A/N: I KNOW she was a shoddy, nonsensical deus ex machina. I don't care. I've tried to breathe life into her through this fic, and I think visiting her together is good for our favorite 'ship.
And I have the rest of this fic roughly sketched out. It will have a total of 35 Chapters, and end happily (I mean aside from me sobbing that I've nothing left to write). Xoxo, CeeCee
June 1926
They were nearly there, after the familiar train ride through Lancashire to the western coast. What wasn't familiar to her was having company; this was the first time she'd not been traveling alone to visit her sister in the quarter century she'd been making this trip to Lytham St. Annes.
She turned to Charlie, who'd been mostly silent on the journey. She knew he was nervous, unsure, uncomfortable. Becky was out of his scope of control, or understanding. But he was here, with her, and she hoped he knew that she meant it: just his presence was enough. A man who, less than a year ago, was railing Beryl Patmore about her "adulterer's table" raining shame down on the hallowed halls and residents of Downton was taking a trip with her to see her disabled sister.
Classifying and ranking people was deeply ingrained in him; it helped him navigate and make sense of the world, and his place in it. His heart was good, and true, and generous, but his desire for order and structure often battled with his morality. She'd seen it time and time again through the years they worked together. He wanted things to be right. Oftentimes, it was she who pointed out that the proper path wasn't always the right one, when she saw him struggling with it; many times it was Robert Crawley, bless his lordship's warm, democratic heart.
In the end, she knew he was here, sitting on this train pulling into the northwestern coastal point where Lytham and St-Anne's-by-the-Sea intersected, because of her. Becky had no place in his orderly rank and file; no, he was here because she loved Becky. And he loved her.
"Alright?" She took his hand.
"I believe I am. Pretty here, isn't it? Not like Scarborough, but then again, I am inclined to remember that town as one of the most beautiful places on Earth," he grinned down at her, then his eyebrows wrinkled up in the middle. "I…I took the liberty of purchasing a gift for Becky. I hope that was appropriate?"
"Well, it was certainly kind of you," she replied, cringing inside. There wasn't much he could have gotten for her, a woman over fifty years old, which would be appropriate as well as something she'd actually find interesting.
He pulled a largish, flat brown parcel from where he'd tucked it alongside his seat, frowned uncertainly at it. "I remembered…I remembered you saying that the best piece of advice you could give me was to approach Becky as if she were Miss Sybbie or Miss Marigold, or Master George," he paused, looking at her for confirmation.
"Aye, I couldn't guide you any better than that. Her sense of wonder, her mind, her heart – it's that of a wee child, Charlie," she replied, smiling, feeling sad. Becky's mind was forever stuck in childhood, but her body, alas, was not, and it was failing her rapidly.
"Well, I took that to heart," he replied. "And, I was thinking of our honeymoon recently, of course…." He trailed off.
"What did you get her, Charlie?"
"Well…I bought her a kite."
"Oh Charlie! She's going to love it. She really is."
oooOOOooo
Becky loved the kite.
Which was grand, because the day got off to a bit of a rocky start. They entered the high-ceilinged atrium of the facility Becky had called home for over two decades and were greeted immediately by a tall, sturdy woman in a nurse's uniform. She was in her late forties, with blond hair just beginning to go silver and the brightest, warmest blue eyes Charlie had ever seen. She strode over to Elsie and nearly swallowed his much smaller wife in a giant embrace.
"Elsie," she grinned down at her. Her voice was surprisingly light for such a large woman.
"Kathryn," Elsie replied, her voice filled with warmth and respect.
And his deep discomfort at being here started to seep away. He was once again struck by the enormity of the secret Elsie had kept, the depth and duration of it. She had a relationship, a friendship, with this woman, whom he'd not known existed until a few months ago.
Now the woman was turning her piercing gaze on him. "And you must be Mr. Carson," she held her hand out and he took it. She shook his palsied hand firmly, making no fuss over it. "I am Nurse Kathryn Clemmens; your sister-in-law has been one of my primary patients for just over twenty-four years. Sometimes, I feel I know her better than I know myself." She didn't wink at him, but he got the impression she'd like to.
Elsie stood there, quieter than usual, the shortest point in the triangle of humanity they formed. She looked overwhelmed. He reached over and took her hand. He noticed Kathryn Clemmens noticing, and approving. For some odd reason, it mattered to him. Perhaps it was because the nurse's particular choice of profession was so beyond his scope of understanding, of what he felt anyone with intelligence and means would choose to do, he immediately respected her.
Kathryn turned and faced them together. "Before I bring you to her – she's quite excited that you're here, and especially eager to meet Mr. Carson – I must warn you: she's declined significantly since you were here last winter, Elsie. She's mobile, but the edema – the swelling – has been particularly bad recently. We can bring her outside, but she'll need a chair, certainly. And she gets tired very easily. Please do not get offended if she drifts off on you."
"A far cry from running up and down the rocks, scaring the dickens out of sea birds," Elsie said quietly.
"She still loves to shout at them, never fear," Kathryn responded with a wry grin. "Poor creatures." She took a breath, brought her hands together in a business-like fashion. "Well? Are you ready?" She directed this question mostly to Charlie.
"Absolutely," his heart was pounding, and he wasn't sure exactly why. He just knew he didn't want to do this wrong, for himself, for Elsie. For Becky.
"Shall we?" And she turned and walked over to an open seating area, facing a wall filled with tall windows looking out on the sea promenade, with cyclists and pedestrians passing by, the sky and sea an expanse of blue beyond. There were several sets of people visiting; one woman was on her own, the closest person to the windows.
She turned, and Charlie knew it was her. Becky. He was grateful Nurse Clemmens had warned them; it had been for Elsie, of course, but even he could see the change in her sister since the last portrait she'd had taken, less than two years ago, the one he'd seen on that lovely, long, stolen day in Elsie's office, after they'd gotten engaged. The day he'd first kissed his wife.
In that photo, Becky had still mostly looked like an overgrown child. Now, the only thing left of the child she'd been were the eyes, slightly askew, and the pert nose covered in freckles. Her dark hair had thinned and started graying, her face scoured with lines. She was a woman both older and younger than her chronological age, somehow, by some dreadful twist of fate.
"Oh, Becky," Elsie's voice, a whisper, barely audible. He squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back, took a shaky breath. Her sister caught sight of her, and her face lit up.
"El! Hi, El!"
"Hi, Becks," and she broke free of him, and squatted gracefully in front of her, took her hands. "I brought someone to meet you, dear." Elsie reached up and brushed her hand through her sister's hair, and Becky leaned into it, closing her eyes in delight. Something in his heart spilled to see such a tender moment between them. And he suddenly realized his folly. Here he was, worried about being uncomfortable when his wife's heart was breaking.
Becky had caught sight of him. "El! You brought Charlie! From the picture Kath gave me!" She turned her crinkly, crooked smile towards him.
He almost froze. Then rallied himself with thoughts of Miss Sybbie, Master George, Miss Marigold. Of their mothers, when they had been wee girls. An audience ready to be delighted, and performed for.
So he doffed his hat dramatically, and reached for Becky's chubby hand. "Miss Rebecca Jane Hughes, I presume?" He pressed his lips into the soft skin. "Charles Carson, at your service." He bowed deeply.
"Charlie! You talk fancy," she laughed, and clutched her chest. "El, I like it. He talks fancy. He kissed my hand." She directed this last observation at Kathryn Clemmens.
"Yes, Becky, he did. Your brother-in-law is gallantry itself," she replied, and now, he saw, she definitely winked at him.
"Aye, Becky-me-lass, sometimes he does talk fancy," Elsie was saying, still holding her sister's cheek.
"El? Why are you crying? Are you sad?"
"No, dear. Well, maybe a little, but nothing to be worried about," she took the handkerchief that Charlie proffered, wiped her cheeks dry.
"That was kind of you, Charlie. We must always think of others," Becky said with sudden seriousness. He tried not to laugh at her abrupt grave earnestness, but then saw Elsie was also biting the sides of her cheeks. Nurse Clemmens let out a sound somewhere between a cough and a snort.
"Well, Miss Rebecca Jane, I am being educated in kindness by your exceptional sister," he sat down in a chair next to her.
"Fancy talk!" She smiled at him gleefully, then down at Elsie, who had an unreadable expression on her face. Becky looked between the two of them and sighed.
"El and Charlie are married. I saw it in the photograph in my room, right, Kath? Did…did you get very many gifts, when you got married?"
"A fair few," Elsie stood and went behind her sister, placing her hands on her shoulders in a motherly way. She gazed down at him serenely over her sister's head.
"I've got a gift for you, Miss Rebecca Jane. Would you like to open it?"
"A gift for me? Oh, Charlie, thank you. Thank you one hundred times!" She grabbed the brown paper package, and they were forgotten for the moment, in her eagerness to get to the present. He stood and walked over to Elsie, as she looked down at her sister's delight.
She looked back up at him. "Aye, at least one hundred times, I think."
oooOOOooo
Charlie and Becky were flying the kite.
It was a beauty, a box kite in four bright colors: red, green, purple and gold. Her sister really was far less mobile than she had been, even half a year ago; Kathryn had been wise to warn them, to warn her. They had pushed her down to the edge of the sand in a mobile chair, then set up a stationary chair for her to rest on, with a blanket on her lap.
Becky wavered between wanting the kite all to herself, holding the end of the string tightly, and barking friendly orders at Charlie, resulting in him running back and forth over the same ground, lest he move too far away, and she worry the kite would be out of her sight.
Elsie could feel her heart being pulled in a dozen different directions, buffeted by various emotions, as the kite was by the sea breezes. She and Kathryn stood above them, on the promenade, waving on occasion, or to chastise Becky to stop shouting at the birds, already.
"The kite was a wonderful idea," Kathryn mused, as it rose in the air again and Becky cried out with delight. "Was it yours?"
"I am ashamed to say, no," Elsie shook her head. All of the times she'd been out here, standing in the sea wind, she'd not thought to bring a kite. "It was Charlie's. I didn't even know he'd gotten her a gift until we were on the train." She chose her words so, so carefully. She felt so many things, standing here, watching her husband do his best to please her dying sister. The wrong utterance would start the tears flowing again, and she wasn't sure she would be able to stop this time.
Kathryn's sharp, compassionate eyes took her in, seemed to understand. "You've been married for a year, then?"
Elsie nodded, smiled a little. "Fastest year in my long life, I think. Though I feel as if we have far more than one year of marriage between us."
Kathryn smiled back. "He's the friend you mentioned often, when you would visit, isn't he? The one who works in the same house – Downton, isn't it, in Yorkshire?"
Elsie laughed a little, shrugged. "Did I mention him often?"
"You did," Kathryn's eyes were twinkling.
"Aye, I suppose I did."
"The world is changing, isn't it? A generation ago, you mayn't have been here, together, as a couple," Kathryn mused, and Elsie nodded. She was right. "Elsie, I want to talk to you about something. About Becky, about people like her, and how the world sees people like her."
Elsie nodded, and the nurse continued, "There's a doctor here, Dr. James Forster – and if that name sounds familiar, it may be because I mention him often," both of the women laughed a little at her aside, but she continued.
"When he was younger, Dr. Forster worked briefly with Dr. Down, who identified the syndrome Becky has. His background is in genetics, which are the traits we inherit from our parents, or grandparents. But James – Dr. Forster – is very interested in reaching beyond what the research tells us, and apply it to real people. People like Becky. As you know, most people in Becky's situation, those who function relatively well with daily, familiar and repetitive tasks, are usually very happy and can be hard and effective workers when provided guidance. We, along with a few others here, are going to establish another sort of living space for those who can be taught to work, earn a living, doing simple tasks that can be brought in, such as mending or cleaning, with their wages going towards running the facility. It will also be a place for some of our long-time patients to spend their final days."
And now the nurse's warm but calm exterior cracked a little. Tears shone in her eyes. "We'd like Becky to be one of those patients. I know…I know it's a lot to take in, and that this place has been her home for half of her life. But I would be there for her, and Dr. Forster, and it's Yorkshire, much close to you, and your husband. The change will be difficult for her, I know, especially now. She will miss the sea…and the birds," she paused as both women laughed, wiping tears from their eyes. "But she will be with people who care for her a great deal, and nearer to those who love her even more."
Elsie could hardly gather her thoughts into words. She still fought the tears, because she knew, she knew, they would never stop once she started. She cleared her throat, fighting the rising lump stuck there. "I think it sounds extraordinary, Nurse Clemmens. I certainly hope your Dr. Forster knows what he's getting himself into."
"I'm not sure that he does," Kathryn wiped her tears away. "Not entirely."
"It may be best that they don't, these men of ours," Elsie replied, smiling ruefully at Charlie running down the beach with the kite. It caught air, and plummeted to the ground. Becky shrieked woefully, and Charlie started moving again. The kite caught a fresh breeze, and wobbled, gently, precariously, in the air, trying to reach higher, as Becky shouted encouragement.