Under the Rain
Anna headed out to brave the summer storm when suddenly Mr Bates was at her arm with an umbrella, now covering them both.
"I'll walk into the village with you." He said with a light smile.
She returned it, but protested, "Really, I'll be fine, I know you did your errands earlier today."
"I don't think it's right to let a lady go out in this weather alone."
It was the use of the word '"lady" that make a jolt go through her, know what it was alluding to. She took a deep breath and answered. "Very well then."
They started off together, close, but not close enough to touch. At first. Then the closer they got into town, the gushes of wind pushed them together.
He might have had on an overcoat, but the only thing keeping him warm was Anna, pressed against his arm and side. His hand gripped the umbrella tightly over them, but his other arm ached to wrap around her and protect from the whatever storms came her way.
Dreams
Go to sleep and dream of a better man, he once had said.
But she could not and did not.
Now though, they built up a different kind of dream, a dream for the future that they might have together. A cottage, a home of their own. A hotel, to build up their own business and make their own way. Children, little perfect beings that would be made up of both of them.
Big dreams, she later tells Ethel. Dreams that she didn't know would, indeed, come true, one day.
Stripes
Their first few nights in the cottage, there was no pretense for climbing into their nightwear. They had months of newlywed bliss to make up for, and they wasted no moments of their evenings now together again.
Finally though, there came time where they were too tired from a hard day's work and wanted to go to sleep as soon as they made it back to their home.
Anna shrugged into one of her lighter shifts, the weather still warm enough that she didn't need the full length nightgown yet. As she tied off her braid with a ribbon, she turned to see her husband decked out in his blue striped pajamas.
"What?" John asked, puzzled by the expression on her face.
"Well, not that I haven't seen you in these once before," she said as she strode over and closed the space between them, "But it's so nice to see them in our bedroom." She reached over and ran her hand over the chest hair that peeked out from the top of his collar.
"Hmm… and I thought you said you were too tired tonight?" He grinned as pulled her into his arms.
"I can be persuaded!" she exclaimed with a giggle.
No Way Out
The person waiting for her wasn't her husband, but she had had a sick feeling that it wouldn't be. He wouldn't be greeting her with joy the way she had once for him.
Mr Murray looked at her with sad eyes as he explained things. As she suspected, John had gone and done something stupid on her behalf. She was unsure how he thought he could pull it off when everyone knew that he couldn't have killed that monster simply because he's too tall.
They were silent most of the way back from York. The solicitor had had her sit in the back with him, because even if this was Lord Grantham's car, he was her client. She did take some comfort in his disbelief that she could ever do anything of the sort having worked with her before, but any comments on the deja vu of it all just made her angry.
Angry, sad, hurt, and confused. And she loathed any to-do that might have been planned at the abbey for her return. All she wanted now was to cry into the arms of the man she loved, but her freedom very well might have cost his.
Sacrifice
With love and loyalty so deep, came sacrifice. There was no question – the other was first and foremost put in front of themselves, no matter the cost. They somewhat traded off on this throughout the years, and now he was the one who had put himself on the line for her.
As she cradled their wedding photograph to her chest, she recalled what she told him, that cold November night almost a decade ago, You're doing something gallant here, making a sacrifice for my honor, but I don't want you to!
She knew that she should go to the tenant's Christmas party (and if she didn't appear, Mrs Hughes might come to the cottage and bring her up to the house herself), but Anna prepared herself for another night of crying while trying to fall asleep once she got back.
With one more caress of his likeness, she sighed and sat the framed photograph down and went to attempt to freshen herself up, not knowing that she wrong about the type of tears she'd be crying that evening.
Kick in the Head
John sits with a book in his hands but he can't find it in him to open it. He hears footsteps and looks up to see Anna in her nightgown padding into the sitting room, wringing her hands - always a clear indicator that she was upset.
"My darling," he says, his voice barely above a whisper. He sets the book down and holds out his hands. She gladly takes them and she sits on the sofa with him.
"I'm so sorry," she says, her voice wavering, as tears threaten to fall.
"Anna… again, it's not your fault-"
"No, I mean… I mean for projecting my own feelings onto you. It's… it's me who doesn't want to adopt." The last word cracks as she says it. She averts her eyes from him. "It's just… it's not how I imagined it, you know? To carry and have our child. It makes me feel horrible, that I cannot open my heart to taking in another's but… right now… I cannot. It hurts too much still."
He squeezes her hands, his own eyes growing misty. "You were right though… I don't think I'm ready for it either." He knows he's not, but he had wanted to give her another option, another way of becoming the wonderful mother than he knows she would be. But he also feels that it was the wrong time to say it - the last miscarriage was only about a month ago, and he should have been more sensitive about that. He doesn't dare bring it up, but he chastised himself.
She draws in her breath and looked him in the eyes again. "It's just that… it feels like a… kick to the head. I failed again, but not just you, myself. I just so badly want to have a child that's… made from us. From our love." Her lip quivers as she tries not to cry.
"I know darling, I know. And I won't lie and say that's not a dream that's hard for me… make peace with." He doesn't want to say give up. But he also knows he cannot make her go to the doctor, which he feels would be the thing they could do at this point. But that was up to her. "We just need time."
She folds into his arms and begins to sob into his shoulder. He presses a kiss to her temple and thinks about how much time they've needed for so many things, how much she has needed it. Why could they not be granted this one thing?
Eyes
Anna did not like being the center of attention, and was glad that there was enough hubbub that lately that she was able to dodge it after the champagne celebration. Mrs Hughes seems wrapped up enough in her wedding plans that she didn't seem to pick up that Anna was still downcast after, not like Lady Mary had. And as the big date drew near, the housekeeper was still busy enough that she didn't notice Anna's sudden change in demeanor then either.
There was enough distraction, and thanks perhaps to looser dresses, that she was able to hide things from the eyes of the others, as the months passed.
But once her little boy arrived and was out in the world, she did not mind the eyes that were on her at all. And her own were so enamoured with her newborn son.
Heaven
They laid in bed, the outdoors quiet, everything serene. Moonlight filtered in around the curtain, illuminating the room just enough.
She smiled gently, and sleepily. "I could stay like this, just stay in this moment. I know, strange to say with so much on the horizon…"
His hand came to join hers on the curve of her abdomen, still about three months to go.
"Hmmm," he muttered, "Although perhaps best if we want to sleep through the night."
He chuckled and she joined in. "Not to say that I don't yearn to meet our child but… For the first time, in a long time," she said, snuggling against him, "I feel… normal."
Something like that would normally have left a heavy feeling in the air, but in the calm, it was light.
And even in the dark, it was light.
Horror
Will was a lighter sleeper, and still was even as he got older. Anna and John tucked him and his sisters into their beds and escaped to their own. They haven't had much time to themselves lately, and planned to make the most of it.
The next day though, Will complained of hearing ghosts late at night. His parents assured him that there were no such thing and that he was safe, which seemed to comfort him.
"You don't think that he… heard us being… racy…?" Anna asked once he scampered off and was out of earshot. She balanced Emma on her lap, but she knew that she was too little to understand.
John smirked. "I don't know, anything is impossible."
Tears
One of the first moments that Anna and John shared involved tears. He was upset that the job wasn't going to work out, and Anna sniffled back a few herself that he wouldn't be given this opportunity to stay.
They shared so many tears throughout the years, both sad and happy. There were times where it seemed like all she could do was cry, hurt so much by the cruelness that fate had bestowed upon them. But then now, as she gazed upon her family, having come through it all, whenever she did grow misty eyed, it was because she and him had made it this far together, and would make it even further.