I don't own anything related to Downton Abbey and never will. If you look at my bank balance, it will attest to that fact rather loudly.

So, this is my first DA fic. I'm probably not doing it right. I never do. Don't care, though! Rated M for mature (ha!) content, shenanigans, and let's play in the pool of tears, shall we?

Neverwas
by Scintillating Tart
April 2015 – June 2015

One:
Lakeside Reverie

This year, she managed to stop herself from stuffing stones into her pockets.

Once a year, Mrs. Hughes took one day – one whole day – off. It was the same day every year, and if Her Ladyship had paid close enough attention to notice it, blessedly, she had not commented. And Elsie used her single, solitary day off to wander the estate. It did not matter if the weather was good or bad; it was all part and parcel of her penance.

It was sweltering and the sun sizzled off the darkness of her jacket as she wandered aimlessly around the grounds. She'd caught her skirt on a fallen limb, tearing part of the hem. She'd stumbled a few times in the mud like a faltering foal, getting up to her calves in muck. But when she had come to a stop on the edge of the lake, Elsie Hughes had not put stones in her pockets.

She had not considered, not once, the need to find oblivion.

This year was different, somehow, fundamentally. Like a giant hand had come forth from the heavens and wiped her sins from the board of life, allowing her to begin again. It hadn't, not really, but mayhaps she had found a measure of peace rather than self-condemnation?

This year, she had something – somebody – a reason to live on. No matter how much she corrected herself internally, the truth remained that she had found a rather large… really rather large… reason to keep on. Of course, poor Mr. Carson had no clue about her 'day off', no clue about her penance, her punishment, her wish over the years to just jump in the lake, weighted down by fieldstone, rocks, whatever she could find to stuff her pockets with. Goodness, heaven only knew what he would think about her failings! He might just retract the gentle bridge of feelings that they had come to understand and build between them; and then she really might throw herself into the drink.

She stared out across the water, wondering if, for the first time in years, she might just be able to gloss over her past and pretend that it hadn't happened at all. No one at Downton knew; no one in the village could guess. She was just Mrs. Hughes, a bloody institution, never changing from the moment she'd taken the promotion to housekeeper. She wasn't soiled or dirty to them; she was only broken, fallen, in her own mind.

Her mind was a trap. A steel trap, neither forgiving nor forgetting.

Not forgetting the rough hands on her hips, the pain as she was taken against her will. Not forgiving herself for falling in the family way. Not forgetting the days and nights she had spent in a panic, praying that she would find a way for the child to come into the world and be cared for in a way she could not. Not forgiving herself or the man who had put her into the mess in the first place.

But here, she was only Mrs. Hughes. She was important, needed, valued – far more than she had ever been in her life. And Charles Carson… did she dare say it? Charles Carson loved her. They were to be wed soon; life would go on. The world would keep turning, and no one would ever, could ever, know of her shame and suffering.

The tears came unbidden, unwanted, coursing down her face as they always did. She carried such sorrow, such pain, tucked away in her heart. A daughter she had never wanted, a life she could have had, had she not thrown herself away from Glasgow and come to Downton. She could have been happy to be a mother, she would like to think, but not of that wee lass. Never to that lass.

Without thinking, without feeling, she dove into the water, fully-clothed, desperate to feel something other than agony of spirit.

When she came up for air, Charles, her dear sweet Charles, was tearing toward the water, looking for all the world like the hounds of Hell were on his heels. She waved from the water and watched him come to a halt on the edge. "Mrs. Hughes," he managed to huff and puff.

"Did you follow me?" she questioned, treading water.

"I don't know whatever you mean –"

"Did you follow me, Mr. Carson?" she called back to him. "I'll not be put out if you tell me the truth."

He hung his head, shame-faced. "I did," Charles replied. "Because I was worried about you – and my fears were justified, as you've ruined your new dress…"

"I don't give a fig about the dress," Elsie said. She came back to shore quickly, wanting to put him out of his misery. And what did he think he was doing, following her like she'd done something wrong?

She came out of the water and up onto the waterline with him, taking his hand when he proferred it. They were engaged, not in the Dark Ages. The time had long since come and passed when she would have lectured about impropriety and taking advantage; she was far too old and such a hypocrite for even thinking such things. "Thank you, Mr. Carson," Mrs. Hughes said stiffly. "I'll make my own way to the house."

"No, Mrs. Hughes, I – I demand you tell me what's going on here."

Demands. He demands? The bloody cheek of the man – she would sooner shatter a crystal goblet over his hard skull than to tell him the words that would break them both forever.

"What is going on here, Mr. Carson," she said in a cold, sarcastic tone, "is that this is my one day I request to be left alone, to my own devices, and you have broken your word to do so."

"I've given no such consent – Elsie, stop," he said, grasping for her hand, the one with her simple engagement ring on it. "Please talk to me."

"There is nothing to talk about," she said, lowering her voice. "Please." The word was soft, filled with anguish and pain she could not hold back.

"Just answer me a simple question," he rumbled, his voice low and concerned. "Are you all right, Elsie? You haven't… the cancer…"

"No," she mumbled. "Nothing so mundane. But if I told you…" If I told you, you would leave me. You would leave me forever and turn me out into the cold, Charles Carson. You would never love me again. I am tainted goods, soiled, dirty… not worthy of you.

"If you told me, it would give my heart a rest," he confessed. "I do not like seeing you so upset that you would dive into the lake rather than speak to someone –"

"Oh…" She huffed, feeling angry, put out, sick, and more than slightly in love with the infuriating man. Everything that she felt swirled around her in a dark, dank cloud, making her depression that much stronger. "Not everything is about you, Charles," she muttered, pushing past him with as much dignity as she could though she was utterly soaked to the bone.

He grabbed her hand, roughly bringing her back to him till she was nearly flush against him. She wondered for a moment if he'd lost all his senses – his trousers and jacket would never dry before supper – then whimpered as he bent to kiss her. "Please, Elsie," he whispered between soft, needy kisses, "tell me. Whatever is bothering you, we can overcome it together…"

She pulled away from him as fast as she could, once she got her mind working again. "Charles, please, no," Elsie protested quietly. "Not today. Never today. Never ever today." Not the anniversary of the assault on her womanhood; not the day burned into her mind as the day she had failed. Not when she could vividly recall hot breath against her ear and neck, bites on her shoulders and back through her muslin uniform, rough hands, bruises on her hips, blood on her thighs…

She was tainted, dirty, and she could never let Charles, her Charles, see the horrors of her memories.

Maybe it would have been better if this had been the year she had finally stuffed her pockets full of stones and debris, stepping into the lake and letting the waters close in over her head.

Because then she would never see the look on his face as she stomped all over his heart.

She didn't come down for supper. Carson still had a plate laid for her in her usual spot just to his right. He keenly felt the absence of his fiancée, just as he always did when she fell ill or was out for her half day – which happened rarely, but did happen. He wanted, really, nothing more than to go upstairs and barge into her sleeping quarters and tear her weak, feeble excuses limb from limb, exposing the truth and setting her free from whatever story she'd concocted in her head.

But he did not. He dared not. They were reputable people, they were. They were paid to run things and be efficient and discrete… not to announce their pain and suffering to the world. No one knew that he was suddenly having immense trouble with the fingers on his right hand – sometimes, they would seize up and turn into fat claws, and there was nothing he could do but wait for the agonizing spell to pass. Elsie knew, his darling Elsie Hughes, but only because he'd broken down and confessed to her that he was far from a young man.

But this? He had no idea how to reach her, to bring her back out of the hellish shell she'd disappeared into. She had been like a wild woman at the lake, fierce and frightened like he'd been about to attack her. It was only after they had returned to the big house and she had pulled away, tearing off to the attics without a word, that he had realized that he had probably done her more harm than good.

And the very thought broke his heart. That he could be the architect of her agony, rather than her savior from the pain. God, what had he done?

There was a soft rap on the door to his pantry, then it opened, revealing the object of his obsession. Her face was pale and drawn, her lips pinched together tightly. "I just came to tell you," she said very softly, "that you will be blaming yourself and you most certainly should not. It's nothing that you've done, Charles." Her voice broke, shattered, on his name. "I love you, and I would protect you from this," she finally managed to choke out.

"Surely, it isn't as bad as all that," he said, hesitating.

"No," she murmured, "it's worse than that." Elsie, his beautiful, sweet Elsie, smiled sadly. "I'll be off to bed, then. Tomorrow… tomorrow will be better," she promised very softly.

"Her Ladyship has hired a new nanny," he said, changing the subject quickly. "She'll be here within a fortnight – from London, where she's been caring for the children of the Earl of Maybury. A Miss McCabe, I believe." He watched her face for a sign of interest, almost sighing in bitter disappointment when there wasn't one. "Elsie, please –"

She took a step forward, then closed the door behind her, turning the key in the lock. "I worked as a lady's maid before I came to Downton," she said, her voice low and strained. "I had to fight off footmen attempting to take liberties, and there was a particular so-called gentleman… who took a shine to me. He caught me in my quarters more than once, touching and… and…"

His blood pressure was rising, hot and primal and furious in his veins. Carson knew this story, had heard it too many times before. He had witnessed it too many times; the randy men taking liberties with young, unmarried women who were ill-equipped to fight them off. But the idea that his fiancée had been one of the unlucky ones… it nearly drove him into an apoplectic fit of rage.

"And one day," she finally continued, "he took what he wanted in a cupboard beneath the main staircase." With that bombshell, she turned and left, closing the door behind her with a barely audible 'click'.

And she left Charles flabbergasted and utterly horrified.

END PART ONE