The door smashed open with a crash that nearly knocked it off its hinges, and the rain blew in along with huge gusting puffs of wind ripping like the tide through the servant's quarters of Downton Abbey. Slowly, a large red cylindrical figure studded with metal domes and vents, the likes of which had never been seen in that corner of the country before, began to glide into the room through the air, followed by the fur swathed, curved figure of a dark haired woman with an odd sort of gleam in her sea-glass coloured eyes, which were half hidden by the low brim of her purple hat. A Dalek and its motley accomplice.
"Vera," John Bates breathed. "What are you doing here?" the anger in his tone was obvious, but he was too intent on dragging the reason for his first wife's impromptu visit from her to notice what the rest of the flustered servants were panicking about behind him. Ruffled as they had been when the wind had first blown in, much to the annoyance of Mr. Carson, they were nothing but disturbed by the sight of the metal monster that stood before them.
It regarded them coldly (if such creatures could watch anyone at all), peering at them through its eyestalk, rotating on its wheels. "Excuse me," Carson's voice was the epitome of disapproval. "But what is the meaning of this?" he turned to Vera, the look on his face one of exasperation. "Mrs. Bates, I assume? Well I won't pretend I know what you are doing here, but I must demand you leave instantly, or I shall be calling his Lordship!" God knows how she'd got in…god knows what this thing was she'd brought with her!
Vera blithely ignored him, turning towards the Dalek with a tiny smile. "Which one? It croaked. Behind it, Ethel beamed. This was more entertaining than what usually happened of an evening that was for sure! Mr. Lang frowned, clutching at O'Brien's warm, work-calloused hand under the table in a sort of desperate grasp. He knew a war machine when he saw one.
Vera pointed one long, quivering finger at Mr. Bates. "Him." Her voice was flat, and completely devoid of emotion and anything else to mark it out, save for a distinct Irish accent. One could have almost thought she was made of metal herself. The Dalek revolved slowly, the gun protruding from its middle pointed directly at Bates' heart. "W-what?" he blustered. "Vera, what's going on?"
He never got an answer. It blasted him right in the chest. Dead.
Next to O'Brien, Mr. Lang began screaming. It was too much – too reminiscent of the trenches, the gunfire, so many young, harmless men dying all around him…
"Oh for Christ's sake, Vera!" Sarah cried. "When I said you could do that, I meant not when Andrew's around!"