Summary: Struggling with guilt and the thought that Anna would have been better off if they'd never met, Bates must face his doubts by witnessing the world as it would have been had he died years before. *Spoilers through S5.*
Disclaimer: I do not own Downton Abbey or "It's a Wonderful Life."
A/N: Spoilers through S5E8 and an implied resolution in the CS. I started writing this a few weeks ago in preparation for the holidays as "It's a Wonderful Life" is my favorite Christmas movie. It was a bit too long to post as a one-shot so I am breaking it into two parts. I know there's another Anna/Bates story out there by Downtonluvr based on the same concept. I had already started writing this story, and I deliberately haven't read that story yet so it wouldn't influence my writing on this.
As always, reviews are appreciated.
She never talked about the weeks she spent in prison awaiting trial for Green's murder - not to her husband or anyone else. He asked her once or twice, but Anna had no words, and she knew he would not press her. He understood all too well.
Bates feared the experience would leave her a broken shell of her former self, that her time behind bars would require years of patience and healing, much as they encountered following the attack she endured. But Anna blended back into her former life with seamless enthusiasm. If anything, it was as though a weight had finally been lifted from her. She laughed more easily and the clouds which sometimes threatened to bring a swift end to her good moods began to dissipate.
No more secrets stood between them. Green was not only dead and buried, but the entire business had finally been laid to rest. Anna no longer had to wrestle with the worries which had plagued her for so long - was her husband guilty of murder? Would he be arrested and taken from her again? Would she unwittingly lead to his death at the end of a noose?
"I'm just so relieved that it is all over and done with," she told him one night when he pressed her. Anna looked slightly away from him, her body going still as she added, "He can't hurt us any more."
"No, he cannot," Bates agreed.
But her words - over and done with - pulled at his conscience.
His moods did not improve as Anna's had. The guilt remained in him, festering and growing like an untended wound. This beautiful, amazing woman treated him like the most perfect, thoughtful and honorable husband, but he was none of those things. His failures had led to her being violated, to being shackled by the police and imprisoned like a common criminal.
And in the end, Lady Mary had found the proof to set Anna free, not Bates. Another failure.
He loved his wife, but what good was that love to her? What good was he for her?
The more he thought about Anna's life since he had proposed marriage, the more support he found for the conclusion that he was a curse on her. Vera had threatened to ruin her by exposing the business with Lady Mary and Mr. Pamuk, a tale his first wife would have had no reason to involve herself in but for getting back at him. Bates still regretted how much pain he'd brought that night when he'd walked out of Anna's life and left her sobbing in the courtyard.
Anna had offered to live in sin with him, he remembered, and it was not the last time she made the suggestion. It sometimes made him ill to consider what that offer had cost a woman of Anna's faith and conviction, to debase herself in such a manner. If Vera hadn't killed herself, would he have gone through with such a plan? Could he really have done that to Anna? In selfishness and greed, could he have brought her so low and stripped from her such precious legitimacy? He liked to think himself an honorable man, but Bates knew himself to be weak as well. And Anna's love was irresistible.
Bates knew that had he been truly honorable, he never would have married her, not while the police suspected him in Vera's death. In doing so he'd sentenced her to life as the wife of a murderer. Perhaps it would have been easier if they had hung him for the crime and made her a widow, but with the sentence commuted to live in prison... Anna was stuck, trapped in a marriage she could never escape even if she wanted out. Even though he'd been let out of prison, she would always face those whispered voices.
Letting out a pained sigh, his mind skipped over all the work she'd done to free him, the elation he'd seen in her face as she met him at the prison door upon his release. Anna's joy was her own, and he refused to take credit for any happiness which was properly hers by right.
And of course, there was the house party.
And Mr. Green.
He shuddered with guilt and anger and disgust as he thought of that vile man, his fists clenching as he imagined his hands around Green's neck, squeezing the life from the valet's body. Killing him would have brought satisfaction, certainly, but it also might have spared Anna the horror and indignity of a false arrest. Another failure on his part, to keep her safe. Another experience he would have gladly traded his life to spare her.
Anna continued to act as though everything was better, as though she were completely unaffected by what had transpired. And in her cheery indifference, Bates felt the seeds of his own self loathing sprout and mature.
She would be better off without him. As the years progressed, his limp would get worse and worse until he was forced to retire from service and depend entirely upon her. And in his final days, he would be a burden to his beautiful young wife, something to be pitied and cared for, not relied upon for support as she ought. And while Bates had no doubt that Anna's love would never waver, he wondered if it wouldn't be better for her if it did.
Where would she be if he had not come to Downton? Would she have married another man, bore his children? Would someone else have kept her safe when he had failed her? At the very least, she would have been spared the pain her association with him had brought her.
He sat reclined in one of the chairs in their parlor, much more relaxed at home than he would ever display in public, although across from him on the couch, Anna's back was straight and her shoulders back as she knitted some project he did not understand. She was always working, even in her few idle moments at home. Bates watched her for a time, ignoring the book which sat open on his lap.
The adjective 'beautiful' did not really do his wife justice. Despite being tiny and pale, she was all softness and curves rather than sharp angles like so many other women of a similar build. And beyond that, Anna radiated a quiet warmth, as though she were a small star and anyone in her orbit was unknowingly bathed in her light and kindness.
"What are you staring at, Mister Bates?" she chided him gently, looking up with laughing eyes over her knitting needles.
"Just you," he confessed.
"Any particular reason?"
Anna was teasing him, he knew, trying to draw him out of the funk he'd fallen into over the past weeks. Part of Bates wished that he could succumb to her charm and let go of all his doubts and misgivings. But deep down, it felt wrong to accept her gentle comfort, not when she'd been the one to suffer so cruelly.
"No reason."
If he were truthful, he would have answered her that he could think of little beyond her ordeal in prison. His wife had been shackled and marched out of her employers' home by police officers, taken from all those who held her dear, and placed behind bars for a crime she would never have committed in a lifetime, no matter what her motives. And still, Bates knew that she was relieved they'd taken her and not him. She'd confessed it to him when he first went to visit her in prison, and those words had stayed with him ever since.
"I'm just so glad they don't think it was you."
There had been tears in her eyes as she told him that, her hands unconsciously wringing on the table before her as she tried to find the missing ring from her left hand. The police had returned it to her later when they let her go, but just the sight of her without it for the visit had set Bates' mind reeling. He still could not banish that image from his mind.
"Are you tired?" Anna asked him. "We could head up to bed."
He shook his head. "Not just yet."
But he could see her eyes were drooping with fatigue, and the hour was growing late. "You go up," he suggested. "I'll follow in a little while."
Setting aside her knitting, Anna nodded in agreement. "Just don't stay up to all hours reading," she warned him.
"I won't."
She leaned over to give him a kiss before leaving him alone in their parlor, the light cast from the lamps seeming to dim with her absence. Anna always made everything brighter, and the time he'd recently spent without her there bore that out.
His book was left forgotten as he stared into space, his mind engaged in the sort of all consuming brooding that Anna would have frowned at him for if she'd seen. But he could not turn off the doubts that whispered to him in the dark, the worry for his wife, who had endured so much with so little given back to her in return. They had dreamed of children for so long, but that wish still went unfulfilled, and Bates had a strong notion that he was at fault, not Anna. After all, Vera had never gotten with child in all the years of their marriage, and it seemed more likely there was something wrong with him than a young woman like Anna. And if it was him, then he was cheating her out of the family she'd been wanting for years, the babes which would have been lucky to be birthed into her love and raised by the likes of Anna Smith.
Sighing, he corrected himself - Anna Bates. She had once told him that she was meant to be Mrs. Bates, and she'd have been uneasy in her grave if she'd died under a different name. But he wondered if the name wasn't a curse for her, a promise of nothing but continued sorrow and pain. Even if she had married someone as dull and unassuming as Mr. Molesley, or never married at all, at least she might have had a chance at greater happiness than Bates had bestowed upon her.
The lamps burned low as the hours passed, and at some point, he fell into an uneasy sleep.
"Bates, wake up."
The voice was familiar and commanding, but he found it difficult to search through the fog for the origin. Everything was off, as though he were mired and could not move, but events kept occurring around him with alarming speed.
"Milord?" he asked, even as he identified the person calling to him.
Out of the mists stepped Lord Grantham, except he was clad in the red coated dress uniform of the Lord Lieutenant, complete with medals. Automatically, Bates stood to attention, but the Earl seemed not to see him.
"Private Bates, what are you about?"
"I think I saw something, sir," he found himself saying, as he stared into the distance in the same direction as the officer.
And in that moment, Bates realized where he was - in South Africa during the latter portion of 1901. The column was on its way to root out a group of enemy fighters, and while they were always alert to the possibility of ambush, there was belief that the information received was accurate and the Boers were hidden miles away. But he'd seen something not far off which just did not feel right. Glancing at Captain Crawley, Bates noticed that his uniform had morphed, the way things sometimes did in dreams, into a regular uniform more suited to their surroundings.
"What did you see?"
"I'm not sure how to describe it."
He never had been. Was it a flash of sunlight on metal? A movement near the hills to the East which should not have caught his attention? Or perhaps it was a smell, foreign to the wilderness but reminiscent of soldier-filled barracks which he caught when the wind suddenly changed directions? Either way, something had tickled the back of his mind and he'd spoken up promptly.
"I need something more than a gut feeling, Bates," Captain Crawley chastised him.
But in the end, it did not matter. There was no time to move into defensive positions before the first shots rang out. Gunfire erupted from the hills Bates had been staring at moments before, followed by the sounds of the British soldiers as they quickly moved to react. Even as his commander was calling out orders to the others, a distant boom sounded, and his attention was drawn to the distinctive whine of a shell growing steadily nearer. Bates reacted instinctively, as a batman should, and he threw Captain Crawley to the ground, covering the man with his body. The chaos around them suddenly went dark and sounds faded. Bates felt pain for a moment, but only a moment, and it was quickly swallowed up by a warm nothingness both familiar and new.
Time shifted and shattered as his perceptions exploded into millions of tiny pieces. Sound became sight, which took over for feeling. Smell and taste were completely gone as gradually Bates emerged into the other side. White light surrounded him like deep water, and Bates looked around himself for some frame of reference. But none could be found. The battlefield was gone. Lord Grantham was gone. Everything - swallowed up by light.
"Bates."
He recognized the voice, although it might have repeated itself a hundred times before he understood the meaning of the word to be his name. And he knew the man speaking it. He blinked his eyes to see a uniformed Captain Crawley, whole and healthy.
But instead of Lord Grantham, it was a different Captain Crawley - Matthew, the heir to the estate. But with a sinking feeling, Bates recalled that the young man was dead, long dead, having died in a car accident the same day his only son was born.
"Where am I?" Bates asked the man, suspecting that he already knew the answer. He looked around them only to see a vast array of nothingness, an empty void he could not quite describe.
Matthew looked at him kindly, with an expression of perpetual amusement.
"The good news is, you aren't in hell," the man told him with a small chuckle. "The bad news is, you aren't in heaven either. You seem to have been caught in between for a time. And while they get things sorted out, I'm to stay with you."
Bates raised both eyebrows in surprise. "They?" he asked.
Matthew shrugged. "The powers that be, for lack of a better term. The ones who decide if we die suddenly or at the end of a long life, surrounded by family and children."
"How did I die?" Bates asked.
The other man paused, considering for a moment. Finally, he revealed, "You were killed in military action the 2nd of October in South Africa, during the second Boer War. You saved the life of your commanding officer, Robert Crawley, but sadly you succumbed to injuries sustained in battle..."
Shaking his head in confusion, the valet stated, "But I didn't die that day. I was injured, surely, but I did not die."
Matthew looked from him to the ground - as white as everything else - and then back again. "You did die. Or rather, you were supposed to die that day. You were allowed to live, after coming to a place much like this. Your chance to return came upon the promise of changing your life and having the opportunity to be a better person."
Dumbfounded by this revelation, Bates asked softly, "I was never supposed to live?"
A shake of the head preceded the answer, "I'm afraid not."
"Then what-"
The other man cut in, "You begged to live, last time you were in this place. You were shown how life would be for others if you died on the field this day, and after getting a good idea of what was to come, you made the decision to live. Now, it seems, you've gone back on your promises and you doubt whether the decision made before was the right one."
Confused, Bates said slowly, "I have no memory of this earlier time."
"Of course you don't. You should remember nothing but your time on Earth as a human being."
Before he could dispute that reasoning, the specter of Matthew Crawley said, "Whether you remember it or not, I'm afraid you're here for a reason, Bates."
The lighted space they were in slowly dimmed until the valet found himself swallowed up by the darkness. He took in a deep breath as the silence stretched on and on until it was finally broken by the words of Lord Grantham himself. Reality snapped back into focus, although everything seemed obscured by a strange mist.
"This can't be," his commanding officer said to someone standing a few feet away. Lord Grantham's familiar tones soothed him for only an instant before the man's grief became apparent. "He was just here a few hours ago. He can't be dead."
Another voice, a medic perhaps, said slowly, "His injuries were just too grave. A fever took him in the night. Nothing could be done."
And suddenly the mist cleared, and Bates saw the scene for himself. It was a field hospital in Africa, where they'd taken him after the ambush. But the bed Lord Grantham - Captain Crawley - stood next to was occupied by another man, and the medic he spoke to was shaking his head with a touch of sadness.
He was dead. Bates was dead.
"But that's not how it happened," he said aloud. Matthew stepped forward, the two of them unseen by those in the field hospital.
"It is how it happened now. But at the time you made a convincing case for life. You had a great deal to live for - a wife back home, a promising career, a mother who needed you. So you were granted a reprieve."
Bates snorted in disbelief. "By God?" he questioned.
"By God. Or the Fates, or the universe itself," the younger man said with a smile. "Not everyone is given such an opportunity, you know."
There was pain in Matthew's eyes as he spoke, and Bates wondered why he had been granted a second chance at life when the Crawley heir had not. He had died a young man, with a wife and new baby boy waiting for him. And what about William, killed in the war? Or even young Sybil, so beautiful and also with a new child? Why, compared to such others, was Bates given another opportunity at life?
"Perhaps because you sacrificed yourself," Matthew answered his silent questions. "You saved Robert. Without a moment to even think about it, you did what you needed to do to keep him safe."
"It was instinct," he defended.
"An instinct to save another rather than yourself," the other man pointed out, "is a rare and selfless thing. I don't know for sure, but I would wager it earned you a second chance at life."
Bates stared back at him for a moment, trying to comprehend the realities he was setting forth. The fact that a dead man was talking to him at all either meant that it was true, or he had finally cracked and gone completely mad. Finally, he decided to at least play along with the vision, even if he was unsure of its reality.
He asked slowly, "But now that second chance has been revoked?"
Matthew's friendly expression turned somber. "Yes. Your regrets have become too much, it seems. Whatever force was behind giving you another go at life has no wish to see you living to hate the gift which was bestowed."
With a sigh, Bates said, "Then perhaps it is for the best. I did not know the opportunity I had, and I not only squandered it but caused a great deal of heartache to those I love."
The young man in soldier's dress nodded solemnly. "Then it will be as though you died on this battlefield. None of your life which came after will occur again. Those you knew later will have never met you. Your mother will mourn you. Your wife, Vera, will remarry, although she will find no happiness there."
"What of Anna?" Bates asked.
A pause, ripe with unspoken details. "She will never know you existed."
"May I see her?"
Matthew considered the request. "Yes. But first, you should see something else."
"This is the world now, without you."
The library was much as Bates remembered it. A few pieces of furniture were arranged differently, some artwork having changed a bit from what he recalled, but for the most part, it was the same. Only the occupants of the room seemed altered.
"I don't want to go," Lord Grantham stated, sounding for all the world like a petulant child. But unlike a young boy, he slurred his words, the hint at his intoxication utterly unnecessarily in light of how much the beverage in his hand sloshed inside the glass.
"Robert, please," his wife appealed, "you promised you'd make an effort."
Rolling his eyes with exaggerated annoyance, the Earl demanded, "And why should I? They were rude to us last time we attended one of these God-forsaken... soirees. I swore I'd never go again, not even if they were to.. beg me."
"They weren't rude," she answered. "That is just how you remember things. And we both know that your perception isn't the best."
Lord Grantham stared at her, his irritation suddenly solidifying into a cold, hard core of anger. "And just what is that supposed to mean?" he inquired.
"Nothing, just that you..."
"That I - what?"
Shaking her head, Lady Grantham said quietly, "You're drunk, Robert. You were drunk that night and you're drunk tonight. I know you've had a hard time since Matthew died but-"
He glared at her, appearing surprised at her frankness. "I refuse to listen to my own wife slander me in my own home."
"It isn't slander if it is true."
Bates turned to Matthew, who stood by looking just as sad and forlorn with the situation as he felt. "How long has he been this way?" the valet asked.
Neither paid much attention as the lord and lady squabbled together in the background. The younger man answered, "He had a drinking problem years ago, when he came back from serving in Africa, but he managed to keep it under control a long time. Lately it has only gotten worse."
The library door opened and Lady Mary entered, followed by Lady Edith. The couple stopped their fighting at the sight of the two women, although neither seemed surprised by the abrupt silence.
"Have you talked him into going with us?" Lady Edith asked her mother.
Lady Grantham's face pinched painfully as she attempted to maintain a pleasant countenance. "We've been discussing it."
"What discussion?" the Earl muttered.
"Papa, it is just a dinner party."
Edith's attempt to appeal to him did little to calm his outraged state.
"Just a dinner party?" he demanded. "Just a dinner party where I am to be treated as a social pariah yet again."
Mary spoke for the first time since arriving, but only murmured to herself, "You fit in with the rest of us."
She engaged in no further conversation, but settled herself quietly back into the cushions of the couch, her expression vacant and hallow.
Matthew leaned into Bates and explained, "The scandal regarding the Turkish ambassador got out and Mary was ruined socially. She and I still married, but many thought she did so out of desperation. Since my death, she's been... slow to come out of herself again."
Bates looked at Matthew and saw the grief and guilt reflected in that man's eyes as he spoke of his wife. But the fate of the Crawley heir was very different from his own. Matthew had always been a good man, had done right by his family and those around him. He had never hurt or failed Mary, not the way Bates had failed Anna. It seemed terribly unfair that the other man had not been allowed another chance as he had.
Swallowing uncomfortably, Bates asked, "And Lady Sybil?"
"She still passed away after giving birth. Tom took Sybbie to America a few months later. It took a long time for Cousin Cora to forgive Robert. And actually... I'm not sure if she ever did, really."
They both looked at Lady Grantham, who glared disdainfully at her husband as he took another long drink of amber colored liquid out of his glass, eagerly draining the last few drops. Without hesitation, Lord Grantham reached for a carafe and poured himself another.
"Don't you think you've had enough?" his wife asked.
"I've had more than enough of you harping on me," he shot back without a hint of amusement or affection.
Bates was utterly bewildered by his employer's behavior and his complete lack of propriety, having never seen him so flippant and dismissive of his own family. "Why is he like this?"
"Guilt, mostly," Matthew answered truthfully. "He suffers under a great mountain of guilt and recrimination. Much of it goes back your death."
"My death?" Bates demanded.
"Yes. He blames himself for not having listened to you sooner. Other men died that day besides yourself, but you died saving him. He believes all of that blood is on his own hands, and he has never been able to wash it away." Matthew frowned in obvious pain as he watched his father-in-law, the man he likely viewed even more as an adopted father figure. "Robert cleaned himself up after the war, but he was never quite the same. Unfortunately, he turned back to heavy drinking after Sybil's death, believing he was responsible, and the accident which took my life did not help matters. I guess some losses are just too much to cope with alone."
And Lord Grantham as very much alone, despite the three women with him in the library. His own wife looked as if she detested his very presence. Lady Mary was somewhere else entirely, at least in spirit, and only Lady Edith betrayed the slightest inclination towards seeking him out. But she hesitated to do so, obviously having been deterred from such outreach in the past. They were each of them an island unto themselves, miserable and isolated.
Bates looked away, deeply affected by the sight of his employer, his former commander, succumbing to the bottle just as he had so many years earlier. Seeing a man he respected as much as Lord Grantham suffering under the same weaknesses was disheartening.
"What will happen to him?" he asked.
Matthew shrugged a shoulder almost casually, but his tone betrayed concern. "He'll likely drink himself into an early grave at this rate, but time will tell." He paused. "Come, there is more for you to see."
Bates sighed. "I don't know that I want to see more."
The other man shot him a knowing look. "Don't you wish to see Anna?"
TBC