Hey all! Wasn't Joanne's Golden Globe win tonight AMAZING? To celebrate, I thought I'd post this one-shot. It focuses on the S5 finale, and I'd add a trigger warning (though it's not major). Sorry I keep visiting the sad stuff! Hopefully the next fics will focus on happy Banna times. And Fragments will be updated by next weekend, promise. Hope you all have a lovely week.
And the title, and words in italics, come from this beautiful song called "Skinny Love" that I felt so suited Anna and Bates. Go check it out. I love the Birdy version.
Nothing belongs to me, a'tall.
Come on skinny love, just last the year
Anna's heartbeat pounded a death march in her ears. This was wrong. So very, very wrong. She and John were going to be happy, she and John were going to buy a little hotel and have blue-eyed, brooding babies.
Mrs. Hughes was on her right, hand on her elbow. Anna couldn't look at her. She had kept her secret all this time and it had come to nothing. Her love was wasted. And Lady Mary, wide-eyed Lady Mary, was on her left squeezing her hand. She looked as unbelieving as Anna felt. That despicable man would be the end of her and John, even after he'd been crushed in the streets of London.
Pour a little salt, we were never here
He wasn't using his cane anymore. He was running. He couldn't feel the pain in his knee, and he wished he could. Maybe that would bring this all to a screaming halt and he'd wake up in a sweat next to Anna in the cottage, her calling him a silly beggar for such fears.
Five years. They'd only been married five years. And how little of that they had actually spent together.
Staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer.
"I don't think I should leave until Mr. Bates gets down. Just so he knows I'm alright," Anna said. She looked at Mrs. Hughes, pleading. God, the cuffs were cold. And the officer kept jostling her anxiously.
She heard his cane, scraping and dragging. His knee would hurt tomorrow. Then he stormed through the door, pale and with his heart breaking in his eyes. He'd never looked this broken with anyone besides her and now they were drowning in a sea of spectators.
Anna thought it would be her torn dress, her matted hair and bruised ribs that would be the end of them, but she was wrong.
Tell my love to wreck it all. Cut out all the ropes and let me fall
Tell him. Please Anna, tell him. Tell him I did it and you were trying to take the fall for me.
John was pleading with her, beggin her, his eyes flickering back and forth desperately. Let me tell him. Let me do this for you.
His kind, beautiful, strong Anna. She looked like a child between the two officers. And they had cuffs on her. What the hell were these men thinking. It was obvious Anna wouldn't hurt a creature in the world.
And in the morning I'll be with you, though it will be a different kind
They were starting to take her. Anna couldn't look away from John, even as her eyes clouded over. She had always thought of her love as an ocean, surrounding and enveloping her in a warm haze. But now she was sinking in it, her fingers and toes clumsy from the cold and her lips blue without one last kiss.
And now all your love is wasted, then who the hell was I?
He lurched drunkenly after her, but Lord Grantham held him back. He had failed again.
He would not stop until Anna was home, so help him God.
Who will love you, who will fight? Who will fall far behind?
Anna couldn't stop the sobbing once she passed the window and out of John's sight. But she straightened her shoulders and held her head up. She would come back to John, so help her God.