July 14th, 1916
Michael leaned back in the firm-yet-comfortable chair, a glass of lemon water in his hand, Tom seated across from him with his own glass. 'I wonder if he wants a stiffer drink too. At least to celebrate with.' General Lothrop had been willing to have some champagne uncorked for a toast before the meal started but that was as far as he was willing to go to have spirits in his home. Hell, according to what Michael had gathered the servants had been forced to rush out to oen of the Lothrops' neighbors to buy a bottle. After two years the Crawleys that still stayed at the Lothrop Townhouse had gotten used to having water or club soda with their meals, sparkling grapejuice at best (a personal favorite of the old man) but Michael would never be able to handle going a full meal without something proper to drink. He didn't bring it up to Tom, as he didn't want to insult the man that had done so much for the women they loved, but damn it all if the General couldn't have at least sprung for a scotch! He understood where the man was coming from, especially after Michael had looked into his rather infamous family, but still…
'And I do mean 'women we love',' Michael thought as he glanced over at one of his best reporters. He remembered well Tom from the previous timeline and how much he'd loved Sybil… even without having ever met the youngest of the Crawley sisters Michael had seen clearly how much Tom cared for her even in death. Where other men would have sought to move on after their loss of their wife Tom had remained faithful. Hell, with some men the fact that they hadn't been given a son to carry on the family name would have driven them to remarry quickly but with Tom he got the sense that when the Minister had told him 'until death do you part' the Irishman hadn't been listening.
That made the current dance the two of them were engaged in all the more entertaining to Michael. He knew that Tom had been given the truth of the previous life himself, Matthew, and Sybil had lived and that for a while that had scared him off. That the knowledge he had found love and happiness had seen him, strangely enough, decide to push away the source of those feelings. But now Tom had come to terms with that and he and Lady Sybil had formed a deep bond… except the two of them, frustratingly, never seemed to want to move to the next step. They had lunch with each other once to twice a week and at dinners they were painfully friendly... and that was all. It reminded Michael far too much of his own relationship with Edith in his first life, when he'd been so awkward and unsure of himself. He saw in them the same wasted time spent bumbling about with fears of what society might think when all that truly mattered was each other.
"What?" Tom asked, looking at him.
"Hmmm?"
"You're staring at me. I can feel it burning the side of my head." Tom frowned, lifting his glass to drink only to choose not to bring it to his lips. "What are you thinking about?"
"Nothing in particular. Just... thinking."
Tom merely shot him an incredulous look. "You are a terrible liar, you know that? You are clearly thinking of something." He pursed his lips before letting out a groan. "Not you too!"
"Not me what?" Michael asked.
"Sybil and I. You are thinking about us and how we should be like you and Edith or Matthew and Mary and just marry and begin having babies!"
Michael, despite thinking jus that, shook his head in quick denial. "I wasn't thinking that at all. I was merely thinking of small, trivial things."
"Like what?" Tom pressed.
"Trivial things," Michael repeated.
"What trivial things?"
Michael just gave him a long stare. "You are beginning to sound like a woman, you know that?"
Tom set his glass down on the endtable and leaned forward, eyes hard. "What Sybil and I do is our concern... no one else."
"Correct," Mcihael said.
"If we want to wait for decades to even think about being a couple, we will."
Michael couldn't help but smile. "Well, you might. I think she has other plans."
Tom opened his mother but before he could speak Matthew and Thomas hurried in, still dressed in their uniforms and looking flushed and flustered. "Apologizes... last minute issues at the office."
Thomas nodded. "One of the men tasked with supplying petrol had several of his ships suffer some damage thanks to that storm last week and that will mean some delays in shipments to the French front. We had to contact some of our other supplies and see if they could pick up what he won't be able to deliver and that involved a new contract to be written up."
Matthew rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Bonsues for short notice, a rough length of time for the extra deliveries so that they aren't billing us extra after the first man gets things back up and running... it was like that knot Alexander had to deal with only we couldn't cut it and actually had to untangle it." He looked at the two of them. "How much trouble are we in?"
"Quite a bit," Mary said, walking into the room with a flinty smile on her lips. While dressed rather nicely she was a far cry from the Mary that had prowled the halls of Downton. No need to be dripping in jewels and she hadn't worn a necklace since that night when she'd freedom herself from her father's grasp. "But it will be forgiven if you hurry up. No time to change but at least wash up. I can handle dusty uniforms but I won't tolerate grimy hands." With that she left as quickly as she had arrived, leaving the men to stare blankly at the empty doorway.
"So should you be offended that she is treating you like a servant..." Thomas asked, "or should I be scared that she is treating me like her husband?"
"A bit of both, I think," Matthew said ruefully before moving towards one of the washrooms to clean up. Thomas, after a moment, mimicking Mathew and went to find his own place to clean up. Michael took the opportunity to flee the parlor room and move towards the dining room, thankful for the interruption and how it had gotten Tom to forget all about their conversation.
Allen was already seated when Michael arrived, having toured some of the shipyards that day and thus not been at the office when the mess that had delayed Matthew and Thomas had come down. Catherine was beside him, whispering quietly to her husband but stood and greeted Michael warmly with a kiss on the cheek.
"I wanted to congratulate you when you arrived but Edith was so tickled pink about it all that I lost track of time." Catherine patted his shoulders. "See to it you keep her that happy..." Her fingers locked around his arms and squeezed hard, her nails digging into the soft flesh of his biceps. "Understand?"
"Absolutely," Michael said with a wince, Cat finally letting go and moving so Allen could shake his hand. "If I break her heart I will be the first to lash myself."
"I'll hold you to that," Allen stated firmly. "The girls deserve nothing but happiness." Michael could hear the unsaid 'my girls' in the general's comment.
"And here I thought poor Michael would avoid such threats being here rather than Downton," Edith teased as she came in, Michael unable and unwilling to stop the smile that formed on his lips when he spotted her. They shared a brief kiss, far more chaste than he would have preferred, before taking their seats as the rest of Edith's strange family (and, thanks to the connection that he shared with Matthew and Sybil, his own strange family as well) arrived. While Michael hadn't attended a true Downton dinner party (at best he'd been at Duneagle and that was a beast of a different color to be sure) he had heard about them from Edith and he knew for a fact that how the Lothrops ran their dinner table would have left the likes of Edith's parents horrified. While it wasn't a wild Viking feast where everyone ate with their hands and more food ended up on the floor rather than in one's mouth, it wasn't the overly structured affair that the ladies had grown up with. It was far more middle-class, with dishes prepared and placed on the table by the Lothrops' cooking staff before being left to their own devices. No footmen circling around the table with platters of ornate looking food that appeared to be more like works of art than actual meals and then snatching away plates before one was done purely because the host had had his fill. The Lothrops believed in 'comfort foot' as the Americans were fond of saying and also believed in getting one's fill.
That night saw the table dominated by a large platter heaped with roast beef so tender it shredded perfectly without even the need for a fork, dripping with gravy. A bowl of potatoes cut into cubes and fried in bacon fat to give the outer surface the perfect crispiness. Sweet carrots in a glaze sauce and rolls so delicious the General didn't even bother to add butter to them but rather ate them plain. Quickly the room filled with noise and people began to pass around dishes, laughter and conversations swelling and falling at the beginning of the meal as each person served themselves with only the Lothrops' butler, who by now was used to his employers being far too middle class for their station, filling water glasses as needed. Off to the side was the bottle of champagne the servants had managed to obtain, Edith suggesting they wait till dessert to do the toast.
"When do you think the wedding will take place?" Matthew asked him and Michael, after swallowing the piece of meat he'd been savoring, fought the urge to answer that if it were up to him they'd be married already.
"I'm thinking into the new year, a spring wedding perhaps. I'll need time to get the paper situated so I am comfortable leaving it alone while I go on my honeymoon."
"I doubt very much you'll be comfortable leaving it," Catherine teased. "It is your first child, after all."
"And the best kind as you actually get a return on the money you put into seeing it grow," Tom jested, earning titters of laughter from everyone.
Allen let out a huffing laugh. "You speak more truth than you realize. Take take take and then when you want them to come to dinner suddenly they have plans." Michael quietly shook his head at that, knowing that he was merely making fun of a bad situation. Allen and Cat's children were lovely people but the war was causing chaos for all of them. Franklin, the Lothrops' eldest, dropped by when he could but with his own job in the military, his young son, and it clear that he and his wife Beth trying for a second he didn't visit as often as the older couple would have liked. Their daughter Jennifer had decided 6 months after the Crawleys had arrived in London to help Cat's sister Lilith after she'd broken her leg and ended up falling in love with the country life (and after she had broken things off with the boy from the war office she'd been seeing it was good for her to have a change of scenery). As for their youngest he'd gotten his first taste of freedom and like all young men had decided that he wanted to explore life on his own and that meant not spending time with his parents; that would change with age but for now it left the Lothrops without any of their children around.
'Probably why they've adopted all of us,' Michael thought. 'Edith and her sisters are their daughters in all but blood now and us men are always welcome here.'
Edith smiled. "I like the idea of a spring wedding. Enough time to plan but not too much to wear upon me."
"I can attest to that," Mary said with a chuckle. "It was nice in the beginning planning my wedding but by the 5th month I just wanted it done and over with! Looking at this piece of fabric or debating on the color of the flowers… it became ever so tiring."
"Besides," Edith stated, glancing and Matthew and Mary, "it will also ensure that we aren't stepping on either of your toes." She looked down at her plate and a sweet, innocent little smile formed on her lips. "Nothing too complex though… I rather loved your wedding, Mary, but I'd like it to be a touch bigger and have more time to ensure more people can attend." She looked up suddenly, fearful that she had insulted her sister, but thankfully Mary was all nods and smiles.
"Yes, I can see that. I won't pretend that I wouldn't want to change some things…" Mary trailed off and Matthew took her hand into his own. "Still, we can ensure that everyone we wish to attend do so."
Michael watched as the sisters began to chat about ideas and couldn't help but marvel at how different his life was now. In the previous timeline he'd been stuck with a woman that didn't even remember who he was and the woman he did love seemingly out of his grasp. Now he would make Edith his wife in less than a year, the paper was a success, and he was surrounded by people who cared for him.
"What are you smiling about?" Sybil asked him.
"The same thing you are smiling about," he whispered to her. Sybil considered this for a moment before nodding and returning his grin with one of her own.
~A~O~O~O~F~
August 3rd, 1916
Thomas slowly pulled off his jacket and slung it over his right shoulder, a smile forming on his lips as he felt the steady breeze force away some of the warmth he'd begun to feel as he walked along the sidewalk.
'What would the likes of Mr. Carson think of they could see me now?' He thought to himself, once more marveling at how much his life had changed in the last two years. For the first time ever he actually had some wealth to his name, the General having covered much of his living costs as the man had wanted to get Thomas set up properly. Despite being destined to be a lord the General was a man who firmly believed in elevating the lower class rather than ruling them and any help he could give he would.
Not that Thomas wasn't doing his own part. Too many of his class burned through what little they managed to save on wasteful, foolish things. Drink, fine clothing, trinkets they hoped would fool others into believing that they were higher than their station. Of course drink only made one act far lower than their birth, fine clothing tore and began fade and wear down, and trinkets never truly fooled anyone when all the rest of them was far below such things in terms of wealth. Thomas wasn't about to make the mistakes so many before him had made. No, he had plans… not grand ones, ambitious ones at least by his reckoning, but plans nonetheless. He would save his money, build up enough that he could easily afford a decent flat eventually while still having enough to invest once the war was done. Matthew had told him that when all the fighting was done people would want to rebuild and that would be the best time to put his pounds to work. He also would do all he could to ensure that the General kept him on after the war ended. He knew that Matthew wanted to go back to being a lawyer once the war was done but Thomas had no desire to return to service. Even with the reduction in staff that would one day come once the Germans were defeated Allen would need people to assist him and Thomas wanted to have himself established.
Placing his hands in his pockets Thomas looked about the storefronts. Usually he and Matthew were on the road and thus ate together at whatever pub or restaurant the two of them could find but today was different. Matthew had decided to surprise his mother and Sybil with a trip out to eat and thus Thomas was left to his own devices. Thanks to having done working lunches the last few days Thomas and Matthew had both cashed in some favors and gotten several hours off, meaning the latter had more than enough time to treat Mrs. Crawley and Sybil to a decent meal and Thomas had a chance to take a leisurely summer stroll before finally deciding on what he wanted to do for lunch.
The only real negative was that he would be eating alone, but Thomas didn't mind that too much. Before he'd come to London he hadn't been, as some would say, 'rich in friends'. He had always been someone that liked to keep people at arm's length, fearful that they were out to use him. Negative experiences in his youth, when he had been far too trusting, had taught him that it was better to wait for people to prove themselves before letting them in on his true thoughts and feelings. The problem was that such attitudes caused others to see him as untrustworthy himself and thus building meaningful friends had never been easy for him.
Coming to London had seen him gain more people he could rely on… one couldn't spend as much time as he did with Matthew without becoming close… but at this point he and Matthew and even the Crawley sisters were more like family than friends.
'Mr. Carson must be shaking in horror just SENSING someone thinking that!' he thought to himself with a snicker.
But other than them? Thomas didn't have anyone else he would go wandering off to find and suggest they spend time together. He was a loner and-
"Well, this is something you don't see often."
Thomas was yanked from his thoughts and he turned to find another man in uniform leaning against a wall, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. He was around Thomas' age, maybe a year older at most, and all at once the former footman couldn't help but look the strange over. He was tall, one of the rare men in London that could actually stare Thomas in the eye without craning his neck up. Perfectly proportioned too; no overly long legs or stumpy limbs with stretched out torso. His hair was the color of gourmet dark chocolate and was not slicked back or held in place with any product though Thomas didn't know if any such creams in existence could tame those curls. Though he suddenly had the urge to try, even if just with his own fingers. The man wasn't what one would call a classically handsome; no statues of him would have been found in Ancient Greece or the like. But there was something about him with his lean sharp features and penetrating eyes that drew one's attention and held it solidly in place.
"And what's that?" Thomas asked. While he mentally knew that he sounded rather normal in his heart he couldn't help but hear his voice crack and squeak like he was some tongue-tied teenager once more.
"Someone in a uniform who actually knows how to slow down and enjoy life," the other man said with a smirk. "You know what I'm talking about."
"Afraid I don't," Thomas said, moving closer to the man. A glance at his rank showed he was Colour Sergeant. Still he didn't bother to salute, sensing that the other man wasn't one of the regimental pricks who demanded such things no matter the setting.
"Oh yes you do!" the stranger said with a light laugh. "Everyone in the war office is either brooding about the Frontor they are focused on playing politics and trying to move up the ranks because death just means new positions opened up. We get into messes like the one we are now in because too many people can't actually take a moment and remember that we are fighting so that we can actually enjoy life!"
Thomas had to admit that the other man was right. "Not just in the military either."
"Go on," the stranger motioned. He suddenly paused and shook his head. "Sorry, sorry… Jonsey." He held out his hand.
"Thomas." Giving Jonsey's hand a squeeze he continued. "I worked at an estate before the war and servants always fell into the same categories as well. Either so concerned about moving up that they made their entire lives be about the families they served or they fell into dark depressions and forgot to enjoy the small things in life."
Jonsey pressed his hand to his heart. "Finally… finally a kindred spirit! I've been surrounded by dyed-in-wool military men for so long… you, Thomas, are a breath of fresh air." He pushed off the wall and began to walk, motioning for Thomas to follow him. "So tell me, how did you break free of the trap?"
"Believe it or not it was the Earl's heir who helped me," Thomas said with a smile and a shake of his head. "He knew the war was going to be the hell that it is now and sought out some way to keep himself safe. He got a position in the War Office and in turn asked me to join him. I was about to make a mistake… was going to join the medical division-"
"Thought it would keep you off the front?" Jonsey asked with a sad sigh. "I heard about those rumors. Knew they were lies and tried to tell all the brave sots I saw that it was a mistake." For the first time since meeting him Thomas saw Jonsey's smile fall. "Far too few listened. Far… far too few. Good lads. Brave ones too. Not able to listen…" Thomas' jaw worked, wondering not only at what his fate might have been had he not listened to Matthew, but also how many people were dead because they didn't have a Matthew in their lives. "So this heir helped you out?"
"Still is. He isn't like most high borns… grew up middle class, so he knows a bit what it's like for folks like us." He gestured at Jonsey and himself.
"There is a story there…" Jonsey said.
"A long one. Almost as long as the one that ends with me calling my former employer's daughters by their given names and sharing meals with all three."
"Then I suppose I'll have to bribe you to get it. Have you had lunch?"
"I was thinking about it but not yet."
"Then I will buy and you will tell me your story."
Thomas considered the other man before shrugging. There were worst ways to spend an afternoon. "Lead on."
~MC~MC~MC~
Author's Notes: Part One of 'A Tale of Meals'. Not a ton to talk about here that wouldn't spoil what is to come but I did enjoy writing this chapter and finally getting to introduce this new plot for Thomas.
For our plot bunny for this chapter I want to keep it rather vague, to give people plenty of room to play around with. The premise is simple: Early Season 1, Matthew, Mary, and the entire family are sailing for France, as Robert has been asked by an ambassador friend to look into something for him. During the trip there is a storm, one thing leads to another… and Mary and Matthew end up in a lifeboat, eventually stranded on a deserted island. The story would be about how the two of them deal with the situation. How one handled it would be up to the writer. It could just be standard silliness, like Mary trying to fish and failing horribly at it or them in a shelter they made that keeps collapsing. It could be something dramatic, a story of survival, of danger and threats. And it could be something very sexy; maybe getting to the island is so rough it leaves their clothing in utter tatters and despite Mary's determination to remain classy and fashion some kind of outfit out of the rags they have Mary eventually gets frustrated and just decides "Screw it, going naked" and we get funny naked island time with the two.
