A/N: After watching 3:3 I am actually glad that nothing worse happened. I have been so terribly worried.
...
Edith woke up crying. So it was a nightmare after all! It took her some time to sort out what was a dream and what had really happened. But she knew she was still in her old room at Downton. And she wasn't a widow. And she had never been a wife. A spinster, as always. As ever.
To her surprise it all came as a relief. At least he wasn't dead.
And it wasn't her gown she had thrown down the hallway, only her veil.
He had called her his dearest darling. And he had let her down so terribly. Why didn't he understand her, when she understood him so well. She blamed her Granny, she blamed her Papa, for making Anthony think he wasn't worthy of her.
She knew that he loved her. And she knew what a terrible sacrifice he had made for her. Without understanding that the sacrifice was almost as great for her. That she loved him. That she thought he was the nicest man on earth.
And she understood that by breaking it up like he did, in public like that, in such a scandalous way, he was assuring that she would have all the sympathies, and he none. Leaving Lord Grantham's daughter at the altar! The few friends he had would probably turn against him. He would be so terribly lonely. She sobbed.
All he had wanted was for her to be happy. He had said so, and she knew it was true. Why couldn't he understand that she had never been really happy except when she was with him? If he had only understood how happy she had been seeing him standing there in church, waiting for her. She had been so happy and he had smashed it all to pieces.
Right now it was nothing she could do. Get up, get through the day. Being the helpful daughter. The spinster.
When she thought that she could have been on her way to Rome with him today, after a wedding-night with him, she started crying again. She had been so happy, he had made her so happy. If she only had managed to make him understand that!
...
A/N:
I don't know if we will ever see the lovely Sir Anthony again. I hope so, and I hope he will marry Edith eventually. But if nothing of that will happen, at least I'm glad he is alive and can sit in his library and feel a little proud of himself for being able to give up Edith in a way that would cast all the blame on himself. Because in my world he loves her so terribly.