A/N: You'll have to forgive me if I fudge the timeline a bit over the next few chapters. Of course, not everything will happen quite as it did before, and some choices are deliberate. As well, I appreciate everyone's feedback and reviews. I've often said that the DA fandom has some of the best fanfic reviewers, and you all prove it with every story and every chapter I post.
Bates tried not to focus too much on the disconnect between his relationship with Anna now and the one they'd enjoyed before. It could not be the same, no matter how kindly she treated him or how much he wished he could return her friendship. But the full import of what he was doing to her did not hit him until he overheard her gossiping in the stairwell with Gwen, the two women on an upper landing above him. Their voices reached down to him as they walked up and away, unaware of his presence.
"Mister Bates seems nice enough."
"He doesn't care for me," Anna responded distantly, her tone regretful.
"Maybe he likes you more than he can admit," Gwen suggested.
Bates sensed rather than heard the shake of Anna's head, the determined way she set her jaw as she answered, "I doubt that. There was someone he cared about, someone in his past, and apparently I remind him of her. I don't know what happened, but clearly just being near me pains him greatly."
"Who was she?" Gwen asked, clearly curious.
"He didn't say. And I haven't the right to ask."
"I'd ask, if I were you," the other housemaid ventured before adding, "And maybe he just needs time to come around."
"Maybe," she agreed. With a sigh, she said, "He doesn't deserve to live in such misery."
Whatever they said after that was lost to him as they reached their destination and left the stairwell. Bates remained where he stood, transfixed for a moment.
Her selflessness amazed him. Even as Anna believed he disliked her for completely irrational reasons, she made excuses for him and absolved him of blame. He felt guilty in being so dishonest with her. But even if he told her the truth, she would never believe him.
Anna had not avoided him after their conversation following the revelation of Mr. Carson's days on the stage. But she did not approach him often, either. Rather, she tended to fade into the shadows whenever he was around. Her tone when she did speak in his presence varied between uncertainty and dissolution, as though she had no notion of how she should act around him.
Bates understood her struggle. All he wanted was to reach out to her, to pull her into his arms and kiss the spectra of youth that was his wife standing before him, whole and healthy and very much alive. But he did not. He could not. His love was the kiss of death, a slow and painful one which would ultimately lead her to agony and destruction.
So he buried his feelings and in so doing protected her from the sadness he felt so keenly. Better that he should suffer than to put her at risk.
Chastened by his alteration of the past to suit himself, Bates knew when he saw the advertisement that he had to go through with buying the blasted contraption again. Even though he knew it was useless and unnecessarily painful, it had colored his interactions with Anna and Mrs. Hughes. What might he inadvertently change if the housekeeper did not discover that secret of his, if the others did not glimpse his periodic pain and cultivate a measure of pity?
He had nearly undone everything by avoiding embarrassment before, and he feared what he might change if he did not go through with it. so Bates faithfully went through the motions of traveling to Leeds and procuring the device, but this time around, he harbored no hope that it would be of any use besides torturing his leg further. If anything, he embraced that truth, twisting the screws tightly until the physical pain of his body matched what he felt inside.
To a certain extent, wearing the limp corrector was as much penance for avoiding the fall in front of the Duke as it was an adherence to history. But he quickly found that without the firm grip of hope, that it was nearly impossible to endure the pain so willingly. And keeping Anna from seeing his pain was likewise unavoidable. She noticed immediately.
"Are you all right, Mister Bates?"
The question came just after breakfast as he stood up from the table, startling him given their lack of interaction lately.
"Yes, thank you," he responded, although his face likely betrayed him as he attempted another step. He got halfway down the hallway before she caught up to him, stepping in his way so he was forced to halt his retreat. Someone passed by, and Anna dipped her head, waiting. But when they were alone again, or what passed for alone in the well traveled corridor outside the servants' hall, she doggedly turned her attention to him again.
"Please tell me what is the matter."
"It is nothing." He was insistent and moved past her, careful to disguise his expression to hide the pain.
She did not follow or pester him, but he learned later that she did the next best thing: she told on him to Mrs. Hughes.
Of course, Anna was not the only one to notice his extreme discomfort. Lord Grantham watched him with a keen eye as he assisted the man with dressing before his own breakfast.
"You seem out of sorts today, Bates."
He resisted the urge to sigh in frustration at the Earl's observation.
"Just a bit stiff today, milord," he explained.
His employer let it go then, but later that evening he was careful to scrutinize the valet as he changed for dinner. The day had been extremely trying as the metal bands of the limp corrector bit into his flesh. Bates considered removing the offending device, if for no other reason than to wrap his leg so the blood would not stain his trousers. But he feared that if he took it off, he would never be able to convince himself to put it back on again. Besides, there was no where in the house with privacy but his room, and an unnecessary walk up to the sleeping quarters was too daunting to face in his current condition.
"Bates, I really wish you would tell me what is wrong. I've never seen you in such pain. Is it your leg? Has your injury gotten worse?"
Shaking his head, he took a breath before explaining, "No, I just... I'm attempting a corrective action, milord, something I hope will help in the long run but is extremely uncomfortable at the moment. I won't allow it to impact my work."
He could tell the Earl wished to question him further, but his natural restraint kept him from prying. Lord Grantham had already asked too much, blurring that fine line between master and servant, even for a man he considered a friend. But he frowned in disapproval before heading downstairs for dinner.
Conscious that he would not be able to hide his pain from Anna, Bates skipped his own supper and instead used the time to catch up on work he'd been slow to complete throughout the day. To his surprise, Mrs. Hughes located him in his Lordship's dressing room as he prepared his employer's night clothes for bed. After nearly a full work day wearing the limp corrector, he found that instead of it getting easier, it had grown steadily worse. Perhaps he had turned the screws too tight too quickly, or maybe he had simply been lucky before. But the agony astonished him.
"Mister Bates," she said, tapping on the open door, and he looked up to see the housekeeper witnessing his momentary acknowledgment of the pain.
Straightening, he looked at her with concern. It was too soon for her to find out, he knew. He should suffer through the limp corrector for several more days before she finally confronted him. But the expression in her eyes was the same as he remembered, and Bates realized that he would not last that long even if he tried.
"I insist you tell me what is the matter," Mrs. Hughes told him pointedly. "From Anna's description, you're likely to pass out on the floor at any moment. And I can see for myself that you look ill."
"It is nothing..."
She shut the door, blocking him in the room. "You aren't going anywhere until you tell me what is going on."
He thought about joking, seeming to remember some line about his mother's Irish complexion. But his starched collar felt tight at his throat, and he forced himself to focus on breathing out slowly through the pain. Perhaps it was better to get this over with now, Bates determined, before he inadvertently changed things again.
"I hope you have a strong stomach..."
Her expression of horror as he pulled up the leg of his trousers was just as he remembered, and he chastised himself for inflicting that moment on the housekeeper once more. He knew she was made of stern stuff, but it still felt like an imposition on her sensitive side.
With empathy tinged with anger at his foolishness, Mrs. Hughes insisted that he strip off the device. She went so far as to walk with him up to his room so he could do so in his own room, but she was waiting for him in the hallway as he emerged. As he did so he nearly missed the choice words she muttered under her breath in thick Scottish brogue about men and stubbornness.
"Whatever were you thinking?" she chose to say clearly for his hearing.
"I had hoped to walk normally," he answered her, mindful that it was the truth, or had been once upon a time.
But why had he chosen to go through this again? Was it really to maintain the timeline, so that he could continue to know the future? Or was he punishing himself?
"You are to destroy this piece of... equipment," the housekeeper scolded him, "and I will hear no argument on the matter."
Dutifully, he nodded.
"I should make you see the doctor," she muttered, but they both knew Bates would never go. Instead, he follower her back down to her sitting room and allowed her to clean and dress the wounds on his leg, applying bandages to stop the bleeding and a salve to ward against infection. And once that was done, she confiscated the limp corrector, which he had wrapped in a blanket.
The next morning, his leg felt much better, although his skin stung as the wool of his trousers brushed against the bandages covering the wounds left by the metal bands. But the absence of the striking pain was a relief, and it showed in his expression. Anna watched him from across the table, but she only smiled at him kindly and made no comment.
After breakfast, the housekeeper informed him in quiet tones that he was to meet her at a specific area of the grounds. He already knew her purpose.
Laying the thing to rest in an out-of-the-way pond was as cathartic as he remembered. But more than that, being in Mrs. Hughes' company as she fussed over him made him feel lighter and more steady. One of the things he missed the most about his own time was the relationships he'd formed with these people. Seemingly overnight, each connection had been completely severed, and he was being forced to build them anew. The housekeeper was a welcome figure and while he had never quite regarded her as projecting maternal affection, she always had an air of feminine sensibility he had come to appreciate.
"Should we say a few words?" Mrs. Hughes asked him.
"Good riddance?"
She frowned at his dismissive suggestion, and prompted him, "And your promise?"
Bates smiled at her sardonically. This part he did remember, although it was different for him now. His mistake was not the same as it had been before. In the past, he'd used the limp corrector in a vain attempt to cure himself. Not this time. No, he likely should have ignored the entire episode rather than attempt to re-create it. But the need to punish himself was too great, and it was something Bates knew he would need to resist going forward.
"I promise not to try and change things which cannot be changed." And to change the things which perhaps should be changed. "And I promise to stop being so hard on myself, and to accept my limitations in this life without minding them."
It would be a difficult promise to keep, he knew, but he needed to stick to it if he was to remain sane. Mrs. Hughes did not know the extra meaning behind his words, and she did not need to know. She said something about everyone having scars, and that he was no different than anyone else in that respect. Nodding in acceptance of her words, Bates did not argue. But he could not agree. The worst of his scars were ones she would never see, the ones deep inside which he suspected would never quite heal.
And what's more, he was not certain he wanted them to heal.
"Thank you for your kindness, Mrs. Hughes," he told her instead, before hurling the metal contraption into the pond.
At least the splash was was as satisfying as he remembered.
TBC
