Title: Innocuous
Pairing: Richard Clarkson/Elsie Hughes
Rating: K
Spoilers: Nothing specific but set sometime after the war.
Summary: Dr Clarkson invites someone in for a little tea and innocuous conversation.
Authors notes: While my muse has decided to leave Bates wallowing in self pity, it decided Dr Clarkson needed a little interaction. This is the result. A one off I think although the pairing does keep swirling around in mind

Innocuous

Spring time in Yorkshire could bring a bracing wind and rain showers one minute, with occasional flurries of snow another and oftentimes a warm sunny afternoon. The day was proving no different.

When he woke up at six and made his way through the village to the hospital it had been close to freezing outside, the wind swirling around his ankles, now as the clock struck two it was almost balmy, sun warming his skin. Richard leaned against the door frame and watched the few patients that were well enough wander through the garden. It was a moments respite in what had otherwise been a busy day and it wasn't over yet. A movement in the distance caught his eye and he turned, a smile crossing his features as he recognised the owner of the sombre winter coat immediately.

"Good afternoon, Mrs Hughes," he called quickly as she walked past the hospital gate.

Elsie stopped, her brow furrowing as she recognised the familiar voice, and took a step back. "Good afternoon, Doctor Clarkson."

"Half day?" he asked, prolonging the conversation and casually walking towards her. He couldn't help but grin at the look of surprise on her face. It was probably a bit unusual for him to strike up a conversation with her, in the past it had been her to make the opening gambit, but they were living in unusual times. The end of the war had signalled a new era. With the soldiers gone, his work had returned to the routine of pre-war. While there was still plenty of work to keep him busy the sacrifice of so many had encouraged that life was short and for the living. Not that he'd had much chance to live as yet except a rare day off by the sea and a drive up on the moors. Today he just longed for a conversation with someone who wasn't a nurse or a patient.

She nodded. "Just running some errands." Her bag dangled precariously from her hand as she stood there staring at him, her brow furrowed.

He waited for her to say something further but she continued to stand there. "Would you like some tea?"

Elsie raised an eyebrow, taken aback by his invitation. He could have invited her to his cottage for a rendezvous and she wouldn't have been more surprised. "Tea?"

"Yes." It wasn't that difficult to comprehend surely, he thought, that he was inviting her to share a brew. So he was a little out of practice living in a village and having lived through a war that left him with little time to do anything but work, but in the old days invitations were accepted or declined, rarely questioned. "I was going to make a pot before rounds. If you have time maybe you could join me," he explained, hoping that the expression on her face wasn't one of horror.

She pondered the nature of his invitation, weighing up a lifetime of considerations it seemed before she nodded. "I think I would like that."

Richard held out his arm and indicated the door to the hospital with his hand.

His office was everything she would expect of him, deeply masculine with dark panelled walls, and oversized pieces of furniture, cluttered with years of accumulated belongings; his desk over flowing with papers. In one corner of the room sat a low metal bed, blankets neatly folded on one end. Her eyes were drawn to it, an image of the man she had always seen as professional and distant changing before her eyes. She imagined instead him crawling between the sheets after a long night on the ward, exhausted and emotional drained. She allowed her mind to wonder further, to contemplate aspects of the man rather than the doctor, a more fantastical image springing to mind. She licked her lips unconsciously, her cheeks tingeing pink before forcing herself to look at the bookcase. As she scanned the titles, nothing in his small collection of books told her much about the private man, only that he had read around his subject well.

"Tea will arrive shortly," he announced, appearing in the doorway.

Elsie turned and smiled, only mildly embarrassed at being caught out nosing around his office.

"You've never been in here before," he stated flatly.

She shook her head. "I don't really have time to be sick," she admitted sardonically. "It gets in the way of running Downton."

"And taking care of everyone else," he offered, his tone not betraying his thoughts. Mrs Hughes would have made a good nurse, he often thought. On his frequent calls to the servants quarters it was always her that he found himself explaining medication to, her that hovered just beyond the doors as he assessed patients. He knew the servants thought her stoic and uptight but he had witnessed the compassion in her. Circling around her, he made his way towards the window. "I chose this room myself. When we established the hospital. The sun streams through the window in the morning."

"Which means you can be up and dressed before anyone realises you never left." She swallowed hard and looked away, surprised at herself for her tit for tat comment.

"You have me," he admitted with a twitch of his lips, holding his hands up. Folding his arms over his chest, he turned from the window to look at her. "And you, you probably don't sleep in your sitting room. Whatever time you finish up you climb all those stairs and you get one of the scullery maids to wake you first?"

Her afternoon off, she had to admit was taking on a form she hadn't expected. She always thought that she kept herself hidden, years of disappearing behind the propriety of service working in her favour but he seemed to understand her, to have noticed her. "Daisy knocks before she is even dressed."

His smile widened. "And you're always the last one to head up."

"That depends on how stubborn and pigheaded Mr Carson is being," she chuckled.

Richard nodded. It had been impulsive and maybe a little risky for him to invite her for tea, but in this case his impulse had been right. She was exactly the distraction he needed from his work. He opened his mouth to speak but changed his mind, rethinking the direction of the conversation. "My office faces onto the garden. In the summer I get to admire the roses, in the autumn I get to watch the leaves turn."

Elsie made her way to the window and stood beside him, her shoulder barely inches from him. A faint scent of cologne drifted into her direction and she found herself momentarily thrown. She couldn't remember the last time she had been alone with a man who wasn't Mr Carson or his Lordship, and after so many years they didn't really count. Her mothers warnings echoed in her ears and her mind frantically searched for something innocuous to say. "And in Spring time you get to see the birds reappear."

A knock on the open door startled them both and they moved apart, unconsciously.

"Thank you, nurse, please leave it on the desk."

She crossed the room, placed the tray in the middle of his chaos and left as quickly as she had arrived, closing the door behind her.

"Please take a seat," he urged. "How do you take your tea?"

"A little milk, no sugar please." Elsie settled herself in the visitors chair, placing her bag and gloves on the floor beside her. Now that she was seated, a sense of formality had returned, the professionalism with which they had conducted themselves throughout the war restored. She had enjoyed working with him in the big house, not least because of the way he had instructed her rather than bark orders. There seemed to be a mutual respect between them and she had often drawn him out, taking comfort in the sound of his Scottish idiom. A few shared words in a crowded room was a long way from the two them sharing tea though.

Richard poured tea into two cups, adding milk to both and sugar to his own before he handed her a saucer. "You're wondering how an earth I can find anything," he commented dryly. He leaned in almost conspiratorially. "At the end of every day I have to spend an hour at my desk putting order to the chaos, filing everything I can and filling out charts. By lunchtime the next day this is what you get." He moved around the desk and settled himself in the other visitor chair.

"And if I may be bold, do you have the same system in the cottage?" she asked, her tone taking on an unfamiliar mischievous tone.

He glanced away briefly. Come and find out he wanted to say, and he had no idea why. "I have someone who comes in and rectifies the situation."

"A housekeeper?"

"More of a housemaid." The young woman that cleaned three times a week and did his laundry was nothing like the housekeeper sat before him.

"The distinction being?" Elsie asked, curious as to how he valued her job.

He leaned back in his chair, watching her over his cup. "She doesn't run my house, or my life or me." He hoped he hadn't offended her with his sweeping response.

Elsie allowed herself a small chuckle. "Maybe that's what you need." She indicated the clutter on every surface.

"You think I need a women to run my life?" Richard asked, his tone laced with amusement and mock horror. "I think I have quite enough women in my life trying to run it for me."

She hesitated, biting her lower lip but he was looking at her, his expression almost challenging her to speak. "And I thought Mrs Crawley was engaged with aiding refugees."

Richard had the good graces to chuckle. "I have a hospital full of young nurses. . ."

"Who acquiesce to your every whim," she continued, warmth in her tone.

"You think I have them wrapped around my little finger?" If only, he thought.

"I'm sure you can be a little intimidating when you wish."

Richard took a lengthy sip from his cup before he said quietly,"But not to you Mrs Hughes."

She rolled her eyes. "No, not to me. I've spent twenty years or more learning how to deal with intimidating men."

"You can be a little intimidating yourself," he mused. "I've seen the way the maids scurry when you enter a room."

Elsie placed the china saucer on his desk as she offered mock-sternly, "I have you know I've spent years cultivating that persona."

"Doesn't it all get a little bit lonely at times?" Maybe he was projecting but being in charge left you with few people to share the burden with and it couldn't be easy for her in a similar position.

"In a house like Downton it's often preferable to find a little solitude," she offered wistfully.

Richard lowered his voice and leaned in towards her. "That's not what I meant."

"I know what you meant. This is what I'm good at. I've worked hard to get where I am and I enjoy running Downton. I made my choice years ago." She paused briefly, turning to study him, her thoughts drifting naturally to the choices he himself had made.

"You're wondering why I never married."

"No," she responded too quickly, she knew.

His eyebrows quirked up in question.

"It wouldn't be polite to ask."

"Oh, Mrs Hughes, please ask."

"Aren't doctors supposed to fall in love in nurses and make them doctors' wives?" There she had said it and he was still smiling inanely at her.

He laughed then, deep and rumbling. "Aren't housekeepers supposed to settle down and marry butlers?" His laughter faltered in his chest at the look on her face. "I'm sorry I've offended you." He mentally cursed himself but they had fallen into familiarity and it seemed natural to continue the gentle teasing.

"No," she said, the smile failing to reach her eyes. "I should go run my errands if I'm going to make it back for dinner."

He watched as she rose to her feet, gathering her belongings, avoiding his eyes. Rising with her, he mentally chided himself on being so stupid. Waiting until she reached the door, her hand poised to open it, he remarked quietly, "In answer to your question, I've never been very good at doing what I'm supposed to do."

Elsie turned to look at him, a small but happy smile forming on her lips. "Neither, Dr Clarkson, am I."

Richard felt his lips rise upwards as she opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. It could have been a throw away comment but her smile suggested it was more than that.

"Goodbye, Dr Clarkson. Thank you for the tea."

His mind still reeling from her comment he barely managed to call out "Goodbye, Mrs Hughes," before she disappeared from view.