Barrow's Boy - A Downton Abbey Fanfiction

More Like You

     Teddy was expectantly waiting for Thomas when he arrived at the hospital to bring Teddy back to the Abbey. As the elder Barrow walked through the door, he looked towards his son. Then, he paused, looking at his face. After a moment of simply staring, he spoke. 

     "What do you want?" 

     "What makes you think I want something?"

     "That's your 'I want something' face."

      "Just to go home," Teddy replied, smiling up at the elder Barrow. Thomas still looked skeptical, so he continued. "And to ask you something."

      "There it is," Thomas said, pointing a finger at Teddy. "Alright, once we get back, you can ask." Teddy grinned, about to reply to his father when Dr. Clarkson walked into the room. Knowing that the sooner they were done here, the better, he closed his mouth, letting Clarkson say what he had to say. 

       The people in the servants' hall looked up at them as they walked in. Jimmy tilted his head, eyes scanning him, while Daisy, who had poked her head out of the kitchen, smiled at him. OBrien barely glanced at him, eyes immediately going back to her sewing. Not sure what else to do, Teddy just smiled, well aware that he still had some bruises and a bandage around his wrist. Thomas, on the other hand, wasn't afraid to speak. 

     "There's no need to stare. Let the boy get settled in first." With that, Thomas led Teddy to the stairs, climbing up them with Teddy right behind. 

     "I wish I could do that," Teddy quietly said once they were away from the people. 

     "Do what?" 

      "Stand up to people like that. Speak my mind."

      "You'll get there," Thomas simply replied, looking over his shoulder at his son. Teddy swallowed, following his father down the corridor to their room. 

       "I wish I was more like you." Thomas made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. "I mean it. You always know what to say when others are being, I dunno, ignorant, or prejudiced." Thomas didn't respond for a moment, placing Teddy's school books on the boy's bed. 

       "Well, I don't think many others would want to be like me."

        "But if I was like you then I would have known how to respond to Saffer. Both recently and in the past."

        "You shouldn't let him bother you. He's a ding-bat."

        "But he does bother me!" Thomas froze at the crack in his son's voice and turned to look towards him. "And he scares me, especially now. He's double my size, Dad, double!" 

         "Alright," Thomas said quietly, not sure what else he could say. 

          "Everett and Percy want to get back at him, and I said I would ask you for help. But what if he gets back worse at me?" Thomas sat down on the edge of his bed, patting the spot on it next to him. Teddy walked over, sitting down as well, taking in a deep breath. 

           "Teddy, I'm going to be honest, seeing you unconscious in that hospital bed. I was the most worried, the most scared, I have ever been in my life-"

            "You've been shot," Teddy reminded his father, looking up at him. 

            "Exactly. But the thought of losing you was so much worse than that." Teddy stared up at his father, lips slightly parted. "You're special, Ted. No matter what anyone else says. And I don't want to keep seeing them push you around like they have been, and I don't want you to feel afraid to walk around in the village because of them." 

             "But they're right. I am just a bastard son-"

             "No. That doesn't define you. You are going places, you can become anyone you want to be, and none of them get to stand in the way of that." Teddy thought for a moment, then looked up at his father again. 

              "I'm going to be a doctor one day," he said, to which Thomas nodded. "So I think they need a taste of their own medicine."

            Teddy, Everett, and Percy stood together outside of the school the following Monday, watching as students filed out of the door. 

             There he was, Lewis Saffer, along with his gang. Teddy and his friends went unnoticed by the boy as he talked to his friends, saying something that Teddy couldn't make out from where he was standing. 

             Then, it was noticed. Edward pointed out a stain on the back of Lewis' trousers. Deep red in colour, the other students around were clearly starting to notice as well. And that's when Saffer started to show his panic. 

             He took off his jacket, tying it around his waist, trying to push his way through the crowd as he did. Some of the other students were laughing, including a few that Teddy pinpointed as having experienced teasing from Saffer's gang in the past.

              Teddy and his friends exchanged a glance, a smirk on Teddy's face as he carefully returned his red ink to his bag.