A/N: Playing around with another character. Hope you enjoy!

Charles is irritable, lonesome. He rattles around the cottage, jerking out drawers, slamming cabinets. It's ridiculous, really. Choir practice is only two hours. It's only one morning a week. I mean, really, he scolds himself. It's not as if she ever does anything for herself. This is the one thing that is hers and he won't take it from her by acting like a petulant schoolboy. Still. He doesn't have to like it. He only has to pretend to. It's just that, without her, the cottage is empty, alien. He spent the last twenty years in a cell, really; very few possessions of his own out to give his room personality. Her office was different; of course he'd never seen her room, but he'd assumed it to be as spare and plain as his own. Her office, though, was definitely not. A few photographs, some delicate figurines, a throw she had stitched together during those long evenings she'd stayed up, waiting for him, or so he liked to think. And she's done the same for their cottage. So many personal touches that she'd added, where did they all come from? And somehow, she'd managed to find a photograph of his mother. She must have spoken to Beryl about that. It all spoke to her; there was really very little of him in it, and yet he'd never felt more at home in his life. Except for the two hours every week that she's gone. Bah, he mutters to himself. Be off with you. Go to the village, wander about, surprise Elsie at the church. Would she like that? He wasn't sure. Perhaps…a sly smile crosses his face. Perhaps she would like it very much. It won't take a minute to get his coat and hat.

* CE *

He makes his way slowly toward the village. It's still a bit nippy in spite of its being spring. He's glad he's worn his coat; the wind can be bitter. He is surprised to find himself whistling, whistling of all things. He's not felt this light in years, since he was a young lad going from town to town with Griggs, before things got sticky. It's her that's done it. She's made a place in his heart and he's not right without her. Why the devil did he wait so long? Why did she? He knew it would only have taken one of them to strike the match. The only times he tried to talk to her about his true feelings, his tongue turned to lead and he could only mumble some trite phrase or other. "Don't tell me you'll miss me." She would say it does no good to dwell on the past, and she's right, only he's trying to puzzle it out, trying to find exactly what he's done in his life to deserve her, this happiness. He knows he's a difficult man, prickly, self-absorbed, curmudgeonly, (he knows what they think of him), yet she makes him feel…he stops in the road. That's just it. She makes him feel. Standing stock still in the middle of the path to the village and he's grinning like an idiot.

"Mr. Carson? Are you alright?" Mr. Bates' voice reaches him before the sound of his tread on the path, slow but steady.

He starts, turns suddenly, draws himself up. "Mr. Bates, how good to see you. Yes, I'm perfectly alright. Just forgotten something I'd intended to do in the village."

"I'm headed to the village; off to pick up his Lordship's dinner jacket from London." Bates smiles. "It needed certain repairs beyond my capabilities. Such a nice day I thought I'd walk."

"It's a bit far, though, isn't it?" Charles can't stop his tongue before the words come out.

"I'll manage, Mr. Carson. I always do."

Charles clears his throat. "So you do," he says gruffly." Care to walk with me a ways?"

"I'd like that," Bates says quietly. "How is Mrs. Carson?"

"She's well; quite well."

"And is she enjoying the cottage? Retirement?"

"Yes, I should think so. Very much so. I think we're both enjoying it more than we thought." He stops at the sudden grin he spies out of the corner of his eye. "Retirement, that is."

"Of course. It must be nice to call your own tune, so to speak, after so many years of service."

"It was my pleasure to serve the family to my fullest ability, Mr. Bates," Charles says stiffly. He pauses for a moment, relaxes the stiff set of his shoulders. "But I must admit that having no one to account my time to is no bad thing."

"Indeed."

They walk in silence for a few moments.

"Where is Mrs. Carson this morning? I'm surprised she's not making the trip to the village with you."

"Mrs. Carson is at choir practice." Charles ducks his head sheepishly. "I find I don't like to be alone in the house."

Bates stifles a grin; oh the tale he can tell Anna when he gets home tonight. "I didn't know Mrs. Hughes, sorry, Mrs. Carson could sing?"

"Oh she has a lovely voice," he says dreamily, and Bates finds he has to turn from the wistful, longing look on Mr. Carson's face. On second thought, he might not share this particular tale with Anna. At least not in jest.

"Well, our way parts here, I do believe, Mr. Carson. I must be off to the train station."

"And I must get on with my errands. I enjoyed our little chat."

"As did I, Mr. Carson. Please give Mrs. Carson our best."

"I will, and send our regards to Mrs. Bates."

"I will. She'll be pleased to hear you're getting on so well."

"Well…," Charles looks away, embarrassed.

"I must be off," Bates says, and extends his hand. They shake and he turns towards the train station. He walks a few paces forward and can't resist turning around to look. He's not surprised to see Mr. Carson making his way toward the church. Not surprised at all.