Finally, I'm back! College apps are submitted (deferral from Harvard—everyone say a prayer that they'll accept me in the next round!) and I'm finally free to write. Here's the next installment—tell me what you think of this direction. I really wanted Anna to be the one to tell Mr. Bates about the attack, instead of it coming from an outside source, so here's my take on that. Hope you all are having a lovely holiday season. A/N: still don't own Downton :( "What are you doing up here?!" Anna cried. "This—this is my room."

John's mind was tumbling frantically over itself, trying to explain what was happening. Did he tell her that Mrs. Hughes had sent him in search of the mending? Or the truth—that he was trying to find out some sort of answer, or some way of being close to her?

Anna's eyes were flashing, like the steers when they realized they were being hunted. John watched her pupils dilate and realized it was not anger, but self-preservation. "Well? You have no right to be up here?"

Anna hated that her voice was coming out wincingly sharp, like twisted metal. She had to erase the evidence of her love—the photo, the nightshirt—with cruelty. But she wondered if she'd kill herself in the process.

Finally, John found his words. "You're correct that I have no right to be snooping, but as your husband I have every right to love you, and to worry for you." The nightshirt dropped from his hands and he looked Anna straight in the eye. For once, her head didn't drop towards her feet. "Anna, you put me back together when I first came to Downton. But you're ripping me apart now."

She was starting to cry. This wasn't right at all. She was so close to the dark edge, the world's end, where John found out and he went after Green and the police took him and her life was over. "Please, get out."

"No, Anna. This time I won't. I will stand here until you help me understand what's gone wrong. If I leave this room, it will be for good."

"No!" The word escaped Anna's lips before she could swallow it down. The thought of him leaving left red scratches up and down the sides of her throat. Wasn't that what she had been trying to accomplish? Maybe, but somehow she had always been counting on the fact that John wouldn't leave her.

Her legs melted under her from the thoughts swirling round her head. She shuffled to the bed just in time, sinking onto the mattress with her head in her hands.

As soon as John heard her soft sobs, he sat on the bed next to her. Gently, he wrapped his arms around her, and she shuddered momentarily but then returned the embrace. He could feel warm wetness spreading across his coat, and he didn't care. His heart was breaking at the sight of his wife crying, but at the same time it was healing in that she was finally letting him in.

"You have my photo…my nightshirt. You still love me?"

He felt her head nod slowly against his chest.

"Thank God."

"I could never stop loving you," Anna whispered.

"Then what was the meaning of this past month?"

Anna pulled out of his arms and refocused her eyes on her lap. Her face shuttered again, taking on the dead look he had come to dread. Was he losing her again, after the first real truths they had uttered in all this time?

"It's been like a nightmare I can't wake up from," she muttered, her hands playing with the fabric of her dress."

"What's been like a nightmare?"

"I didn't tell you because I was so scared. That you would think of me differently or… that you would do something terrible."

"Anna, you're scaring me," he rasped.

"If I'm to tell you, you must promise me to just listen, and never to act on anything. This must remain in the past."

"I can't promise anything without knowing what I'm agreeing to."

Anna's hand grabbed his, tight like a snake. Her eyes were on his, unbreakable. "Promise me. You must."

"Anna—"

"John."

"Fine," he sighed. "I promise."

Anna pulled away again, into herself. "I…I was attacked."