Anna's excitement at finally receiving the letter addressed to her in her husband's handwriting was overshadowed by its lack of a return address. Obviously, he did not want her to know his location. But at least he'd written.

The servants' hall was too public a place to read such a note and Anna could not walk back down to the cottage so early in the morning. Perhaps sensing her predicament, Mrs. Hughes asked Anna into her sitting room.

"I thought you might need some privacy," she told the lady's maid, shutting the door and leaving her alone to read the letter.

The tears began to flow even before she reached the end of his one-page note. His pain translated so clearly from the written word that Anna could almost feel it leaching into her skin from the paper itself. He spoke of hopes of returning, but she wondered if he only meant to keep her from worrying. And he'd actually written to reassure her of her own innocence in his drunkenness. As usual, her husband took all the blame on himself with none of it to spare for others.

"You stupid, stubborn man," she cursed him, holding the letter to her breast as she closed her eyes and let the tears roll down her cheeks. Still speaking to him, her voice so laden with emotion that it might travel across all the intervening space and reach his ear, "Please be safe. Please come home."

"Was that your daughter came a few days ago, looking for you?"

Martin entered the workshop, his hand tucked into his trouser pocket. While he clearly addressed the question to Bates, he looked around the small building. The work benches were well stocked with tools and held unfinished projects of all different types. Bates had found a stool to sit on by the bench where he worked. No other men were there due to the late hour.

"I don't have children. The woman you saw was likely my wife, Anna."

Raising an eyebrow in a deliberate attempt at surprise, Martin asked, "Your wife? She looked too young for you."

Having grown used to such barbed comments in prison, Bates answered simply, "She is a beautiful woman."

"Well, at least your wife cares enough to come," Martin muttered darkly.

Bates took the opportunity to look at the man, to truly assess the tortured individual before him. At first he'd assumed the one-armed soldier was there to try and make trouble. But the more he examined him, he could see something past that façade of angry resentment. He could see a side of Martin struggling to not just get past his addiction, but the very reasons why he turned to the bottle in the first place.

"Have you tried writing to your wife?" Bates asked.

"I wouldn't know where to send a letter."

"What about your other family?"

Martin shrugged. "My ma writes me sometimes, gives me the news from home."

Bates shared, "I have no other family but Anna."

"She looked like a decent woman. Very insistent with the doctors."

Sighing, he acknowledged, "She is the finest of women and much better than I deserve."

Bates was rarely so open or honest with others, particularly other patients, but he felt like a small weight was lifted as he talked about Anna. His guilt over leaving her and refusing to tell her his where he was had been playing on his mind since his arrival, and it had only gotten worse.

"Sounds like she put up with the drinking better than my wife," Martin noted with a hint of sarcasm.

"No woman should have to endure that from a husband."

Looking down at his work, Bates tried to push away the image that came to his mind unbidden – Anna beneath him, her tiny wrists in his hands, her face twisted in anguish. As his breathing increased, Bates' knee throbbed in rhythm.

"You're lucky, you know. Your wife cares enough to come visit," Martin pointed out, suddenly even more bitter than before. His eyes traveled over the tools on the workshop table. "You can at least still be useful."

"Useful?" Bates challenged, suddenly flashing with anger. "I haven't walked normally in years. I'll likely never be able to work again, not with this leg, not even with a very expensive surgery. And my wife… she'll have to take care of me, of the both of us. You think you're a cripple, but you can at least walk around under your own power. I can barely get around with crutches. In a few years, Anna may have to push me in a chair. You think that's lucky?"

Martin glared at him, taken aback by the older man's sudden outburst. "You don't know what it's like having only one arm…" he began.

Bates shot back. "All you can think about is how hard life is for you. You don't think about how it is for others. A lot of men came home injured and broken. And they got on with their lives. They didn't have to drink to cope, not most of them. Your arm is just an excuse, just like my leg was an excuse for me."

Shaking with the force of his emotions, he wanted to storm out, to turn his back on the young ex-soldier so intent on convincing others of his rough time. But Bates had things to do. If he completed the project he was working on – a small child's toy – the home could sell it to a nearby shop for a small bit of money that would come back to him. It wasn't much of an income, but it was something. It was also a goal to accomplish.

Martin simply stood there watching him work for a time. The silence between them shifted from uncomfortable to just tense.

His irritation gradually fading away as the minutes passed, Bates finally stopped his work and nodded the man over. "Here," he said. "Put your hand on this and hold it down."

Surprisingly, the young man did as directed. Bates sanded the wood pieces the other man held together and then took them back.

"Now go fetch me some glue from that table over there."

Martin did as he was told. The two men worked together in relative quiet for a half an hour with Bates giving the occasional instruction. The one armed man struggled with his disability, but he quickly learned to adapt as needed to the more difficult requests. But they both soon tired and decided to head to the main house.

As Bates closed up the workshop, he found himself asking Martin in a quiet voice, "Your wife… did you ever hurt her, when you were on the bottle?"

The younger man paused then looked back at him. "You mean did I ever strike her?"

Bates gave a clarifying nod.

"No. Never anything like that," Martin responded. Understanding seemed to dawn on his face as he looked at Bates with growing horror. "Did you…" he began, but the question died on his lips.

Pushing off on the crutches towards the house, Bates declared, "Then you still have a chance to win back your wife, to get your life together again."

Anna did the chores at the cottage in the evenings. She could not spare to leave them until her half day as those precious hours of liberty were usually reserved for trips to London. And when she could not get away, she spent her time continuing to write letters in search of her husband. While she firmly believed John to still be in London, she'd expanded her search to other cities. Someone had to have an idea where he was, and eventually she hoped that her desperate pleas would fall on the ears of some sympathetic individual.

Such efforts left her evening hours to take care of the maintenance of their home. Of course, Anna did not mind the work. Work was her salvation, the occupation which kept her mind off worrying about her husband. And she could not help but worry. Was he still in pain? Had he managed to give up the drinking?

His letter had stopped her short in her work to find him. He spoke of his shame and of hurting her, and Anna again wondered what he remembered of that last night. Obviously he recalled enough to believe he should stay away from her, that he was a danger to her person.

Finishing up her final tasks around the house, Anna turned down the bed and looked longingly at her husband's empty side. She'd spent many a night alone in that bed while he was drinking as he often had not not bothered to make the trip upstairs. But this emptiness was so different. His presence was gone from the house, and with it, Anna felt her sense of safety disappear as well. At first, every noise and creek and shadow startled her and left her heart racing with fear. In the weeks since Bates' departure, she'd finally begun to sleep through the night without startling awake half a dozen times. But she still dreamed of him as her arms clutched his pillow tightly against her.

In her dreams, they woke in each other's arms, the morning light bathing them in golden tones. They enjoyed picnics in Scotland in the afternoons and spent their evening meal exchanging knowing smiles across the servants' hall table. Anna could recall his smile – the way the skin around his eyes crinkled with his humor even as he gazed at her with open affection. She missed that smile as much as she missed his strong arms around her waist.

In the morning before heading up to Downton, Anna sat at the table and re-read the letter from her husband once more. Since receiving it, she had been conflicted as to what she should do. Keep looking for him? Or give up the search? Finally, she took put her pen and put it to paper. After finishing her letter, she sealed it in an envelope and placed it in her pocket to post in the village later in the afternoon.

One letter came for him from the solicitor's office rather than the typical bundle. A solitary letter from Anna. He inhaled a faint hint of her scent from the envelope as he opened it, and Bates knew instinctively that it would be the last one he received from her.

Dear John,

I hope you are well. You are always in my thoughts, every moment of every day. I understand that you feel you need to do this by yourself, and I won't continue to press you. But you must know how much I want to be there for you, to help you. I promise not to hinder any progress you might have made. And I will do anything you ask of me.

I love you, John. Before we met, I never knew what it was to love any one person this much. I know you feel the same. I know you do. While I hate this separation from you, I will bear it if it is what you need. So take my love with you. Keep it close and never doubt it because it will always be yours. I will always be your wife, waiting for the day when we can be together again.

All my love,

your wife, Anna

Blinking back tears, Bates realized immediately that he'd made the mistake of reading the letter in the workshop when he heard the sound of a man clearing his throat behind him. Looking up, he saw Martin standing in the doorway. But the other man showed no interest in Bates' letter as he held his own in hand.

"She wants to see me," the young soldier stated, sounding both elated and absolutely terrified. "I wrote to my ma, and she sent me this letter from my wife. She wants to come visit."

Nodding with complete understanding of both emotions, Bates stated, "That is terrific news."

"Do you think I should see her?" Martin asked him nervously.

With a shrug, Bates answered, "The doctors encourage visits from family."

"Yes, but... what if I mess it up again?"

Bates shivered as the question hit home. He'd struggled with the same issue, ultimately pushing it away. Raw fear clawed at him as he thought of Anna and ruining his life with her.

"That's a risk you'll have to take," he advised the man finally.

But Martin narrowed his eyes at Bates. "That's fine talk from a man who hides from his own wife. I've seen the stacks of letters you get from her."

Spying the paper in Bates' hand, Martin reached out and snatched it away before backing up several steps. Unable to go after him, Bates glowered at the other patient as Martin's eyes danced across the letter.

The young man's face softened as he read Anna's words. "She wants to be with you," he said, somewhat dumbfounded. "She isn't even angry."

Bates looked at the floor, unable to meet the other man's accusing eyes.

"Why would you push her away?" he demanded in clear disgust.

Bates did not respond right away. Instead, he let a few seconds pass before he said very quietly and very deliberately, "Because I hurt her."

Confusion mixed with disbelief on Martin's face, as though he had some personal involvement in the other man's relationship with his wife. "What did you do?"

"It doesn't matter. All that matters is that I hurt her. She forgives me, but I think she'd forgive me anything. She's that kind of person. Her love for me is without limit, and this situation proves it. I abused her and if I go back to her now, before things are resolved, I may do so again."

Martin demanded, "So you tell me to see my wife, who was so fed up with me drinking that she left me, but you won't see your own wife. What kind of man are you?"

The question hit home so solidly that for a moment, Bates forgot to take a breath. What kind of man was he? The kind who took advantage of his beautiful and kind wife, who in a fit of drugged delusion had almost forced himself on her. He was the kind of man who somehow left her believing that she was at fault for his deficiencies. And even now he was the kind of man who failed her, who hurt her with his disappearance as much as he had done with his miserable presence.

"I can't see her," he admitted finally.

"Why not?"

He swallowed. "I know it isn't the same, but this is how I lost my first wife, Vera. We both drank back then, after my injury. I was unhappy and treated her as badly as she treated me. It isn't the same with Anna, but..."

What if he lost her forever? What if she finally saw him and realized that he was not the man she intended to marry? What if she grew to hate him as Vera had done?

Martin blinked as he took in the explanation. "You're a sorry bastard," he announced candidly. "You're punishing her for your mistakes. The woman who wrote this letter only wants to see you, and you're pushing her away. She came here looking for you. And all you can say for yourself is that you're afraid she won't like what she finds?"

Dropping Bates' letter on the bench beside him, the young man walked out of the workshop and left him to his thoughts.

More days passed and Bates continued to improve - all but the pain in his leg. He'd spoken with the doctors at Dalrymple House and despite some reservations, they'd agreed to him beginning to take morphine as prescribed by the specialist in advance of surgery. But they would be the ones to keep it locked up with the bit of alcohol sometimes used to step down inebriate patients, and they would dole it out to him as needed. Of course, he needed to stay on the crutches, to keep from further injuring his knee with the embedded shrapnel.

Bates did not mind the restriction. Part of him hated the thought of taking the drug, of needing it just to get through the day. But he had resigned himself to the reality of his existence. The first time taking the morphine, the usual agony retreated to the point that he almost did not know what to do. The lack of pain was such a ridiculously simple blessing that he could never express his relief.

He needed the morphine. It dulled the pain without obliterating his senses the way the whiskey had done. Once he acknowledged that he needed it, he knew he had to admit another.

He needed the surgery. Even if they were not able to fix the problem, even if it was extremely dangerous and might cost him his life, he had to try. He could not continue to live this way.

But his greatest realization was that most of all, he needed Anna.

In the days since his conversation with Martin, Bates could feel this last need growing like a gaping wound in his heart. Somehow the other man's words had broken through his wall of self-imposed exile and shaken the very foundation of his resolve.

Anna forgave him, he knew. He'd known for some time.

She wanted him to come home.

She still wanted him.

The day Martin's wife come to the house for a visit with the one-armed patient cemented his decision. As the petite brunette entered the parlor, Bates watched her eyes light up at the sight of her husband. Everyone in the room turned to look as he slowly approached her, his steps hesitant but determined. Finally, as he reached her position by the door, the woman's face cracked into a tearful smile as she wrapped her arms around Martin's neck.

Bates smiled as he watched the normal facade of angry bitterness melt from Martin's expression. In its place was a completely different man, one both humble and grateful for the help he had been forced to receive. He had changed dramatically, sobriety smoothing his rough edges and giving him control of his barbed tongue.

The scene gave Bates a little bit of hope for his own future. Knowing what he had to do, Bates stood from his chair and using his crutches, made his way to his room to retrieve pen and paper. With trembling hands, he wrote another letter.

Dear Anna,

I was wrong before. I was wrong to leave you and I was wrong not to tell you of where I am. I've been at a place that has been helping me to quit drinking, hopefully this time forever. The pain in my leg remains, but I've seen a doctor and am now managing the pain. I cannot imagine you wanting to visit me, not after all I have put you through, but if you wish it, I would be grateful to see you.

Your love is the greatest gift of my life, and I have accepted it very poorly. You have my whole heart, Anna, and you always will. I don't deserve your forgiveness, but you deserve better from me than I have given.

Please come.

Your loving husband, John

He included the address on the bottom of the page and made sure it went out in the day's post.

And then he waited.

TBC