A/N: A huge thank you to the reviewers I haven't heard from before (or haven't heard from in a while). I adore my usual faithful reviewers more than I can ever say, and I never take your feedback for granted. But it is also nice knowing there are others reading the story as well. :)
Nothing about the bus ride with Jane to Downton would stick in his memory beyond a feeling of utter fear and anxiety. Every footstep that stood between he and Anna was a small eternity.
He no longer knew the future. What knowledge he had now was but an outline of what might occur, his memories no more carved in stone than a farmer's prediction of the weather. Anna could die. She could die of the flu as surely as she'd died in childbirth before. His staying away had done nothing to prevent her death, and in the process of rejecting her, he had caused Anna unspeakable pain. How many nights had she stayed awake crying for her love of him? How many happy moments had he robbed her of experiencing?
He and Jane spoke little. To her, he was a complete stranger, a man she knew only from description. But she smiled at him kindly and tried to assure him that Anna was a strong woman.
"I can't believe she is sick," he murmured, mostly to himself.
"Actually..." Jane said quietly, "She runs herself so ragged, I can see why she might fall ill. She doesn't eat enough, she barely sleeps..."
She cut herself off at his tortured expression, perhaps realizing for the first time exactly what was the cause of Anna's failure to take care of herself. Wondering if Jane knew the full story or only the rumors and half truths passed in the servants hall, Bates sighed and said nothing.
When they arrived at the house, Jane led him in through the back door. Few of the servants were about and those that were seemed intent on their duties, the dark circles under their eyes highlighting lack of sleep and overwork. They found Mrs. Hughes in the kitchen with Mrs. Patmore.
"Mister Bates," the housekeeper said, affording him a grateful nod. Behind her, the cook offered a genuinely friendly smile. "I'm glad you were able to come."
"Jane told me that Anna is gravely ill," he responded. "Of course I came. May I see her?"
The three women exchanged looks, but after a moment Mrs. Hughes said, "I suppose propriety is the least of our concerns at the moment. She's upstairs in the women's quarters."
She led him up the staircase to the men's side and he followed with quick steps, ignoring the stiffness of his leg from traveling. Mrs. Hughes took him down the hall of the men's rooms to the locked door separating the female servants' quarters. Saying nothing as she unlocked it, he followed her through.
At the sound of the door opening, a woman stuck her head out of one of the rooms - a housemaid that he should be unfamiliar with, but he recognized the woman.
"How is she, Madge?" Mrs. Hughes asked.
The woman shook her head. "She was better for a few hours, but then she got much worse. The doctor was just by, and he said she seemed very ill, as bad as Ms. Swire." She paused, glancing at Bates before looking back at the housekeeper. "She may not survive the night."
Bates took a shuddering breath at this news. "May I sit with her?" he asked, his eyes riveted to the door with Anna's name on it.
Mrs. Hughes nodded, also visibly shaken. "I don't suppose at this point there can be any harm in it. Madge, go back to your work. Mister Bates will see to Anna-"
Not waiting to hear the rest of what the housekeeper had to say, Bates stepped forward and pushed open the door to the room. The women behind him seemed to melt away as the sight of the figure in the far bed took all his attention. The afternoon sun cast little but shadows in through the single window, but a couple of lamps had been lit. And in the circle of soft yellow light, he saw her.
Anna looked small under the covers of her narrow cot, her hair pulled back into a messy braid. Sweat dotted her hairline, and the moisture glued blonde wisps to her face. Her skin looked pale as death. She lay so still that for one interminable moment, Bates thought he might be too late.
She might be dead. He might have lost her all over again.
But seconds later, her eyes blinked open and focused on him lazily as he stood in the doorway to the room.
"Mister Bates," she rasped, her voice almost too silent to be heard as her lips barely moved.
"I'm here."
In an instant, he was by her side. The chair was pulled closer and he found a damp cloth Madge must have been using to tend her. He took over the occupation easily, dabbing at her face in attempt to help cool her burning skin. She began coughing, the deep rattle in her chest shaking her entire body. Between breaths, she attempted to speak.
"...please tell... Mister Bates..."
Anna rasped weakly, her hand struggling across the covers to find his. Bates reached to grasp it, gently wrapping his fingers around hers in what he hoped was reassurance.
"Anna, rest now."
"... tell him... love him."
He tried to sooth her, but each attempt only made her more determined to be clear with her wishes. Despite her obvious illness, Anna repeated the words over and over again - his name, what she wanted him to know. In her delirious state, she had no idea that the man she was appealing for was sitting right beside her with tears in his eyes as he listened to the earnestness of her tone.
"Tell Mister Bates..." she began again. She took in a deep breath before coughing, the deep and violent motion frightening him.
He noticed as she moved how thin she had gotten. But Anna's slightness was not the work of a few days of illness. Rather, she seemed to have lost weight even since he'd seen her in Kirkbymoorside. Her cheekbones looked unusually sharp and her skin was nearly transparent, the blueness of her veins at her wrists a striking contrast to her white skin. Bates could see that she likely hadn't been eating well for some time. Anna often skipped meals when she felt particularly anguished.
With a heavy heart that was breaking anew, Bates remembered what Jane had said about her state of mind, the meals and sleep she'd missed. Anna must have been physically weak already when the Spanish flu came to the house. Whereas her robust health might have saved her before, in the timeline he remembered, this time... This time, she had already been wasting away.
Because of him.
She'd caught this deadly sickness because of what he'd put her through when she visited him in Kirkbymoorside. No, he cursed himself, because of everything he had done to her. It was all his fault, once again. He'd managed to reduce this woman's life to ash, her body wracked with fever even as her mind grasped for him frantically, desperate for him to know how she felt about him.
"He doesn't deserve your love, Anna," he said quietly, too quiet even for her to hear as she recovered from another bout of coughing. The wheezing from her lungs sounded horrendous, and he wondered how she was able to draw breath at all.
Undeterred, Anna managed, "...tell him..."
"He knows," Bates said aloud, cutting her off. "He knows you love him. He knows."
His tone was gentle and loving, and the weight of it seemed to give her pause, as though she did not quite understand what she was hearing, but she recognized its importance. He took her hand in both of his and brought it to his lips. Her strength was waning, he could tell, as she struggled to squeeze his fingers.
"He loves you. Anna, you must know, he..." He squeezed his eyes shut. "I love you. I love you so much. Please keep fighting, Anna. I couldn't bear it if... I couldn't bear it. Not again. Please..."
She stared at him, her eyes wide with fever, and Bates could tell she did not understand, not truly. He kissed her hand again, willing her to live. The contagion never entered his mind, not for a moment. All that mattered was Anna, her body wracked with an illness he should have prevented. So much of her suffering was his fault...
Pushing away the doubts and recriminations, Bates thought only of her. Anna was still alive. She was weak and exhausted, but her eyes remained open. Even as minutes passed and her eyelids drooped closed, gasping breaths and the slow, up and down of her chest reassured him that the end had not yet come. Holding her hand like a lifeline, as though he could keep her with him by sheer will alone, he refocused his thoughts on Anna.
Tending to her, he abandoned every other consideration. He whispered to her, making appeals and promises in the same breath. Picking up the damp rag, Bates dipped it in a bowl of water beside the bed before dabbing it at her brow once more. She murmured sleepily but did not thrash, seeming to find relief in the coolness against her skin. Minutes turned into hours as he stayed there, never leaving her side.
At some point, when her labored breathing eased and he could sit back in the chair to favor his aching back, Bates noticed a book on her bedside stand. It was the T.S. Elliot volume he'd given to her in Kirkbymoorside. He smiled at the thought of her keeping it so close. Opening the volume, he found a bookmark inside, a piece of paper with "The Red Lion, Kirkbymoorside" written in Anna's hand. Below those words was his address at Mrs. Britt's house, and a simple note which read, "Please notify Mr. Bates in the event of my death."
The last line nearly tore him to pieces. He blinked against a flood of tears as he thought of their last meeting, of how he'd broken her heart once more. And now, it might have all been for naught. He might have brought her to her last days as unintentionally as before, and he had no way of saving her. She had to make it through herself.
The book was open to a poem, Portrait of a Lady, and Bates began reading aloud. His voice started as an unsteady mess, but as he pronounced each word, he steeled himself. Anna needed his strength. She needed to hear it and feel it surround her.
"You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles' heel.
You will go on, and when you have prevailed
You can say: at this point many a one has failed..."
He read to her through the end, and then began the next poem. Continuing to read to her, he paused only to check her breathing and to dab a cool rag on her fevered face. Anna seemed to settle at the sound of his voice, so he just kept reading, careful to keep his tone gentle and reassuring.
At some point in the late hours of the evening, Mrs. Hughes came back with Jane by her side. It was past midnight, Bates realized. Sometime after he'd stopped reading, Anna had fallen into a restless state of sleep. She still writhed against her bedclothes periodically, but not nearly as much as before.
The housekeeper sat on the edge of the blonde maid's bed and touched the back of her hand to Anna's forehead.
"She seems cooler, poor thing," Mrs. Hughes observed, sounding relieved but cautious. "Her fever may have broken."
It took a handful of seconds for her words to penetrate Bates' brain. The emotions of the day had not quite caught up with him, and in his state of heightened alertness to every twitch and movement of this sick woman, he had not even noticed. Or rather, he had noticed she was cooler, but his mind had not assigned that detail such importance. But indeed, her skin no longer glistened with sweat, and while she still did not breath well, her weak thrashing had all but ceased.
"Mister Bates, it is rather late. I've had Jane make up a bed for you down the hall, if you wish to stay. And in the morning, we can..." She paused, looking down at Anna, "... see where we stand."
"I would like to stay with her through the night, if I may," he said, although his tone and the appeal in his expression made the words a plea. "Just to see her through. I couldn't sleep tonight even if I wished it."
Mrs. Hughes glanced at Jane, who looked as exhausted as she did, and then back at Anna. "I ordinarily wouldn't allow it, but Jane and I are too exhausted to sit with her. I'm afraid we all need a bit of rest after the past few days. I'll leave my door cracked, Mister Bates, if you need anything, but I trust you won't be wandering about the women's quarters tonight."
He shook his head. "I won't leave her side."
The matter was settled, and the two women banished him to freshen up as they stripped Anna's soaked sheets and redressed the maid in a clean nightgown. Through a crack in the door, he heard her moan as the movement awoke her. But the only words she spoke were to ask for him. "Mister Bates?"
"He's just gone for a moment," Jane assured her as they settled her under the covers. "He'll be back."
Bates washed his face and dabbed it dry before returning to her room. Jane had already gone, obviously finding a bed elsewhere for the night. But Mrs. Hughes was waiting, sitting on the edge of the bed, her eyes glue to Anna's still form.
"I wouldn't have sent for you if it weren't dire," the housekeeper said as he closed the door behind him.
"I know."
He took the chair beside her, the two of them as close to Anna as anyone could be, either physically or emotionally.
"I know you don't-" he began.
But the shaking of Mrs. Hughes' head cut him off. "No recriminations tonight, Mister Bates," she told him. She reached out to touch Anna's hand, and he could hear the grief in her voice. "Just stay with her and give her reason to carry on."
TBC