Time was a strange thing, Carson thought to himself as the rolling hills of Yorkshire carried them back to the Abbey. It had the ability to stretch and constrict at will, causing tedious things to pass tediously and leaving moments one adored to pass by before one could even savor them. How else could one explain that each day during the last six months had seemed an eternity, and the last day like a breathless moment? Carson could not remember one passing by so hastily. And now, as the sun was beginning its descent behind the horizon and the day came to its natural end, he began to wonder if the days to follow would pass by just the same.

Music filled the old Triumph, some oldies station piping through the speakers. The distraction it provided was most appreciated. He knew he was teetering very close to an edge he knew he ought not cross. The suspense was terrible, but he hoped it never ended.

The great manor appeared up the gravel road and Carson was surprised to see another car, an old coupe, parked outside the front entrance.

"Who might that be?" he asked.

"That's John's car," Elsie told him as they neared it. Her brow was furrowed and there was a worried lilt to her voice; it was uncanny for the Bateses to be at the Abbey on the weekend, especially at this hour. "I wonder what he's doing here."

Her worry became his own and he parked the car quite hastily.

Much to their relief, when they entered the great hall, they were greeted with a particularly lovely sight. Spread out on the oriental rug in front of the grand fireplace were Anna Bates and little Henry, John doting on them from the sofa, the babe on his belly trying his darndest to roll over.

Carson heard her sigh. "Well, what have we here?" Elsie asked in an especially happy tone. He suspected the wee babe on the floor had something to do with that.

John stood and greeted them. "I hope we're not intruding, but Anna and I were just discussing this morning how rarely we make it up here for dinner nowadays."

Anna scooped Henry into her arms and placed him on her hip. "We got here a while ago, but couldn't find you in your usual haunts. I tried to call, but your mobile went straight to voicemail," she explained. Her blue eyes looked between her boss and Carson and back again. It had been evident that they'd been together that day, returning to the great hall at the same moment as they'd just done, still wearing their coats and scarves. A smirk had to be suppressed. "But I can see now that you were otherwise occupied."

Elsie lost a bit of the color in her cheeks and cleared her throat as if that could restore it. "M–my mobile has been buried deep in my purse. I must not have heard you call," she explained, fishing into the bag and finding that there were quite a few missed calls and text messages on her mobile. "But yes, it'd be lovely to have you both for dinner."

Henry, as if on cue, babbled some string of vowels.

"I mean the three of you!" Elsie corrected with a chuckle, stepping closer to him and tickling his belly. He giggled at the touch.

Carson watched intently. It was apparent that this little boy and Elsie had had a preestablished rapport and that she was not a stranger in his life. Their mutual smiles told of this. He wondered if she had any children of her own and felt a sad pang at such an absence in his own life.

"That is, if you're fine with the three of us staying for dinner," John said to Carson. "We wouldn't want to…intrude on anything."

That word hung in the air, echoing through the great hall. Intrude. He had used it himself just last night and it had become one of his favorite words; tonight, it took on a sour note. Thoughts of a pleasant dinner, some shared port in the sitting room, and the exchange of flirty stories had been on his mind as they drove back from York. Now, they vanished. He tried not to pout.

"Sure, of course," he managed.

"Great," Anna replied. "Elsie, I can help with dinner if you'd like. I'll just leave Henry with the menfolk." She passed her son off to her husband and the boy squealed happily.

"Oh, dearie," Elsie said sarcastically as she watched the baby settle against his father. "That poor child, stuck with the menfolk."

Laughing, the two women left them and departed for the kitchens to assemble what Daisy had prepared. John, Henry, and Carson were left alone in the great hall, standing about in an awkward way, unsure of what to say.

"Fancy a drink?" John eventually asked. "There's a decent 16-year-old scotch in the drawing room."

Carson felt immediate relief. At least now, they'd have an occupation. "Lead the way," he said.

Before John could show them to the drawing room, he paused and gestured to the baby in his arms. "Would you mind?" he asked, holding up the cane in his other hand as a means of explanation. Carrying a baby while using a cane was less than ideal. "If it's not too much trouble."

"Um, alright," Carson mumbled. Before he knew it, the wee babe was placed firmly in his arms and John took off down the hall towards the drawing room. Distracted, the old professor followed in his wake. Henry was the spitting image of his father, with the same dark eyes and the same dark hair, a little curl to it at the ends. They locked eyes and Carson felt a smile tugging at his mouth. He could not recall the last time he'd held something so small, so sacred.

In the corner of the drawing room, as promised, was a well-stocked bar cart, a tumbler of scotch chief among the imported liquors. John promptly poured them both a generous measure and handed the glass to his compatriot.

"To your health," he said, clinking his glass with Carson's.

"And yours."

They settled at a pair of sofas that flanked yet another grand and opulent fireplace, sipping on the peaty scotch in relative silence. A century ago, it would not be uncommon for men to retire here for whiskey and cigars while the women gossiped in the room next door. Of course, men were prone to gossip just the same, but it took the guise of "talking shop." Tonight, unlike a century ago, there weren't any cigars and the presence of a little one certainly changed the tenor of the room.

"He's taken a liking to you," John said after a time, pointing to his child who was resting across Carson's lap as his great hand kept him snug in place.

As if suddenly remembering that he had a child bouncing on his knee, Carson startled. "Hmm? Oh, yes, I suppose he has. Would you like him back?"

John smiled and shook his head. "If I've learned anything over the last seven months, it's that if the baby is content and doesn't need to be moved, let him be."

Carson shrugged and leaned back further into the sofa, taking a measured sip of scotch. The baby had grabbed one of his fingers and bit into the knuckle. Toothless still, mericully, he gummed at it, leaving it wet and reddened. John chuckled at this

"How was your afternoon?" he asked. "Were you and Elsie out somewhere?"

"Um, yes, we were." He was curt, perhaps a little rude, he admitted to himself. But was it a crime to want to keep that lovely afternoon to himself for a little while?

An eyebrow lifted on John's forehead. "Oh? Whereabouts?"

Carson shifted in place. "Just a drive through the countryside after lunch. Neither of us were in the mood to do much work today."

"I can understand that. It's a Saturday, after all. Elsie works too hard, even during the off-season. I'm glad you can convince her to take a break."

He thought back to this morning and how little convincing it had taken to get her to come to lunch with him. Persuading her to go on a drive had involved even less. A smile formed on its own at the thought.

"Yes, well, it was a pleasant time," he said.

Henry continued gnawing on Carson's knuckle, really giving it a good effort. Both hands were involved now as they grasped the joint firmly, slobber running down the man's hand. It was an unfamiliar sensation, holding a little one and acting as a teething ring, but Carson found that it wasn't entirely unpleasant.

"Do you have any of your own?" John asked.

"No, I don't. Things never quite worked out in that way." His voice was quiet, distant. Without much thought, Carson ran a finger underneath Henry's little foot. How could a person be so impossibly small, he wondered.

An amiable silence fell over the room, interrupted only by the slight sound of their scotch sipping and the occasional babble coming from the wee babe.

"If you don't mind my saying, I'm glad you're at Downton for the off-season," John said after a time. "The thought of Elsie up here all by herself for most of it has never sat right with me."

"A bit too much like The Shining?" he asked sardonically over his glass of scotch.

John laughed. "Perhaps just a bit," he agreed, taking a sip of his own. "I'm just glad she'll have some good company."

"I'm not sure how good of company I'll be," he countered with a light chuckle. "I'm not exactly the best conversation partner to have, not these days anyway. Bit of a surly ass, I'm afraid."

"She's a good woman, Charles," John said pointedly. His meaning couldn't be clearer: don't even think of hurting her.

Before Carson could speak or even agree to that sentiment, the woman in question appeared in the doorway, knocking on the wooden frame to announce her presence.

"Dinner is ready, gentlemen," she said, starting to turn on her heel to leave. At the last moment, however, her eyes caught a particularly charming tableau unfolding in front of her: Henry Bates gnawing on Charles Carson's knuckle. Her face brightened and she approached the pair. "Looks like you've made a friend," she teased the older man. Gesturing towards the baby in his arms, she asked, "May I?"

Carson nodded and stood, handing over the little one to her with great care, perhaps more caution than necessary, but he was unused to such an action as it was.

"How's the wee bairn this evening?" she asked of Henry, bopping him up and down, rubbing his belly, oblivious to anyone but him. The boy nuzzled his head against the crook of her neck in reply and if it were even possible, that bright smile on her face became even brighter.

Carson, for his part, could not take his dark eyes away. He knew he ought to; no good would come of watching her in this way. But he was mesmerized and his gaze would not relent. Eventually, when Elsie left the room, still talking to the boy, bouncing him up and down, Carson finally looked away. He risked a glance in John's direction and found him standing there, leaning on his cane and smirking. The professor felt all color leave him.

Clearing his throat and standing to full height, he said, "I–I'd best wash up for dinner."

That impossibly smirky smirk grew deeper. "As should I."

In the kitchen, Anna followed the instructions Daisy left for finishing off the lamb curry she'd prepared, while Elsie assembled plates and cutlery. Something large loomed between them and Elsie prayed that it would be ignored. If only she were so lucky.

"Sounds like you had a pleasant afternoon," Anna said as she stirred the curry.

Elsie paused for a moment, but continued on with gathering cutlery, not daring to look up in Anna's direction. "It was pleasant, yes," she shrugged noncommittally.

"Where'd you go?"

She cleared her throat. "Beryl's for lunch."

"And after?" she pressed in a teasing way. "Lunch was hours ago. Surely, you didn't camp out at Beryl's all afternoon."

Elsie eventually looked up from her very important task of polishing forks and saw the younger woman with a satisfied smirk on her face. Anna was enjoying this.

"Just for a drive," she said. "We stopped at some places in York and then drove back here. All very…pleasant."

"I'm sure it was," Anna replied, that smirk having now turned into a grin. "He's rather handsome, I'd say."

Elsie felt her stomach perform a series of acrobatic maneuvers and she was sure she was as white as a sheet. She cleared her throat once again and tried to regain some semblance of nonchalance.

"Can't say I've noticed," she insisted. "He's a visiting scholar and this is a professional environment." There was that mantra yet again. Perhaps if she kept repeating it, it would become true.

Anna nodded and continued stirring the curry, unconvinced. But after a moment, she murmured, "I can't recall any other scholars driving about Yorkshire with you in the past."

A rogue fork fell out of Elsie's hands at this, clattering around the old stone floor. Her mind raced to come up with an excuse. "Well, we've never had someone here during the off-season before," she said after picking up the offending fork and setting it on the island. That excuse seemed adequate enough, she thought.

Abandoning the lamb curry for a moment, Anna turned to her dear friend and smiled at her. It almost felt motherly, Elsie thought, so warm and tender. "It's been a long time since Joe, Els. It's perfectly fine to move on."

A breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding left her. "I know," she nodded, that lower lip of hers caught between her teeth. "I know that."

Anna put her arm around her and rubbed her shoulder. "There there," she whispered gently.

Elsie returned her smile, grateful for the friend she had in Anna. Good friends are often in short supply. Not many people at Downton knew of her life before it, of her life with Joe, but Anna was one of the few she trusted to share it with.

"Thank you, dearie," she said after awhile.

Satisfied that her friend would be alright, Anna returned to the lamb curry. "Think nothing of it, Els," she said casually. "Besides, that Charles character is easy enough on the eyes. Don't let John know I said that."

Elsie could have sworn she saw the young woman wink at this. A chuckle left her, causing Anna to laugh, too, and soon, the kitchen was filled with the sound of their laughter.

Later that evening, after a filling meal of lamb curry, basmati rice, and naan, the Bateses returned to their home in Ripon. Little Henry had started to grow fussy even before they could all retire to the sitting room for a nightcap, so John and Anna bid their farewell to Elsie and Charles, knowing smirks passing all around. It seemed that each of them was privy to something the others did not know.

Elsie closed the front door to the Abbey in the Bateses' wake, leaving her and Carson alone in the entryway. She turned to him and stifled a giggle. He looked positively disheveled; a loose curl fell over his forehead and his shirt collar had popped out from under his blazer. After finishing their meal, little Henry had reached out for the old professor, and Carson, not keen to disappoint such a charming little thing, relented. Anna passed the boy to him and Henry spent the better part of thirty minutes manhandling the poor man: pulling at his hair, tugging on the buttons of his shirt, chomping on a rogue finger. Carson's large nose was of particular interest to Henry, and he grabbed it a few times, causing the dining room to erupt with laughter.

"Aren't you a sight for sore eyes?" Elsie teased as she inspected him further.

Carson ran a hand through his hair to smooth it down, but that naughty curl kept falling. "I'm spent," he replied. "I feel thoroughly used."

"I'd say you deserve a drink after all that."

A smile formed on his lips. He was relieved that their plans for a nightcap had not been abandoned in spite of their interruption. "I won't object in the least."

They moseyed to the library and Carson got a fire going while Elsie poured them both a glass of port. Settling against the sofa together, they clinked their glasses and took a long sip. It had been a great day, perhaps surpassing any day in Carson's recent memory. With the fire crackling nearby and the port warming his belly and Elsie smiling at him so sweetly, he felt as if he were floating on a cloud, perhaps drifting down a gentle current. He almost sighed at the sublimeness of it all.

"I have to say, I'm almost a little jealous of how Henry took to you," she told him in a joking manner. "I liked to think that I was his favorite nonfamilial adult."

Carson chuckled. "I doubt I have supplanted you in just a single evening," he countered. "I'm not even sure why he liked me much. I've no expertise in being around children. Perhaps it was my nose. He seemed to like that quite a lot."

"Do you not have children of your own?"

"Um, no, I don't. I would have liked to, I think, but it never worked out," he replied. Staring into his port glass, he asked, "Do you?"

"No, I don't either," she said. For some reason, Carson felt a sadness in this.

Before he could ask another question, she added, "My husband and I tried for years, but nothing ever took. We had a few miscarriages over the years, sadly, but after years of trying, we gave up."

Carson felt hot all of a sudden, like there wasn't enough air in the room. "Your husband?" he managed despite the lump in his throat.

Elsie nodded with a sad, small smile on her face. "My late husband, Joe. He died of a heart attack about five years ago."

"Ah," was all he could say. Suddenly, her mysterious arrival at Downton years ago, her decision to live full-time in the executive director's flat, her guardedness about her life before, all became clearer to him. "I'm very sorry to hear about that. About all of that, I mean."

She finished off her port and, to his great astonishment, placed a hand on his arm. "That's kind of you, Charles. But it's a distant past. I'm sure we all have times in our lives that are hard to remember. But we move on. We must."

Carson nodded his agreement. He knew all too well the truth in that statement; in fact, he found himself in the midst of it at this very moment.

"What was he like, your late husband?" he asked as he refilled their glasses.

Her gaze became distant, as if she were reliving a memory. "He was a good man, my Joe, dependable and trustworthy. We met at a harvest festival in Gloucester not long after I had started teaching at the boarding school. He was a local farmer. We weren't madly in love, not like you read about in books or see in movies. But he was kind and he always made me smile, and I decided that that was enough to build a life on. We had a good life, I'll say. And then one day, out of nowhere, he was gone. The doctors said it was quick, and I can't say I'm not grateful for that, at least."

Silence permeated the room then, save for the crackle of the fire. "I'm so sorry, Elsie," he told her. "Truly."

Her gaze returned to him. "Thank you, Charlie," she replied. "Grief is an odd thing, isn't it? Most days, I'm perfectly fine, but sometimes, it'll sneak up on me and remind me of its presence. The time between those occurrences grows further apart each year, but I am still reminded of him now and then. Sometimes it's a song on the radio, or the way someone smiles like he did, or I catch a whiff of the cologne he used to wear. But I count myself lucky even in spite of it all. Not everyone gets a chance to have something that makes its absence so keenly felt."

Carson considered this and found it to be very true. His grief was different than hers, but he felt its sting less and less with each passing month.

"Quite right," he told her. Then, raising his glass, he added, "To your late husband."

He saw her eyes water and he wondered if he had gone too far. But a smile formed across her lips and she clinked her little crystal glass with his.

"Yes, to Joe," she said before taking a sip.

The fire roared now and the entire room was warm. "Would you mind if we read something tonight?" Elsie asked. "It's been a long day and I can't say I'm apt to be a good conversationalist tonight."

"Certainly," Carson replied. He, too, was feeling the effects of a long day jaunting about the English countryside and being manhandled by an infant. Elsie's book was already on an end table near the sofa, but Carson had to run upstairs to his bedroom to grab his.

When he returned, he found Elsie curled up on the sofa, her nose buried in My Ántonia, a tartan throw blanket about her.

"Don't you look comfortable?" he teased as he took a seat next to her.

"This is my secret indulgence during the off-season," she told him as she grabbed some of the blanket and threw it over his lap. "I suppose I could read anywhere here, but it's much more enjoyable when it's done in front of a fire in a grand room."

Carson chuckled and tried to ignore the fact that they were sharing a blanket. It was entirely innocuous, but for some reason, he felt a little risque. "I suppose it would be easy for one to get used to reading in such an environment. It has its charms."

"Indeed it does," she replied. "Now, be a dear and top me off."

He gladly obliged and refilled her port glass before settling in with his own book. It was written by a colleague of his at Oxford, a scholarly text about Belgian farmers during the first World War. Even at night when no one would fault him for unwinding with a book for pleasure, he couldn't help but keep up with the competition, as it were.

Time melted by and Carson was again reminded of its fluidity. The fire was dying, casting a warm glow over the sitting room, and the entire abbey was still. He looked over at where Elsie sat and found her eyes closed, her body relaxed, her book long since abandoned. He smiled in spite of himself and decided that it was time for bed. Quietly, he set his book down and stood up. Taking her book from her sleeping form, he marked the page and set it down, too.

Before retiring upstairs, Carson grabbed the tartan blanket and pulled it over her so it covered her shoulders. She was impossibly beautiful, he thought as he watched her. He was certain now that she was indeed the same kind of lonely as he. In some way, he felt reassurance that there was another person on earth who felt loss as he did. Yet he only wished it wasn't so, that she would be spared such a fate. His misery hated company.

A moment passed, one in which he surely should have retreated to the confines of his bedroom. But before he did, he found himself brushing the loose strands of silvery blonde hair from her face, his thumb grazing her cheek as he did.

As he stood to full height and took in the sight of her sleeping in the warm firelight, his heart tightened, as if it hadn't been used in this way in a very, very long time.

A/N: Thank you all tremendously for your support of the last chapter! I'm most grateful. Please let me know your thoughts on this installment. I hope you enjoyed it!