A/N: I hope everyone is enjoying this story despite the occasional bit of angst. ;-) Thanks to those who have left reviews and feedback. I appreciate hearing what you think.

"I take it from your expression that whatever 'corrective action' you were taking has either been discontinued or resolved in a satisfactory manner?"

Obviously, Lord Grantham had noticed the change in his disposition since he'd thrown out the limp corrector. The attention surprised him as Bates had never realized how clear his distress had been to others, at the time believing himself more or less invisible.

The Earl looked at his valet pointedly, their eyes meeting in the mirror. Somehow not having to fully face the man as they spoke made his response easier to muster.

"It has, milord," Bates stated.

"Are you going to tell me what it was all about?"

Wild horses could not have drug the truth from his lips at that moment. It was bad enough having suffered through it once, but torturing himself with the device twice for no real purpose? Bates felt foolish and fool hearty. He ought to be better at this, using his second chance for the better and not to stew in his own lingering guilt.

Mildly, he said, "I'd rather not, if you don't mind."

He picked up a brush and began to sweep imaginary lint from the Earl's shoulders, purposely breaking their eye contact. Lord Grantham said nothing more on the matter.

"When are the guests to arrive?" Bates asked, his voice sounding absent but his attention entirely engaged on his Lordship's answer.

"The day after tomorrow. I'm rather looking forward to it."

The valet nodded slightly, his mind already working on the problem at hand. Evelyn Napier would bring Kemal Pamuk, the Turkish ambassador, to Downton in only two days. And in doing so, he would set in motion a series of events which no one could possibly anticipate.

No one except Bates.

"You seem to be feeling better."

Her words startled him as though she were a ghost which appeared ahead of him on the stairs as he made the slow trek up to the attic to retrieve some clothes for Lord Grantham in anticipation of the house party. Anna was on her way back down from a similar errand. He idly wondered why they always seemed to meet like this in the stairwell, with no one else around. It was a peculiarity of this new life.

"I am. Much better, thank you."

She paused at his response with a deliberate glance at his cane. His knee was still hurting him after the use of the limp corrector. The pain would get better over time, he knew, but for now it still caused him problems, and Anna could see it despite his attempt to cover his discomfort with clenched teeth and a tight smile.

"You should have told me you were coming up here," she scolded him good-naturedly. "I could have gotten what you needed and saved you a trip."

He shook his head. "I couldn't ask that of you."

"Why not?" she queried. With a deliberate air of casual matter-of-factness, she said, "Just because you don't like me doesn't mean I don't like you."

Her words stung, not because they carried just a hint of recrimination, but because he could see in her that it was true. Anna did like him. Having cast aside his ill treatment of her, she'd determined herself to be his friend no matter whether he reciprocated or not.

"I can do my own work," Bates forced himself to say.

He should go, he knew, before their conversation went further than he would like. But he could not pass her on the stairs, not without risking brushing up against her. Such a touch, even a casual one, might do him in completely. Instead, he waited for her to move.

But Anna refused.

Instead, she stood in his way. Dropping her voice, she asked more gently, "The woman I remind you of, what happened to her?"

The question abruptly flung him into the past, and he could see the apology for that in her eyes. His head spun as he thought about how he could explain himself, how he could be truthful without sounding like a madman. He could not tell her about what he knew would happen, about what had happened. But she deserved an explanation.

Even if he could find a way to say it, Bates almost could not speak the words aloud. Anna looked at him with such an expression of tenderness that he lost himself in her eyes. Meanwhile, she waited calmly, patiently, with no expectation but to find a way to ease his burden.

Finally, after an impossibly long silence, he found his voice. "She... died."

Anna's face crumpled under this pronouncement, and he could see her immediate regret in having asked about his past at all. Putting that sort of guilt on her was unfathomable to him, not in light of the truth.

"Mister Bates, I'm so sorry-" she began, but he quickly interrupted her.

"You weren't to know. But you have every right to ask. The woman I told you about before, she died because of me."

Her brow furrowed in confusion at his statement as though she did not quite believe his confession.

"Surely that isn't true," she argued. A question hovered on her breath, and he recognized that she could not bring herself to ask. And as much as she deserved to know, he could not tell her, not everything. The circumstances still left him raw with grief, and speaking them aloud was simply not possible.

"It is," Bates managed to say succinctly. "But for me, she would have had a much longer - and happier - life."

"But I cannot imagine that whatever happened was your fault-"

Shaking his head, he declared strongly, "It was. It was all my fault."

Unable to stand and listen to this woman who looked just like his wife - who was his wife, or a younger version of her - defend him to himself, he turned to walk back down the stairs, his errand to the attics abandoned. But Bates could not make that first step, not with the feel of her eyes staring at his back.

He was here to keep an eye on her, to protect her. He had not returned to Downton to hurt her all over again, to interrupt her life and destroy it once more. His sole purpose in allowing himself to stay was to keep her safe. The simple truth remained that he would bring Anna untold pain if he became involved with her, if he let her fall in love with him. And yet, they were already traveling down the same path they'd gone before.

Part of him knew he could not help himself. Seeing his mother after she had been dead for so many years was one thing, but to see Anna, to come to know her as a friend and colleague all over again as he had in the beginning...

He was turned away from her, but Bates could hear the emotions in Anna's voice as she so obviously fought to restrain her own emotions. "I'm so sorry, Mister Bates. How thoughtless of me to bring up your memories like this."

The sudden sadness he heard in her tone burned him like fire and made it difficult to breath. She should never suffer for his shortcomings, especially not in this. He shook his head, the small movement making him suddenly dizzy.

Looking back at her, he said, "You aren't thoughtless, Anna. Never that. You are extremely kind to me, even when I've given you no reason to be. But I am undeserving of your consideration."

"That isn't true."

"It is."

"Haven't I the right to decide that?" Anna demanded.

Unable to argue, he simply stood still and quiet for a moment. She was the one to break through the silent barrier he had erected around himself.

"I recognize that I may not be the easiest person for you to be near. But I do hope we can be friends, Mister Bates."

Anna did not wait for an answer from him, but rather she edged past him to go downstairs. He stiffened as as she squeezed by his larger form on the crowded stair, forcing himself not to let out a gasp at the contact between them. Anna paused, obviously noticing his reaction. She turned to look up at him and their eyes met in a moment of pure understanding, as though everything else had melted away and she was once again the woman he'd known before.

Then that moment passed and she left him to make her way back down the stairs.

As the next two days went by, the tension between Bates and Anna slowly eased. He permitted himself to laugh at the same jokes she found funny when they were both in the servants' hall, and gradually, he began entering the same conversations. He justified the laxness with a reminder that while it was a large house, their numbers were too small to keep so apart from her forever. They were not allies as they once had been, he and Anna, nor were they truly friends. But he had trouble maintaining the farce that he disliked her and so allowed himself to abandon it.

When Gwen's secret type writer was found and published to the entire downstairs, he stood behind the women as Anna defended her friend to Mr. Carson. "She wants to keep it private, not secret. There's a difference."

He could have laughed at the absurdity of their disapproval of someone wanting to give up a life in service to be a secretary. None of them yet knew how things would change after the war, how this way of life would be irrevocably altered. As more and more great houses were lost to creditors and taxes and the cost of their owners' tastes, more and more servants would be driven into finding other work. Marveling at Gwen for being ahead of the game, he quietly murmured agreement with Anna.

Bates also had to admit, the discussion of keeping things private rather than secret hit him close to home. His own secrets could never be shared, not with anyone, and he regretted that it was a something he would likely take to his grave. As a private man, he hated admitting it, but one of the parts he missed the most about his old life was having someone to actually talk to about things.

Gwen defended herself admirably, he thought, even in the face of Mr. Carson's censure and Mrs. Hughes' displeasure.

As she moved to gather up her typewriter and Anna turned around to go about her duties, the head housemaid started at the sight of him behind her. "Excuse me," Bates said, stepping out of her way.

Smirking at him, Anna walked by slowly, refusing to take a step to the side which would have kept them firmly apart. Her movement caused a bit of her skirt to brush against his trousers, though she showed no apology for the contact. It was a small thing, but Bates understood it even better than Anna likely did herself - she was communicating a thanks without words, for standing behind her and Gwen against the housekeeper and butler. And even beyond that, there was another intention behind her casual movement.

Anna was flirting with him.

TBC