a married man, a man who should know better! All these years, he'd toyed with her affections, used her but gave her nothing in return. Not once had he ever spoken his feelings for her, she thought she knew them, but then again, maybe that's what made him so damn well good at this. He made her think things he didn't really feel.
It all seemed to make sense now and how ridiculous it made her feel!
Really, she should have known better! She should have kept well away as soon as he mentioned the wife, then she would at least have had time to get over him and move on without too much injury to her heart.
But was it really quite so simple? Had she got him wrong or was there something she was missing? Maybe he did love her. Maybe everything would work out?
She almost laughed out loud at her own stupidity. This was not some fairytale, she was no Sleeping Beauty and he was no Prince Charming. He was a married man with a murky past.
"Go to sleep, dream of a better man." he'd told her on that night before they had almost kissed.
She'd foolishly replied that she couldn't as there wasn't a better man. However, a few months later and she was beginning to re-evaluate that assessment. Maybe he wasn't the man for her, wife or no wife; he had made her no promises and not made a single declaration of love. She had nothing but soft smiles and gazes and a kiss that only happened in her dreams. Dream of a better man?
"Maybe John Bates, that's exactly what I'll do."