Soli Deo gloria

DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Downton Abbey.

I just finished the finale last night. What a show! (Put me down for that movie, LOL.)

Here are some last thoughts of mine:

Thomas hadn't expected there to be anyone by his side when he woke up—mainly because he'd been planning to never wake up at all.

Still, he stirred against the covers and felt dull, constant pain in either wrist. This wasn't his old war wound in his left hand, the one that sometimes ached as it foretold bad weather in the evening. No, this was new pain. It was his own pain, of course. Every single lash of pain he seemed to receive were all by his own hand. His fault. No one else to blame but him.

He heard a soft noise as he groaned and blinked his eyes open. Baxter's kind brown eyes met his. They looked up from her constant companion, her needle and thread. Her hand stopped in mid-air before falling back onto the dress she was mending. No sewing machine this time. How long had she been mending by his bedside, waiting for him to wake up?

"You know," he croaked. His throat was fine but the pain in his hands laced his voice.

Baxter made no acknowledgement of the wealth of fatal knowledge she knew. Her face dipped in a small kind smile as her hand left her needle and gently touched his cheek. "You're awake," she said in a bright whisper.

Thomas blinked again, confused. He wasn't supposed to wake up. The last thing he remembered was his head feel woozy as his slippery hands fell limply against the bathtub. "I didn't die, then?" He surmised a little bitterly. "Either that or I made it to heaven somehow and it's not quite what I ever supposed it would be."

"You're here in Downton Abbey and this is where you will stay," Baxter said. She almost went to clasp his hand and then stopped short, not wanting to cause any more pain to him by agitating the injury. She settled for clasping his limp fingers gently but tightly in her own.

The little glimmer of hope that'd sparked in Thomas's eyes faded as he remembered all that had happened before. "Not if Carson and His Lordship have anything to say about it." He made no attempt to hide the tainted taste of bitterness from his tongue now.

"They won't turn you out, not now," Baxter told him softly.

"Ah, so I'm to stay for a little while, until they get over their guilty consciences and let me go anyway, just as they planned?" Thomas plastered on a fake smile; it was a shield—it could barely be called a smile. It was a cover-up that could barely hide the pain he felt throughout his whole body. "I've been limping along on their pity for me for months. It's a wonder Carson hasn't shoved me bodily out the door before now."

"They've seen the loyal service you've given this house. You've given the best years of your life to this house; they understand that," Baxter said in counter-argument.

"I see why they want me out, though. Same reason I want me out. I-I have done so much wrong to my fellow man, Baxter. Before I came to this house and long after. I should be grateful they haven't seen fit to cast me out long before," Thomas said, his gaze seeing blankly past Baxter, almost like he was talking to himself.

"Now, Thomas," Baxter said (not Barrow, he noticed), "that is the kind of thinking that's gotten you to where you are. I can see as well as anyone else that you've realized long ago what you've done wrong, what you've done to separate yourself from other people." She made no mention of his homosexuality, how his needed concealment of it added to his prickly, finicky, trouble-finding personality. She did say softly, in a kind but firm voice, "You've always felt different from everyone else, so you made sure that you were never truly a part of everyone else. We are all different in many sorts of ways. I went to prison, but—but I have been different since then. Repented and moved on. Once I let go of that secret and others knew me as I am, and accepted me as I am, I've become a part of the people of this house. One day I will accept myself as I am, and then I will feel even more a part of this house. You don't believe that people have accepted you as you are, Thomas—"

"That's because they haven't. I've been making enemies ever since I stepped foot here, in this house I've loved," he said in a low voice.

"But they have. What is the staff at Downton Abbey, but Carson and Mrs. Hughes and the Bateses and Mosley and Mrs. Patmore and Baxter and Barrow?" Baxter asked earnestly. "You are a part of us. You might be troublesome and hard to get along with, but you're a part of Downton Abbey. You are accepted here."

Thomas blinked, his pained eyes full of tears. "Then why am I not wanted here?" he wondered, his voice cracking.

Baxter regarded him with thoughtful eyes, searching for words to acknowledge this truth, but to not cause him further pain. "Times are changing," she said gently, "and big houses don't need as many people anymore. We may no longer need you as an under-butler, but despite your own best efforts, you are one of our own. We will always welcome you back as a friend."

Thomas blinked, a tear rolling down his cheek. He didn't go to brush it off, pretending that ignoring it meant that it wasn't there. "There aren't many in the world I can call a friend."

"I hope, at the end of the day, you can count me in as one," Baxter said, squeezing his fingers gently. She looked at him, this broken man in bed, saved from his own hand by her scared intuition, and said, "You're your own worst enemy, Thomas."

"I know. I just realized it too late," Thomas murmured. He swallowed and decided to speak of things not focusing entirely on his own self-hatred and suicide attempt. "Who else knows?"

"I do. Mrs. Hughes, Anna, and Andy."

Thomas winced at the mention of Anna and Andy. No doubt Mr. Bates would hear of it now (if the whole house wasn't buzzing with it already) and what fragile friendship he shared with Andy must be all and done with. By his own hand, of course. His own worst enemy. "Who found me?" he wondered. "Did they come looking for me or did I just get stumbled upon?"

Baxter wouldn't meet his eyes. "I found you. I was looking for you. I only got Andy involved to kick down your door."

Thomas's eyes flew up to meet hers. His pain was mirrored in her eyes. "You found me? Why? Why did you go looking?"

"Something Mr. Mosley said. It sounded so out-of-the-blue for you to say, for you to wish good luck on a fellow creature. It sounded like there was so much regret behind it; it sounded so . . . final," Baxter admitted. "I was out walking with him to the schoolhouse, but felt as if I must come and find you . . . it sounded like you had come to a decision. I wanted to stop you before it was too late." She looked up at him with a rueful expression, as if waiting for his response to this. "I don't know if you are angry at me or not for not letting you succeed, but I do not care. It was not your time, Thomas; I hope you'll realize that soon enough."

Thomas didn't know what to say. He'd brought her under this roof to push her about, to have another scheming compatriot under and above stairs, an informant since O'Brien had abruptly abandoned him. He found out quickly that Baxter wouldn't be pushed about by him, that she was her own person, and that she was better than him. Kinder than him, well-liked by everyone else; she didn't let her dark secrets poison her every interaction with everyone. She didn't let herself become bitter towards everyone and life around them.

Thomas brought Baxter on hoping she was do his bidding, but quickly found out she would never let herself be manipulated by anyone ever again. Yet, here she was, by his side. She found him when no one else would've noticed him and his odd choice of words.

"Thank you," he whispered, his voice cracking. "I-I . . ."

Baxter smiled, a real smile. "There's no need for it," she said. "There's no need to talk about it now, if you'd like."

"Yes," Thomas said, swallowing, "I'd rather not talk about it all for a while."

"Let me get Mrs. Hughes. She'll ring Dr. Clarkson. He tended your wounds. He said you'll get better, but I'm sure he'll want to know you're awake." Baxter stood and went to the door, but stopped short to look at Thomas as he laid in the bed, dazed, his wrists bandaged and his body and spirit limp with exhaustion. "Thomas," she said, recalling his eyes to her. "You will get better," she said softly, as if premonitions of a good future evoked the words forth from her.

"I didn't believe that before, Phyllis," he said softly, for the first time using her Christian name (formalities dropped when she'd found him at his lowest point and saved his life despite himself), "but now, you and your words have led me to believe otherwise, just a bit."

Baxter's smile was kind. "Just a bit is just enough, sometimes." A dip of her head before hurrying out the door to find Mrs. Hughes.

Thomas's eyes fell to studying the clean white gauze around his wrists. It reminded him of the time he ensured he got his hand shot, to save his life. Now his wrists showed the complete turnaround. But then, here, when he thought he'd no friends to be found in anyone in Downton Abbey, names and faces appeared before him. Mrs. Hughes. Andy. Anna. Baxter. His eyes were full of tears even as he wryly smiled to himself—not a plastered smile, either, but a real one. "You are your own worst enemy, Barrow," he murmured softly to himself.

Angst angst angst angst angst.

I disliked a great many of Thomas's mean and selfish choices to ruin other people's lives in the first few seasons, but as the series progressed to a close, I believe him to be a pitiable, lonely man who regrets many things at the last and wants to turn around. To quote Buzz Lightyear, "You are a sad, strange little man, and you have my pity."

Thanks for reading!