A/N: Exactly five years ago, as a thirteen year old kid, I finally took the plunge and signed up to this website. Over that time I've flirted with a few fandoms, and I like to think that I've improved at least a little since those cringey early days. Fanfiction has been a huge part of my life for the better part of eight years, and I do like to think that I've grown as a writer thanks to the opportunities that this website has given me to express myself in ways that I find difficult through original works.

And what better way to celebrate than to write a fanfic about our dear Anna and Mr. Bates? If anyone deserves some happiness in the future it's these two, and I thought that marking the first five years of their marriage might be a nice way to do that. Anyway, I'll shut up now. :P

Disclaimer: Five years on, and I still don't own anything that I write about. Downton Abbey is most definitely included in this.

Five Years

1. 1920

They sat across from each other in a room crowded with other thieves and assaulters and murderers. The room stank of old sweat, and the men who were held captive here all had the same defeated look about their personas. It was somehow disconcerting to see, a row of empty eyes, life lost to despair, a mirror that no one could look into for long.

John, she was terrified to see, held that same air of utter hopelessness today. Sometimes he got like that on her visits – broody and wistful, despite his best efforts to give her his best on her too-short visits – but she had never seen him as despondent as he was today. All he'd offered her so far was a tight smile, and he had failed to respond to most of her self-conscious chatter about Downton's staff and owners. And when she'd lowered her voice with a soft smile to wish him a happy first anniversary for the following day, he'd flinched as though she'd hurled hateful abuse at him. It was bad enough seeing him the way he was – the weight loss that had thinned his face, the hair that had grown longer and was plastered unkemptly against his head, the dark stubble that made him almost unrecognisable to her – but to see this complete loss of faith was a stake straight through the heart.

Now she sat fidgeting with her gloves, wondering how to proceed from here. A cold awkwardness had settled over their shoulders like a cumbersome blanket, muffling out the rest of the world. John was failing to meet her eye, seemingly very interested in the questionable stain on the table in front of him.

They were wasting time, sitting like this. Anna had never failed to make her weekly visit to the prison (a testimony once again to Lord Grantham and his family's undying kindness), and those times always flew by, the hour that they were allowed seemingly nothing but mere seconds. In contrast to that, the rest of the week dragged by like a year until she was finally allowed to see him again. In all of their visits, they had never once argued, all too aware of how preciously short their time together was, preferring instead to spend the time focusing on the present and not on the past mistakes.

So why was he acting so distantly now?

Anna fought hard against the huge lump blocking her throat, desperately wishing that she could reach across the space between them and grasp his hands tightly within hers. His knuckles looked sore and angry, cracked open by the cold, and she could only imagine the pain that his leg had to be bringing him. If only they could be together as man and wife should be. She'd help soothe the pain.

Instead she had to make do with saying his name softly. "John."

No response, just the slump of his shoulders.

"John, look at me. Please."

A second's hesitation, then he raised his brown eyes to meet her blue. She offered him a weak smile, glad that he had at least responded to her this time. The shadow of his stubble made him look years older. Her heart clenched in her chest at the sight.

"That's better," she said, attempting to inject a business-like note into her voice. "Now, tell me what's wrong."

His gaze flickered, and she thought that he would close down again, perhaps even retreat from the table, leaving her desperately reaching towards his withdrawing back. Several tense seconds passed before his shoulders sagged further in defeat. Relief flooded her body for a short-lived moment.

"I've failed you," he said quietly, the chains on his handcuffs rattling as he pushed himself away from the table, as though the more distance he put between them, the less pain he was likely to inflict upon her.

Relief cooled into an icy dread. "John, don't be silly. Of course you haven't."

"I have," he said, and his voice was harsher than he'd intended. He watched her stiffen, and the familiar wave of self-loathing washed over him. His old friend.

She took a deep breath to keep her frayed nerves in check. "Let's not dampen the day with that sort of talk. And it's our wedding anniversary tomorrow. I want to be able to remember this visit as a happy one, not one spent in a state. So let's drop the subject. If you don't know how happy I am to be your wife by now…"

"But that's just it," he said, and his quiet resignation was infinitely worse than an explosion of his temper could ever be. "We'll have been man and wife for a whole year tomorrow, and look how that year has been spent."

Anna opened her mouth to interrupt him, but he cut across her. It was not often that he spoke so much – she was the chatty one, he was simply content to drink in her words as though they were the elixir of life, sitting quietly by. Now it seemed as though a dam had broken within him.

"Look at me, Anna. You're married to a convicted murderer –"

"– An innocent man –"

"– And you've had to spend the year subjected to gossip and judgement. You've had the strain of the trial and the turmoil of the sentence, and you've had to worry about me. I never wanted to burden you with any of my mistakes, but I've still pulled you into the middle of them all anyway. And I've not even been able to stand by you properly. I've been unable to comfort you when you've been upset, or hold you when you've been happy, or–" He stopped himself there with an ugly bark of laughter, and she thought some of the man that he'd been was shining through.

"John Bates," she told him firmly, wishing she could take his hands, "I want you to stop right there before I do something I might regret. Or do you want me to join you in there for assault? I'd claim to be knocking some sense into you, but I'm not sure if they'd believe me."

Her lame attempt at humour did the trick; the corners of Bates' mouth twitched weakly. Heartened by this, Anna dropped her voice, her tone urgent, willing him to understand.

"I don't want you to ever feel like that, you hear? I'm not a silly little girl. I know that this past year has been difficult. I know it's going to be difficult until you are released from here. But I can think back on every good moment we've shared, and everything's fine. Our wedding day was the best day of my life, and I'm proud to have you as my husband. And you may be in here, John, but I'm never really without you because I have your name. That gets me through the day."

A lump formed in Bates' throat as she spoke. Dear God, was he going to cry? It certainly seemed so; Anna, his beautiful beautiful Anna, was blurring in front of his eyes.

"I don't deserve you," he told her thickly.

"Yes, you do," she replied. "And I'll prove it to you every day for the rest of our lives just as soon as you're let go."

He made a sound, something between a choked sob and a laugh, blinking rapidly to dispel the fear of tears. She pretended to be interested in the buttons on her gloves while he composed himself, letting him keep his male pride intact. She couldn't prevent the triumphant smile from creeping across her face, however. When she raised her head again, she found him staring at her intently. A little bit of the hopelessness had left his eyes, and she thanked God for that. He leaned in close again, and she knew that the most horrible part of the visit was finally over. Any minute now the guard would announce the visitation as finished, but Anna felt that she could live with it this time, knowing that she had managed to bolster his spirits. She didn't want to see him unhappy, not so close to their first anniversary.

"Time!" bellowed the guard. The flurry of activity began then, with the prisoners and visitors exchanging goodbyes. A few tears were shed here and there. Anna despised having to say goodbye to her husband, to watch him being dragged back to his cell with the rest of the murderers and thieves and assaulters. This time, however, she held her head high, smiling brightly at him. Reaching out for him as they got to their feet was out of the question, so she made do with wringing her hands together.

"I love you," he said over the din of the prisoners moving back towards the door they had come through. His tone was wistful.

"I love you too," she replied. "I love you so much."

"Bates!" one of the guards bellowed, cutting off anything else that the two of them might have wanted to exchange.

"Get going," Anna said with a tremulous smile. "I don't want you to get into trouble."

"It would be worth it for one extra minute with you," John replied, but began to turn away with a quirk of his lips. Anna watched him limp painfully across the room towards the guard who had shouted him. His gait was slow and clumsy. He could just about manage short distances without the aid of his cane, but even the strain of that took its toll on his injured leg, leaving his limp so bad that he looked almost one-sided when he walked. The guard would assist him the rest of the way back to his cell.

Anna turned to leave then, unable to bear seeing him struggling for a moment longer. Only when she was outside did she crumble, allowing the tears to scald her face and the sobs to block her throat.

A/N: I plan to update this once every two weeks, since I didn't actually manage to get all of the five years done for today. xD There's fluff in the future, though. I can wholeheartedly promise you that.