He was on the ground. Flat. Useless. The only thing he had managed to do was to instinctively slow down his fall a bit with his left hand. Everything else was confusing.

"Bates, are you all right?" he heard Lord Grantham's voice.

"Perfectly, my Lord. I apologise," he said mechanically, feeling everybody's eyes piercing him. His face on the gravel, it was more than obvious he was far from perfectly.

And then that one thought washed over him almost with the very same force that had plummeted him to the ground. Looking up he met Miss O'Brien's eyes, cold, challenging. His cane did not just stop carrying his weight on its own accord. It was impossible.

She turned around, and with her, everybody else. Except one.

"Mr Bates," he could see the family and the young Duke of Crowborough entering the house right before feeling Anna's hands on his left arm. It was humiliating enough to fall, and sad that everybody would ignore him, and yet he almost wished she would have gone with the rest of the servants and left him to carry with his shame on his own. "That's better," she said, and he barely registered the fact that she had been holding his hand, trying to shake the dust off his sleeve.

"Please," he said, moving his arm off her grip, and finding it almost impossible to meet her eyes, "don't feel sorry for me." She held his gaze and, not for the first time Bates thought it was very difficult to read what those eyes were trying to tell him. Still, it all had been too much. Without pausing to thank her, he turned around and joined the retreating maids heading to the back entrance.

A moment later he heard Anna's footsteps on the gravel, behind him.

Of course, he could have avoided it all. He had had the chance, when Mr Carson had asked him if he really wanted to be part of the group that would welcome the Duke. He knew Mr Carson had not really wanted him there, spoiling his perfect image of a perfect house staff with his cane and crippled leg.

Had it been pride? A foolish desire to prove himself? Thomas contemptuous remark about not expecting him to help with the luggage and the way he had stayed behind to whisper something to Mr Carson had been enough incentive for him to keep on climbing up the stairs.

It had been a very bad decision.

His slower pace had put enough distance between the maids and himself. Now, in the somewhat secluded calmness of the courtyard, he decided he just wanted to keep out of sight for as long as possible; he need some time to brace for the worse. Because if he understood how these things worked at all, he had the strong suspicion this would be his last night in Downton.

Anna passed at his side, light as a breeze, and for a moment Bates thought she would just ignore him and go in. He wanted to believe he felt grateful for that.

Suddenly, she turned on her heels and was facing him, her eyes bright.

"I don't feel sorry for you," Anna said. "It would be foolish of you to think I do." And without waiting for a reply he did not have, she entered the kitchens.

Later on, climbing up the stairs to his bedroom, those words seem to haunt him, mixed with Lord Grantham's, and his mind played his falling as if it was a moving picture, over and over again.

"The thing is, Bates," his Lordship had said, "I said I'd give you a trial and I have. If it were only up to me…"

Bates had come the closest he had dared to beg. He was only too aware what losing this one opportunity would imply.

"You see, it is unlikely that I should find another position." He had tried, for months, living out of his mother's charity and making his best effort to keep his head tall and his limp as unnoticeable as possible while walking up and down London, trying to find somebody that, like Lord Grantham, would look pass it and give him a chance.

Lord Grantham had finally understood that, too. But Downton was his main priority and he was willing to make sacrifices for it. Bates would be one of such sacrifices.

"It's a bloody business, Bates," he had finally said, the tone of dismissal clear in every word. "But I can't see any way around it."

"I quite understand, my Lord," he had managed through gritted teeth. There was nothing else to be said.

Maybe Anna did not feel sorry for him, but when he finally reached his dormitory, he decided he would allow himself that, if only for a moment.


AN: Thank you very much! Only 3 chapters to go!