Fic title: Unspeakable Sin

Fic summary: *spoilers for S4, AU from S3E4 onwards* "Suppose you're with child, what will you do then?" "I'll kill myself." The unthinkable has happened: weeks on from the concert, Anna realises that her greatest fear has come true. (M rated and trigger warning)

When I watched S4E4 I was convinced that conversation was foreshadowing a very different storyline from the one we saw play out. I'm very relieved the story went in a different direction, but on a particularly rough day, I rewatched it and a little "what if" lodged itself in my head. This is the result.

Disclaimer: I wish I owned Downton Abbey, but that priviledge belongs to Julian Fellowes and ITV

Anna walked slowly down the servants' staircase, hoping against hope that her stomach would not betray her during breakfast. If she timed her arrival right, she would arrive in the servants' hall after the strong-smelling porridge had been cleared away, and if she were lucky, she would be able to choke down a slice of toast before Lady Mary's bell summoned her. But first, there was another hurdle to negotiate.

"Good morning, Anna."

"Good morning, Mr. Bates," she replied, concentrating on getting the words out without a tremor in her voice, and focusing on a smudge on the wall behind him to avoid having to meet his gaze. She couldn't, simply couldn't, see the pain and confusion in his eyes –she knew that one look at those dark eyes would be all it would take for her to give in to tears. After a sleepless night marked by nightmares and worry, she wanted nothing more than to curl up in his arms, spill her secrets out to him and have him make everything better –just like she used to do before –but she knew that wasn't possible, especially not now. If there had been even a slim chance before that he would be willing to forgive her and take her back, spoiled as she was, the changes in her body over the past three weeks had put paid to that.

She edged gingerly past him and walked into the bustling hall, leaving his pleading "Anna, please tell me..." trailing in the air behind her. Before Mr. Bates –she no longer felt she had the right to call him John, as if using his Christian name would pollute him –could follow her into the hall, His Lordship's bell rang for him.

"Daisy, could you save me some breakfast?" she heard him ask as he removed his coat and hat a few feet behind her.

Have you not had breakfast? she wanted to turn and ask him, scan his face for signs of peakiness or possible illness, but made an effort not to. He didn't need her concern, could manage perfectly well without her.

Lady Mary seemed lost in her thoughts that morning, and Anna was grateful for the silence as she worked on preparing her Ladyship for the day. It was easier to focus on her tasks when she didn't have to balance speaking with choking down the nausea that had started to creep up on her a couple of hours after waking.

"Anna," Lady Mary began as Anna started putting her hair up, jolting her out of her reverie, "are you sure you are up to this today?"

"Of course I am, my Lady," Anna answered, but as she caught a glimpse of herself in Lady Mary's ornate mirror, she could see why her Ladyship had asked. Her face was ghost pale and her eyes appeared sunken in. If she were honest with herself, her whole face appeared hollow, with her cheek and jaw bones more prominent than usual. "I'm still a little under the weather," she volunteered, feeling that her Ladyship's concern merited a more forthcoming response.

"Still ill? It's been a few weeks, maybe you should see Clarkson?"

"I am going to, my Lady," Anna admitted. "Will that be all for this morning?" she asked, suddenly desperate to leave the room before Lady Mark asked any more questions. Hard as it was to block Mr. Bates' questions, it was even harder to politely deflect Lady Mary's questions, and it was only a matter of time before Lady Mary asked her more directly –or sought answers from someone else downstairs.

"I think so," Lady Mary answered, still looking searchingly at Anna's reflection in the mirror. "Only –Anna, if you are ill or in any difficulties, you will come to me, won't you?"

Anna agreed and reassured Lady Mary once again that she was sure she was fine, hard as it was to lie. Sometimes she wondered whether things would have been different if Mr. Green hadn't been Lord Gillingham's valet. Maybe it would have been possible to admit her shame to the perceptive Lady Mary if said shame would not also by association tarnish Lord Gillingham in Lady Mary's eyes? Anna shook her head fiercely to get rid of the question in her mind. Dwelling on doubts was pointless now. Nothing would change, and the last thing she needed was to start thinking about giving in and confessing her secret and her fear to someone. She had even started avoiding Mrs. Hughes ever since their conversation when Anna had asked to move back into her old room.

As Anna sat in the sewing room with one of Lady Mary's torn gowns, tears overcame her and she turned her back to the door in case Madge or Baxter should come in unexpectedly. That brief exchange in Mrs. Hughes' office had been replaying itself over and over in her mind.

"What if you're with child?"

Anna's answer had been instant, but in no way unconsidered. It had been the first thing on her mind as she walked back to the cottage alone –the insidious fear that Green's child could be taking root in her body. That was one betrayal John –Mr. Bates, she had to remind herself –that Mr. Bates would never be able to forgive. There had been nights, when she wanted nothing more than to run back to the cottage and beg him for forgiveness for somehow leading Green on, that she thought about coming clean to him, admitting that she had somehow caused the attack and asking for his forgiveness, but any chance of all that had vanished now. First had come the waves of nausea and weakness, then the complete absence of a cycle for weeks after the attack, until she finally had to acknowledge that the unthinkable had happened: in months of love, she and Mr. Bates had been unable to create a child together, but in minutes of pain, shame and terror, Mr. Green had.

Mrs. Hughes' reply of I won't listen to that had extinguished any chance of Anna's going to her with this secret. She wouldn't understand, wouldn't see that in Anna's eyes, this was a fate worse than death, that she could never face Mr. Bates with the consequences of her betrayal. No matter how many times Mrs. Hughes had tried to reassure her that she had done nothing wrong, that she bore no fault for Green's attack, Anna could not believe it. Somehow she had made it happen, somehow Green had been able to see that she was bad inside and deserved it. Sometimes she wondered if the attack was her punishment, possibly for having lustful thoughts about Mr. Bates prior to their marriage, for throwing herself at him like a common whore?

No, she couldn't go to Mrs. Hughes with this. Anna was terrified that Mrs. Hughes would tell Mr. Bates about the child growing inside her, would convince him that it was the anxiety over the pregnancy that had led Anna to move back temporarily to the Abbey. Anyone could work out what Mrs. Hughes would hope to accomplish with that: Mr. Bates would be thrilled, Anna would have to move back into the cottage and play happy families with a Baby Bates.

Tears were falling hard and fast onto Lady Mary's lilac gown and Anna pushed it away from her, dropped her needle and buried her face in her hands. She couldn't subject Mr. Bates to that, couldn't live a lie with him. And the child might look like Green, every day she would have to face it and be reminded, as if her nightmares weren't reminder enough.

Anna left the house for her half-day off before luncheon was served in the servants' hall and was at the hospital waiting for Dr. Clarkson by 1pm. Her hands clutched tightly on her bag to keep them from trembling, she tried to avoid meeting anyone's eyes, afraid that her secret was visible on her face for all to see.

In response to Dr. Clarkson's almost jovial "Mrs. Bates, what can I do for you today?" she spilled out her fear, fighting hard not to break down as she had to say the dreaded words with child and went anxiously through with his examination.

"Congratulations," Dr. Clarkson smiled, and Anna had to bite her lip not to burst into tears again. All along, she had been nursing a tiny hope that maybe she was mistaken all along, which Dr. Clarkson had now dismissed.

"Is this not welcome news, Anna?" Dr. Clarkson asked when he noticed Anna's reaction to his words.

"It is," Anna lied –the last thing she needed was Dr. Clarkson suspecting anything. "Just overwhelming –and unexpected."

She left the hospital with Dr. Clarkson's parting reassurances that it appeared to be a perfectly healthy pregnancy ringing in her ears. His estimate that the child would be born around Christmas-time seemed to mock her. She had elicited from Clarkson a reassurance that he would not mention this to anyone from the Abbey yet –"I need time to come to terms with the news before I tell anyone," she had lied –so her secret was safe on the off-chance that Dr. Clarkson ran into Mr. Bates or Mrs. Hughes.

As she walked slowly back to Downton, her plan began to solidify itself. There was no question of tricking Mr. Bates into believing that the child was his, she loved him too much to trick him into that. Equally, there was no chance that she could hide her pregnancy from everyone and give the child away.

By the time Anna had reached the Abbey, her mind was made up. She could not carry and give birth to Green's child.

The thought of using arsenic flitted briefly through her mind but she immediately dismissed the idea. Painful as her loss would be for Mr. Bates to bear, it would be bearable if she left him a letter confessing, explaining and begging forgiveness, but after Vera, using arsenic would be too much to inflict on him.

A conversation that she had overheard as an impressionable child between two of the dairymaids at her parents' farm resurfaced in her mind.

"Heard she used a coat hanger. Killed the child, which was what she wanted, but killed her too," Hester had whispered ghoulishly to Nan. As a child, she hadn't been able to fathom the logistics of it, but along with other pieced-together scraps of information as a young adult, and later as a married woman, she now understood it perfectly well.

You have no other choice, she told herself firmly. Her vision was so blurry from tears that she stumbled on a stone on the path leading to the Abby, banging her knees and hands and skinning them badly. She laughed cynically at herself when she winced at the pain as she cautiously prodded the sore spot on her knee. She had been put through worse pain, and she was no fool, she knew she was going to put herself through far more pain, unimaginable pain, later. The thought of the pain, of the loneliness, brought the tears back to her eyes and she began to shake uncontrollably with fear and doubt.

This will be a multi-chapter fic. Reviews really appreciated, especially since I'm not sure how this will be received.