Summary: Bates found the Earl in his dressing room and based on the state of the unmade and rumpled bed, it was clear he had slept there. And at breakfast, the valet asked his wife if she had a bandage. Addition to S5E5/E6.

Disclaimer: I don't own Downton Abbey or these characters.

A/N: This was written on request as sort of an addition to scenes from S5E5 and E6. It isn't quite as polished as I'd like, but I'm going ahead and posting it to get it out of my head. Consider this my usual pitiful plea for feedback.


The bell rang earlier than usual, Bates noted, before breakfast. His Lordship was not a late sleeper, but he typically did not arise so quickly in the mornings. The valet said a few words to his wife before going up, his attention already piqued.

He found the Earl in his dressing room and based on the state of the unmade and rumpled bed, it was clear he had slept there. An eyebrow raised automatically at the unusual circumstance, but Bates reigned himself in before his surprise could show.

Lord Grantham grumbled like a bear with a sore tooth as they began the procedure of dressing, which was very unlike him. While the Earl had never been exactly a 'morning person,' Bates recognized that he was usually in more of a jovial and friendly mood after waking.

Not today.

Barely a handful of words had passed his employers lips, and Bates wondered what had happened in the few hours since he'd parted from the man upon their return from Sheffield. He had seemed anxious to return to Downton after the regimental dinner the prior evening, despite the lateness of the hour. Lord Grantham had even gone the unusual route of dispensing with Bates' services and instructing the chauffeur to simply drop him at the cottage.

Deepening the mystery was the injury to his Lordship's right hand.

His fingers were bruised and the skin over several knuckles split. The blood had scabbed in the night but too much movement caused the clots to break and specks of flesh blood to dot the rag Lord Grantham had wrapped around the hand.

"Should I see about having this properly bandaged?" Bates asked.

The suggestion irritated the Earl, who quickly shook his head and sniped angrily, "I should think Doctor Clarkson has better things to do than tend a few scrapes."

The valet nodded, accepting the other man's annoyance in course.

"But I don't, milord," he offered.

In an instant, Lord Grantham's stance softened. He met Bates' eyes and then looked away with a sigh, obviously ashamed at the earlier sharpness in his tone. "Yes, all right, Bates. That would be helpful."

It was still early yet, and breakfast would not be ready in the dining room for another hour at most. Bates suggested that the Earl might lie in for a bit longer as he seemed to have slept poorly the night before. Speaking in respectful but knowing terms, he managed to convince his Lordship that perhaps getting a touch more sleep would be of benefit.

"Yes, I suppose I should," he agreed, and Bates turned the lights off as he left with a promise to return in an hour.


At breakfast, Bates asked his wife if she had a bandage. Her look of concern when she inquired if he'd hurt himself reminded him of her nature. Anna always worried so about him, far more than he believed she ought. The knowledge still tore at him that she'd kept the truth about Mr. Green a secret out of concern for him.

Her worrying was unhealthy, and Bates sometimes wondered if it contributed to their inability to conceive a child. She was a slight woman, and he knew that often times she missed her courses in times of great stress. After the attack, Anna had disclosed that she'd missed a cycle, leaving her frantic with worry that she'd gotten with child by the vile monster. Thankfully, that hadn't been the case.

Not that Bates did not want Anna to have a child. Indeed, they dreamed of little else any more. But to have her always wonder who might be the father, for them both to wonder... It was too great a burden even for Anna to bear, and Bates was glad to have avoided that pain for her sake.

Once Anna had brought him the bandage from a box of lady's maid odds and ends she kept at the house, he returned upstairs to wake his Lordship.

The man was already awake, clearly not having been able to fall back asleep. However, his mood had altered from deep irritation to one of somber reflection. Setting aside his curiosity at his employer's state of mind, Bates began by bandaging the man's knuckles. He worked carefully, taking a moment to clean the cut skin with an alcohol-soaked cloth he'd brought up for that purpose. The Earl winced at the sting but said nothing until Bates began to wrap the hand.

He commented, "You're rather adept at that, Bates."

"Practice, milord," the valet said with an earnest smile.

Lord Grantham seemed to sober at that comment, a reminder of the life Bates had led, not just as an enlisted soldier in the army but one who had been wounded.

Bates went on, "I know that these types of injuries can be particularly trying."

He nodded to his employer's hand, but his words were clearly intended to encompass not only the broken and bruised skin but the impetus for the injury.

"You're right, of course. It was foolish on my part, but sometimes..." He broke off and lapsed into silence. With a sigh, he asked a few moments later, "May I ask you a hypothetical question, Bates? Purely hypothetical."

Intrigued and slightly alarmed, the valet merely nodded.

"Of course."

"If you walked into your bedroom and a man was there, standing and speaking to your wife, what would you think?"

The question hit too close to home as it instantly brought to mind a picture of Anna's bruised and battered face the last night of the house party, the night she'd been attacked. Bates hardly had time to censor himself as he answered, "I think I would likely be sent back to prison for murder, milord, and this time not wrongly."

His frankness did not shock the Earl, who simply tilted his head slightly in acknowledgment of the response. But a moment of consideration later, he asked, "So you would never have doubts, then? What if the man wasn't a stranger, but a... a friend, perhaps?"

Needing hardly to remember that while Green might not have been a friend, he was extremely friendly to Anna from the first day of his arrival. Sighing as he recalled his own failure to heed the bad feelings he'd harbored towards the visiting valet, Bates allowed the familiar mantle of guilt to settle on him. He would never escape it, he knew, that heavy weight of regret, although at times it felt lighter than in that moment in the wake of his Lordship's questions.

The Earl was still awaiting an answer, and Bates felt certain from his demeanor that he was plagued by jealousy and not guilt. He did not need to ask the circumstances, nor did he wish to have his suspicions confirmed. Instead, he stated, "I would believe the person who gave me least cause to doubt."

"Even if... she may have encouraged the man?"

Bates flashed back to that noisy game of Racing Demon in the servant's hall, the look of joyful abandon on Anna's face as she participated with the other, younger servants. In that moment, he remembered feeling very old and crippled indeed. The sight of Anna so full of youthful abandon, standing next to an equally young Mr. Green, their arms and bodies bumping against each other as they slapped cards onto the table...

Squeezing his eyes shut, the valet answered, "Even then, milord. I would believe her."

Refusing to say more, Bates left his answer there, determined to push aside the gnawing feeling of guilt that burned through him like fire. Had he not been so jealous, would he have recognized Green's intentions? Would he have accompanied Anna to the kitchens that night when she went for a powder?

The recriminations were like old companions who never truly left him, although their shouts of angry disapproval had faded back to whispers in the back of his mind. Now they spoke up again, reminding Bates of his inability to protect his wife. Some mistakes could never be forgiven, and this was one failure he knew he could never allow to completely fade into the past.

Some things just had to be lived with.

He looked up to see Lord Grantham studying him and his bleak countenance. The other man said nothing as he stood up from the bed and moved over to his usual position by the warddrobe so Bates could commence attending to help him dress. They went through the ritual in silence at first, but gradually the uncomfortable air fell away and they were able to speak of normal matters again.

By the time he was dressed, the Earl no longer seemed to be favoring his injured hand, and Bates noted that while the bandage was noticeable, it was easy to overlook.

"Thank you, Bates," his Lordship stated. And as the valet turned to leave, he said, "About what we discussed before-"

"I will say nothing, mi'lord," the other man stated, almost insulted that the request had to be made.

"I know you won't," the Earl assured him. "I only meant... I hope I did not upset you."

Putting on a mask of good cheer for his employer, Bates smiled. "Not at all, my lord. If there is nothing else?"

Lord Grantham shook his head, and the valet quickly left before his lie was discovered. Once in the corridor, his expression slipped and the anguish returned to his face. For a moment, he allowed himself to indulge in the pain, the ever-present pain which was often no more than a pinprick between his ribs, but in this instance was a great gaping hole in his belly.

And then he imagined Anna as he'd seen her at breakfast. She was worried about the police coming to Downton, and he knew the questions were stirring up old emotions within her. Perhaps that was why he felt this old pain so keenly again. Bates considered Lord Grantham's question again, about what he would think if he came upon another man in his wife's bedroom.

Had he discovered Green in the midst of hurting Anna, would he have killed the man? No other outcome came to his mind. When he thought of her downstairs, alone and frightened, being cornered and terrorized-

Behind him, Bates heard the sound of a door opening and he straightened automatically, smoothing the emotions from his exterior. He turned to see the object of his deliberations slipping out of Lady Mary's bedroom. Smiling at him, Anna approached slowly, a nightgown held across her arm. But as she neared, her pleasant expression faded as she noted something in her husband was not quite right.

"What is wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing," Bates answered, even as he gestured for them to walk towards the stairs. Of all the places to have such a conversation, the upstairs corridor was the very last place he wanted to be discovered speaking of his feelings to his wife.

Allowing the matter to slide until they reached the narrow stairwell, Anna stopped on the first landing and turned to confront him. "Tell me what it is."

"I only..." He could not divulge the guilt which plagued him, not when she already knew how he felt. They had discussed it before, as surely as they had talked about her own reactions to the attack. And as Bates was always quick to point out, her feelings on the event mattered more than his own. She was the one harmed.

And while he had never spoken in, Bates would argue that she was the innocent. His own guilt was a product of his shortcomings as a husband, and it would not do to put those thoughts onto her. Anna did not need to comfort him or reassure him for having failed her.

Instead, he said, "I only hope you know how much I love you."

This declaration produced another smile, this one as wide and beautiful as any he'd seen from her in quite some time. Her own love for him was like fairy magic, and he would never tire of witnessing the awesome power of it in her eyes.

"I know," she told him quietly, and without hesitation, she pushed herself up on her tip-toes to kiss him. Their difference in height made any such endeavor nearly impossible if he did not participate, and Bates automatically leaned down to complete the kiss. The press of her lips to his was like a healing balm, and he was momentarily left breathless and free.

Once they had separated, perhaps sensing he needed some further reassurance, Anna told him, "Everything will be all right, Mister Bates. You shouldn't worry so."

"I'll always worry about you," he confessed.

Tutting at him, she informed her husband, "Well, you needn't. It isn't healthy. And speaking of which, is his Lordship all right? I assumed that was why you needed the bandage, if not for yourself."

He tilted his head slightly, just enough to inform her that her inquiry would be met with regrettable silence.

"Well, we best get on with ourselves," Anna said, her tone light and teasing once again. She had a special gift for pulling him out of his poor moods, and this day was no exception. Regarding her with a smile, they returned downstairs to go about their duties.


Days passed and Bates heard of the strain observed between Lord Grantham and his wife. No one asked him about the falling out because they knew the valet too well. The others might be interested to know that the Earl was not sharing his wife's bed, but Bates kept that to himself. While he was not against gossip in general, he never shared secrets of his employer.

The sudden departure of Mr. Bricker coincided with the strange conversation with his Lordship and the injury to his hand, and Bates did not have trouble putting two and two together. But as usual, he kept such computations to himself.

However, when his Lordship's bed stopped being used and instead returned to its smooth and unused condition in the mornings, Bates permitted himself a smile. Having been rather distracted over the past few days by the device he'd found in Anna's things and their confrontation over the same, he'd given little thought to the sleeping arrangements of Lord Grantham.

But one morning, his Lordship seemed to be in a particularly talkative mood, having apparently gotten over his tiff with Lady Grantham. Perhaps he was contemplative in the wake of Michael Gregson's official death announcement, but he spoke of marriage and mistakes, healing and forgiveness. Somehow, the Earl managed to avoid any specifics, but the subjects touched a soft spot in Bates' heart following his own argument with Anna.

"Doubts are natural, milord," he noted carefully, "even in the best of marriages."

"True," his Lordship allowed. "But I've recognized that some doubts are simply disguised inadequacies."

Bates nodded at the truth in the statement. "And doubting oneself can lead a man to doubt those around him. Even those who deserve better."

"Quite right, Bates." Lord Grantham stared ahead as he adjusted the sleeves of his shirt. With a definitive nod, he repeated, "Quite right."

The silence between them was not awkward but full of each man's inner reflections. While the valet searched his mind for a lighter topic, he found himself thinking of Anna and the contraceptive she claimed belonged to Lady Mary. He had not believed her, not when there seemed no logical reason the Earl's widowed daughter would have such a device. But Anna said it was hers, and Anna did not lie.

Except about Green - she'd lied about him. And she'd lied about what happened to her.

But, Bates forced himself to acknowledge, she only lied to protect him. Untruths were uncomfortable for Anna and she had trouble hiding that discomfort. Her insistence that the device belonged to Lady Mary did not seem like a lie, but she was clearly hiding something.

"I suppose in the end, it all comes down to trust," he said aloud.

And he did trust Anna. Therefore, what did it matter why she had the book and that item?

Lord Grantham looked back at him. "I suppose it does," he said thoughtfully.

Helping him put cuff links into his sleeves, the valet looked at the other man's injured hand. Remarking over the faded bruises and cuts, he said, "This seems to be healing well, milord."

"Yes, it is. Much faster than my pride, I'd say."

Knowingly, Bates remarked, "Pride always takes the longest to heal."

"It does at that," the other man agreed.

fin