A/N: Please be patient with me, it's my first published fic and I am not a native English speaker. Thanks!
She had no idea how on earth could she let that happen. How could they let that happen?
She lay in bed next to him. In his bed. She was shivering from the rather cold wind that was blowing through the slightly opened window. With his hand, covered with a bandage, on her naked waist, he was asleep, she thought, but she dared not to check if it was true. She could feel his warm breath on the nape of her neck, but that didn't make her feel any less cold. It wasn't only the wind that made her shiver; she kept on thinking about what has happened between them.
In the evening, she came to his house to ask if he really meant what did said when he asked her to return to the hospital. Ever since they bumped into each other that day and he asked her, she constantly thought about his offer to return to the hospital and help him and the nurses. She knew the hospital was short-staffed, but she felt she wasn't ready to come back. She still couldn't really deal with her son's death, and didn't feel like finding herself something to be occupied with would do her any good, since she couldn't really focus on the simplest tasks at home, not to mention having to deal with all the business that was going on at the hospital, with all the patients and so much paperwork to be done. Needless to say, she felt that her inability to do her work properly would affect the hospital as much as it would affect her, so what was really the point in this?
Yet two days later, she woke up and felt different. While dressing up she looked at herself in the mirror and knew this day was somehow different. She didn't feel this pain in her chest anymore, the pain she felt every single day since Matthew died. Maybe it wasn't that the pain left her entirely, but it felt different. She felt different. Actually, for the first time in ages, she was happy she woke up. She thought that this meant something, maybe it was the time she should try and move on a bit with her life? She knew very well that Matthew would hate to see her in such a state, completely unlike herself, not being able to live her life the way she used to, not being able to take active part in the life of Downton, not feeling useful. And suddenly, she thought of doctor Clarkson's offer – maybe that was it? Maybe she should give it a try and see what it will lead to? Deep inside, underneath the thick layer of grief, she knew that she had to go on and try to make a new life for herself, since her old life has ended with her son's death. Maybe it was the right moment to do it.
She gave herself the whole afternoon to be sure she wouldn't change her mind, but by the time the sun was setting, and with a little plan on how she would hold this conversation, she was almost sure that she should go and tell doctor Clarkson that she wanted to get back to working at the hospital. She decided it would be better to go straight to the hospital and meet him at this office just as he would finish work and prepare to go home, and maybe have a quick chat about her future duties. Yet when she arrived, the nurse informed her that doctor Clarkson had already left home. A bit baffled that her plans had to be changed, she saw she had no choice but to go and pay him a visit at his own house, which, she's just realised, she's never been to, in all those years she knew him.
His house was a small, but very neatly kept cottage, a few minutes by walk from the hospital. She noticed that his garden looked very neat too; as she would never thought that he had the time to keep the house in such a state by himself, she assumed that he probably had some help, a maid, or a housekeeper maybe? He always seemed to be at the hospital, so there must have been someone to look after the household. As she approached the gate, she saw the light in the kitchen window. She walked up to the door and knocked three times. After a moment, the door opened, and she certainly didn't expect it to be the doctor himself who opened it, yet there he was. Apparently, there was no housekeeper. For some reason, she tried not to look at his face, and her eyes wandered a bit lower and she noticed that his shirt was unbuttoned at the top and his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and he was wiping his hands in a cloth.
"Mrs. Crawley? What brings you here?," he asked her, just as surprised to see her as she was to see him.
"Hello doctor, I hope I am not interrupting? Maybe I should come back another time if you are busy?" she started to back down and was about to bid him goodbye and leave, when he stopped her.
"No, of course you are not interrupting anything, nonsense. Please do come in," he opened the door for her and let her inside.
"I went to the hospital to look for you, but the nurse told me you already left," she started in a calm voice, following him inside. 'You see, there's something that I wanted to talk to you about, so I figured I shall come here, but I see it is not the most perfect time,' she continued when they entered a small sitting room. It was then that she noticed something else about him – his hands and the cloth were covered with blood, not with an excessive amount of it, but still, it was noticeable.
"What happened?," she asked and pointed to his hands. "Are you hurt? What's all this blood?" she approached him a bit.
"Oh, nothing, if you could just wait here a bit, I will get back to the kitchen and finish cleaning up the mess. You see, today at the hospital, just before I left home, we had a rather unpleasant case of a very unlucky patient, a little girl, who apparently cut her hand with some glass, and she wouldn't really allow me to take it out after I examined her," he continued, still keeping the cloth on his hand, "She was very afraid and just when I was about to take the glass out of her hand, she shook it very violently, and knocked the bottle with the antiseptic, which in turn broke into pieces and hurt my hand. I didn't see it a big cut, I calmed the girl and took the glass out of her hand soon after. She was taken care of by the nurse later on, I bandaged my hand and headed home, but when I got here, I saw that my cut was bigger than I supposed, the bandage started leaking and I discovered a tiny piece of glass in it, so I had to patch it up again in the kitchen. The problem is, it's my right hand, and I am right-handed, so it takes longer time to clean the wound, that is why I let you in to see the house and myself this terrible state of mess, for which I really am sorry," he ended his story with a little sigh.
"For heaven's sake, doctor, why haven't you just go and take care of your hand and tell me all this in the meantime?" she was quite surprised at his actions. "But you know what, since I am here and you said you had troubles cleaning the wound yourself, I might actually be a lot of help right now," she said, smiling a little, starting to feel that nice warm feeling one usually experiences when there's something to be done and one's help is needed. She felt she might be useful again, even for a little moment, and her smile widened a bit at the thought, which did not escape his attention.
"Well, that certainly would be helpful, Mrs. Crawley," he answered and returned her smile. "Shall we proceed to my provisional hospital, the kitchen, that is, since I would not like to get another room in the house as messy as is the kitchen right now?" he smiled again, noticing that the red stain on the bandage was getting bigger.
"Of course, doctor Clarkson, after you," she replied, took him by the elbow and allowed him to lead her. She was still smiling, which was rather surprising for him to see, since he hasn't seen her smile in such a long time. "Come on, doctor, and let me fix you."