A/N A response to the Chelsie 30 Day Drabble Challenge on tumblr. You know that I haven't written a thing in ages and that my last fic is on hiatus (still) so please be nice to me and remember that publishing a new fic is not easy for me (and I'm really afraid no one will read/like this anyway). Thank you 100000000times to kouw how is an amazing friend and beta. I'd be lost without you.
DAY 1 - BEGINNING
They've all gone to bed an hour ago after the celebrations downstairs were over. All the cleaning, tidying up, sorting out the stemware and cutlery in the scullery can wait until Christmas morning. She has granted her staff an early night but she has not taken the lead and gone up to her room early, too.
Instead she stays in her sitting room. Alone. No one can disturb her now and it feels good to be left alone for a while. She rarely has the opportunity and she needs time to think, to process the conversation she had earlier with Mr Carson. A proposal. At her age. From this man. And she had agreed, without a second thought or hesitation. He wants her to be his wife, to share the rest of his life with her by his side. In a home of their own, a place where everything from the chair to the table to the cutlery will belong to them.
She sits at her desk, looks at old pictures, her ledgers, letters he sent her during the London Season over the past twenty years. She wants to understand what it means to be engaged, needs to embrace this feeling inside her, the excitement, the butterflies. The clock on the mantlepiece chimes one o'clock. It is the only sound and she almost jumps, so much has she been engrossed in her thoughts. It is time for her to go upstairs and find some sleep.
But sleep does not come. She lies awake for ten minutes, twenty, and longer. In the darkness it is difficult for her to read the hands on the small alarm clock on her nightstand, a gift from him, three Christmases ago. It must be well past two o'clock and she is not even tired. There are still so many thoughts she cannot process. She is happy, overcome by emotions, ready to jump up and go to his room and tell him 'yes I will' over and over again. The restlessness is disturbing but wonderful at the same time.
She sighs and turns over, stares at the closed door, wants him to appear there and tell her that she does not have to worry about anything anymore. He will take care of her. She will look after him and they will write a new chapter of their life together. It is a new beginning, an unexpected one but the most wonderful Christmas gift she has ever received.
Her eyes close, the lids heavy with sleep. She finally drifts off into the land of dreams when her door opens. Heavy footsteps cross the small distance between the door and her bed. The mattress dips down when he sits down to look at her.
"You are here," she mumbles sleepily.
"I couldn't sleep," he whispers.
"I know."
She makes room for him in the small bed. Does not even think about how inappropriate this is: the butler in her room at night. He has probably used the women's staircase to enter the other side of the sleeping quarters. But they are engaged now, she has seen him cry, seen him wear his heart on his sleeve. They are different people now. Braver, bolder. This is a risk she is ready to take.
"I can't stay." He strokes her cheek. "But I needed to see you."
"Just for a bit." She is only half awake.
He hesitates but then lies down next to her, embraces her, holds her close. The restlessness is gone. She feels whole now, ready to begin this new life. Together they fall asleep and when the kitchen maid knocks on her door in the morning he is still there and it feels right.
TBC
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