Back to the World

Always on the periphery. Always looking on...weighing options, calculating who to avoid. I should have just stayed home and sent a check...

The tall man with the greying blond hair sighed at his own thoughts as his hands idly picked up slick brochures from the table next to the column he was skulking behind. The room pulsed with the energy of the well dressed and well healed, gathered to do good work and hear about a topic they really didn't think effected them. Familiar faces passed around, as he stayed on the edge of the room, trying not to make eye contact, while conversations and laughter went on. Rather inappropriate, he thought, considering the issue of the evening.

Sir Anthony Strallen, formerly Major Strallen of Her Majesty's Army Intelligence Corps, was not often seen out and about anymore. Although he was never very involved in the charity social whirl that keeps those of his class occupied and involved, for the last three years, his absence has been absolute. After several months of declined invitations, or not even responding to them at all, his acquaintances stopped asking "Whatever happened to Strallen?" and he slipped out of the rounds without even leaving much of a ripple. Clearly, no one cared enough to continue inquiring.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. There was one person who didn't give up for months, but as she was the one person he was hiding from, her persistence was problematic. When the letters and calls finally stopped coming, he told himself he was relieved. It wouldn't be the first time he would lie to himself and his therapist, as he passed almost a year in a discrete facility that catered to quite a few members of the Officer's Corp.

Make progress and move on; your thoughts aren't you, Strallen, whatever Descartes might have thought. Dr. Foyle's advice was a mantra Anthony repeated when he was feeling overwhelmed and alone, but it was easier chanted then done. Anthony knew he couldn't stay at his country home forever, seeing no one, and watching life pass him by. When he got the routine invitation from a non profit who had clearly not updated its mailing list in three years, he decided it was time to step back into life a little.

As his eyes fixed on the brochure, he flinched and put it back down hurriedly. The picture of an Afghanistan child bride continued to stare at him with haunted eyes. As he drew a deep breath, vivid memories of very young girls, wrapped head to foot, stumbling and trying to keep up with grown men as they strode down dusty tracks came crashing into his mind. He could smell the diesel and coking oil in the air as he listened to his interpreter trying to draw information out of a taciturn, hostile man while the tiny girl stood behind him, fidgeting from time to time and refusing to look towards the soldiers.

Of all charity galas to attend, Anthony was beginning to think that this one, devoted to advocacy for Human Trafficking victims, might not have been the best choice. His mouth was dry and the bar was all the way across the ballroom. It wasn't really a drink he wanted anyway. As the sharp edges of human misery and cruelty sliced across his mind, what he really wanted was the fuzzy oblivion of Dilaudid, the disconnect with the world and the twinges of pain he still experienced from his right arm over three years later. He didn't want to see the sad and frightened faces of women, girls and boys anymore, and have to wonder if they sought his help or his death.

Anthony gave himself a good mental shaking and took a deep cleansing breath. Wherever his memories might take him, he was determined to support this cause. And slipping out the door while everyone's attention was on the dais where the speakers were beginning to gather would do nothing to achieve his goal of re-engaging with the world. First thing first, though. He needed something to drink. Sidling casually through the crowd, he nodded to familiar faces, rather enjoying the double takes, as he made his slow way to the bar.

"What can I get you, Sir" asked the young man behind the bar in a thoroughly bored tone, looking up from his phone.

"Just a bottled water," Anthony replied, ignoring the blatant eye roll in response.

The barman handed Anthony a cold bottle of water and a paper napkin with a dismissive look and promptly returned to staring at his phone. Anthony entertained a brief impulse to "accidentally" spill his water in the direction of the smartphone screen, then let it go. He opened the bottle immediately, draining half of it at once and earning a raised eyebrow from the barman, who looked as though he was about to say something cutting. Anthony abruptly strode off, so as not to have to hear what the self absorbed little asshole had to say.

Wonderful. Running from a smart assed punk so you won't have to tell him off. Well done, Strallen. Well done. You're most certainly ready to face the world.

Wrapped up in his self castigation, Anthony paid no attention to where he was going, and found himself swimming against the stream as the microphone crackled from the podium and the crowd moved closer to the speakers. Feeling self conscious, he stopped trying to get towards the back of the room and turned politely towards the front, hearing snatches of quiet conversations around him.

"...and Edith's been a tireless advocate; we never would have received that grant without her skills." Anthony's head swiveled to look towards the speaker, but could only see the back of several heads.

Surely, there must be more than one Edith in the world, he chided himself. When are you going to stop jumping at that name? He couldn't help inching a little closer though, trying to casually eavesdrop.

"Is she going to be speaking on the fundraising aspect?" asked another voice.

"We had quite a job getting her to agree, but yes. She's third on the list of speakers. See...right after Gloria...Edith Crawley."

Anthony felt his stomach drop and a thin sheen of panic sweat appeared on his forehead. Oh God, oh God, oh God. She was here, somewhere in this room, and he had to do his level best not to run into her. He began to look around desperately for a place to disappear into, while a little voice in his head intoned that he was a coward and a fool. He chose not to argue with it.

It WOULD be good to just see her, just hear her voice again. In spite of his decision three years ago to break from Edith so she could find someone who wasn't so screwed up and he could concentrate on getting better, he continued to torture himself by regularly reading her columns and all the gossip out there about her and that Michael Gregson. There had been a puzzling gap about a year ago for eight months, then her byline started reappearing. Actually, most of her recent articles were about trafficking and international rights of women, come to think on it. It should really come as no surprise that he might run into her at an event like this. Anthony refused to consider whether or not his subconscious might have known that and kept it from the rest of his brain when he made the decision to make this fundraising gala his first effort to really venture back out into the world. Right now, his mission was to slip out unnoticed and make another appointment with Dr. Foyle as soon as he could.

As Anthony tried to politely make his way out of the crowd, ignoring the glares as he pushed his way through, the condensation on his water bottle made him lose his grip and it fell from his fingers, rolling across the floor. Feeling a fool, he tried to chase it down while his brain screamed at him to just LEAVE it and get out. It fetched up against a pair of black pumps, and Anthony looked up to apologize to their owner, his mouth dropping open in shock.

"This must be yours," Edith Crawley said, as she bent down to pick up the bottle that had hit her foot and stood up to hand it to him. Her hand tightened around it, crimping the plastic, as her own mouth fell open. "Oh my God! What the HELL are you doing here?"

A/N: This is my first fanfiction, so reviews have the potential to be very helpful or crush my spirit entirely. No pressure, though.