Warnings: Season 4 Anna/Bates canon fic, thus occasional disturbing references. Also graphic consensual sexual situations.

Spoilers: S4:1-3

A/N: Yes, everyone's writing these Anna/Bates Season four fics, but I can't help myself. I must fix things. It's a compulsion. The good news is, I don't foresee this being more than six parts. (I promise myself)


When Anna was still just one of many housemaids, the Earl returned from an Italian visit with a lovely gift for his wife. It was a blown glass globe, as fine and delicate as a gossamer soap bubble. Inside, a courtly couple were frozen in a dance, their limbs bright, translucent glass. The lady has tiny bowed red lips; the gentleman wore a pale wig. It was the loveliest thing that the young maid had ever seen in a house full of lovely objects. Perhaps it was the way that sunlight came through the glass, making the dancers sparkle as they pranced in the sun.

But within a year, while doing her daily dusting, she noticed the slightest of fractures in the globe, starting at one of the gold-plated legs. At first, she was unsure to tell anyone, fearing that she'd be blamed, but she loved it too much not to say anything. Perhaps it could be repaired.

She informed Mrs. Hughes, who showed the crack to Lady Grantham. A glassware artisan was brought up from London but he said nothing could be done. Instead, the object was turned so the fissure did not show. This was almost better for Anna, as the dancers were now seen from another angle. The gentleman's frock coat had tiny gold buttons on the tails, and the lady's hooped skirt swirled out with her movement.

Perhaps the heat from the nearby window was causing it to break. The cleft grew longer each year, until it could be seen no matter how the globe was turned. With regret, her ladyship had it put in storage. There was talk of contacting the artist in Venice and demanding a replacement but then Patrick Crawley died and the Earl became too distracted to write a letter about some silly thing he purchased ten years previously.

Anna often thought of the couple's solitary beauty as she fell in love with John Bates. He was her partner; hers alone. Like the dancers cocooned in their globe, others could observe but not truly touch she and John.

Until tonight.

She had been fractured and their world shattered from the heat of her anguish. She could think of nothing more as she stumbled home in the dark. Every step caused pain, cleaving her body into two parts. Her bones were bruised, her lip torn. And behind her, a deep shadow followed, giving her that distance that she'd demanded, but his presence could not be denied.

The cottage loomed ahead. Normally their sanctuary, now a cell for her. But she was prepared with a mask in place when he came through the door. She'd lit only one candle; darkness was her cloak now.

"I won't sleep with this headache. I'll do some washing up," she said, focused on a spot over his shoulder. "Go on to bed."

"I'll help," John said, hanging up his overcoat. He lit another candle and took a step toward her.

"No. You'll just be in the way." Yes, cruelty was necessary. She'd only spent a few hours in Vera Bates' company, but Anna observed the woman's gift for knife-edged speech, and in those moments, she saw why John would shy away at the harsh word, anticipating the stinging blow before the hand was even raised.

She turned her back as though he'd already accepted her rejection. His shadow remained for a few breath-holding moments as she put a kettle on to heat water and began to busily gather kitchen laundry as if it was deadly important to scrub them at midnight.

Finally, his dragging step mounted the stairs. "Don't stay up too late," he called down from the landing.

"I'll be as long as it takes," she said, not giving even an inch. She must start as she intended to go.

When their bedroom door closed above, a shudder passed through her body, but not from the room's chill. She must bathe but didn't dare fill more than a dishpan. Taking the cake of soap from the bench and a few tea towels, she hid in a corner and removed the borrowed dress. She thanked God for the darkness. She didn't want to see. But the smell of him—no, he was not a man. It was a beast. She scrubbed at the animal musk with harsh carbolic soap. The cuts and abrasions burned and she welcomed the pain; it kept her from thinking. When finished, she put the dress back on but took the towels outside to the bury in the burn barrel and tossed the used water in an arc across the muddy yard. Only then could she curl up in John's large armchair to wait for the dawn. There would be no sleep.

The silence held only her heartbeat in counter rhythm with the seven day clock that hung on the wall. The chair squeaked when she shifted and that noise was what finally made her cry, a silent gasp that must have been how the globe's glass had sounded as it fractured.

Moonlight and wind-stirred branches cast shadows on the plaster walls like the dancing flickers on the picture show's screen. She wanted to be in Ripon's dark cinema, watching another story far away from her reality. A fable of a man as she'd never know again and a woman lost to her. Their tale had been so lovely while it had lasted.

The film began with the woman coming through the cottage door on another late night to find the man dressed to go out.

"Where have you been?" he demanded to know before she could even speak. "You were to be back hours ago."

She gave his arm a squeeze but kept walking. She was so tired that she knew if she stopped now, she'd never get sorted out. But she halted when she saw their table was set, candles guttered, and lovely meadow flowers drooping in a vase.

"Oh John," she said, her shoulders slumping.

He'd put his hat and coat back on the hooks by the door and joined her in the room. "Where've you been?" he repeated. "I was worried sick."

Sick reminded her of how she smelled. She wrinkled her nose. "I need to bathe, or at least wipe myself down," she said, then sighed in disappointment. It was too late to be clanking the pump out back of the cottage to fill the hip bath.

"We can manage something," John said, opening the stove and stoking it back up. He tossed a scuttle full of coal onto the glowing embers. "There's the buckets full for the morning. I'll heat that."

"I'm bone tired," she said, realizing that she sounded as though she was whining and not the least bit romantic. "I'm sorry," she added.

He only laughed. "Valentine's Day is just a day on the calendar." He filled a kettle, putting it on a burner on the stove, and added a large water-filled pot. "We'll have a passionate fifteenth," he promised.

Grateful, Anna went upstairs to retrieve her nightclothes and hairbrush. She removed her soiled uniform with a shudder and put on her robe over her naked body. When she returned, John had set up the wash tub.

"The water's still heating," he told her, "take a seat and let me brush out your hair."

She started to protest that she could do it herself, but then another wave of exhaustion came over her and with a shrug, she sat at the table and allowed her husband to take down her hair. He carefully piled the pins on the table, then combed the tresses first with his fingers before beginning to brush the length from her scalp to the ends.

"Thank you," she said quietly. His reply was to squeeze the tight muscles of her shoulders.

"You work too hard," he chided before shedding his own suit jacket.

"It was a long day, that's all."

Going to the stove, he filled the teapot with a bit of the heating water and made her a strong cup with plenty of cream and sugar.

"Awfully late to be drinking tea," she said, watching him from under her eyelashes but he only smiled in return.

Scooting his chair close, he leaned his shoulder into hers. "You'll sleep like a baby, no worries."

Vaguely, she thought of what usually put her right to sleep in their evenings and drank deeply from her tea. She told him of Ivy's misadventures of the evening.

"So many times, I'm reminded why I'm glad not to be a young man anymore," he said ruefully after she finished.

"Truly?" Anna said, tipping her head as she examined him. Her smile held one of her secrets. "I've yearned to see you as a lad, just to know the person you were."

He snorted. "You would have pushed me off in about five minutes flat. God, I was bast-" He cleared his throat. "Let's just say that I understand that idiot boy Jimmy more than I should."

She raised her eyebrows and fought a smile. "Now I'm intrigued! You, more of a sheik than even our Jimmy?"

He just shook his head. "Please don't tell me that bloke makes your heart pitter-patter. I'd hate to have to take him out the far pond and push him in." His tone was mild but his eyes blazed.

She lost the battle with her grin. "Not in the least. But I do appreciate his dimples and profile."

Bates just rolled his eyes. "It's the beautiful Turk all over again. If you could have heard you women in the servants' hall," he said severely. "Even Miss O'Brien was in a tizzy!"

Anna was smug as a cat with a feather under her paw, but then she remembered the blank dead eyes of that unfortunate young man and momentarily lost her good humor. She returned to the topic at hand: "But you're only intriguing me more with these visions of a dashing young Mr. Bates. I found no photographs in your mother's things, more the pity."

"I was a boy before there was photography," he said gloomily, ignoring her gasp of protest. "And you would have been a babe in nappies if we'd met, not in the least impressed by my dimples at the time."

Her giggles covered his grumble. He rose and began to fill the tub with hot water, adding cooler water from the buckets until he was satisfied with the temperature. He urged her move her chair by the tub.

"Feet first," he suggested, rolling up his sleeves and pulling a footstool to sit by the tub as well.

"I can wash myself," insisted Anna, but her protests died on her lips when he took her aching foot in his large hands and worked out the tightness with soap and warm water, first one, then the other.

"Oh, that is nice," she conceded, combing back his hair as it fell over his brow.

"Now the rest of you," he said, offering his hand for balance as she stood in the tub. "Is it warm enough?" he asked as she shed her robe.

"Nice and warm." She reached for pins to loosely put up her hair.

When she finished, he began to slide the soapy wash flannel over her tired limbs, gentle. "That feels lovely," she admitted, dropping her head to give him access to the back of her neck.

"Perhaps it's not grand, romantic gestures that can mark one's love, but just giving the pleasure that's needed on the day," John suggested, gracing her shoulder with a kiss.

"This feels very romantic and grand at the moment," she teased, lifting her arms so he could wipe down her ribs. She fought a giggle, more for the need to feel his grin on her neck than from being overly ticklish.

Then his hands came to her breasts and he was ridiculously somber, intent on his duty to carefully cleanse her tender skin and puckering nipples. She giggled again and laced her fingers through the short hair at the back his head to pull him down for a sideways kiss over her shoulder.

"Must get you clean all over," he said, still maintaining his serious manner.

"All over?" she breathed and shifted her legs apart. She was fully awake now.

Steam rose from the water tub, sufficing Anna's limbs with warm moisture. John was a shadow that pressed lips to her shoulders and neck and whose large hands slid down to stroke her stomach and thighs, responding to her unspoken invitation.

Her legs gave out and she leaned back against him. "Don't get wet," she warned, her voice oddly raspy to her ears.

He chuckled, the motion pressing his buttons and watchchain into her bare back. "It's worth it," he whispered as though they were in the crowded servants' hall and not their own home. She quickly looked to the windows; the curtains were tightly closed. But she still felt so wicked to be naked like this; to behave in this manner by the bright light of the oil lamp, even if only her husband and God could see.

"You are very conscientious," she said, but was frustrated that she couldn't touch him properly, other than grasping at his clothed shoulder. "You should bathe too," she suggested.

"I did earlier," he said, and she was reminded again of their spoiled evening. To have a late night respite, drink wine for her, and tea for him, exchange banal news of their day, but with anticipation in every word...

"I'm sorry," she repeated but her words shook as he continued to stroke and kiss her. "But I suppose things are looking up-"

"Indeed," he said, laughter in his voice and she giggled again.

"Then let's get me washed off," she said, ever practical, reaching down to splash water over her limbs.

"So eager," he noted, but was just as earnest. He poured a bucket of still warm water over her shoulders, sloughing off the last of the suds.

Draping her robe over her shoulders, he helped her from the tub. But before he could lead her upstairs, she snared his hand and tugged him back.

"It'll be perishing cold upstairs," she pointed out. "Let's stay by the stove."

He didn't disguise the disappointment on his face but then she led him to his armchair and pushed him down.

"You're going to wish you'd undressed," she said tartly, crawling into his lap.

"I still could." He reached for his tie.

She batted his hands away. "No, you missed your chance."

The robe slid to her waist and she wrapped her arms around his neck. His mouth was at her collarbone while his fingertips traced her spine, her ribs, across her shoulders. He gazed up at her, his eyes glazed over as though drunk and she supposed he was, in his own way. She laid her head on his shoulder.

"I'll allow one thing," she had murmured, her nimble fingers working open the fly of his pants. His chest rose as his breath quickened, but he allowed her to continue alone. Instead, he pressed his lips to her brow, threading his hands into her hair, pulling it loose from the pins so that they rained down her back. Her seeking touch found his heat under the layers of clothing, stroking his length and breadth.

Had It seen this about her? Her wanton abandon? Couldn't It see that her manner was for just one man, that she was no harlot? Even as she reveled in the carnal pleasures with her husband, she had felt as though Reverend Travis was speaking to them when his sermon had railed against dominating women. The sort of women who emasculated their men—At that, John had shifted his leg on the pew so that it pressed against hers, and had glanced at her from under his lashes, a smile playing on his lips...

She was sinner—She couldn't stop watching now, greedily recording John's smack mouth as she had undulated on his lap, his gasps of reverence, her name…How her name could take on so much meaning in the combination to two syllables. He rarely called to God. Only her. The color that his eyes became while he watched her; deep green as the darkest forest, and all the secrets hidden there. And then the black eyelashes drifting closed when she rose at his bidding so that he may suckle at her breasts, his hand exploring the secret depths between her legs, her own cries, shockingly loud in the night's silence, the pure white of her knuckles as she gripped his shoulder and burrowed through his hair.

To see herself sink on to him again, grab his waistcoat in her fists, to demand her husband lose his control even as she refused that he may even remove his tie. For too many years, he'd remain cloistered in his heavy woolen uniform, shackled by his starched cuffs and collar. And as if he'd taken monastic vows, he'd seemed to revel in his self-imposed imprisonment. That night, he would pay. In the very deepest recesses of her mind, she'd envisioned such a moment many times before, perhaps taken in a linen cupboard, or in the dusty attics under the low roof. His penance for holding her love and passion at bay would be crumpled clothing, her scent ground into the very fibers, never to be washed away.

She was rewarded. His head flung back, his torso arched, his hips surged, the tendons of his neck red and hard, constricted by his stiff collar but most of all, his voice babbling out his love, her grip forcing the words from him in a flood. The wicks burned low in the oil lamps, and the walls shimmered deep gold with the light.

Afterward, they had curled together, waiting for their thundering hearts to still. He lifted her robe back up onto her shoulders as she buried her head under his chin. He was all around her, thick thighs under her quaking legs, strong arms wrapping about her back, his deep respirations at her temple, filling her empty lungs.

"My love." His words were river deep, winding through her bloodstream. "The only woman for me. Heart that gives me life. I do not live without you."

She smiled against his neck, feeling the rasp of his stubble even after his evening shave, reminding her once again that he was a man and she was a woman. She rubbed her soft cheek against it as a marking. The clock softly chimed midnight.

"Valentine's Day is over," he said regretfully.

She giggled, still nestled close. "Turned out better than you expected?"

His laugh had rumbled against her fluttering chest and Anna could remember no more than great exhaustion and completion. The screen faded to black and the final card with The End came up. The heavy red curtain fell. Wiping her face dry, she told herself that she always cried when she enjoyed a picture show.

Cocking her head, Anna listened for the sounds of her husband above. He lay in their bed; she could feel the warmth radiating from his body even downstairs. She wanted that now; desperately needed it. But he would smell the beast on her. Even after scrubbing her skin raw, she could smell It. The room became ice blue with the dawn. She would go to the Abbey before John woke and could question her. With a painful creak of her limbs, she rose. She glanced at the wall but it was washed white by the first sunlight. The story was truly over.

~ end, Chapter One