An idea based on a conversation I had with a friend who was sexually abused as a child. To paraphrase, she said she felt that the hardship had made her more able to relate to people, and made her more of a woman. It's always been a firm belief of mine that our experiences shape us, and that became very important when I thought about what my friend said – can we sometimes have the greatest outcome if there are worse, seemingly hopeless experiences on the way there? The other thing that contributed was the alternate universe theory - a new universe for every decision made has always intrigued me, and I've very firmly employed it here. So, I wondered, what if John's experiences were different? What if he hadn't made the mistakes that he did? What if his life, and consequently the Anna/Bates relationship, had just been plain sailing?
This also comes with a happy birthday for TheShippyQueen, who writes the most wonderful Anna to my Bates, and is the best RPing/shipping partner ever and an awesome person to boot. Have a fantastic day, darling!
Plain Sailing
When she first met him, Anna was very pleasantly surprised. He came earlier than expected, and rounding the bottom of the stairs to come face to face with a stranger like him certainly wasn't a bad experience at all. He was… perhaps not attractive in the most traditional sense, but she was attracted to him, all the same. She introduced herself with a smile and her heart fluttered when he smiled back so beautifully. He was open and easy, friendly, and didn't mind Miss O'Brien being a pain – that was in order to stick up for Thomas, Anna supposed, but that didn't matter. She knew at the very least she'd found a good friend in this man.
When he first met her, John was very pleasantly surprised. He'd been looking for someone, perhaps the butler or housekeeper, and to come face to face with her at the foot of the stairs certainly wasn't a bad experience at all. She was very pretty, with the most enchanting smile, and that grin she shot him when the other maid – Miss O'Brien – made a nuisance of herself, easily prevented any irritation he might have felt. He felt his leg twinge as he followed them through. He hid it easily, though. The old wound played up from time to time, but it was nothing to what it might have been. He could walk with ease, which made him one of the lucky ones. But that didn't matter, now. This was a new life, and he knew at the very least that he'd found a good friend in Anna.
Anna hated the way Miss O'Brien and Thomas behaved to Mr Bates. They couldn't do anything, of course, he was very good at his job and he never put a foot wrong. But they were horrible to him, and once or twice they tried to get him fired – get the job for Thomas, she supposed, although it wasn't really important to her why they did it. She enjoyed helping him get the better of them. It was fun, and she liked getting to know him better. She would almost go so far as to say she was beginning to love him.
John was getting fed up of Miss O'Brien and Thomas' attempts to get rid of him. They wanted him off the next rung on Thomas' career path, he supposed, but they wouldn't find a stain to get rid of him, he knew that. And he and Anna had been able to thwart both their attempts to frame him and lose him his job. He'd had a lot of fun doing it, if he was honest. He very much liked Anna, and he could feel their friendship growing easily into something much more. He would almost go so far as to say he was beginning to love her.
Anna felt like she knew John completely. They knew everything about one another; they'd talked for hours about their families and pasts and everything. He'd even asked that she call him John whenever it wasn't too scandalous; he said he liked having a friend close enough to call him what he was instead of who he belonged to. Anna did so with very great pleasure. His name tasted wonderful on her lips. And she wanted more. She wanted to taste him. So this was what it was like, to be in love. It felt wonderful. If only he would speak out.
John didn't speak right away. He wanted to be sure, sure that she loved him like he did her. He'd not been in love before, but he felt a swelling in his stomach every time he looked at her and he missed her whenever she wasn't there. He felt certain, then, that his place in life was by her side. So he spoke out, when he had a chance to, one autumn Sunday in 1913, as they walked back from church, hanging behind with her a little so they wouldn't draw attention. He had done everything properly – he'd found the time to ask Anna's father, and when he'd admitted to his mother that there was somebody he rather liked, she sent him her ring at once, badgering him with nonsense about how he'd been in need of a wife for far too long. He didn't go down on one knee, not in public and not in his best suit, but he spoke well, and finished with an "Anna, will you marry me?" that would have done his father proud. It was a perfect proposal, and all it wanted was a perfect answer.
Anna suddenly found that she couldn't say yes, not just yet. She did love John Bates, and she did want to be with him, but it was a big decision. She was overcome with a feeling of unease, and she suddenly felt very uncomfortable. She fidgeted with her bag as she stammered through a promise to give it very serious thought. She'd never envisaged marriage for herself, at least not for a long time, and if she married now her whole future would be sent down an unplanned path, a path in which she couldn't have her own way all the time. She'd be sharing her future. But, when she thought about it that night in bed, long after she was supposed to be asleep, she found that the idea of sharing the future with him wasn't so horrible after all. Next morning, first thing, she got him alone and told him she'd marry him.
They didn't rush into it. It was wiser to save, and they could take the time to plan for their future together. It was Anna's idea to wait, but John didn't mind. He'd rather have married sooner, but she was right, they didn't want to let things go wrong. He suggested giving it a year before marrying, when she didn't specify how long she'd like to wait, and a year was settled on. They married in December of 1914, their happiness a little tarnished by the number of deaths. But they were happy. For the rest of their lives, with only the occasional interruption of an argument, or an event, or some kind of problem involving the children, they were happy. And they never stopped loving each other, with a nice, peaceful love. But, several times during their marriage, both of them had found themselves wondering. Somehow, they both felt that there might be something more than what they had. Somewhere.
Somewhere: an alternate universe…
Anna sighed, rolling over in bed and finding herself waking up to a reality that involved being nestled comfortably in John's arms. He grinned at her impishly, and pecked a kiss on the tip of her nose. She smiled despite herself as she smacked him away.
"How long have you been watching me?" she demanded, wriggling in his arms but making no real attempt to move.
"Hours, I imagine," he answered, that idiotically beautiful grin of his still on his face. "You really don't like your mornings, do you?"
"No, I don't," she said, scowling at him for a moment before breaking down into giggles. "Alright, you win this time," she told him, shifting a little to get closer to him and taking his mouth with hers. They didn't tease each other then.
Later, when they lay side by side, the bedclothes thrown on the floor to compensate for the suddenly much greater heat, Anna said, "I love you, John Bates. Much as I've hated you over the years, and much as I still do from time to time, I love you."
John felt a pang in his heart with the awareness of the pain he'd caused her over the years. She'd had every right to hate him, and he wasn't going to deny anything of the sort. But they'd moved past all the hardship, they'd got rid of Vera and now they were happy and settled. It still amazed him, every day when he woke up to see her beside him, that they were really here. They'd made it. And that which hadn't destroyed them, had always made them stronger.
"Do you think," he began, hesitantly, turning on the bed to meet her gaze properly – ordinarily, his eyes would roam her naked body unabashedly, but right now it wouldn't be right – "do you think, that if you hadn't hated me – if we hadn't had all the trouble we've had, do you think our lives would be like this?"
Anna considered his question carefully, an idle hand making its way up to play with his chest hair in the way she knew John found very distracting. "No," she said thoughtfully. "I don't think we'd have been able to know each other like we do. We'd never have had all this perfection, if everything had been plain sailing."
And then they fell into a very specific kind of silence once more.