Here's my first Downton Abbey fic, I've recently became a fan of the show and in my re-watch of season 3 (yay for DVD's!) I got to wondering, what exactly were Mr. Bates and Anna's responses to the letters being stopped when Bates was in prison. We got a feel for it I think, but I decided to go a little deeper into what they were thinking. I forget the exact wording, but Mr. Bates said something to the effect of "I thought she'd given up on me." Basically, he thought he'd lost her, what do you do when you lose someone close to you? You go through the stages of grief. This fic will be 14 chapters long, one chapter for each stage of grief, but both Anna and Mr. Bates will be going through the stages of grief. This chapter is short, the actual chapter (sans authors notes) barely tops 1,100 words but it ended well where it did.

Chapter 1: Shock and Denial; Anna

Anna woke crying. It was something that had happened before and she quickly wiped her tears and made sure she looked all right for work. It wouldn't do to look ill, then Mrs. Hughes or Lady Mary might insist she take the whole day off and she would have enough of a problem filling the empty hours since she had a half day off today. She got dressed, slipping her wedding ring back onto its proper place. The calendar on the wall taunted her, it seemed to be asking her to look at it, something she did every morning as she had discovered early on in this job that you could easily loose track of the days if you weren't careful. Finally, the taunting was too much and she glanced at the calendar and her heart skipped a beat so suddenly she had to gasp for air and sit back onto her bed. Not for the first time that year, she was once again thankful that as a Lady's Maid she got her own room, she let out a gasping sob and tried to compose herself once again. She would have hated to have broken down in front of one of the younger maids. Jane and Gwen had been all right, but she wasn't particularly close to any of the current maids.

She'd known what day it was, why had it come as a shock? One year ago today she'd laid out her few dresses and tried to pick between them, which one should I get married in? She'd wondered.

She heard a knock on her door and quickly forced a composed look onto her face, she wiped all traces of tears from her eyes and went down to breakfast. She slipped in quietly and began eating her breakfast. "Good Morning, Anna." Mrs. Hughes said quietly.

Anna smiled at the older woman. "Good morning." she returned the greeting.

Mr. Carson came into the servant's hall and began passing out the post, Anna looked up, hopefully, she hadn't gotten a letter in a few days, maybe today...

But Mr. Carson skipped over her, "No letter's for me?" she asked, asking the question before she could stop the words.

"No Anna, no letters today."

Anna hid her disappointment and started eating again. Maybe his letter had been delayed. She didn't get one every week, but with it being their first anniversary today she had hoped to get a letter. Today was her half day so after she finished dressing Lady Mary she hurried down to Ripon, maybe a letter had come, but it had been misplaced and hadn't made the journey to Downton.

Disappointment coursed through her again as she heard from the postmaster that there was no letter. She slowly walked out, her head hanging slightly. She shouldn't have gotten her hopes up really, but she had especially been missing John today. She checked the time and realized that she'd gotten married a year before nearly to the hour.

She fiddled with her ring and sat down on a bench, perhaps John's mail was being stopped? but for what reason? She thought for a moment and came up with the idea that he'd willingly stopped writing to her. No, that wasn't it. It couldn't be. John wouldn't do that to her, at the very least he'd send her one last letter saying he wouldn't write to her any more, and his last letter hadn't said anything of the sort.

She sighed and glanced around as tears filled her eyes. A window display suddenly caught her eye, there was a nice set of stationery with a pen, she stared at it for a moment before hurrying inside. The purchase was frivolous, but she wanted a nice anniversary present.

After buying it, she hurried out of the store and began to make her way home. She was nearly out of town when another display caught her eye, some perfume was in the window, on a pillow. She quietly entered the shop, she didn't recognize the woman behind the counter and she smiled as the woman greeted her. "Hello, can I help you?"

"My husband and I are separated at the moment, and we're only able to write letters, today is our first anniversary..." Anna knew she was rambling, but she then gestured to the perfume in the window. "Could you help me with picking out a perfume to..." she blushed now at how forward she was being.

"I'll be happy to help you." The woman said, she came out from behind the counter. "Now, how long has it been since you've seen your husband?"

"Three weeks."

"How long will it be until you see him again?" she moved to where there was another display of perfume Anna could see another couple of bottles like the one in the window.

"I'm not sure." Anna said, she didn't know how long it would take to get another letter and he usually told her the day she could visit in his letters to her.

"All right," the woman said, she took one bottle off the shelf, "Here's what we can do, if we spray the perfume on a sheet of paper, you can smell it and decide if it's the perfume you want."

Anna nodded and they began testing out the perfume's. Finally, Anna decided on one, and after doing a double take on the price, she bought it, with the instructions to spray her stationary with it and wear it the next time she saw her husband ringing in her ears, she put it into her bag and went back to Downton. She still had time off before the dinner gong so she quickly took out some of the new stationary and began writing.

My dearest love, she began.

One year ago today I became your wife and my life has been richer for it. I don't regret it for a moment. The one night we spent in each other arms was worth the difficulties we've had to face this year. Our one night together and the past year have shown me just how strong and beautiful our love can be.

She wrote for a while longer, blushing slightly at some parts, but smiling fondly at other times. Finally she concluded,

Who knows what the next year will bring, hopefully it'll bring you out of prison and (she blushed again at this part) back into my arms once more,

For richer or poorer, better or for worse, I'll forever be;

Your Anna.

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