The prison cell was gloomy and bare and bleak, with only two wooden chairs and a desk to separate the two men who occupied it. Anthony sat slumped in his chair, fighting exhaustion; the only things keeping him upright were the ropes which bound his arms around the back of the chair. They had not allowed him to sleep, the night before - it had seemed to him that every time he had drifted off, the guard had shaken him awake again. And now the interrogations were starting again. A new officer, this time. Perhaps they thought to disconcert him. "Tell us what we want to know, Herr Major."

"I'd die first!" Even to his own ears, it sounded melodramatic. The sort of thing that had filled the pages of the Penny Dreadfuls and Boys' Own magazines that he had devoured as a young lad.

"To use a cliche, that can be arranged," chuckled the German Oberst. "You know, Herr Major, my brother officers tell me that you are rather stubborn. I am going to enjoy breaking you."

"Never!"

"Oh, yes. I shall." The Oberst sat down in the chair opposite Anthony, the desk between them. Smoothly, as if they were merely conversing in a drawing room, he crossed his legs together at the knee and leant back in the chair, still smiling. "By the time I am finished, you will have told me everything I wish to know, and some more things that I do not, and you will end by begging me for death. I promise, on my honour."

"Why don't you just go to the devil?" Anthony asked wearily.

The Oberst moved so quickly that Anthony did not realise that his arm had swung back until his fist cracked into Anthony's cheekbone, knocking his head spinning. "Do not," the Oberst told him quietly, "make me do that again, Herr Major. Do you understand?"

After a moment, Anthony nodded his head. Already, he could feel his cheek swelling, and tied to the chair as he was, if the Oberst took it into his head, he could beat him to a pulp entirely unimpeded.

The Oberst's smile widened, and he reached into the breast pocket of his uniform jacket and withdrew a photograph. It looked a little worn about the edges, as if it had been removed from a pocket and replaced several times. Quietly, but impressively, as if placing down a winning hand in some high-stakes card game, he laid the photograph on the desk between them. Anthony watched him blankly. "Is this your wife, Herr Major? Your sweetheart?"

Anthony did not reply, but he could not stop his eyes from flickering briefly to Edith's face, captured forever on paper. They had removed the photograph, along with all of his other personal effects, when he had arrived here a week or so ago.

He had thought he would never see her again.

The Oberst looked at the photograph too, smirking. "Congratulations, Herr Major. She is beautiful. Very beautiful."

"Don't you dare speak about her!" Anthony snapped. But the Oberst only laughed.

"Perhaps, after the War, when you are lying dead in some forgotten piece of wasteland, I will go and find her. Wouldn't that be nice, Herr Major? For me to find your sweetheart, and see her beautiful smile… in the flesh?" His smirk became dark and lewd. "Such a pretty little mouth," he observed abstractedly, head tilted to one side as he considered Edith's portrait once more. "It will look even prettier, I think, when I have her on her knees in front of me." He sighed in anticipation. "We will have such fun together."

"I'll kill you!"

Anthony lurched up in bed, shouting the words.

Next to him, Edith squeaked and shot up next to him. "Anthony? Darling, I'm here."

His arms reached for her and clutched her against his chest. "No one's going to hurt you," he breathed raggedly. "No one's ever going to hurt you again."

"Yes," she replied, utterly bewildered. "Yes, I know."

"You're my wife. I'll keep you safe," he insisted.

"I know." She was stroking his face softly, brushing strands of hair out of his eyes, following her fingers with her lips until he began to calm. "I know." Gently, she reminded him, "The war ended and you came home and you're here with me. We're safe. I'm safe here with you. Safe, my love. Safe." Between each word, she kissed him and slowly his breathing returned to normal.

"I'm sorry," he managed eventually. "I shouldn't have… Forgive me."

"Nothing to forgive," Edith replied, matter-of-factly. "If I don't understand, then… I can't help. And… talking does help, doesn't it? I know enough about shell-shock that I understand that much."

Anthony's face darkened a little again. That was all his fault, of course; Edith would never have been exposed to all that horror and darkness, if not for him and his stupid weaknesses. "And when have you been studying about all that?"

A faint blush tinted Edith's cheeks. "I… read a little about it… when we were first engaged, after the War."

Anthony's mouth fell open in surprise. Did any man have a more thoughtful, brave wife than he? She had been willing to go to such awful lengths, just in case he had needed her. This was repaying his kindness with a vengeance, wasn't it? Wryly, he remembered what he had said to her, when she had wanted him to marry her all those years ago. I'm a cripple. I don't need a wife, I need a nurse. And hadn't that prediction come true, in the end?

As if sensing his thoughts, Edith brushed his cheek gently, making him look at her again. "You thought you had hidden everything so well from me, but I - I did realise that you weren't well. I… thought that once we were married, you would feel more comfortable… talking to me about what had happened to you." She smiled, a little bitterly. "I was clever enough to do that, you see - just not clever enough to realise that marriage was the very thing that would make everything worse for you…" She trailed off and shrugged. "I… wanted to be prepared, just in case. And now… well, I know what's needed, and what I can do." Biting her lower lip, she asked, quietly, "Am I interfering? I mean… have I… overstepped the mark?"

"No." He kissed her forehead and offered her a tired, sweet smile. "Thank you."

They lay there in silence for some considerable time, occasionally offering each other soft kisses or caresses, each reassuring the other that they were there and unharmed.

"What happens, in your nightmare?" she asked eventually. Anthony opened his mouth, and Edith raised a hand to stop him. "And, please, don't say that it's too awful to tell me, or that you don't wish to upset me. I'm not a china doll, and a few unpleasant words won't shatter me. I promise. So - just tell me."

Anthony took a deep breath. Being married to Edith had taught him a lot of things. Not least of these was that his wife was a very strong, very determined woman. And he was beginning to realise that if he respected her - which he sincerely did - then he ought to pay her the courtesy of being open and honest with her, or at least as open and honest as he could be, even about the things which he still, deep down, felt were not suitable for a wife's ears.

"Do you remember giving me your photograph? Before the War?" he asked hesitantly.

Edith nodded, and then admitted, "I remember being terrified that you'd think I was being too forward, or that you'd realise I was just a silly little girl." She blushed. "And I remember how you smiled when I gave it to you." He'd kissed her fingers, too, she remembered; it was the only remotely physical contact they'd had in those early months, save his hands on hers, brief and polite and impersonal, as he helped her on and off with coats or in and out of cars.

They had spent a lovely afternoon picnicking at Locksley, in the orchard, under the tallest apple tree. It was the end of the day, and she pressed the picture into his hands and turned to flee, not wanting to witness the sting of rejection that she felt would almost certainly be forthcoming - and then he reached out and caught her hand and stopped her.

"Edith?" he asked, so soft and kind, staring down in bemusement at the picture he held in his hands.

"I just wanted to - I'm sorry - I thought - " She must have been as red as a tomato, and not able to say any of the witty, flirtatious things Mary might have been able to. Oh, if only she had felt less, she might have been able to say more!

His warm, gentle smile arrested her, on the verge of tears. He lifted her fingers to his mouth and kissed them, only fleetingly. "Thank you. I shall treasure it."

"Oh. R-really? You - you don't mind?"

"Mind?" He raised an eyebrow. "On the contrary - I'm terribly flattered." For a moment, she wondered whether that was just politeness, and then that honest, reassuring look that she had begun to utterly adore slipped into his eyes, and she realised that he was being sincere.

As he spoke, he turned her to walk back to the house, the picnic basket in one hand, her arm tucked oh so naturally into the crook of his other elbow. "My dear…" He hesitated and stopped.

"Yes, Anthony?" He was taller than her. How had she not paid attention to that before? Not - not intimidatingly so - just enough that when she was walking on his arm, head tilted to watch his blue eyes twinkle down at her, she felt safe and protected and… oh, she couldn't explain it! But the blue eyes that were gazing down at her now were not twinkling - they were solemn and anxious and… troubled?

"I - I have a question, that I'd like to put to you." He gestured briefly with the arm that was linked with her own. "Not - not now, you understand. You… must have time to think about it - about what it would mean for you. I'll wait until your mother's garden party." He stopped and turned to face her properly, his hand sliding up to squeeze gently at her elbow. "My dear, I think - I think that you are intelligent enough to know what it is that I wish to ask and - and I hope very much that your answer will be 'yes.'" He ducked his head, a little shyly. "But, please… don't let that influence you. You must… you must be utterly selfish about it."

She felt as if he had clobbered her round the head with a hammer - a hammer that had made her feel light and giddy and utterly wonderful. This man - this sweet, kind, generous, clever, funny man - wanted to ask her to marry him. For a brief second, Edith saw the future stretch out ahead of her in a long golden ribbon of possibility - skipping out of Downton church on his arm; curling up with him in the library each night; watching half-a-dozen flaxen-haired little ones run through Locksley orchard…

Her heart beat so fast she thought it would burst.

She wanted, more than anything in that moment, to fling her arms around his neck and cry out her 'yes' to the heavens, so that everyone from here to Kirby Moorside would know that she, Lady Edith Margaret Crawley, wanted to be the wife of Sir Anthony Phillip Strallan, Bt. But instead, she only nodded, giving the ground at their feet a wide smile. "Of course, Anthony. I - I will think about it, very carefully."

And by the time they reached the house, they were both perfectly polite and amiable again, with no hint left that such important things had ever been mentioned between them.

"I carried that photograph with me, all through the War," Anthony told her, breaking into her reminiscences. "Well, after I was captured… there was one man, one of the interrogating officers, I mean, who saw the photograph and… talked about you. He threatened that if his side won, he'd come here and find you and - " He stopped, heaving great shuddering breaths as his stomach rolled. Gently, Edith touched his arm, the look in her eyes telling him that she understood all too well what he could not say. "Of course, in a situation like that, when you're cold and hungry and exhausted… what they say to you, it all starts to make an odd sort of… sense, I suppose. They would say anything… just to make you give up - to make you want to give over whatever information you had. And, Edith… when he said those things… when he said that if I didn't tell him what he needed to know, then I wouldn't be there to protect you…" He closed his eyes, as the final, fatal words escaped his lips. "God, I came so close to betraying our country."

He did not know what he had expected her to do, but whatever it was, it was not this - her arms wrapping, soft and light, around him and her head resting on his shoulder. "But you didn't, my darling. And even if you had, no one could possibly have blamed you, least of all me. You were in hell, Anthony, and you did things that no one had the right to ask of you, but you came home. Nothing else matters to me." He realised that she was weeping. "Whatever condition you are in, however wounded or in need of help, I will never be anything other than grateful for that. I swear it."


They sat side by side in the church that Friday; Anthony was pale and silent after the nightmares of the past few nights, poppy pinned with military precision to his overcoat. He had decided against military uniform, but Edith had insisted on his wearing his DSO. She held his hand all the way through the service, her own poppy a splash of bloody colour against the black of her coat. They sang the hymns, and listened to the sermon, and when it came time to pray, Edith shut her eyes firmly and asked for peace - for Edward Hampton, for Anthony, for all of the men who had come home shattered and changed by all that they had seen and done, and for all of the men whom they had had to leave behind in the mud of France.

Outside, Anthony stood for a long time with his head bowed at the war memorial, lost to the world around him. Eventually, when everyone else had gone, Edith tugged gently on his arm. "Darling?" He did not reply. "Anthony," she murmured, "come away. You've done enough. Darling, you've done enough now." Carefully, she led him away to the car where Stewart was already waiting for them. Remembrance was one thing, but she would not let him torture himself. There had, she suspected, been quite enough of that already.

Anthony was silent all the way home, and did not even reply to Mrs Dale's enquiry as to how the service had gone when they reached Locksley. Instead, he traipsed blankly through to the library, his refuge from the world in hard times. Lady Strallan smiled wanly at her. "Thank you, Mrs Dale. I think Sir Anthony would appreciate a cup of tea. It's been a difficult morning."

"Very good, my lady. And… I'll remove the decanters from the library, yes?"

Oh. So there's been a fair bit of… what did Papa used to call it? 'Self medication'? There's been a fair bit of self-medication going on, too, then. God, what would have happened to him if we hadn't married?

Edith forced a smile. "Do you know, Mrs Dale, I think that might be a rather good idea?"

In the library, Anthony was slumped in his chair, hand covering his eyes, still wearing his coat. Edith knelt next to him and squeezed his hand. "Darling?"

He looked up, blinking as he removed his other hand from over his eyes. "Sorry, my dear. I - was in another world. Another life."

"It's perfectly all right," she reassured him. "Can I fetch you anything?"

"No, thank you."

She stood and cast about for something productive to do. "I'll stoke the fire up - it's cold in here."

"That's funny. I… honestly hadn't noticed."

She brushed her hand against the top of his head, as a mother would to her child. "I know, sweet one. Shall I sit with you?"

He reached for her hand and kissed it. "Please," he whispered against her fingertips.