A/N: It's been a while, but my muse was gratefully aided by a nanosecond of a spoiler from the Christmas Special. As I just wrote this in the last hour, please forgive any typos. The inspiration is available on my tumblr blog under the 'myfics' or 'my manips' tabs. Enjoy!

Auld Lang Syne - Thirty Year Partnership

1895-1925

31 December 1925, 11:40pm.

Mr. and Mrs. Carson presided over the staff's New Year's Eve festivities. The merriment had commenced earlier than usual. But it was a special time for them all, a well-earned respite of celebration without concern for the bells and cords that were hung behind him. And their charges had appreciated the glasses of wine dispersed amongst them before Carson offered a small toast.

Their staff was now happily forming clusters, chatting about everything and nothing. But the housekeeper and butler simply took it all in for a moment before Mrs. Carson raised her glass to her waiting lips.

"I would suggest only a sip more," her husband warned. Her eyes angled at his in cursory examination. Before she had the chance to roll her eyes at him and his surprising turn towards abstention since his lordship had to forego wine, he bent towards her slightly.

"Oh ye of little faith, Mrs."

Their staff was boisterous, and he couldn't hear her breathless laugh. But it was there, he could see it in her eyes.

"And what is that supposed to mean," she wondered, her lips quirked in an odd smile at his choice to leave of her surname, official before the law or the Granthams.

"It means I have a bottle of wine I would like to share with you later, when it's just the two of us. We can leave just after the clock strikes twelve, Mrs. Patmore assured me."

"And what is this about?"

"It's about our anniversary."

"You must be daft, Mr. Carson," she huffed, thinking back to April… to Christmas Eve… and to the month before. She shook her head at the thought, the moment he burst her through her door the week before the actual date in question after he remembered why he had circled a particular date on his calendar and marked it with a particular number.

"We celebrated my 30 years at Downton last month, Mr. Carson. November 1925."

"Yes, but that's not the date that concerns me. I'm not sure if you remember it, but we only had our first conversation - the first of any consequence - on New Year's Eve 1895. Our friendship began that night, or so I thought it did."

She looked at him then, fully. His eyebrows were much the same, perhaps a few grey flecks now dotting their impressive façade. He had aged, much as she had, but it was him, her friend of thirty years. "And so it did."

They were quiet for a moment, caught in separate but similar memories until the clock struck a quarter 'til. The hall was growing louder, the anticipation of their young charges building.

But he managed to ask her, as quiet as he could manage with his deep voice. "Then would you like to share a bottle from that year, at home, later tonight? To celebrate 30 years of friendship?"

She had to smile, for the thought of their home – in a cottage on the ground, in their cottage now completed – could amount to nothing less. "I would like nothing more."

His authoritarian voice was laced with intimacy and anticipation. "Well, then not another sip of this respectable but not at all dear wine."

"I'd say it's dear."

"Not enough to suit what I have planned, Mrs. Carson."

The use of her title gained in marriage – the one that the household couldn't quite handle – made her glow from within. "I don't know how, Mr. Carson, but you managed to make that sound a little risqué."

His lips couldn't not fend off the smirk forming on his face. She had chided him for his comment in Brighton while on their honeymoon, them standing as pleased as punch in Scarborough Bay. Thinking of the cold walk ahead of them, he welcomed the memory.

For the time that remained until the clock struck twelve, Elsie Carson kept her near empty glass in hand, ready to be raised as their staff toasted the new year.

She hadn't expected his kiss in celebration – shared before their friends, their family. But as he had surprised her outside the church on their wedding day, she welcomed him at midnight with warm lips and warm eyes, open to his ardent adoration.

1 January, 1926. 12:30 am.

She was thankful the walls were relatively soundproof as she heard him climbing the stairs and uttering a burning thought. "It'll sound an odd request, probably."

She couldn't see his face, not yet, to gauge what he was on about. As she bustled about their bedroom, the room now aglow with their bedside lamps, her husband climbed the rest of their stairs. The celebratory wine now was now decanted and safely cradled in a vessel resting in both his hands despite the errant tremor in his hands.

She spoke over her shoulder as he entered their sanctuary, turning towards him in her nightshirt and robe. "Since I haven't heard your request, I couldn't say."

Taking the wine, she placed it near the glasses she had brought up while he was busy decanting. Despite still being in his evening livery, he was already in a state of undress, his shoes, tie, and collar now removed. She loved watching him padding quietly in his socks across the room to his wardrobe. Standing before its opened door, he gathered his thoughts for a moment as he removed his coat and waistcoat.

A few weeks before, she had started to serve as his valet, at least when it came to his cuffs and studs. It was a welcome moment of intimacy she created, deftly and without fanfare. Now it was that, and more. He ignored the tremor in his fingertips for a moment, focusing on the issue at hand.

"Do you mind singing it again?" His brows were crumpled with concern. He was a dear man, she thought, vulnerable for the sweetest of reasons.

"Sing Auld Lang Syne?" He had seen his swallowing and head ducking, a means to marshal his emotions before their staff joined in with her singing the traditional, English lyrics of the Scottish New Year's song.

"Yes, but, properly."

Her eyes lowered, searching in the midnight air.

But as she reached for his wrists, offered as a lord to his valet, her eyes grew as bright as the shining brass cuff links she loosened from his shirt.

He grew restless, shifting on his feet slightly as she chewed on her lip, letting the silence draw out as she finished work on his studs.

"There," she offered in a rush before readying the bottle of wine her husband had spoken of earlier.

"Well," he questioned in a huff. Regarding him, she tilted her head with a shake. This beautiful man lost his patience in the most endearing manner.

Wordlessly, she offered him his glass, now full of thirty year-old German burgundy. His request for her to sing was set aside. Temporarily.

Dipping his head to gather his thoughts, he remembered his promise and found purpose in the smell of the aged aroma wafting towards his nostrils. Clearing his throat, he raised his glass slightly, his eyes shining in the lamplight.

"To thirty years as friends and partners."

Her free hand found his other forearm, careful to take advantage of every moment they had alone. Her right hand filled with the German vintage, she thought back to them all those eves ago on December 31, 1895. Standing in the corner of the Servant's Hall, not far from where they found themselves in 1925, they were young and tentative, serious and somehow animated simultaneously. They had stumbled upon an interesting conversation at dinner. And they found themselves with a rare opportunity, a private word amongst the din of downstairs. They paired themselves off, discussing their favorite literature as other staff clustered about apart from them, speaking of cricket and the latest fashions. They had stood much the same as they did now, save for the intimacy, save for the open awareness of their deepest regard and the shining ring on her finger.

He had asked her, then, about Burns and which version she more preferred of the poem that served as a solid tradition of every New Year's eve in his memory. In the lamplight now, she struggled momentarily but soon remembered what she had said all those years ago.

"I'm still in England, Mr. Carson. To sing it properly here is to sing it as I did tonight."

He sighed, slightly exasperated and endeared simultaneously. "In England or no, for you, my Scottish lass, to sing it properly for you is what I request. I'll do my best with all the words I can hardly fathom."

She was nothing if lovely in her sardonic reply. "My trusty fiere, I shall sing it as a proper Scottish lass with the proper Scottish words, if you wish."

His face relaxed, and she was grateful she was without a corset as she breathed deeply at the sight.

"I would be honored," he remarked before his brows furrowed in confusion. "'My trusty fiere'?"

Her eyes danced and he found himself pulled in a triangle between them and her pretty mouth.

"My trusty friend," she translated indulgently.

He hummed his understanding, his body warmed through by how she needled and expressed her understanding of this night, of their past, his toast of friendship and more. "Ah yes, we were toasting something in particular, weren't we?"

"Indeed we were, my fiere."

He sobered, only slightly. "To thirty years – as friends, as partners."

"To thirty years," she echoed and more. "As friends, as partners. And for the next thirty years, as husband and wife."

Toasting properly, they both hummed in satisfaction as the vintage burst across their palates. He had hoped it would live up to the rich past they shared together, to the present and their permanent partnership. When he pulled the vintage from his personal stacks of wine a month before to allow it to settle properly, he had already made plans to acquire a few bottles from 1925. It was, after all, a momentous year for them, in more ways than one.

But the vintage he selected all those years ago for tonight brought him back to the present.

"Perhaps," he wondered after another long sip of ambrosia, "you could sing it properly on Burns night?"

Closer, she creeped, her feet quiet in only her slippers as she crossed to him. Her left hand found purchase on his shoulder, and they found themselves swaying to an unheard melody. "I can sing it then, hopefully after a dinner here, on our own."

"I'll be your assistant cook," he was quick to offer. Though unorthodox, meeting in the middle made them much happier, and much more capable of sharing the rest of the evening alone and with much more energy for something beyond preparing a meal. Months later, it was a lesson he happily learned as a new husband.

"I shall be glad of your assistance," she mumbled, her head now resting snugly on the inviting plane of his chest.

They swayed for a time, silently. But soon, she began humming the first verse to Auld Lang Syne. She could feel him regarding her, his right hand caressing her fondly as her voice grew stronger as she began to sing the chorus.

For auld lang syne, my jo

For auld lang syne,

We'll talk a cup o' kindness yet,

For auld lang syne.

With a flourish, she clinked her cup of kindness with his before continuing with a hum. She would reserve the rest of her Scottish rendition for a few weeks later on Burns night.

It took him a moment to process what he thought he'd heard. But soon, Charles Carson was slightly apoplectic. "'Ma Joe?' What on earth?" Visions of Joe Burns made his hackles rise even while he knew the thought was absurd. Elsie Carson loved to tease him, but the farmer rarely became a topic of conversation for any reason, much less to tease him.

She hadn't thought of Joe Burns, but could see he had. She stopped their progress then, her left hand now on his stubbled cheek. "The line is 'my jo,' j-o."

"Oh," he uttered, nonplussed.

Her voice had a lyrical note to it even as she spoke the translated lyrics. "Long, long ago, my dear, my sweetheart, my j-o. It's a term of endearment," she declared as he relaxed against her, their swaying continuing, however slowly, in the late hour.

"And it's a fact," she ventured, her eyes still boring into his with conviction.

"A fact," he asked, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth as she hummed he response.

Soon, their swaying slowed to a halt. And he sighed as she took their empty glasses and secured the decanted wine for the night.

She met him on his side of the bed, catching him by the braces still keeping his evening trousers in place.

"Yes, a fact," she admitted. She was alluring, her fingers skimming up his starched shirt front as she shrugged the braces from his shoulders. And she was innocent, her voice quiet and assured in her admission, "My sweetheart."

Neither of them made much of terms of endearment, finding their given names, or even a 'Mrs. Carson,' to be as intimate, as sacred as any other term. But perhaps they were changing.

Fingering the edging of her robe as it ghosted across her collarbone, he felt her heaving breath, stirring him. The thought of a lie in made him bold, for his lordship had ensured them the morning off for New Year's Day.

"My jo," he rumbled without thought of farmers or a life that could have taken her away from Downton, from him.

The kissed once more, much the same as their sweet, short moment they shared at midnight. But without an audience, they grew closer, hands seeking anchors on shoulders and backs. Lips lingered, quiet sounds of delight mingling in the chilled air before the last vestiges of their clothing were piled in a heap upon the floor.

Only minutes into 1926, they ushered in the next thirty years of their partnership with a flourish as husband and wife.

I'd love to know what you think of this impromptu tale. Your reviews give me life as I work on a multi-chapter fic that is in sore need of a few more chapters before it's ready to be shared with you all. Cheers!