"Do you have everything you need?" Mrs. Hughes fussed.
"I'm sure we do, Mrs. Hughes," Bates smiled. He gestured towards the pile at his feet: the small bag of clothes Anna had brought with her from the cottage, and a basket Mrs. Patmore had pressed upon him minutes before. "Ready to go?" he asked Anna gently as she appeared by his side.
"I think so," she nodded as she finished fastening the buttons on her coat.
"Are you sure you don't need a scarf with that?"
"Mr. Bates, just look outside," Anna pointed out. "It's such a lovely day."
"He just worries about you," Mrs. Hughes reminded her as Bates trudged towards the door to wait for her. "Doesn't want you catching a chill on top of everything else."
"I know," Anna said as she dug her scarf out of her coat pocket and wrapped it twice around her neck.
"Now, are you ready to go?" Mrs. Hughes asked.
"I suppose I am," Anna said, though her voice turned up hesitantly at the edges.
"Are you nervous?" Mrs. Huges asked, catching the questioning tone.
"A little," Anna admitted.
"You have no reason to be," Mrs. Hughes tried to reassure her. "It's only Mr. Bates… he's not going to do anything to hurt you."
"I suppose it's just me being silly," Anna said, attempting a small laugh as she re-checked her scarf. "We'll see you tomorrow, Mrs. Hughes."
"I've missed walking back to the cottage with you," John admitted as he and Anna made their way slowly along the path.
"I've missed it too," Anna said softly. "It was my favourite part of the day." Neither of them alluded to the reason why their walks had stopped, although it was on both their minds. As a strong gust of wind blew around them, John reached a hand out instinctively to pull Anna towards his warm bulk, but pulled it back as his brain caught up with the rest of him.
In reply, Anna extended her own hand invitingly towards his.
"I'm sorry," John blurted out as he gingerly took hold of Anna's hand. "I just –I didn't know whether that's alright to do. I don't know what will and won't startle you," he admitted, looking so like a downcast child that Anna felt a sudden, unexpected rush of tenderness towards him.
"Neither do I sometimes," she said softly. "But that's alright –we can find out together."
Neither of the two shifted the position of their hands until they reached the cottage, both afraid of breaking the comfortable silence that seemed to have settled around them. Slowly, reluctantly, John let go of Anna's hand to fumble for his key.
The stale smell in the cottage hit them as soon as they took their first tentative steps inside.
"It'll be fine," Anna said before John could speak. "Once it's lived in again, it'll be back to normal. You –you haven't been here at all lately?"
"No," John admitted. "Not since I moved back into the house to be near you. I came over that first day to collect some things, but it never seemed right to come here while you weren't well. And, well, I didn't miss it when I knew it would be empty anyway. Without you, it wouldn't have felt like home here."
"I think I'd have felt the same way," Anna said, walking across the room to throw open the window. "John, what are you doing?" she asked as she turned round from the window to see John's retreating back.
"Just going to fetch some wood," he answered matter-of-factly, ignoring her protests that the fire really wasn't necessary.
"It's still damp in here," he explained when he returned with an armload of wood. "You'll get cold in no time if we went without one."
Anna let him fuss with the fireplace without any further protests and instead busied herself unpacking the basket of food Mrs. Patmore had sent them off with.
"Looks like Mrs. Patmore intends us to cook breakfast tomorrow," John observed as he straightened up from the fireplace to find Anna retrieving four eggs from the basket.
"Certainly looks like it," Anna said, surveying the generous helpings of meat pie and trifle Mrs. Patmore had given them for that evening –not to mention the bread, butter, eggs and ham meant, presumably, for the next morning.
"She probably thinks you need feeding up and doesn't trust me to do it," Bates chuckled, though there was a grain of truth in his words. Between her earlier lack of appetite and nausea and the plain, light diet Mrs. Crawley had suggested, Anna was little more than a waif now.
"Could be," Anna laughed, though the laugh quickly stopped and her expression changed.
"Anna?" John asked, at her side immediately, though he hesitated to touch her.
"I'm alright," she answered. "It just… feels wrong to be laughing after what happened. Sometimes I feel almost normal again for a few seconds, then it all comes rushing back."
"Some of the soldiers in the war used to say the same thing," John said. "I remember Lord Grantham himself said it once. It was a slow process, but most of them found that after a while, the horrors started to fade in their mind, and they were reminded of it less and less."
"Most of them?" she asked cautiously. "What if I'm one of those who it doesn't happen to? What if I can never forget?"
"Then I'll still be by your side," he promised. "I may not be able to make you forget what happened –and I don't think it will ever completely fade –but I'll be here to help you make better, stronger memories. We'll face whatever comes together."
"Anna?" John asked tentatively after they had finished their meal. Rather than sit formally (and in the cold) at the table, they had taken their plates to the sofa next to the fire, with John sitting just as close to Anna as she could comfortably tolerate –he had asked her how close would be too close –and not an inch closer.
"Yes?" she asked, turning towards him as she pushed her plate of trifle –unfinished, as the meat pie earlier had been –away. She was relaxing slightly, John could see that, though she was still wary, startling even at the clatter of plates.
"Could I ask you something? Don't feel like you have to answer, but it's been nagging at me ever since I found out."
"You can ask," she answered easily, although he worried that the question might put her on edge, might make her revisit memories she was trying to bury. It might be too soon to ask, but he had to know, had to put his mind at rest somehow.
"The… baby," he began cautiously. "How were you so sure that it was –that it was his, not mine?"
There, he had blurted it out, the nagging fear that the child might have been his own, might have been the only chance he and Anna had of a child of their own… although after what had happened, how could they ever have been sure? He pulled his mind away from images of a little boy with Anna's blonde hair and Green's piercing eyes and back to Anna.
"John, it wasn't ours," she said, her voice firm. "A few days before the house party, I'd found out I wasn't with child… and we hadn't… made love since then. So I know it was his child."
Hearing Anna's explanation, he felt himself relax now that he knew for certain that the child had not been his. Never had he been so relieved that the house's busy schedule in the days leading up to the party had kept him and Anna so busy and tired that there had been no time or inclination for lovemaking. If it hadn't been that way, he and Anna might have to live with their doubts about the child's parentage.
"Thank you," he breathed, not certain to whom or for what he was giving thanks.
"Why didn't you ask me before?" Anna asked. "I thought you already knew that."
"I didn't want to upset you while you were still so fragile," John explained. "And… and part of me was afraid you had no way of knowing for certain. I was afraid to hear the answer."
"If I had even the faintest doubt that it might not have been his child, I would never have done that," Anna promised.
They went quiet then: John was afraid to ask anything more about the attack, but other topics of conversation seemed almost ridiculous in light of it. On an ordinary day, he and Anna might have been talking about small refurbishments they could make to the cottage, or what they might do on their next half day off together, but these subjects seemed so mundane to him now as to be almost laughable.
"Why don't we go up to bed?" he said lightly when he saw Anna rubbing her eyes and stifling a yawn, and immediately regretted in when he saw fear in Anna's face.
"I only meant, you should get some sleep," he said. "I meant what I said before, that I'm not going to force a physical relationship on you –I know that's where your mind went just now. If and when you decide you're ready, you can initiate it, I'm leaving the control totally in your hands."
"You'd be within your rights to –" Anna began in a small voice, but John immediately cut her off.
"I won't, I promise," he said firmly. Being in an enclosed room alone with him, with no one within shouting distance, was starting to scare Anna, he could tell, so he moved away from the fire into the chillier part of the room.
"Anna, I don't want to frighten you," he said softly, "And if you feel that you're not ready to even be alone here with me at night, you can move back into the Abbey. I want you to be comfortable around me, but I won't make you stay here or do anything you're not alright with."
The soothing tone of his voice seemed to help, with Anna's trembling lessening.
"What do you need tonight, let's start with that," he went on, still in the gentle voice. "Where do you want to sleep, and where should I sleep?"
"I'll sleep on the sofa if you feel safer like that," he said, but Anna shook her head.
"Don't leave me alone," she pleaded, and John hastened to promise her that no, if she needed him there he would not leave her alone.
"Why don't you go and start getting ready for bed while I wash the plates and lock up?" he suggested, not wanting to make her feel vulnerable while she was undressing. "Call me when you're ready and I can come up."
It didn't take long for Anna to call down that he could come up, but he took his time downstairs, even getting into his nightshirt there rather than risk Anna feeling threatened by his undressing. She was already under the covers when he entered the bedroom, eyes open and watching his every move.
"Will you feel comfortable if I put my arms around you?" he asked, but Anna quickly, and a tad guiltily, shook her head no.
"Then I'll be on my side of the bed," he said lightly, slipping in between the chilly sheets.
It was still early and he doubted he would be able to sleep yet. He wasn't sure he wanted to sleep, either, not with Anna by his side for the first time in weeks. If he stayed awake all night, watching and listening to Anna sleep, alert for her nightmares, he would be perfectly happy.