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Neither of them said a word when they heard the news. From downstairs came the sound of wild celebration; up in the bedroom of the Abbey Edward had been assigned, they sat side by side on the ornate bedspread, listening to one another’s breathing. One man watched the bright rectangles sunlight made on the carpet, while the other saw nothing at all. It hardly seemed real after so long. What was there to say?
“I guess that’s it, then,” Thomas murmured, after what seemed like hours suspended from reality.
Edward laughed softly. “That’s it.”
Ever so slowly, he put his hand on Thomas’ knee, and felt Thomas’ rougher hand cover his, an echo from a darker past. The scars would never go away, but he had the distinct impression of a new beginning stretching out ahead of them. Life goes on, everyone had said to him, and he had scoffed bitterly; what was the point in going on? But he thought he knew now: Life begins again, over and over. You went on not indefinitely, but until you reached a new start.
* * * * *
There was no question of returning to their previous homes. Joining up had been partly preemptive action for Thomas, but partly also a burning desire to get away from his old life. He had felt trapped at every minute there; going back to ask for his previous position would feel like a defeat. Even at the hospital Edward had expressed his disdain at being treated like an invalid, and if he returned to his family’s estate that was all he would ever be; his mother’s letters had made that clear. Home was no longer home for the two of them, and so they did the only logical thing: they found their own home together. Edward dictated his edited explanations to everyone who wanted to know what would become of him, poor thing, and the only person Thomas really said goodbye to was Sybil. Somehow, over the course of the war, they had come to know one another by their first names. He wondered if she knew about him and Edward- it seemed probable- but he knew for certain that she would miss them, and, surprisingly, that he would would miss her. If he had been a different sort of man, he probably would have fallen in love with her a long time ago. As it was, they hugged their farewells, and then the two of them set out to catch their train-- Edward, Thomas, Thomas-and-Edward-- and he wondered how it could be so different from everything he had known before.
In their compartment they sat quite alone, rocked back and forth as the train gained momentum. The rumble was a steady comforting constant, the only sound to be heard. Glancing over to Edward, Thomas saw an expression of acute sadness written across his face, the fine silvery scar lines around his eyes creased. He didn’t speak, and let the other man break the silence.
“I used to travel this route,” he said finally. “I remember watching the landscape go by out the window, and I can’t help thinking about what it must look like now.”
“Much the same, I expect,” Thomas replied. “Fields, trees- cloudy sky, like there always is. But- I can describe it for you, if y’like.”
“I wouldn’t mind that.”
“I will, then. But one thing first.” He checked swiftly that no one was nearby, and that the door was quite closed, and then leaned in and kissed him softly, brushing one hand along the side of Edward’s face. He lingered for a moment before reluctantly pulling away.
“I’m afraid we’ve missed some scenery,” he whispered, and Edward laughed. “But no worries- it’s a long ride. Let’s see- we’re passing a farm just now…”
* * * * *
It was hours later that they pulled into their station and stepped off into the milling crowds, Edward holding his cane and Thomas glad of an excuse to walk arm-in-arm. They ate greasy fish and chips at a pub down the road, and then questioned the locals until they were pointed toward the real estate agent’s offices in the center of town. The agent greeted them cordially when they walked in, but that was, of course, his job.
“Ah! Mr. Courtenay. I have the house ready that we’ve discussed; I assume you’ve come to make the final purchase?”
“Indeed I have,” Edward said agreeably. The agent, thankfully, had already been informed of his handicap, and didn’t appear too taken aback by his milky eyes. They shook hands firmly, and then the man turned to Thomas.
“And you, sir…?”
“My man, Barrow,” Edward cut in with their agreed-upon explanation. “He’s indispensable to me.”
“Of course.”
It was over rather quickly; Thomas couldn’t quite resist reading the entire contract out loud ‘for Mr. Courtenay’s sake’, and watching the agent squirm. But everything did seem to be in order, and Edward signed shakily on the line at the bottom. It was done.
Insisting they shouldn’t have to walk so far, the agent gave them a ride in his motorcar, which secretly made Thomas feel terribly important. It was a long ways out, and the auto puttered happily along through increasingly wilder green meadows, the paved roads turning to dirt and the air smelling faintly of salt. The soft rolling roar of waves grew louder. The agent talked the entire way, eyes fixed on the road and not noticing their clasped hands in the back seat. He said there was a little village down the road a ways; they wouldn’t be completely isolated. After a few minutes, it was easy to ignore him.
The car rounded a bend, and suddenly there it was: a smallish cottage with pale brick walls and patches of moss on the roof, the door painted bright blue. It stood out against the heavy gray clouds gathering overhead. Not grand, perhaps, but all in good shape, and Thomas whispered the sight against Edward’s ear.
They lifted their suitcases out of the footwell, and the agent handed Thomas the key.
“There’s some furniture in there, but it is fairly empty; care for me to show you around the place?”
“I think we’ll be quite all right,” Edward said loftily (Thomas couldn’t hold back a smirk at his tone). “We shall certainly let you know if we require anything.”
And the man tipped his hat and drove away, leaving them standing in front of the house- their house- as he disappeared around the bend.
“Well,” Edward heard Thomas say as the last echoes of a growling motor and gravel under wheels faded away, “That’s that.”
There was a click and a scrape as he unlocked the door, and then footsteps; Edward felt a hand on his back. Without another warning, Thomas scooped him up in his arms with a grunt, and he let out a shout of surprise. They went unsteadily forward, and it was only when he felt his foot kick against the wooden door frame that he understood.
“You- you really are a terrible romantic,” he huffed out. “I'm hardly a blushing bride.”
“Get you a ring if I could,” Thomas said cheerfully, and spun him around once, his feet now sounding on floorboards. He set Edward down carefully, letting him steady himself.
As Thomas gazed at Edward, he was overwhelmed by a deep emotion that he couldn’t quite name. It all felt so completely unreal, when he thought about it.
“I wonder, you know,” he said aloud, “What would have happened to us if we never met.”
Edward tilted his head up toward the sound of Thomas’ voice, and put out his hands to grasp his forearms.
‘I would be dead,” he stated bluntly. “I know you’re cringing, Thomas, but it is the truth. I would have slit my wrists back at the hospital, and there would have been no one there to stop me.”
“Lady Sybil would’ve.”
“And she would have been too late. But- you’ve saved me in more ways than one. I’m alive, yes, but I’m happy as well, happier almost than I was before the war.”
“Really?” Thomas’ voice was a soft rasp.
“We both know it.”
“Well,” Thomas said, “I know what I would have done. I had a plan, before you came and threw everything off-kilter. Maybe I’d have tried to get work elsewhere, but I would have ended up back at Downton eventually. ‘S a great old trap, I’ve never been able to get away. Good work, though, and likely my only choice. So back I would’ve gone, and wheedled His Lordship into giving me my old position. And I’d have been there for the rest of my life. A footman forever, or valet, or what-have-you. Hah! Maybe if old Carson died, I’d even have been butler. Can’t you just see it-- me, Mr. Barrow of Downton Abbey, sitting alone in that gloomy office until the end of eternity?” His tone had turned bitter.
“No, honestly,” Edward replied quietly. “Hard as I try, I can only picture you here with me.”
There was a gentle patter on the roof; it had begun to rain. In the muted light of an empty house, the two men embraced fiercely, as if they intended never to break apart.
* * * * *
Unlike the Duke of Crowborough, or like the Crawleys had been so close to becoming, or like so many others, the Courtenays were not penniless aristocrats. They had given Edward a generous allowance on which to live; he suspected they were relieved he had given up the estate to Jack without a fight. While he chafed at the dependence and the sense of uselessness that threatened constantly to overwhelm him, he was glad of the money. They would, at least, never have to worry about financial security.
Thomas insisted on finding a job, but in a roundabout way, the job found him. Buying bread one morning, he heard the woman running the bakery grumbling about her stopped clock. Before he had time to think, he said, “I can take a look at it for you.”
“Could you really?” She asked.
“O’course. My father was a clockmaker.”
She insisted on paying him, and though a bigger man might have refused, Thomas was happy to take a little money for a job well done.
A week later, a man approached him about a broken watch. Two days after that, a woman stopped by the cottage with her young son tagging along and asked if he knew anything about clockwork toys. Before long, he had a steady trickle of business, and he was doing the work he had imagined as a child, watching his father in the shop. As Edward was fond of saying, life was circular.
Edward memorized the layout of their house, and slowly began to learn the turns and twists of the town nearby. Gradually he began to go out by himself; the first time he left and returned without saying anything, he and Thomas had a roof-shaking argument about safety and self-sufficiency, and stormed off to opposite ends of the house in equally black moods. Three days afterward, Thomas asked him casually if he would run down to the village and pick up some white thread from the store to the left of the baker they always went to, just for mending a shirt. Edward kissed him full on the lips and went to do exactly that.
Over the months and years, the empty cottage filled up: a table and chairs for the kitchen, a large comfortable bed, another bed just to be on the safe side, a wardrobe, a bookshelf. When the first bookshelf couldn’t fit a single volume more in English or Braille, they bought another. Photographs found their way into empty spaces, and when Thomas was given a clock he had fixed as a present from the old lady who lived nearby, it was given the place of honor on the small, cramped mantelpiece. It chimed the hours exactly, so they both knew the time.
They made some friends over the years, and people visited them too, people from before. Thomas was astounded when Mrs. Hughes stopped by one afternoon, her face a little more lined than he remembered, her hair a little grayer, but her kind smile just the same. He invited her in, a bit awkwardly, and introduced her to Edward, who spun out his easy well-bred manners and pronounced himself delighted to meet her. They ended up talking for hours. She called him by his first name, as she had when he was still a footman, and he was again surprised to find that he no longer minded all that much. Things changed, he supposed. Right before she left, Mrs. Hughes took him aside on the doorstep.
“I’m so happy for you, Thomas,” she said quietly. “I know you were miserable, back at Downton, but I’m only glad you’ve found where you belong at last. Take care of yourself, and Edward; you’re good for each other.”
She gave him a final smile, and stepped forward for a brief hug; then she turned away and started off down the path.
Thomas Barrow was not a crying man, but he found that his eyes were a little watery as he stepped inside and locked the door.
The years went by, and he and Edward stayed together in the cottage by the sea. Things changed, and others stayed the same, and the beginning they had found with each other became its own different story.