Ok, so this is going to be my "what if Teachers and Downton did a cross-over AU because Phyllis Baxter and Susan Gately are so similar" story. For anyone who didn't see Teachers, basically, Raquel Cassidy's character was called Susan Gately and she was as gorgeous and sexy and funny as Phyllis Baxter, only more overtly so because evolving gender roles throughout the twentieth century, etc. Anyway, if something in this story seems to jar a bit with the Downton canon it may be because it's meant to reflect the Teachers canon instead. This is indeed a Baxley story because both Phyllis and Susan deserve at least not to be the designated romantic disaster zone of the cast (though this first chapter may mess with that a bit, just bear with). Also, I'm not going to plan this overall story arch because my real work is stressful enough at the minute, I'm just going to see where it goes.

19/12/2015

She woke up abruptly in the middle of the night. It was a weird nervous habit of hers almost, whenever she'd gotten absolutely plastered, she would never sleep for long. Ironically it was the only sure fire way to wake her body up; give her substantial drink (more substantial than the usual evening). She would wake up, bright, bold, alert, though not necessarily without remorse or slight nausea. The hangover would emerge later. The awakening was cold and lucid.

But not, in this case, lonely.

She froze. All of her, aching, muscles tensed as she shifted her leg and her foot brushed against something in bed beside her. Glancing down at the duvet cover, she checked that she was definitely at her place - she was. She stared wide-eyed at the ceiling for a long long moment of astonishment and mounting incredulity before she could bring herself to look over to the other side of her bed.

It wouldn't exactly be right to say that Joe Molesley was the last person she expected to see there, but somehow she was still surprised. And, if she was honest, a little disappointed. Not that she was disappointed that it was him,-… she just had never imagined that now,-… like this….

You'd never imagine that she'd somehow manage to drag Joe Molesley into bed with her the night of the Downton School staff Christmas Party, to put it in the mildest terms possible. Shit. Even put mildly, it didn't exactly cast her in a glowing light. Shit.

She leant over a little further, checking that he was still asleep. Why it mattered she couldn't exactly say, but he showed no signs of the post-alcohol insomniac jitters. Alright for some. To be absolutely fair, he didn't exactly look like a man coerced, from what little you can tell when someone is asleep. His body was relaxed, spread out quite naturally in her bed. She really wanted to believe that that unconscious smile on his face was there because of her, rather than some vodka-fuelled dream he was having.

She sank back into the mattress as softly as she could in her exasperation, raising a distracted hand to her forehead and letting out a soft breath.

For all kinds of reasons, this should not have happened. For a start, she'd said that sleeping with people after staff parties was something she absolutely did not do anymore. Secondly, she'd not known Joe Molesley long, he'd only been at Downton for a term. Not that, in and of itself mattered, but, for a third, the part of her that had allowed herself to cautiously and prematurely hope that something might happen between them had sure as hell not hoped that it would be a quick, drunken, bang after the Christmas party. Which, if past experience or weird Downton folkloric wisdom has any substance in it, was all this was now destined to be.

Well played, Phyllis, she thought to herself, absolutely first-class screw-up. Well done.

She vowed never to drink again. She vowed to drink as much as necessary to forget about this as soon as she was physically able.

It took her a moment to come out of her reverie of self-flagellation enough to realise that he seemed to be stirring at the other side of the bed.

Shit! she thought again, Don't wake up. At least, not until I've had the chance to go. Go? Go where? This was where she lived. Unless she was thinking of climbing down the drainpipe of her own house. For God's sake-…

It was too late now, he'd opened his eyes and she'd not even got one leg out of bed properly. She decided to admit defeat, threw the duvet back over it. It would be better, in the long run, to face the music now.

The little smile that had been on his mouth before somehow widened a little bit as he opened his eyes a fraction and saw that she was still there.

"Hello," he said to her. His voice was surprisingly soft, surprisingly low. His hair was all ruffled up and he looked pleasantly sleepy, but she couldn't afford to be distracted by that now.

"Hello," she replied nervously.

And then he did something she hadn't been expecting in the slightest; he sat up a little, and kissed her tenderly on the mouth.

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