A.N.: I had meant for this to go one way but then it turned another way and then I tried to get it back to the first way but I couldn't and now I don't know what this is anymore and everything is complicated. But read it, anyway.
Disclaimer: Oh, please.
Spoilers for series 3.
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"I suppose you never wasted a chance"
X
"Won't you come with us, Mr. Carson?"
It can't hurt, he thinks. The family has already turned in for the night; there is no more work to be done. He is tired, but a chance such as this comes so rarely that the staff must take advantage of it.
It's not that he is looking forward to dancing (not after years of performing in music halls – he has lost his taste for music and dancing and drink and beauty. He feels old. He wishes he felt wise, too). But not even himself could turn down the opportunity to get out of the house, go to the village, see other people, do something, anything, that doesn't involve sewing buttons on dinner jackets.
"Certainly, John"
The second footman walks ahead of him, surrounded by housemaids and kitchen maids. He isn't jealous of the attention John gets from the female staff (he can't help but think that he would not know what to do if one of the maids ever showed an interest in him), and he trusts John enough not to lead some poor girl on.
The walk to the village fair is a short one, and soon Charles finds himself surrounded by the lights and the music. People are dancing, drinking, smiling. He's never seen the village so alive. He's never felt so old.
After what seems an eternity of walking around trying to find a vacant bench to rest on (he's lost the other servants long ago – does not know where they are, does not know if he wants to find them. Maybe accompanying them to the fair had not been such a good idea after all), he sees her.
He knows her, of course. She has been at Downton for a few months now. They have never spoken. And he doesn't think he has ever looked at her, truly looked at her, until now.
She is standing next to the dance floor, talking to two other maids. He doesn't know why she is the one to capture his attention. Maybe it's something about the way the light touches her hair, making it seem a shade lighter, or maybe it's the way she laughs at something one of the girls said. Maybe it's the way she stands, or talks, or the way she is dressed, or how her cheeks are flushed from the alcohol. It could be a number of things, really. He doesn't know.
But he finds himself moving toward her, as if she is pulling him in somehow. He doesn't know why he is going or what he is going to do, but he doesn't stop, not until he is beside her.
"Good evening, Mr. Carson" one of the other maids notices him.
"Good evening" he nods politely.
"Are you enjoying the dance, Mr. Carson?" she turns to him now, smiles. It's the first time she has ever said his name.
And suddenly he doesn't feel all that old. He likes music, dancing, drinking, beauty. How could he not?
"Well, I haven't had the chance to dance yet" he answers, turns to her, smiles, wishes he was holding a drink because he doesn't know what to do with his hands.
"Neither have I" she sips her drink, he forgets about the two other maids.
"What a shame"
"Yes, it is, really" she looks at the dance floor longingly, sadly, even.
It occurs to him that at this moment, he cannot think of a single reason why he shouldn't ask her to dance. After all, he is young, she is young, and even with all the strict rules of the household (the household they are not in right now), there is nothing wrong with a dance between colleagues.
And if he is honest with himself, he wouldn't mind having an excuse to hold her near.
He turns to her, smiles, opens his mouth to speak. Closes it. Does so twice more – doesn't know why the words are not coming out. She looks at him, smiles, waits – he likes to think she is silently urging him to go on, to ask her. It's just a dance. They are both young.
"It's a lovely night, isn't it?" he asks instead.
"It is. I'm glad we were allowed to come," she says – disappointedly, maybe?
He then realizes how foolish he is being. Certainly, it has been many years since he had lasted shared a dance with a woman, but he is confident he could pull it off given the chance.
"Elsie, come on! You promised me a dance!" he looks up to see John, who's laughing and grabbing Elsie's hand to lead her away
"I did" she smiles at John, brightly, no trace of the longing he had seen on her face before. Had he imagined it? "Excuse me, Mr. Carson" and without another word, she leaves to dance the night away in the arms of another.
Charles sighs as he watches her twirling around, thinking it could have been him to cause her such joy.
Oh, well. Maybe it's best he didn't ask.
He's too old for such things, anyway.
X
He doesn't know if he loves her.
How could he? What experience does he have with love?
He knows one thing or two about matters of the flesh (it doesn't matter that the years on stage happened decades ago, it doesn't matter that he has tried –pretended - to forget everything, some things you just can't unlearn), but not about love.
He doesn't know if what he feels for her it's simply a deep friendship born out of familiarity. They have been side by side for so many years, maybe he is just used to her.
He is so accustomed to her (since they were both young, a valet and a head housemaid, and he was already so much older than her) that he has never, not once, not for a second, thought about her not being there. He likes to think that she is as much a part of the house as he is – as much a part of his life as the house.
Some things one just does not think about, not until one is forced to confront them, not until it's too late to do anything about it.
Maybe that's why when she tells him about Joe Burns he can feel his chest tightening.
Or maybe it's because he has always – foolishly, selfishly - thought, hoped, he was the only person in her life.
"I met him the other night, we had dinner at the Grantham Arms and after, he took me to the fair"
They had been to the fair together so many times over the years, but he had never taken her. Never shared a dance with her. He cannot think of a single reason why.
"Life's altered you, as it's altered me. And what would be the point of living if we didn't let life change us?" he should take his own advice. Yes, life's altered him – the memory of the things he did before Downton still linger, as vivid and clear as ever, to remind him of that. It occurs to him that he divides his life into his time on stage and his time in service. But life hasn't stopped when he started working at Downton. He is still living, maybe not as excitedly and dangerously as before, but he is still alive, things are still happening, he can still change. Why hasn't he let life change him?
He tells himself that the only reason why he doesn't want her to leave is because he doesn't like change. It's a good excuse.
"You won't be leaving, then?"
In that moment he thinks, knows, feels, he is still alive. He can still change.
And when she says, her accent as thick as ever, that she would never find the time, he thinks, irrationally, foolishly, there's still a chance.
For what, he does not know. Yet.
X
He no longer thinks of himself as older than her.
He used to, when he was a valet and she a maid, and she had a sparkle in her eyes and a spring in her step that his dull orbs and his tired shoulders could never compete with.
He had always felt so old – ever since he first came to Downton, all his life, really, because the years on stage didn't happen to him, that was another man, another lifetime – but never older than when she was around. She was always so young.
But now, after so many years and crisis and war and death, age is not only regrets anymore, it's all numbers and wrinkles and grey hair and back pains and they both have it. They are both old.
He realizes that somehow, somewhere along the way, she got older than him. Maybe all the years of playing Atlas caught up to her. She's tired and she's ill, and he can't help but think of how unfair it is – she was always so young.
X
He knows he is in love with her.
He doesn't know if he fell in love the first time he saw her or if he fell in love yesterday. It doesn't matter (Maybe it was that time he saw her dancing at the village fair – maybe it happened two days ago when he saw her adjusting the linens on the cupboard).
But he knows he loves her and he knows he can't lose her – not to a red faced farmer, not to cancer.
She hasn't told him. Why should she? They are nothing more than friends, and while he likes to think that they are the best of friends, he's not foolish enough to think that she shares everything with him (he was, once, he had been certain that he was the only person in her life, because she was –is- the only person in his).
Maybe if he had told her (something, anything –that a world without her is no world he wants to live in, that he can't bear the thought of her leaving him even for a second, that he wants to be at her side and not just now, that he can't remember a time when he didn't want to be at her side), things would have turned out differently. He would be the one going with her to doctor's appointments, not Mrs. Patmore.
There had been times when he thought he was going to say it (something, anything). But he always talked himself out of it. Always thought of a reason not to, a million reasons not to, but never once considering that one day he wouldn't be able to live with the uncertainty, that one day he would regret not doing something (anything) sooner.
It's too late for that now.
He can only hope she will be alright.
That life will choose to give her (them?) another chance.
X
She's not dying.
He sings while polishing the silver (when was the last time he sang?) and he can't remember a time when he had last felt so young.
Everything is all right now, there's no need to worry anymore. She is safe.
She is safe, she is alright, and she is in her parlour. He thinks maybe it's time – to tell her how he feels, what he felt these last few days, how he wishes he could have been at her side, had the right to be at her side.
He doesn't know if she could ever allow him in her life but he wants to ask, he needs to know so he doesn't have to wonder anymore.
He sings. He sings because she's alive, she's not going anywhere, and he will talk to her, he finally decides, because death is such a great reminder of life, and he's still alive, they have so much time left yet. He feels young, and there are so many possibilities.
But after the silver is polished, the singing stops.
Age catches up to him again.
He curses himself for not going after her the minute she came back from her doctor's appointment. Now, after the euphoria has passed and the adrenaline that was running through his veins has quieted, he can feel his heart closing up again.
X
"If I did, I learned from it"
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He doesn't think he has.