Barrow's Boy - A Downton Abbey Fanfiction

Can Melted Wings Still Fly?

     Thomas Barrow had a complicated relationship with religion. He had for years at this point. Yet, as he walked through the halls of the hospital, away from the room his son had been brought to, Thomas was willing to pray. If it would do any good, then he would do it without question. He knew that Theodore, ever the dissenter, would believe it to be a waste of his time, but Thomas couldn't care. 

     That was his son. He had spent years of his life thinking that he would never have children of his own, but he had been proven wrong from the moment that a three-year-old boy had been left in his care. He would be damned if he let that boy go twelve years later; before he even had the chance to grow into a man. 

     Although, that was not entirely fair. Theodore was more of a man than most of the grown-up boys that Thomas had met in his life. He could hardly picture any of those men doing what Theodore had spent the last five days doing, all in the name of what he believed to be just. 

     He had to have gotten that from Eliza.

     As he walked into the hospital's waiting room, Thomas paused, staring at the girl sitting with a sketchbook in her lap, tracing lines along whatever was being depicted in her drawing. After a moment, she looked up as if she could sense his eyes on him. Abigail gave him a tight-lipped smile, then looked down and blew excess graphite off of the page before closing her sketchbook. Her eyes drifted to the few stains on his clothes from the ambulance ride, where Teddy's blood had gotten onto him. He had forgotten about that until now. Thomas walked toward her, sitting down in the seat next to hers.

     "How long have you been here?" He asked, turning to look at the girl. She avoided his gaze, staring at the wall. 

     "I came as soon as I had finished giving Edward a firm talking to," she replied. Thomas raised an eyebrow. "Alright, fine. And a swollen lip."

     "You're going to destroy that boy's face," Thomas attempted to joke. Abi's eyes widened, the girl's head sharply turning to look at him.

     "How did you know?"

     "That you're the one who hurt his eye?" Thomas asked. Abi gave the slightest nod of her head. "I didn't; you just confirmed it."

      "You-" Abi's jaw set, and she turned away. "It was an accident."

     "Oh, I assumed as much." Thomas watched as Abi's jaw lost some of its tension. Her feet kicked back and forth where she sat, her eyes firmly focused on the ground. "What happened?"

      "I only meant to slap him. He was trying to tell me all of the things I'm doing wrong. How I'm not a 'proper lady' and the such. I didn't care, but he wouldn't let me go. So I tried to slap him to get away, but my ring was turned on my finger, and it caught his eye. It was ghastly."

     "I can imagine." 

      Abi closed her eyes, taking a few breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Thomas hesitated for a moment, trying to decide what to do. He supposed that talking to her shouldn't be that much different from Theodore or Eliza, right?

     "You are a very strong young woman, Abigail. I hope you know that." Abi opened her eyes, turning to look at him with surprise. "Your family reminds me of the family of an old friend of mine. She blazed her own trail, and they disapproved. But she was happier, in the end, doing what she loved than she would have been if she had followed their expectations."

     "What did she end up doing?"

     "Baking," Thomas replied with a knowing smile. "And raising her illegitimate son. The boy her parents never cared to meet."