Someone To Watch Over Me

Charles lies awake thinking on all that has happened; on all that has been said and unsaid, done and left undone. Thinking that Charlie Grigg has moved his things from his dingy one-bedroom flat into Alice's ultra-modern one; that they are making space for the baby that will come in a matter of months. He wonders how Grigg took the news; if he thrills at the prospect of becoming a father, of being tied down with a baby and Alice. Charles wonders how long it will last before Grigg tires of the domesticity of it all and runs away from it, leaves Alice alone for some bright young thing.

He looks to the woman lying next to him. Measures her curves, the lines of her body, counts the freckles on her skin. He thinks on last night and how she met him at the door; how her kiss burned through him like a wildfire burning down any doubt that she has missed his being with her. How she had said that she would not give him up without a fight; his Elsie, flashing with ferocious passion. His heart flutters when he remembers that she told him that she loves him. He knows her well enough to know that she would not have said it if she did not mean it. He thinks that he should have told her that he loves her. That he should have said the actual words but he hopes that she understands that he does love her. He has tried to show her, laid offerings at her feet, when words sometimes are merely words. After all, Alice told him that she loved him often enough and look at what she has done. No, he is determined to show Elsie that he loves her and the words themselves will come soon enough. Then they will carry weight behind them.

Elsie is awake, but does not move. She is staring, looking off into the distance, not really focused on anything, because she is caught up in her own wonderings, her own thoughts. Remembering how broken he was the night before. Remembering, how Alice broke tender stitches loose, the wound gaping open again, and the pain spilling out afresh. How the tears in his eyes when he told her that Alice had never really loved him, made hate flare through her for the first time in her life. She wonders how someone could be so cruel as to hurt such a good and kind man. She hopes that he does believe her when she told him that she loves him, hopes that he knows it isn't something said in the moment or to make him feel better. She thinks back to the tender way he loved her, the way he made her come alive, and she hopes that he knows how very much she loves him.

"Elsie," he asks. He is unsure if she is awake. He traces his finger across her shoulder, her neck, mesmerized by the graceful lines of her body. She lies with her back to him, they are close, but not touching, and he watches her lying still. Quiet.

"Mmmm," she answers.

"Why did you never marry Joe?" As he says it, he thinks it probably wrong to ask her this, now, as they are lying here together, exposed. But then again he feels always exposed to her, always laid bare before her, his heart and soul held within her gentle hands.

She closes her eyes slowly, breathes out then in again before she opens them. She has wondered when he would ask this question and is surprised that he has not asked it sooner. She wonders if it is because he does not want to talk about the intimate details of his life with Alice. Or perhaps if he is afraid of her answer. She does not mind answering, wants him to know her reasoning, and hopes that it will set his mind at ease. She hopes that in giving up her secrets, he will give up his own and heal his wounds completely.

"A few years after I came to York, I met Joe and we dated a while. But then I had the chance to move to London. It meant a promotion and I didn't want to give it up."

She feels his fingers fall away from her shoulder, his hand softly drop to sheet between them. She hopes that she has not sounded like Alice; hopes that he does not think that she strung Joe along, used him to mark time. She turns to face him, traces from his brow to his jaw with her finger, his hand settles on her hip and she skims her hand along his arm.

"Charles, my father had no sons to carry on his name or his legacy. He wanted me to have a different life and he scrimped and saved to send me to university," she explains. "When he was dying he made me promise to finish my studies and get a firm footing for myself. To stand on my own two feet. I swore to him that I would. So I moved to London and Joe moved on. He married a nice woman but, it didn't work out. Four years ago he called on me again…"

"You began seeing one another…"

"Yes. He was in York and I was in London. We saw each other as often as we could but he wanted more," she reveals.

"And he proposed. But why you didn't accept."

"In many ways I wanted to accept. Beryl had met and married Bill and other friends were all paired off. But Joe wanted a wife to help him run the farm. Charles, I'm not that farm girl anymore and it wouldn't have been fair for us to pretend otherwise." She feels Charles's hand begin to massage her hip, slide around to the small of her back.

"Life has altered you, as it has altered me," he says quietly. He gently tugs her closer and her hand slips over his shoulder into the curve of his neck.

"You wanted to marry Alice," she says more than asks.

"At one point, so much I could taste it," he admits. He hopes that it doesn't hurt her to hear it said aloud but he knows that she must know this; that she is a clever woman, intuitive, and it would be wrong to lie to her.

"She hurt you deeply. I'm sorry for that."

"But that's all in the past now. She's marrying Grigg and I have you," he says, pulling her flush against him. Flesh and bone pressed together, hearts laid bare, he feels more exposed to her in this moment than he did last night when he made love to her. "Elsie, we are good together aren't we?" he asks as if he needs her to convince him.

She leans in rubs her nose against his and smiles, smoothes her hand across his cheek, and brushes the hair back over his ear before she kisses him softly. "More than good," she murmurs against his lips before she captures them again, passionately.

"I want to take you somewhere today. Somewhere I haven't been in a very long time," he says quietly over the rim of his teacup.

"My, my. I'm intrigued Mr. Carson," she says smiling, reaching across the kitchen table to pat his arm. She has seen most of the places in Downton that are special to him but for such a private man, Charles is full of surprises and she is willing to let him take the lead.

"Won't be a tick," he replies as he pushes away from the table. He gives Elsie's temple a gentle kiss and stops to collect the scissors from the kitchen drawer. She watches as Charles makes his way out to the garden. For a moment, she starts after him but pauses. Instead, she stops and watches from the window. She watches as he walks among the flowerbeds, bending and inspecting blooms. Selecting and snipping only the finest specimens. She has an inkling, a feeling that these stems, are not for her but for another who is close to his heart, perhaps the first to break it. The first to shatter it into a thousand pieces; the one person that he could not save, the first set of circumstances he could not change.

Charles and Elsie walk quietly to the churchyard, his hand gripping tightly the bouquet of flowers picked from the garden on Brouncker Road. Elsie's hand is looped through his elbow and they have not spoken but the silence is all right, welcome even. Charles walks with purpose, determination; his stride long and confident belying the storm inside, the mix of emotions that he feels.

They pass dozens of ancient stones with the names of Downton's families. Elsie notices the stones of babies who have died within hours of their birth, those of who lived long lives, those of the men and women killed in world wars; the stones of those who died during outbreaks of epidemics. They come to the graves of Charlie and Margaret Carson and Charles stops a moment, places a single rose on his aunt's grave, reflects on his family, and they move on. A few steps away he pauses, his feet glued to the ground. His feet feel like lead weights and his legs like paper straws that cannot lift them. He has not been to this part of the cemetery in decades and he wants to turn away and leave.

"You can hold my hand if you need to feel steady," Elsie offers quietly. She sees the cause of his trouble. The thing that has him stalled and unable to move forward. The small piece of stone that this mountain of a man cannot move past. He reaches down and gently takes her extended hand. She notices a tear in his eye though the corner of his mouth twitches up in a feeble smile a little at her offer.

They step forward a few paces until they are standing at the edge of the grave and Charles kneels to place the bundle flowers against the bottom of the headstone. Elsie feels his grasp on her hand tighten as he is crouched and suddenly she sees his shoulders begin to shake. She wonders when he last acknowledged the reality of his sister's passing. She wonders if Addie's grief was so profound, so all encompassing that Charles pushed aside his own grief to deal with that of his mother's. Elsie tugs on his hand, urges him up, and to a stone bench a few steps away.

"She was my sister," he confesses wiping his eyes. He has not let go of Elsie's hand, does not want to lose contact with her. "I've not talked about her since the day she died."

"Tell me about her," she encourages him.

"She was very pretty," he begins with a watery smile. "She was bright and playful. She was very clever, Elsie. Even though I was older, we were mates, she and I. My dad told me to watch out for her, always make sure that she was safe. That nothing harmed her. But….."

Elsie laces her fingers his and now she realizes what his mother meant when she said Charles tried to heal broken things, why he'd stayed with Alice so long, why he'd punished himself trying to repair something that couldn't be repaired.

"….I tried Elsie. I tried but she died anyway. It was cancer," he finishes sadly hanging his head in despair.

"Oh my darling man, you mustn't blame yourself. You were just a boy," she says as she slips her hand from his and pulls him into a strong embrace. "Charles you cannot punish yourself for that." He cries against her shoulder for a long time while she talks to him of family love, of the good man that he is, and of circumstances that no one can change no matter how hard one tries. He tells her of his sister of the tea parties she hosted with him as guest of honor, how he taught her to make paper airplanes and play gin rummy; of days he sat by her bed while she sleep in slumber so deep she seemed lost to some other world before she was gone.

"I don't know I if ever told you that I have a sister," Elsie mentions quietly.

"I thought that your mother was the only family you have left," Charles asks, looking up at her. He sees tears in her own eyes and knows that she too has a story to tell. One of deep hurt and pain.

"Which may be because that is what I wanted you to think. My sister Becky was born…. She is not quite right in the head. While my father was alive, he and my mother looked after her, but when he died…."

"There was only your mother and you," he guesses correctly.

"Precisely. Becky is a dear sweet soul but a woman locked inside a child's mind. Becky doesn't really understand much beyond what makes her happy or sad. When we were growing up people could be very cruel and like you, I was very protective of my sister. I am still. Because of that, I don't share about her with everyone."

"Who knows about her?"

"Beryl and Bill of course. Thomas and Phyllis. Joe and now you." Charles wipes a tear from her cheek.

"Thank you for sharing her with me," he replies, smoothing his fingers through her hair. "Well, I think that we've cried enough for one day," Charles musters a tiny smile through his own tears. "What say we go home?"

She is standing in the doorway, her shoulder pressed against it, and watches as Charles fidgets with the radio, the dial crackling as he adjusts it finding just the right station. A long moment passes before he notices her and when he turns, he cannot help but gawk like a schoolboy, his jaw slack.

"What's the matter Mr. Carson? Cat got your tongue?" she teases, a purr in her voice.

"I, um, I was just….there's a great oldies station….Elsie, you're beautiful. Where did…."

"You honestly didn't know what Beryl sent in those boxes?"

"No," his voice is a mere whisper. The sight of Elsie standing there in a white silk and lace nightgown and matching boudoir slippers has him stunned and awed. He extends his hand and she walks toward him, the nightgown moving with her, hugging her in all the right places, revealing dips and curves, crests and valleys that he is eager to explore. She takes his hand and he drapes it over his shoulder, takes the other, and clasps it firmly. "May I have this dance, Miss Hughes?"

"You are an old romantic, Mr. Carson," she replies, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth. She presses her cheek against his and closes her eyes, breathes him in. She thinks back on the day, on his revealing his deepest pain to her, how she wants to erase it for him, wants to be the balm that soothes his wounds.

"Remind me to thank Beryl when I see her next," he whispers hot against her ear.

"Let's not talk of Beryl Mason right now, Charles," she replies as she gently tugs her hand from his and wraps it around his neck.

She cards her fingers through his hair, her nails leaving trails through his thick locks. She feels him slip his fingers under the strap of her nightgown, he slips it from her shoulder, and kisses her there; his lips soft, warm, tender. His kisses trace up her shoulder to the curve in her neck and she sighs in pleasure, their bodies swaying against the melody of the music and against their own rhythm, the ancient dance of man and woman.

Her mouth finds his ear, kisses down the length of it and she whispers to him endearments, desires; her tongue caresses his earlobe, gently tugs there. His hands smooth down her back, burning hot across the bare flesh until they reach soft silk covered flesh and he pulls her closer; he knows that she feels how much he desires her, needs to be with her. She tilts her head back, finds everything in his eyes that she is seeking and he captures her lips in a blisteringly passionate kiss.

"I need you, Elsie" he confesses through a haze of heady passion. And she knows that he does not just mean physically but in every way that a man needs a woman, in every way a person needs someone.

"I'm here Charles," she tells him. "I'll always be here."

TBC…..not necessarily pleased with this chapter but here it is…..had to get it out of the way. I appreciate all those who read, reblog on Tumblr, review, guest review, etc. I'd love to know what you think.