I.
Green blinked and wanted to turn away. Would have if he thought he could move without fainting from the pain. He was fuzzy from morphine, but even with it he was in agony. His tongue was ragged and swollen and bristling with stitches from where he'd bitten off a chunk when one of them had kicked him. His mouth was dry and it hurt to ... everything sodding hurt. He couldn't even really tell one hurt from the next, they all just blended into the one another. Gauze and stiff flannel were tied tightly around his throbbing jaw. The doctor was talking at him. Told him he'd been found on the side of the road by Mr. Branson, from Downton Abbey. His jaw was broken, but they couldn't wire it here. Wrapped in a soft cast of tightly woven flannel bandages, his jaw might heal just fine if he was able to be still enough. He must try to stay silent and not move. He wanted to drive the Doctor's fountain pen through his throat. He couldn't have spoken if he tried, much less move. Swallowing the gruel they dribbled into his mouth made his vision blur it hurt so much. The doctor murmured something to the nurse about that being what you got when you involved yourself in shady, clandestine dealings. When they thought he was asleep, the nurses whispered that the staff at Downton said he had gone out gambling and when he didn't return they went looking for him but Mr. Branson had already found him. He was lucky to be alive, they whispered, had been out for almost two weeks. He groaned wordlessly. How was this lucky?
He slept and woke and slept and woke and had no idea of the passage of time save for the change of brightness from daylight to electric light streaming down the hallway.
Then the puff was come; the dark haired under butler, not the silver haired doctor, talking quietly about strength and weakness and Anna never hurting no one. Green noticed vaguely that he was out of livery. It was nighttime. Not visiting hours. He thought that the puff had been in America with Grantham. When did they get back? And then there was that woman too, the meek old maid, and a rag over his face and it occurred to him it was soaked in ether a split second before his world swirled into darkness. He didn't have time to scream.
Phyllis Baxter helped Thomas dress Green in a grubby set of clothes the under butler had acquired for the purpose. He found the end of the gauze and flannel and unwrapped the beaten man's head.
"What are you doing?" she whispered.
"Making sure they didn't use anything metal to set his jaw. I don't think Dr. Clarkson has the capability of wiring a jaw here, but it doesn't hurt to check."
She didn't understand why that mattered, but didn't care to know anything more.
He looked a mess, still deeply bruised and swollen. Thomas didn't bother to replace the bandages, instead, unceremoniously pulled the man up and looped his flopping arm over his shoulder. They slowly walked with him slung between them out the back of the cottage hospital, his feet dragging on the floor. He was heavy, but Phyllis suspected that he had been considerably heavier two weeks ago. Behind the hospital, under the cover of darkness, they propped him on a bicycle and used it to quietly walk his dead weight from shadow to shadow, out of the village. She was trying not to remember her own demons. She wasn't sure where they were going. Hadn't asked, but understood with clipped clarity that she was escorting a man to his death. She was mildly surprised that it didn't disturb her more.
Living in the house these last months, she had watched the other lady's maid come out of a quiet, withdrawn shell. She had grown to like Mrs. Bates very much; the woman was thoughtful, funny, and kind, despite whatever it was that haunted her. Well, she knew now. Had learned just over two weeks ago, when she had left her sewing machine and bolted toward the courtyard when she heard Anna Bates scream her husband's given name. Her momentum carried her past a concerned looking Mrs. Hughes and Mr. Branson as they emerged from her sitting room.
She was out the door in time to see the petite blond woman hurl herself across the cobblestones at the grappling forms of her husband and Mr. Gillingham ... Mr. Green to bring Mr. Bates' stick down on Green with her full weight behind it. The crunch was a bit sickening.
After watching the volleying of pointed looks over the servants table the two times Green had visited, it was not hard for her to sew the story together from the few threads she was given; to understand exactly what had happened to Anna Bates and who had done it, even though she had come to the house after the bruises had faded. She was a bit surprised more people had not guessed. If there was one thing that the staff spoke of with surety it was Mr. Bates' devotion to his wife, and her devotion to him, despite the obvious rift that had been between them. She had only ever seen Mr. Bates behave with kindness and dignified restraint, so for him to be scuffling with Lord Gillingham's valet... Well, the story told itself.
And then Mrs. Bates began screaming at the man who was so obviously the cause of the turmoil in her life and Phyllis found she had to avert her eyes. Her heart swelled at the slight woman's courage, envied her the opportunity to take such a stand. Swallowed memories she didn't wish to think of. Still she didn't turn away. She felt she had to bear witness. That perhaps her presence, even her unknown presence could lend the two of them strength. It had moved her the way those who had heard filed out and stood behind both Mr. and Mrs. Bates. Each lifting their voice in turn to offer a promise of support and future testimony to her character should it come to that, after Green sneered at her threat to call the police. It pleased her to see Green's face grow panicky and nervous. When he took off running, all the men present, aside from Mr. Bates, bolted after him. Mr. Bates was wrapped around his hysterical wife, trying to calm her, to hurry her inside. Mrs. Hughes ushered them in with opened arms and a worried expression. Mrs. Patmore slapped her hand with a rolling pin, "They best not bring him back here or he'll be singing high notes. That bastard, waltzing in here as if he owned the place when all along it was him what stole our sweet Anna's song away."
It took them some time to make their way the three miles from Ripon to the Abbey across the vastness of the dark estate - the sliver of moon was well hidden by clouds - but Thomas stopped her just shy of some buildings she didn't yet know. He shooed her off then, pointing out the path to the Abbey. "Get on with you before the old bat misses you or Ivy's up to catch you out. You can ride the bicycle if you want."
"Not in this dark," she shook her head. Then reached her hand out to him, not quite touching his arm. "Thomas, for her sake, thank you. No one what does that should get away with it. She didn't deserve what he did to her. No one does."
Thomas Barrow shook his head with an unreadable look. "No, no one does," he responded softly.
She turned and began walking towards the grand house, left him to his demons, following the mown path in the dewy grass. The night air was crisp, the autumn having been unseasonably warm, but winter was fast approaching. It was late. Or early. Depending on how you looked at it. She could see her breath in the night air, thought back to being a small girl. It had always worried her to see her breath, she thought it might be her soul leaving her body. She worried that it wouldn't be able to find its way back. She smiled sorrowfully, her child self probably hadn't been too far off with her worries.
She wondered if she should say a prayer. For him or Anna, herself or Thomas, she wasn't sure.
Thomas Barrow rubbed his bad hand, the pain always worsened with exertion and cold. Still, pain and a mangled hand were a small price to pay for his life. It was a choice he didn't regret. He was grateful that Baxter hadn't taken the bicycle. The barns were further off than he thought. It had been challenging balancing Green's slumped form with only his own body as a counterweight, but he managed. It would have nearly impossible to drag him. This, like his hand was his choice and he didn't like drawing her into it any more than he already had. When he got there, he quickly stripped Green out of the borrowed clothes and his hospital gown. He bundled them into he bag slung over his shoulder that held the ether. He would make an excuse to visit the Ripon next week on his half day and slip the ether and gown back into the hospital. The ether wore off far too quickly, and they had to keep stopping to saturate the rag and press it to his mouth, making themselves woozy in the process. After a while, Thomas took to simply shoving the rag into his mouth, so that they could keep walking.
It took him two tries, but he hefted the bastard's limp form over the railings. His body made a heavy sucking thump as it hit the muck. Green stirred a bit in the mud, moaning heavily. Thomas hurried to fumble open the barn door and drove the group of larger pigs into the sty.
He knew what it was to be beaten down and bullied, to be tricked and humiliated and made small. He knew what Anna had gone through. Anna who had never harmed a soul. He knew what he had gone through. More than once. He knew Green would do it again. That, above all else, he could not allow, would not allow. The pigs found him, began to squeal and jostle against each other. He heard Green scream twice, but then it just sort of blended with the sounds of the pigs.
It was an old debt, and one repaid on the wrong person, but it was a debt repaid. In more than one way, he thought, for loathe as he was to admit it, he owed Bates several times over. Not anymore - not after this. He only wished that Lord Grantham had brought them back from America a bit sooner so that he could have joined Jimmy, Branson, and Molesly in beating the bastard senseless. He leaned against the bicycle and rubbed his bad hand and waited patiently while the pigs ate. The last thing he needed was for them to leave something behind. He hadn't bargained on it taking quite so long. The sun was brightening the sky when he finally tucked the bicycle away in its shed and changed into the livery he had hidden there. He had also tucked away a fresh pair of dry shoes, to avoid tracking mud into the house. He hadn't expected to get back this late, but he did not want to be caught wandering the halls of Downton at any time in his personal clothes. Now he was extremely grateful he had thought of it. He let himself in the back door and listened for sounds. It was still quiet. He hurriedly went up to the great hall and climbed the main stairway. There was far less chance of running into anyone there at this time of the morning. He made it to the men's side of the attics and stole into his room. He stripped, washed with a wet rag, and collapsed onto his bed. The new hallboy, Peter, would be knocking in less than an hour, but it was better than no rest at all.
II.
From Lord Grantham's dressing room, John Bates looked out into the dusk. Soft fingers of mist rising and swirling about the grounds drew his attention and he wondered, not for the first time, if they would cross paths with Green again. Winter was coming. The cold was beginning to bite. Word around the village was that Green had dragged himself off in the dead of night shortly after he regained consciousness in the infirmary. The staff at the hospital took this as confirmation of his guilt in that gambling business, as the Doctor Clarkson had put it when he spoke to Mrs. Hughes. It was nearly a month ago now, and nothing had been said. No connection was made to the Bateses much to their combined relief. Lady Mary reported that Lord Gillingham had chosen to forgo a new valet, and had voiced no more around the matter. The house seemed to collectively forget all about the whole thing, aside from the occasional unexplained basket and cheek pat or shoulder squeeze from Mrs. Patmore. Still, Green's disappearance and the uncertainty around it made Anna anxious. She assured him that she was fine, but she jumped at any sound, drew the curtains if it was dark out, and checked and rechecked the locks and latches. He was fairly sure her dreams were darker as well. He drew a deep breath and decided to seek out his wife so that they could make their way to the servants' stair together. She obviously had the same idea as she was walking down the hall towards him when he finally exited after finishing his last visual scan of the room to see that everything was well and ready for his employer's bedtime. With the family readied and left for a dinner party at an estate west of Harrogate, Bolton Abbey, and all of the fine clothes and accoutrements of wealth tidied away, John thought aloud as they walked that he should like to go out to the courtyard for a breath of air. With as readily as she squeezed his hand and smiled, he thought fairly confidently that he could convince Anna to take a quick turn about the grounds before it grew too late, even a visit to their cottage to cook dinner for themselves. She popped off for a moment to relay their whereabouts to Mrs. Hughes before returning to his side. He had mentioned his intent to an agreeable Mr. Carson before he had gone to tend His Lordship at the gong, so he sat contentedly near the fire in the servants' hall in the rocking chair that had inspired the rocking chair in their bedroom.
He was disappointed when they walked outside to find the air tainted with cigarette smoke, which likely meant Thomas or Jimmy skulking about. Though, he had to say, his estimation of Jimmy had increased tenfold after the man had stood behind Anna.
It was Thomas; he looked up at the two of them from across the yard and caught John's gaze, with an unreadable expression. "Time I should go in."
The shadowy under butler stopped just shy of passing them. He didn't look at the valet, or the lady's maid, instead focused his attention on the smoldering tip of his fag, flicking the spent ash with a tap.
"Green's gone." John locked onto what Thomas was saying. His words were gravel low and matter-of-fact, "He won't be bothering anyone again."
Anna's gasp was palpable, like a door closing or a physical presence amongst the three of them, as she took his meaning.
Thomas looked up and locked eyes with him, "You saved my place once, Mr. Bates; more than once, really. Though why, I'll never know. This just pays that debt. Don't think it changes anything beyond that."
Thomas settled a softened expression on his Anna. "No one deserves what he did. It isn't right. A man like that ... he'll just keep taking what he wants until he can't anymore."
Thomas eyes angled to John's again and again held them, almost daring John to respond when he stated, "He can't anymore."
With that Thomas walked away, inhaling deeply off of his cigarette.
"Thomas ... Mr. Barrow," he heard his voice crack. Thomas turned to look at him. John nodded his head sharply once. Thomas gave a curt nod back and continued on his way. He paused before the closed kitchen door and pursed his lips, "Oh, and you might want to avoid that first batch of pork." Then he was turned and gone into the house, door open and shut before the smoldering fag hit the cobblestones.
A deep breath he didn't know he was holding rattled out of John Bates into the night air. He reached for his wife's hand. She was looking straight ahead, with a clenched jaw and a knit brow. They didn't speak. Not until they they were well away from the house. Not until they had walked nearly to the cottage. She stopped suddenly in the shadowy fingers of the bare trees, and pulled him sharply to her. Her breath came and went in strangled, wheezing gasps. She couldn't seem to catch it for a long time. He did his best to just hold her and rub her back and breathe deeply to keep himself calm.
Tears came just before her breath settled. Not deep gasping sobs, but a steady stream of quiet sniffles. Blessedly they only lasted a few minutes. Then she simply held fast to him and took slow, shaky breaths. Suddenly a thought occurred to him, he remembered the day she went to Ripon on errands and swung by the cottage, upset and on her way back to the Abbey. She had told him later that evening how she had gone to the hospital and come so close to smothering Green. He cupped her cheek, tilted her face to look at him. He kissed her forehead and searched her eyes in the moonlight and shadows. "Wanting him dead and being relieved that he is dead does not make you a wicked person, Anna." Her face crumbled and she tried to look away. He would not let her. "You aren't." He brought his other hand to her cheek and thumbed away her tears. Every now and then it felt good to be right. He hoped his heart was in his eyes when he spoke so she could see the truth in his words, "It's not even wrong wishing you could have killed him yourself. You didn't."
Her eyes went wide, and she looked down. "Hey. You didn't. You stopped yourself. You stopped, he didn't." Was he referring to Green or Thomas? He wasn't sure. He let go of her face and pulled her sagging form to his chest. "It's all right to be relieved, my darling. Lord knows I am."
She didn't let go of him until he started them walking again.
"Let's go home and clean up and get a quick bite before the family is all returned from their evening. We won't be back to the cottage and settled before well past midnight, methinks."
She nodded and bit her lip. She pulled away from his side and walked a few feet from him, her arms wrapped around herself as they moved through the evening air. The joints in his bad leg ached heavily, and he knew his limp was pronounced. Still he kept up with her as they walked through the cold moonlight.
"I don't want to be happy that a man is dead, John. But I am." Her whisper turned into something of a violent hiss, "I hope he rots in hell."
"And that's not the person you want to be."
She shook her head, pressed her lips together in a thin line.
"How about for right now you just let yourself feel whatever it is you feel and decide on the rest later?" He lowered his voice as he walked past the Tripps' place.
As usual she had her glove off and was keying into the door before he could locate the pocket where he kept his keys. "What's that?" he murmured, when she bent rapidly and plucked a bit of paper from the mat. He would never have noticed it in the dark; took it from her fingers when she handed it to him.
When she was over the threshold, she heaved a sigh and leaned against the wall of the entryway while he locked the door and lit the candle. The looping hand was very legible and precise, he recognized it at once, "It's from Mrs. Hughes. Mr. Carson has had a telephone call from the family. They shan't be returning before afternoon tea, so we are to enjoy our night and take a half day tomorrow. She writes to be back at Downton in time for the dinner gong."
"That's kind," she pushed herself upright and squeezed his arm. He chuckled at her, following her into the small kitchen with the bobbing candle in his free hand. "No it's not, not in the state you're in. You won't know what to do with yourself. We've been ahead on chores for a week already - you'll drive me mad with your buzzing about."
She took the bait, lame and floundering as it was, and smiled. "Then you had best think of some ways to distract me from myself. I'll get the water for tea and start the fires. Will you light the lamp and see what we have in the ice box?"
He tugged her hand to his lips and kissed the inside of her wrist. "Beggar," she intoned, her weary smile strengthening. She pulled out of his grasp and hefted the iron kettle to the spigot. Her hand closed around the handle and she froze. She lowered the kettle, set it down at the bottom of the sink. Before he had a chance to ask she gripped the edge of the sink so tightly her knuckles paled. She didn't respond when he said her name. She was there again. He leaned against the counter near her, where she could see him and kept repeating her name in a low voice. He knew not to touch her, despite how much he wanted to draw her tightly to his chest. It wasn't worth it, not because she would probably hit or scratch at him, but because of the guilt she would feel for doing so. In a way he longed for physical wounds to distract them from more lingering ones. Then she was back and gasping and rushing into his arms as soon as she registered where she was and where he was and who he was. The sodding bastard was dead and still he could infiltrate their home and heads.
She began talking so quietly he had to hold his breath to hear her. The gorge rose in his throat when he realized she was recounting what had happened, what Green had said to her, how he had cornered her in the near dark by the kitchen sink at Downton. She had never spoken of it, except to occasionally tell him not to touch her a certain way. Now it flowed out of her in its entirety in halting, broken sentences. She strung the events together like the beads of a necklace, one at a time. John felt ill. The light of the candle blurred and swam in his tears. There was so much she hadn't breathed a word of. He knew Green had yanked her hair, but hadn't realized just how violently he had pulled her off balance with it and dragged her, kicking at her heels to keep her moving, through the kitchen and corridor. He struggled to tamp down his reaction, instead held her closer. Cradled her to him, ignoring the steady, noisy throb of his leg. He tried to focus on the smell of her hair. Christ, he didn't know it had been in the boot room. She was in that room near every day. She had been in that room when he had tried to get her to talk to him, when he admitted that he knew, when she insisted he go home and pack to accompany His Lordship, when they spoke of Lord Gllingham returning. Green had dragged her to the boot room by her hair and closed the door and turned on the light. He had turned on the bloody light. The bastard had taken the time to turn on the light to see what he was doing. John felt as though his heart was being pulled from his body, but was afraid to move or breath, was afraid if he made a sound she would stop and she so obviously needed to say it all out loud.
He had suspected much of what she told him, but to hear her tell it - he could see her and hear her fighting Green, overpowered by the bastard at every turn in his head. The details of it made his stomach churn. For the first time he realized fully how very much Anna had indeed saved him from himself. Had she told him this just after it happened, still disheveled and weeping, he would have sought Green out and killed him then and there, most likely with his bare hands, and all three of their lives would have been over.
They slid together down to the floor; he felt the corner of a drawer that was slightly ajar scratch him the length of his back through his clothes as his body slumped gracelessly, trying to hold onto her. Anna curled in on herself, John followed her, curving himself uncomfortably around her, grateful for every ache, every stab of pain for distracting him from the horror she had recounted. When she finished, they were both weeping openly. Anna rested her head against and held fast to the arm that curled protectively around her. He kissed the back of her neck and couldn't get the sound of the light switch clicking on to leave his head. She shook her self clear headed not too long after finishing and looked at him, lost. "I keep thinking that he didn't suffer enough."
"He didn't," John heard himself rasp. He looked at her in the light of the flickering candle flame, tried to hold his face as openly as he could, to reflect the turmoil and conflict that he knew they shared. "You are just having thoughts. Thoughts and feelings don't make you wicked Anna. Acting on them does."
"But it makes me feel ... makes it seem like all I will ever do is drown in the darkness of it all, of these thoughts and feelings and remembrances. I'm tired of all this darkness. He is dead and still he is here in my head."
He broke then, for the hundredth time. Because there was nothing he could do to help her. Genuinely. As much as he loved her, in the end his love was limited to the scope of his embrace in a dark room. Her hair was silk against his lips. He could at least light the lamp. He shifted beneath her, lifted her away from him and groaned as he pushed and pulled himself up off of the floor. She watched him with silent eyes for a moment and then sank her head back onto her knees. He lit the tabletop lantern. He opened a few drawers, set cups for her tea and his, lit and lidded the cooking fire and filled the kettle and set it to warm. When he stooped and touched the back of her head, his open hand against her hair reminded him of the priest at his mother's church during the baptisms.
She smelled the sulphur long before it registered that it was strong, and not lingering from when John had struck the match to light the lamp. She wasn't sure how long she'd curled in on herself on the floor. It hadn't surprised her when he had needed to leave to collect himself, only that he had made it through the entirety of recounting of events before he did. She was frightened by her thoughts. They were violent and vengeful. She hoped he was alive when the pigs got to him, imagined what his screams must have sounded like, and she couldn't bring herself to feel sorry for it. John was right. There was no use in trying not to think. With a sigh she decided to heed her husband's words. She was just having thoughts. She couldn't blame herself for her thoughts, not after his violence. The sulphur smell was strong. Strong enough to pull her out of her mind. When finally she looked up she was surprised at how bright the room was. She had heard him light the lamp, but he had also lit and set a half dozen of the candles they had poured around the small room. It had been a project of hers, collecting spent candles from both their cottage and the Abbey and saving them until one afternoon, they melted all the ends of candles down and poured them into glass canning jars. It had been a wretched mess, but they had been clever enough to lay down a drop cloth, and permanent damage was avoided. They had made dozens and dozens of them. She smiled at the memory, let her gaze be drawn around the room. Four tall candles adorned the sides of the sink. They were in his mother's good candle holders. She had heard him rummaging, starting the fire and heard him put the kettle on, but when had he lit them? It was bright in the room, brighter than it should be. She cocked her head and hooked her fingers on the edge of the countertop and pulled herself up. The sink was full of the jarred candles. Her breath left her lungs like wind, because she understood what he was trying to do. She began to weep again, but this time, it was because her heart felt full to brimming with love for this man she had convinced to create a life with her, who refused to give up on her, and who never stopped surprising her with the depth of his devotion.
She turned, half expecting her husband to be behind her, but though the doorway was empty, the candlelight from the passage glowed brightly. She walked out, took in his handiwork open mouthed. How long had she been on the floor, in her head? Had she fallen asleep? When had he done it all? He must have lit every candle they possessed and then some. There were candles everywhere: on end tables, shelves, wall nooks, windowsills. Every lamp and lantern in the sitting room was ablaze. The fire crackled in the fireplace. She turned and looked down the bright corridor. The hand poured candles lined the stairs, and he turned to look at her after reaching up to place one near the top step. The tenderness in his eyes would have made her weep if she wasn't already.
"You were saying that focusing on right now helps, because right now is usually good," he raised his brows earnestly. "As long as there is breath in my body, Anna, I will do my best to make sure that right now, that this moment and that all the moments that follow are as good and bright as this one. I can't put him out of your head and I can't take away the shadows, but I can help light the darkness."
She shook her head in disbelief, wide eyed, and still taking it all in. "Thank you," she whispered finally, awe seeping into her voice. He closed the distance between the two of them with a few shuffling steps and feathered his fingers over her jaw, his eyes as warm as the candlelight. "You are my light, Anna. How could I do anything less?"
With fresh tears, she buried herself in his arms and laughed out loud at the joy that bubbled up within her, because she knew, with sudden certainty, that everything she needed to be alright was right there with her. Just as she knew the sun would rise in the morning.