Veeeeeery AU. Just me being silly and speculative really.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

It was amazing, amazing really that they had lasted this long. It dawned on him as he sat watching her one evening; her gracefully face bowed over some stitching. Though perhaps not: perhaps they both just lacked the ability to let people down.

"Aren't I allowed to look at you now?" he enquired lightly, "After all we've done."

She blushed slightly and returned to her sewing, mumbling "Ridiculous man" under her breath. Nevertheless, he averted his eyes from her; leaving his chair to sit beside her on the settee. She fit snugly under his shoulder. Some things never change. He did not really mean to, didn't think about it, but nuzzled his face into her hair.

"How am I supposed to get any work done with you acting like some great overgrown puppy?" she asked, pretending to be cross.

He kissed her temple and she went back to work in exasperation.

"Elsie," he began after a while lost in thought.

Despite their previous tone she could always tell when he wanted to be serious and looked up from her cloth.

"You never think of swapping me, do you?"

She rolled her eyes at him.

"Who'd have me?" she asked.

"I'm serious."

She put down her sewing and couldn't help but laugh a little incredulously: he couldn't half talk nonsense sometimes.

"Have I ever shown signs of wanting to "swap you", as you so put it?"

"I've just been thinking," he told her, "We've been... for so long. It's a wonder you're not tired of me by now."

"I know," she replied, looking suddenly weary.

But then she wrapped her arm around his waist, possessively as always.

"But, Charles, you're just going to have to believe me when I say I'm not."

He loved to hear her say his name. It brought back memories: one memory in particular, from twenty years ago. Her first day at Downton, as it happened. She had been beautiful; not as she was now, the grace that ebbed from the inside to her face but a stunning quality carried almost as if she was unaware of it. He remembered their introduction well. His father- who had then been the butler- introduced them at supper time in the kitchen.

"My son, Charlie" his father had said, indicating with his hand, "He is new to his role as under-butler rather as you are new to the position of head housemaid."

She had surveyed him shrewdly threw those brown eyes. There was something approving in them that prevented him feeling intimidated despite the air of assurance she had about her.

"Charles," he had mumbled under his breath.

"I'm sorry," his father corrected himself, turning to Elsie, "Now that my son has been promoted he feels he should adopt a more serious persona."

He felt ridiculous and although his father wasn't trying to make him feel so, as usual he was managing it admirably.

"Pleased to meet you," she extended her hand to him and added, without a hint of mocking, "Charles."

Some kind of current seemed to zip through their hands. From that moment on, it must have seemed to the rest of the household that they were inseparable; they weren't at first, they just found themselves together an awful lot and getting to know each other well. Long before anything began there must have been at least half a dozen rumours about them doing the rounds; it was Downton custom.

In those days the housekeeper was an imperious matronly figure; not unlike Elsie emerged to be in later years but from the West Country and slightly shorter. The point was, she stalked the servants' corridor in a fashion that Elsie seemed to have learned from her in an attempt to keep order. Naturally, when something began, as it was bound to do, this was a definite hindrance. It was on an evening that he first kissed her. Being the only two beside his father and the housekeeper entrusted to fetch things from the attic, they had been sent up there to fetch some boxes or other down. Be blamed the light. Streaming in through the window; illuminating the dust, illuminating her face it was that that made him give into the urge he had had for weeks now and cup her face in his hands and kiss her soundly. She made no protest, almost as if she had been considering doing the same herself.

They stood there a while, she was just the right height to tuck comfortably under his chin if he bowed his head a little, not saying a word. Then;

"Meet me tonight."

He surprised himself in saying it. Much less than he seemed to surprise her. His heart started to race. She nodded against his chest.

"I don't want to lose you," he clarified, as mush for his own benefit as hers.

"I know," she responded.

They had met as promised after supper. Luckily, it was summer and neither had trouble sneaking out. As under butler, it was his duty to lock up so they wouldn't be missed returning late. They met at the old gamekeeper's cottage. It has long been out of use but it was still habitable. They had started in the sitting room, sitting and talking, then sitting and kissing. Both knew deep down that resistance was futile: like walking against the flow of a rushing river. Before midnight he was lying next to her on the bed, kissing his way past her dress as she undid his shirt buttons.

He supposed that now, if either he or she found two young members of staff carrying on as they had there would be hell to pay. But they had been different. It sounded stupid and self-important, but he couldn't imagine anyone else feeling the way he did for Elsie; he had never seen evidence in any other human being of feelings as strong as his were. It frightened him at first, it frightened him terribly. But gradually he came to accept that it had to happen sometime: that he would find a human being that he couldn't live without. What made it all all right was that she didn't seem to want to live without him either.

They met anywhere they could. It was easier when his father retired and moved to the village: they would spend most nights curled up on the settee in the parlour he inhabited as butler, sneaking back to their beds before sunrise. She often wore a spare pair of his pyjamas. She pretended at first that it was because her nightdress was too big but when she received a new one for Christmas she continued the way she had. In many such ways, he found, she was very unladylike. It only served to make her more endearing. Her figure, despite being fragile, was always womanly and he was often struck by the lavender scent she wore as he undressed her.

Once he asked her to marry him. Not so much directly, but asked her if she wanted to be married.

"Would it really make any difference?" she had asked in response.

Well, yes, he had said. No more sneaking around in half-light. No more swiftly exchanged looks when they thought no one was watching. No more accidentally bumping into each other in secluded areas of the house. She had sighed and said she rather like exchanging looks when they thought no one was paying them attention.

"You mean we're not respectable, don't you?" she asked wearily at the expression on his face.

He had denied as much, but that was what it came down to in the end: this was certainly not the done thing.

"Have you considered that we don't have to have a piece of paper to make us be faithful to each other?" she had asked.

He hadn't previously considered this and couldn't quite think of what to say in reply. She slipped her hand into his and squeezed.

"I know I love you, Charles. I don't need any documents to remind me."

"But it still means we have to sneak around," he reminded her.

"I enjoy a challenge," she replied with a wry smile.

They stood quietly for a few moments.

"As long as we can respect each other," she told him, "We'll always be respectable."

And so they had continued, meeting each other frequently even when she became the housekeeper and therefore responsible for rooting out such profligate behaviour. He never asked her to marry him again, she had made it clear enough that as far as she was concerned they were already married. And so the years had ebbed on, as years are inclined to do and they found themselves sitting together in the evenings, drinking tea and staring at each other mainly. He sighed as the familiar lavender drifted from her hair.

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