Downton Abbey 1. Teaser

AN: This is a teaser, not the beginning of the story. Chapter one will be posted on Sunday.

I sincerely hope that posting teasers is not against the rules of fanfictionDOTnet.

I would not have posted it if it wasn't for the many people who have already asked about this story and I am really excited about some of you looking forward to my story.

Several lines have of course been taken from the show and I take no credit for those lines or the parts of the plot that I took from the TV series. I don't take credit for the characters either.

Let me know what you think.

Kat

* * *

"Pregnant? … I don't understand what we've done differently"

"You know Matthew, if that child is a boy, you won't be the heir anymore. That will of course alter how Mary views getting married to you."

He watches Mary watch her parents and there is an expression on her face he has never seen there before. It is an expression of love and longing. "That is what you want, isn't it?" he asks her and she turns to him. "That is all I want Matthew. Not a title or an estate. That is what I want." She returns to watching her parents and there are tears running down her face.

"What if he finds out about Pamuk?"

"I haven't forgiven you."

"Well, Robert, should this child turn out to be a boy, then at least your wife has turned out to be good for more than just providing the money to save this estate from ruin. It is about time she did her duty."

"My dear, don't start a relationship with a servant."

She wants to fire her. After she has given years of her life to that ungrateful Lady who isn't really a Lady, she is about to be fired.

"What happened?" He doesn't know which of the girls asked the question.  
"She slipped and hurt herself. There was a lot of blood."

"Lady Grantham has been very lucky."

"Don't you ever regret not having a child?"  
"His lordship asked the same question today."  
"So do you regret it?"  
"I don't know. His lordship is certainly excited about becoming a father again."  
"Would you be excited about becoming a father?"  
"Anna, why are you asking all these questions?"

For the past two weeks he has let himself hope that this baby will finally be a boy. He wants a son, not only because he'd have an heir then, but because he wants to raise a boy.

"Lady Grantham is well and you are the father of a healthy boy."

"We are at war with Germany."

"I have to defend my country."

"We should move the wedding. To before you leave."

_Sentimental Haste_ – Coming to you on Sundays and Thursdays


	2. June 1914

AN: First of all, I want to give credit where it belongs, so here we go: The outset of the story and the characters have obviously been taken from Downton Abbey and I am just playing with them. The title of the story is taken from a line said by Mr. Darcy in the TV version of _Death Comes to Pemberley_. Elizabeth and Darcy are fighting about Darcy having given his consent for Georgiana to marry Colonel Fitzwilliam (although she does not love him) and Darcy is afraid that she might never find another husband. Elizabeth says "Better that than a loveless marriage" to which Darcy replies "Or one made in a wave of sentimental haste". The context here is a different one, as you will see, but I found this line rather powerful and very well acted, and the phrase just stuck with me.

The lengths of the chapters of this story will vary somewhat, I'd say roughly between 2000 and 5000 words per chapter and I think that chapter one will be one of the longer ones.

The baby living is of course the biggest change I have made to the story, but there are a few other changes as well where I needed them (e.g. Mary returns from London earlier than she does on the show, the dinner where Strallan visits is set a little later in the story etc.)

This is the most complex story in terms of subplots and perspectives that I have written so far, it also is rather long (around 30 chapters) and to make this story worth reading, I will need more time writing and mainly reviewing and rewriting than I usually do, so there won't be an update every day, but only twice a week, on Sundays and on Thursdays.

This chapter is mainly about Cora, Robert, Mary and Matthew, but other characters will 'join the cast' so to speak within the next few chapters.

Once again a huge THANK YOU to all of you who followed or even favorited this story based on the teaser. That really humbles me and I don't think that I have ever been so nervous before posting the first chapter to a story, but I do hope that you like this one.

Please tell me what you think.

Kat

* * *

_Robert_

"Pregnant?" He needs to sit down. Right now. So he plops down on her bed.

"You needn't be quite so shocked." She seems to be a little furious. Of course he needs to be shocked, they are having another baby, something both of them have thought impossible for at least the last fifteen years. Of course they've done what needs to be done to have a baby, but so they have very regularly since they day they got married a little over 25 years ago. It is terrific fun after all.

"Give me a moment. You haven't been pregnant for 18 years."

"And I'm pregnant now." How is this possible?

"I don't understand what we've done differently." To his knowledge, nothing.

"Stop right there. If you want to know more, go down and offer the doctor some whisky." He is the one who needs a whisky but he thinks he should not tell his rather angry wife that right now.

"I can't take it in." His wife's expression changes from furious to doubtful.

"But you're pleased?" What kind of a question is that? How could he not be pleased?

"Of course." He takes his wife's hands and kisses them. When he looks up again, she smiles at him.

"Of course I'm pleased," he says and kisses her, this time on the lips. He leaves her then because he doesn't want the doctor to have to wait too long for him, but he promises to come back to her soon. She smiles at the promise and gives him another fleeting kiss.

He still can't take it in, not really. Dr. Clarkson has told him that there was no indication for difficulties, that both Cora and the baby should be fine. The doctor warned him that Cora should not overexert herself, a warning she had been given during her three previous pregnancies as well, a warning she ignored three times, a warning he is sure she is going to ignore again. Once the doctor is gone, he runs up the stairs again, rather glad that he doesn't meet any of his daughters. It is probably a lucky coincidence that Mary returned about half an hour ago and that the girls are now busy looking at her new dresses. Or rather, Mary will be busy showing the dresses off, while Edith will be interested and Sybil will be rummaging Mary's suitcases for the books she asked Mary to bring from London. In any case, he would not want to tell them now what was going on, but he knows he couldn't say 'nothing' if they asked him. He knows he has got the most stupid grin anyone has ever seen plastered across his face, but he just can't stop smiling. This must be the best surprise of his entire life. He opens the door to his wife's room without knocking and she says a half-indignant "Robert," to him but once she sees the expression on his face she has to laugh.

"You look like a little boy on Christmas morning," she says to him.

"That is not how I feel though. The happiness I felt on Christmas mornings when I was still a little boy was nothing compared to how I feel now."

"So you really are happy?" She looks a little doubtful. She is sitting on her settee and he turns to her now and offers her his hand. She takes it, he pulls her to her feet and looks straight into her pale blue eyes.

"Happy doesn't even come close to describing how I feel. Exhilarated, euphoric, thrilled, jubilant. In fact there are no words to describe how I feel."

"You feel like me then."

"Do I?" She smiles a brilliant smile at him now, it is the most beautiful smile he has ever seen.

"We are having a baby," she answers and although that is all that he has been talking and thinking about for the past two hours, it stills sends a shiver down his spine. He lifts her up and swings her around and while he does that they both topple onto the bed.

"Be careful, darling," she says and then kisses him almost senseless.

"How can I be careful when you do that?" She is driving him mad.

"I only meant that you should not throw me onto the bed. Most other things are still possible."

"I know."

"Did you ask Dr. Clarkson?"

"No. But I remember."

"We don't have time now. O'Brien will come in in fifteen minutes." He knew that of course, but sometimes he wished it wouldn't take so damn long for Cora to get ready for dinner. He also thinks that if they hurried, they could be done in 15 minutes but he knows that that is not what Cora would want right now and he understands, it shouldn't be hurried, not the first time after they found out about something so huge, something that is a manifestation of their deep love for one another.

"Should we say something at dinner? The girls are all here and my mother is coming."

"No. Let's tell them tomorrow. Let it be our secret for just one night."

"They'll know there is something we are not telling them."

"Well, Robert, maybe you should try to grin just a tiny bit less."

"I can't. I am too happy."

"Just a bit, darling. I don't want to hear your mother tell me that this time it needs to be a boy. Not tonight. And I don't want to worry about Mary or Matthew right now." Matthew. He had forgotten that might be a problem. If against all odds, they should finally have a boy, that would have life changing consequences for Matthew and probably Mary. But Cora is right, they should not worry about that now, they should just be happy now.

"For how long have you had a suspicion?"

"About four weeks. That's when the throwing up and the dizziness set in. First I thought it was something else, that my body was getting older so to speak, but it didn't feel like that. It felt like a pregnancy, but I wanted to be sure, and I did not want to get your hopes up. That's why I didn't tell you." She is right about that, he would have gotten his hopes up and had she been wrong, he would have been very disappointed. Her consideration humbles him and he places a soft kiss on her forehead.

"I love you."

* * *

_Matthew _

"What did Cousin Robert want?" He almost groans. Robert asked him to come to the Abbey, he telephoned and said that it was rather important and then he took him on a walk and then told him. Robert seemed to feel a little guilty but he also couldn't hide his excitement. He knows he has to tell his mother, but he really doesn't want to.

"Matthew?"

"Cousin Cora is pregnant."

"What?"

"She is pregnant and if the child is a boy," he doesn't need to go on.

"What about Mary?"

"I haven't talked to her yet. But she knows. I really don't want to talk about this now, Mother."

"You are afraid you are going to lose the Earldom." He doesn't know what he is. Becoming the Earl of Grantham has been his future, almost everything that he has lived for for two years now. No matter how reluctant he might have been to accept this future, accept it he did and now it does feel like a disappointment. And there is the matter of Mary of course. He thinks that Mary loves him, but it is taking her such a long time to finally give him an answer and he is afraid that it will now be 'no'. Or that she tries to drag it out until the birth of her sibling.

"Well, if Mary hasn't said anything yet, she clearly doesn't love you."

"What?" His mother has interrupted his train of thought.

"I don't think she loves you. You should retract your proposal."

"No." He won't say anything else about it, but he will not take his proposal back. He loves Mary and he is almost sure that she loves him too. They are so good together, he has never been as fascinated by anyone as he is by her and he knows that he fascinates her too.

"You know Matthew, if that child is a boy, you won't be the heir anymore. That will of course alter how Mary views getting married to you.""

"Mother. It is my decision." With that he leaves, although he prays to the heavens that Mary will say 'yes' soon.

* * *

_O'Brien_

Lady G has been going on her nerves for two weeks now. She constantly talks about the baby and how happy she is and how wonderful 'his lordship' is and how glad she is that her girls seem to be happy too. She can't manipulate her anymore because Lady G is in a different world. And now this. She wants to fire her. After she has given years of her life to that ungrateful Lady who isn't really a Lady, she is about to be fired. She overheard Lady G talk to the old bat about finding a new maid and how horrible it all is and how difficult it is to find one. But she will take her revenge. 'Her ladyship' is happy about the baby? Well, she won't be much longer, not if it is up to her. And then she will pretend to be the good and caring maid and that way she might not even be fired after all. She hates the whole lot of them, Lord and Lady G and their sickeningly sweet way of treating one another, the way they talk to each other in Lady G's room, Lord G always coming in in his pajamas, the two of them calling each other 'darling', Lord G spending every night in his wife's room, it is driving her mad. Just as their girls are. All three think extremely highly of themselves and of their parents and they all believe that they are such good employers. But by what right are they the employers? They aren't any better than anyone else, especially not that old bat. She doesn't know much about her, but she knows that woman is sharp tongued and tends to talk sense into Lady G at the most inconvenient times. But she will make them sorry, she will make them experience a great loss and for the Lady who isn't a real lady, it will be the greatest loss of her life. The only thing that bothers her about it is that she is unwillingly making life for that upstart lawyer easier, but there is nothing to be done about that. So she is quite determined when she walks upstairs to help Lady G with her bath.

* * *

_Robert _

He is in his room when he hears his wife scream and his blood turns to ice at the sound of her voice. So he runs through her room into the bathroom, pushing her lady's maid out of the way. When he sees the blood he yells at the lady's maid to call the doctor and he carries his wife to her bed himself. He stays with her an agonizing half an hour before the doctor comes and he tries to calm her down. He knows she is afraid of having lost their child and he is afraid of that too, all the blood can't have been a good sign, but he keeps telling her that she shouldn't worry, that she should calm down and that he loves her, no matter what. When the doctor sends him out of the room he goes to his own bathroom to vomit. He has never been so scared in his life, he is afraid not only for his unborn child's life but also and more so for his wife's life. Before the births of each of his daughters, the doctors had asked him, just in case, whether he wanted the mother or the child to be saved, should it be possible to save only one of them. He was asked that question three times and three times, without the blinking of an eye, he said that he wanted his wife to be saved. It is the same now, of course there isn't even the tiniest of chances that the child would live if she, he can't imagine it to be a boy, entered the world now, but he is scared that Cora won't make it either. He would be devastated by the loss of a child, he loves his girls and he loves this unborn child. It was the same with all his girls as well, he loved them as soon as Cora told him about them, but his wife's death would not only devastate him, it would kill him. Not in the sense that he would actually be dead and have to be buried next to her, but in the sense that he would wish for that to happen. He knows he wouldn't be able to care about the estate anymore, he knows that not even his girls would be able to help him cope with their mother's death.

The maid waiting in front of Cora's room tells him that it'll be a while, so he goes downstairs where all of his daughters are waiting for him, all of them looking as scared as he feels. The girls love their mother, they couldn't live without her either, at least not now. Later, when they are mothers themselves they maybe could, they eventually will have to live without their parents, but not now, maybe in 30 or 35 years' time.

"What happened?" He doesn't know which of the girls asked the question.

"She slipped and hurt herself. There was a lot of blood."

"Will she be all right?"

"I don't know."

"What about the baby?" It is Mary who asked this question and he wonders why she asked that for a fleeting second. He knows that she hasn't given Matthew an answer yet and he wonders if she wants to wait until after she knows whether Matthew will still be the heir and if the child were dead, well then, Mary would certainly become a countess one day if she married Matthew. He hopes that is not why Mary asked.

"I don't know."

The girls stay with him while he waits and he is very thankful to them for doing so. He knows they are worried too, but they try to keep him sane, all three of them, by telling him that their mother is a fighter and would not let their granny become the queen of the county again, which would surely happen if Cora was to die. It is Sybil who says this and he even has to chuckle about it and if she wasn't an adult, he'd give her a hug and kiss now, but she is a young woman who has already been presented and he can't treat her like a child anymore, regardless of how much he sometimes wishes that his girls were really still his girls, not grown woman he only refers to as 'the girls'. All three of them leave when Dr. Clarkson enters the library, although he'd have wanted them to stay, he might need them to keep him in this world.

"Lady Grantham has been very lucky."

"What does that mean?"

"She'll live. And so will the baby. At least if nothing else happens."

"Can I?"

"Yes."

"Thank you. Please tell the girls, they are around here somewhere." He knows this is not the doctor's job, but he can't be bothered about social conventions now. He wants to, needs to be with his wife.

He runs up the stairs and into his wife's room where he falls on his knees next to her bed.

"Cora, I"

"I know," she says and they both begin to cry.

* * *

_Mary_

She hadn't been sure what she hoped for until Dr. Clarkson told her and her sisters that both her mother and the child would be all right and immeasurable relief floods through her. She feels an almost uncontrollable urge to run to Matthew and tell him about all this and be held by him because she can't hold it together much longer. But she can't run to him, because Matthew thinks that she doesn't want to marry him as along as she can't be sure that he will be the heir. That is of course not the reason why she doesn't want to marry him, she wants to marry him but she can't tell him about Pamuk and she can't marry him without having told him, so she has to let him go, no matter into how many pieces it breaks her heart, no matter how much she wishes she had realized what a wonderful man Matthew was before she met Pamuk.

Later, when she sits at her mother's bedside and tells her how relieved she is that nothing happened, her mother squeezes her hand in a gesture that she is sure is supposed to mean that her mother believes that she is truly glad about the baby being all right. She wonders if she is really doubted that much, if her parents and sisters really believe that she would wish an unborn sibling dead. Her mother shakes her head when she dares to ask about this and says that she never doubted her but asks her to talk to her father about this, because apparently her father isn't sure that his eldest daughter really is glad about her unborn sibling being unhurt.

So she talks to her father and assures him that she'd much rather have a living third sibling than a dead one and that it doesn't matter to her whether it is a boy or a girl. Her father nods at her and tells her that he loves her, something he hasn't done in a while and she wonders if he would still love her if he knew about Pamuk. She suddenly feels the need to talk to someone about all of it, Pamuk and Matthew and the baby and as she can't talk to Matthew and her mother is asleep, she decides to talk to her father. He has a right to know anyway and maybe, just maybe he can forgive her eventually for the unspeakable thing she has done.

"Papa, I, do you, can I talk to you? About something else?"

"Yes. What is it child?" He hasn't called her 'child' in a very long time and she wonders whether her mother's pregnancy has reminded him of the fact that she and her sisters were small children once too. She looks at him and then tells him about Pamuk. When she is finished all he says is "Mary" and without giving him the chance to say anything further, she tells him that that is why she can't marry Matthew because she could never tell him about this because she is sure that he would despise her and that being despised by Matthew would kill her. And that it is killing her that Matthew thinks she does not want to give him answer because she only wants to marry him if her parents' baby is a girl.

Again her father only says "Mary," with a look on his face that carries disappointment but she thinks also a little pity.

"You must be so disappointed."

"Yes. I am very disappointed."

She hangs her head like a small child being scolded for having done something naughty. But then she has done something naughty.

"Mary, look at me. You can't tell me something like that and then not look at me."

"Yes, Papa." He looks so hurt, she wishes she hadn't told him. Her mother told her not to tell her father, she said that it would kill him. She doesn't think that will actually happen, but she has hurt him more than ever before, she knows that.

"So Pamuk died in your bed."

"Yes."

"If he wasn't already dead, I'd kill him."

"Papa, I am sorry. So sorry. I should have screamed, I know that now. But I was so scared. I am still scared, I keep dreaming of it." She can't stop herself from crying now, although it embarrasses her. She has disgraced herself by doing something only married people should do and now she behaves like a five year old. Her father has been sitting opposite of her until this point but now he gets up, sits down next to her and lets her cry on his shoulder. She is sure she doesn't deserve it and this makes her cry even more. Eventually she calms down enough to look at her father and says "I apologize for losing my composure like that. It shouldn't have happened. But thank you for not pushing me away."

"Mary, I would never push you away. You might be a grown woman, who is expected to keep her composure in company, but you are in a way still my little girl and as that you are allowed to cry on my shoulder whenever you need it."

"Thank you. But you must hate me."

"No, Mary, I don't hate you. I could never hate you. You are my darling daughter and I love you."

"What are you going to do now?"

"About Pamuk? Nothing. What am I supposed to do? There is nothing I can do and what is done is done. Besides that, I think that you have been punished enough."

"So you are just going to let it rest?"

"Yes. I might have reacted differently yesterday, I don't know. But I almost lost my wife and unborn child today and that changes things somehow."

"I am glad there will be a child."

"So you said."

"I hope it's a boy."

"Why?"

"It's what you deserve. You don't need another girl. You already have three of us and I know you've always wanted a boy." She does not begrudge her father that wish, she has never really thought about it, but she somehow knows that she wants sons and daughters and she is sure it is the same for her parents.

"That I can't deny. But I still wouldn't want to give up anyone of you. I am very, very happy I've got all three of you. And your mother and I did want girls too."

"You should tell Edith and Sybil. Especially Edith. I don't get along with her very well but I know that she feels overlooked and that she is afraid of being overlooked even more once the baby is here, regardless of it being a boy or a girl."

"Are you afraid of that?"

"No."

"But something is bothering you."

"Matthew. I want to say yes so much."

"Then tell him."

"I can't. I won't do it to him."

"Mary"

"No."

* * *

_Matthew_

He wants an answer and he wants it now. Mary has hardly spoken to him for the past two weeks and he thinks that is about time. She keeps telling him that she still needs to reconsider but he is afraid that she only wants to marry him if he is still the heir. She is a pragmatist, he knows that and a tiny part of him understands why she probably wants to wait. She has been told that she should, no would marry amongst the upper class all her life and for the past ten years she has probably been told that she would or should marry the next Earl of Grantham. If she said yes to him now, if she married him now and the child then was a boy, her life would be changed even more than his. But she should at least be honest about that, he deserves that. And anyway, if she doesn't love him enough to not care about being the next Countess of Grantham, then he probably doesn't want to marry her anymore. He knows his reasoning makes no sense, but when does love ever make sense?

He is let into the house by the butler who tells him that Mary and her parents are in the library, but when he walks towards the library, he sees Mary leaning in the door frame, looking into the library enthralled. He sends the butler who was about to announce him away and looks over Mary's shoulder. What he sees is a picture of perfect happiness. Cora and Robert are both sitting on one of the sofas, she is leaning into him, he has put one arm around her shoulder and the other one on her just visibly swollen abdomen. They are whispering something to each other, they are smiling and chuckling and they fleetingly kiss ever so often. He has no idea how long he has been watching this scene, or when he has put his arms around Mary's waist or when she put his arms on top of his. "She felt the baby for the first time. They were both in the library and I was about to enter when she shrieked. It almost gave me a heart attack but Papa turned to her and asked 'you felt the baby move, didn't you?' They have been sitting like this since then. I wonder if they know how lucky they are."

He watches Mary watch her parents while still holding on to her, and there is an expression on her face he has never seen there before. It is an expression of love and longing. "That is what you want, isn't it?" he asks her and she turns to him. "That is all I want Matthew. Not a title or an estate. That is what I want." She returns to watching her parents and there are tears running down her face. "Then say yes. Please Mary. We could have that. We would be like that. Say yes. Please. I love you." She now turns to him without breaking his hold on her and puts her arms around his neck.

"I love you too, more than you can imagine." His heart skips more than just one beat. "But I have done something that I cannot tell you about because if I told you, you'd despise me. But I can't marry you without telling you. So I will have to let you go. It is painful for both of us, but it is less painful than if I told you in the hope of you still wanting to marry me. Because you won't want that."


	3. July 1914 I

AN: First of all, thank you so much for all the reviews!

This chapter has a lot of Robert/Cora in it (though it isn't limited to that), but for those of you who get bored by this: While the attention will not really move away from them over the course of the story – it is about their baby after all – other characters and relationships will become more and more important and be moved to the spotlight.

Kat

P.S.: Next update will be on Sunday.

* * *

_O'Brien_

"I think we might have to forgo the corset for dinner from now on as well. I don't want to harm the baby and Dr. Clarkson said that I should be very careful in any case. I was very lucky the fall did not hurt the baby." Very lucky indeed. She is relieved that nothing happened to the baby and ashamed of herself. She almost killed a baby. She regretted it before her ladyship slipped, but that was nothing to how she felt when she saw his lordship carry his wife to their bed and desperately try to calm her down and when she saw the fear that had gripped both the Earl and Countess of Grantham.

"Yes, my lady." She helps her get ready and when his lordships opens the door without knocking and the Earl and Countess smile their signature lovey-dovey smiles at one another it doesn't bother her as much as it used to bother her. After the fall she swore to herself that she would never let any harm come to her ladyship again and if that woman is made blissfully happy by her husband then so be it. And in the long run she might be able to wrap the Countess around her little finger just a bit more, so that eventually she will be able to manipulate her again. After all, she still wants Bates out of the way and she wouldn't mind Anna leaving the Granthams as well. Just as much as she would like to get rid of the Irish chauffeur. Maybe even Mr. Carson. She would really like Thomas to have Mr. Carson's job, it would make her life so much easier. But all in good time.

"No corset tonight, I see," his lordship says once he has taken a good look at his wife after she has gotten up.

"Well, darling, your child seems to think that being comfortable is more important than being fashionably dressed."

"Sybil will have a partner in crime then." They both laugh at this and it somehow makes her sick. All this fluffy happiness, it is just not for her, she is not made for this, she is made for the real world. And she will get there, one day.

"That'll be all O'Brien, thank you." She takes her ladyship's clothes after the dismissal and when she is almost at the door, his lordship adds "You don't have to take care of Lady Grantham tonight." She knows what this means. She will find Lord and Lady G wrapped around one another, stark naked tomorrow morning. She hates that. It is so undignified. Only an American would let that happen. If the old bat only knew. But she can't tell her because she swore herself that she would not let any harm come to her ladyship anymore.

* * *

_Robert_

"Would you mind if I asked you something?"

"Of course not, darling." She has turned around now and is half sitting on her vanity. She is so breathtakingly beautiful that he almost forgets that there was something serious that he needed to talk to her about.

"Why were you so insistent on inviting Anthony Strallan here for the dinner party next week?" He needs to be very careful now. He thinks that she knows about Pamuk, but he isn't sure and if she doesn't know it will shock her and she shouldn't get too upset now.

"Because Mary needs to be settled. And as she has said no to Matthew, I thought I'd show her what her other options were." Cora is either rather devious or she knows about Pamuk. Or maybe both because he knows that sometimes she can be a little devious.

"Regardless of the fact that I am not sure that it is really over between Mary and Matthew, why do you think that if she rejected Matthew, Strallan would be what is left?"

"You know there are rumors," she is stalling. He is sure of it.

"Rumors cannot be the reason you would want our daughter to marry a man as dull as paint and as old as me."

"Robert, I, there is something," she says but then stops speaking. She has unconsciously put her hands on her stomach and it makes him want to hold her. But they need to talk about this and he is sure now that she knows. At least parts of it and that means that he is able to relief her of the burden of this secret.

"Cora, Mary told me about Pamuk and I told her to tell Matthew. He won't be thrilled but if he is the man I think he is, he won't mind in the end. I don't think that she has done it yet, but I think she will, I hope she will. And I've been thinking that if she doesn't tell him the real reason why she thinks that she can't marry him, then maybe I should tell him."

"What?"

"I just don't think that a man coming to her room and dying in her bed when she didn't invite him there should stop her from being happy for the rest of her life. And if that man wasn't already dead, I'd kill him. Poor Mary. She may have flirted with him but she did not ask him to her room and he told her not to scream, told her that she would be ruined by it and he knew that she would believe him. He knew she was too innocent to not believe him. Just thinking about it makes we want to throttle him."

"So you think it was his fault?" Cora looks at him in utter astonishment.

"Yes. Or at least he is to be blamed for it more than Mary. He didn't give her a chance, he didn't listen when she said no. Quite besides the fact that he should never have come to her room. He knew she was taken in by him, I wonder how many other women he treated like that."

"She flirted with him shamelessly."

"And so did you, my dear. You were almost as taken with him as she was. I saw how you looked at him and the smiles you gave him and how much you enjoyed his company. And you did all that because he flirted shamelessly with you too. It was rather amusing to watch, really."

"Why didn't you stop me?"

"Because I gained rather a lot of satisfaction from the thought that he could flirt with you all he wanted and that it would still be me sharing your bed at night. That in the end he wouldn't stand a chance against me. I showed him that too."

"What?" She looks as if she imagined him fighting the Turk.

"The first afternoon he was here. He talked to you in the library, complimented you, made you blush and smile. I walked up to you, stood next to you, took your hand and said 'It's a lovely day. Should we go outside for a moment darling?' You turned to me and stopped speaking to him. You just left him there, mid-sentence and followed me. You should have seen the look on his face." It is still satisfying for him to think about this. He knows that many men envy him his wife. Not only because she is beautiful, although she is the most beautiful woman he has ever laid his eyes on, but also because she is kind and open towards others and he supposes that most men of their acquaintance are almost sure that she does not lie back and think of England. He is too happy for that and they all know that he does not have a mistress.

"Well, he was rather good at flirting, I cannot deny that. And I suppose I do understand why Mary reacted to that differently. I knew what I was doing and I also knew what he was doing. I was perfectly aware of what kind of man he was, but Mary didn't know where to draw the line. And she didn't have a knight in shining coming to her rescue."

"Cora, I think it is about time you forgave her. I know it can't have been easy for you. Once Mary told me I couldn't stop picturing him dead in her bed and I suppose your imagination ran wild with that too, once she told you."

"Oh, I did not need to imagine him dead in her bed, I saw it." Now he is the one who absolutely dumbstruck.

"What?"

"After he died, he needed to be brought back to his room and she couldn't very well get him there on her own. She woke Anna and me and we carried him back to his room." He doesn't know what to think. Why didn't she tell him? He had a right to know. How much must it have cost her to not talk about it to him? To deal with it all on her own?

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I wanted to save you from being disappointed in your little girl."

"I love you. So very much. But the next time anything like that happens, tell me, please. Promise me." He steps towards her and puts his arms around her.

"I promise." He kisses her and then leads her downstairs into the drawing room where his mother is already waiting and motions to him to leave the room with her. Sybil sees this too and draws Cora into hers and Mary's conversation immediately.

* * *

_Violet_

"Well, Robert, should this child turn out to be a boy, then at least your wife has turned out to be good for more than just providing the money to save this estate from ruin. It is about time she did her duty." She wants this child to be a boy, she wants her son to have an heir, she wants his marriage to have had another purpose besides saving the estate for a stranger.

"Mama, we'll be just as happy with another girl."

"How can you be?" She loves her granddaughters, she would never say it out loud, but she loves them. But she still knows that it would have been better had one of them been a boy, or even better yet, had they been joined by a brother.

"Because this is not about duty. My marriage hasn't been about duty for a very long time. We did not have the girls because it was our duty to have children. We had children because we loved each other. And we will have another child because we still love each other and because we were very, very lucky. It is a wonderful surprise and nothing else." Robert hasn't closed the door to the drawing room and she can see Cora in profile, talking to the three daughters she already has. And she can also see that she is not wearing a corset and that she has started to show. She never noticed it before. She looks at her son who stares at his wife and the expression on his face gives her a slight pang. He looks at Cora the exact same way that Patrick looked at her and she knows how deeply Patrick loved her.

"You still love her very much." Robert turns to her looking flabbergasted.

"Of course I love her very much. Why would I not love her?"

"I am sorry, Robert. I was just reminded of someone."

"I wish he was still here. I wish he could meet his fourth grandchild." She knew Robert would understand what she meant.

"He'd be very proud of you if he knew how well you did. Not just in your marriage but in life, with all of this."

"Well, titled gentlemen never see their sons carry on their titles. It is the nature of things."

"I'll be happy with a girl." She will be happy with that. She could never admit to it, she can't even really admit it to herself, but she is infinitely glad that Robert chose to go against her wishes and she has been glad about that for quite some time. She knows he is happy in his marriage and she knows how important that is and she is so very thankful to Cora for not holding the fact that Robert married her for her money, and there is no doubt about that, against him.

"Thank you," Robert says and smiles a smile at her that tells her that he thinks that while she might be happy with a girl, she would be happier with a boy. And he is right.

* * *

_Carson_

When her ladyship walks past him after he has announced that dinner is ready he notices that she is showing. It is not the first time that he has seen this, she obviously stopped wearing corsets in the afternoon about two weeks ago and he noticed the bump right away. But this is the first time that she has come down for dinner like that and somehow this makes it all the more real to him. Of course it is not his business how many children his lordship has and he has gotten so used to Mr. Crawley now that he doesn't think that his lordship needs a new heir, but the fact that there will be another child in the house makes him happy. He remembers the girls - he really should refer to him as 'the young ladies', but to those of the staff who knew them as children, they have always been 'the girls' – as children. They were such sweet children, all three of them, although he can't deny that Lady Mary always was his favorite. She still is his favorite and it breaks his heart to see her suffer so much, although he does not understand why she doesn't just marry Matthew Crawley. It is obvious to anyone that she loves him.

While he serves the wine he notices, and not for the first time, the tender looks and smiles that his lordship gives to her ladyship ever so often and it makes his heart ache. He wishes he had someone like that, someone he could be that devoted to, someone who would be as devoted to him as her ladyship obviously is to her husband. He came to this house when his lordship was twelve and of course still the Viscount Downton. He himself had just been a second footman, but he had taken an immediate liking to the young lad. He was kind to everyone and well-loved by the staff. It broke his heart when he heard that at only 18 years old Viscount Downton had to get married to an insanely rich American only to save the estate. He had been wary of that American, but to everyone's relief, the new Lady Downton had turned out to be just as kind as her husband. Within a year she had become the darling of most of the servants and in fact of most of society. Servants always talk among each other and nobody knows who is popular in society as well as footmen and butlers do because they are always present at dinner. Because of that he also knows that once again, her ladyship has become the darling of society, especially so among younger people. The Shackelton's butler whom he considers a close friend told him only yesterday that the young people that attended the house party there at the weekend had all been quite taken with how romantic it was that the Earl and Countess of Grantham were still so much in love after more than 25 years of marriage.

Dinner is over now and as his lordship is the only man among the dinner party, her ladyship suggests forgoing the separation. He sees his lordship smile at her and when they go through to the drawing room, he watches his lordship take her ladyship's hand and she beams at her husband. He absentmindedly tells the maids to clean the dining room and goes downstairs himself. He is not an envious man but he does envy his lordship a love like that.

"Mr. Carson, is everything alright?"

"Yes, thank you Mrs. Hughes."

"I know there is something occupying your thoughts. I'll come to your pantry later." He doesn't tell her not to come. He doesn't know what to say to her, but maybe talking to Mrs. Hughes will make his momentarily gloomy world shine a little brighter.

"There you are," she says to him when she enters the room.

"Yes."

"So?"

"I am just a little downcast. It is nothing to worry about, it shall pass."

"Which doesn't mean that you can't talk about it." She smiles an encouraging smile now and hands him a drink. He does not want to talk about it, so he says

"It'll be quite a change, to have a baby in the house again."

"A good change. Babies are usually a cause for joy." She smiles at this again and then continues "I once worked at a house, much smaller than this, they only had a handful of servants and when the baby came along, the nanny almost had nothing to do because the mother took care of the child herself. But of course it will be different here." He looks up at her now.

"No, it won't be. Her ladyship took care of her children herself mostly when they were still babies. Not all the time of course but most of the time, for the first year or so they didn't really need a nanny. They had one, but they didn't really need her. It was the same with all three of them."

"You mean to tell me that her ladyship changed her daughters' nappies."

"Yes. And so did his lordship." Mrs. Hughes begins to cough.

"What?"

"Once the girls were weaned and drank from the bottle, he fed them too. He used to say that he much preferred the putting food into the child than the dealing with the parts of the food that were coming out of the child. But the Dowager does not know about any this."

"I can scarce believe it."

"Neither could the nannies they had. And the nannies were not to whisper a word about any of it because the Dowager would have had a fit."

"It will be nice to see them care for a child. A very small child I mean. I wonder if her ladyship would let me hold it." Mrs. Hughes voice has now gone rather melancholic.

"I am sure she will."

"I sometimes wonder what it would have been like. To have a baby. To care for a baby, feed it, change its nappies, hold it when it can't sleep."

"Do you really wonder about that?"

"Don't you?" He does, but he would never admit to that. He closed his heart when the woman he once loved chose another man. But sometimes, when they are alone in this room, when they talk about the day, the family, the other servants, politics, life, when they have a glass of wine together, he wonders if his heart couldn't be opened again.

* * *

_Matthew_

He never expected heartbreak to hurt so much. It is physically piercing him and it hurts all the more for Mary telling him that she loves him but also telling him that she couldn't marry him. He needs to know her reason, he needs to know why. He is almost sure that whatever it is, it will not alter his feelings for her. He tried to get it out of her twice already but she refused to speak about it and he decides to give her one last chance. If she refuses again, he will ask her father about this, he might know. Mary has a very good relationship to both her parents and Robert wants Mary to marry him. "I'd be very glad to have you as my son," he said to him. Robert wants his daughter happy, it doesn't matter to him if she is to marry the heir or an upper-middle class lawyer. Robert might be willing to help, maybe he could talk some sense into Mary.

He meets Robert in front of the Abbey and is told that Mary is by the lake. So he goes there and is glad to find her there alone. She is sitting on a bench, apparently lost in her own thoughts.

"Mary," he says as gently as possible. She looks at him and for a second he sees a breathtaking smile on her face, but that smile is replaced by a far more subdued expression in the blink of an eye.

"Hello Matthew," she says. "Have you come to ask me again?"

"Yes. Mary, tell me, please. I could never despise you." She looks at him uncertainly and then says "very well. But beware, you will despise after this."

"No, Mary, I promise."

He listens to her while she talks about Pamuk and what happened and how it happened and why and it makes his world spin out of control. Mary and Pamuk. That bastard. If he wasn't already dead, he'd kill the man.

"There you have it. I took a lover. I am, in Mama's words, damaged goods." All he can do is stare at her, he can't move, he can't speak. He can't think. All he can do is stare at her.

"It alters things, doesn't it? I am made different by it. In my eyes and in yours." He wills her to stop speaking and to his relief she does. There are tears in her eyes but she won't let them fall, he knows she wants to be strong, wants to face the consequences of what she has done. The consequences of what she has done.

"I am sorry Mary, there is something I have to do," he says, gets up and leaves her sitting on that bench.


	4. July 1914 II

AN: Thank you for all the reviews as usual!

Let me know what you think about this one as well.

Kat

* * *

_Sybil_

She has been sitting on her sister's bed for quite some time now. It is always the same. Anna helps her get ready, she goes to Mary's room. Anna then gets Edith ready, who joins them in Mary's room as well, and then Anna gets Mary ready. Sometimes they are joined by their mother, usually when they have an important dinner guest, especially when it is one their mother deems a potential suitor for them. And true to that unfailing pattern, her mother now opens the door.

"You look nice," she says when she stands behind Mary, but they all know what is coming and Mary rolls her eyes. "I want you to," but their mother is interrupted by a knock on the door. "Come in," Mary says, relief spreading across her face.

"Hello girls, you look lovely," their father says but looks at their mother in the mirror. She smiles at him. Sybil has always found it fascinating how her mother always smiles at her father when he enters a room and how he almost always smiles back. She hopes for a marriage like that. She doesn't care about titles or estates or town houses but she cares about love. And should she find that in a footman, she won't care and marry him.

"Cora, I want to talk to you about something."

"Alright," their mother says and looks at him expectantly, still in the mirror.

"Alone."

"Now? Robert, I wanted to talk to the girls." Her mother still looks at her father in the mirror but her expression has changed. Sybil would leave the room now in her father's stead.

"Yes, darling now. You can talk to the girls later, I am sure they won't mind."

"No we won't mind, Mama." Mary is looking at her father in the mirror too and Sybil is sure that there is a very small smile on her face, although she can't place the look on her father's face.

"Now is not a good time Robert." Her father stands up a little straighter now and says

"Cora," in a tone that does not broker any opposition. He hardly ever talks to anyone like that, their mother least of all, but maybe because of that, her mother turns around and makes to leave the room with him. She can hear her mutter "this better important, Robert" and her father reply "don't worry my dear, it is very important."

"She'll still make you sit next to Strallan," Edith says.

"Well, she can parade men in front of me all she likes. I won't take them. I will choose my own husband."

"No you won't. Not if the public learns about Pamuk." She wants to throw the cookie jar at Edith for this. Mary finally told her about Pamuk, Edith seemed to have known anyway, and she feels so sorry for her oldest sister. She would have screamed, she'd have given that man a good kick between the legs, her Aunt Rosamund once told her to do that if a man came too close to her. But she doesn't care about what other people think of her and Mary does care about that.

"Edith that is unkind."

"Thank you Sybil, but she is right. I told Matthew and he just left, without saying a word." Tears are running down her oldest sister's face now and she feels even sorrier for her now.

"Maybe he just needs some time to think about it, to deal with it on his own. It doesn't mean that he doesn't love you anymore."

"Oh Sybil, it does mean that, I am sure about that. You should have seen the look on his face."

"It's what you deserve, isn't it? Maybe he will now see who is best for him."

"Edith, Mary is who is best for him," she says. She knows that Edith tried to catch Matthew's attentions but she also knows it was in vain. Matthew loves Mary, she has no doubt about it and she also knows that Mary loves Matthew.

"Mary, don't give up hope, not yet."

"Thank you. But we have to go downstairs now."

* * *

_Edith _

Mary is of course placed between Sir Anthony and Matthew. Of course. Their mother wants her to marry Sir Anthony, their father still hopes that she will marry Matthew. She had hoped that she would be placed next to Matthew, but alas, she sits next to some old, boring, married friend of her father's. Just as she expected, her mother turns to her left first, so that Mary has to talk to Sir Anthony. The man looks quite happy about his, but Mary couldn't look less pleased or more bored. She keeps sneaking glances at Matthew, who looks back at her with an odd expression on his face. She hopes it is contempt. She smiles at him but he looks through her. Well, it must be difficult for him. She should give him time. He has been rejected and disappointed by her sister after all.

To her surprise, her mother turns to Sir Anthony even before the first course is over and thus every other lady has to turn as well. Her new conversation partner isn't much better than the one before, in fact he his worse because he hardly says anything at all. Neither are Mary and Matthew at least not for a while. But eventually Mary asks Matthew how he is and he replies that he is rather well and they are off from there. Once they get to desert and everyone can finally talk to whom they like, she sees Sir Anthony trying to strike up a conversation with Mary, but Mary only replies to him very briefly before turning back to Matthew. She looks at her mother because she wants to see a look of disapproval for Mary on her face, but her mother smiles at her father at this and he smiles back. She knows what is about to happen now, they will start to have a conversation across the table and it will get really loud, because once they have started this, everyone else will do that too. And whenever they start talking to each other at dinner, they will spend almost all the time in the drawing room in each other's company. This doesn't mean that they won't talk to other people, but it means that they will do so together and that they will frequently touch, maybe even hold hands or worst of all kiss. She hates when her parents are so lovey-dovey, as her American grandmother likes to say. It is embarrassing, it is not what they should do in public and it has gotten worse with every day of her mother's pregnancy. Her granny keep staring daggers at them, but they just don't care.

"Shall we go through?" her mother asks and gets up. She is embarrassed by her mother's pregnancy too. Her mother is too old to have a baby. She remembers how uncomfortable she felt at the Shackleton's house party about one and a half weeks ago, when all those other young people, her age or a little older, kept saying how romantic it all was. They don't have to live with it every single day, they aren't shown what they don't have, probably never will have, every time they see their parents together.

She catches Mary's hand on their way through to the drawing room and her sister stops in her tracks.

"You can't get enough, can you? Do you have to monopolize Sir Anthony and Matthew at the same time?"

"My, my, are you jealous little sister?"

"Of what? Matthew not marrying you because of Pamuk? Strallan won't want you either if I tell him about your experience in the bedroom." She has hurt her sister, really hurt her and although there is a voice inside her head, a voice sounding quite like her father, telling her to not hurt Mary, to be a little kinder to her sister, she just can't stop herself. "Because I might tell him, you know. Maybe he'd care for me then." Mary looks at her as if she was about to retort something but then says

"Why don't you go after Strallan? I have no interest in him, he is a boring old fart, but so are you. Well you aren't old, but you are boring." Oh, she'll show her sister.

"You know what? I will." Mary smiles at this.

"And if you are really interested in him, don't tell him about Pamuk. Strallan might think you were spiteful then and that would not be helpful, would it?"

When the men join them again, sure enough her father joins her mother right away. She is sitting on a chair, he walks towards her, she looks up to him, he touches her cheek and says 'hello my dear". It makes her want to puke. Matthew and Strallan both make a beeline for Mary, but she catches Strallan, who, to her slight surprise, actually turns to her.

* * *

_Matthew_

He could kiss Edith. On the cheek, not on the lips. But she took Strallan out of the way. Robert said he'd help, that he would talk to Cora and apparently he did what he promised, because Cora made Mary talk to Strallan for less than ten minutes. He is thankful to both of them and also glad that his mother isn't here, because she'd be asking all kinds of inconvenient questions now. He joins Mary and they watch Robert help Cora get up and before they start circling the room, Robert gives Cora a very brief kiss on the cheek.

"That's real love. I wish I had been able to see it between my parents, I am sure they had that too." Mary turns to him and asks "How old were you when your father died?"

"Seven."

"I am so sorry. I couldn't imagine life without my parents." He knows that she is very unguarded with him now, she would never say something like this openly.

"You are very lucky in that regard." She smiles at him and says "I suppose I am."

At that moment Cora catches his eye and nods and he knows that he has to act now.

"Mary, let's go outside."

"What? This is a dinner party. We can't just vanish." Her face however betrays that she would like nothing more than to vanish with him right now and it sends a shiver down his spine.

"We can. I told your father that we had something to talk about and he said that I should just take you outside. So please, let's just go." He sees Mary look for her father, who thankfully now turns to her and gives her an encouraging smile and so Mary takes a deep breath and says "Very well, Mr. Crawley, let's go outside then." This makes him laugh and he wonders if she knows what is about to happen. Once they are outside he begins to walk down a path leading away from the house and she follows him.

"I am rather surprised about this Matthew. I thought you didn't want to talk to me anymore."

"I think we have to talk Mary. The Pamuk incident cannot stand between us for the rest of our lives." His heart rate is out of control now, his mother would urge him to sit down if she knew how he felt, but he needs to get through this. And he should stop thinking about his mother. He will deal with her once this is done.

"I suppose it cannot. Matthew, I did not do it to hurt you." She looks at him pleadingly now, pleading him to understand, to believe that she did not take Pamuk to bed to show him what kind of man she wanted, what kind of man he was not, what he was lacking. And of course he believes that.

"I know that. And I am sorry about leaving you on that bench like that. But once you told me I knew there was something I needed to do and I somehow forgot that just leaving you there without saying anything might have been a little unkind." She chuckles at this but then says

"I can't blame you for it though."

"Oh, I don't know. But I'll try to be more mindful of your feelings in the future."

"Does that mean that we can still be friends? Have you forgiven me then?" He takes a deep breath to steady himself.

"I haven't forgiven you. There is nothing to forgive Mary. I don't think that it was your fault, but that is not what this is about." She looks at him in disbelief.

"Matthew, I," he shakes his head. He has never been so nervous in his life.

"Mary, I think it was about time I did this properly. Not after a heated kiss in the dining room without a ring. I didn't even ask you. I only said 'marry me'. No wonder you didn't jump up and say yes. It wasn't very well done. But I'll try to do better now." He takes the ring he bought right after Mary had told him about Pamuk out of his pocket. He had seen it in a shop in Ripon only days earlier and when he saw it, the ring almost screamed 'Mary' at him. So when he found out what Mary was sure would make him despise her and he thought what she had done, what had happened to her rather unimportant considering the strength of his feelings for her, he went to Ripon and bought the ring.

And now he has the ring in his hand, Mary is standing in front of him and he is lowering himself down onto one knee, which isn't difficult for him because his knees are so weak now, they are about to give way in any case. She looks at him as if she thought she was dreaming but she nods at him and he knows it is meant to say 'go ahead, do this properly, so I can give you the right answer'. He takes her right hand in his left and then asks the most important question he will ever ask in his life.

"Lady Mary Crawley, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?" Mary begins to nod and then says 'yes' and he places the ring on her finger and then gets up and then he swings her around and around and they both begin to cry and Mary chokes out an 'I love you so much' and he replies 'I love you too' and they begin to kiss and then they start to walk and they talk and talk and talk and eventually she says that they should go back inside and he agrees and once they get back the butler tells them that all the guests have left, that the family has gone to bed and that his lordship said that he should just sleep in one of the guestrooms. "And might I add: Congratulations," the butler says at the end of his rather long speech and all he can reply is a dazed "thank you".

* * *

_Mary_

She can't believe it and she is very reluctant to let Matthew go to one of the guest rooms, she just doesn't want to be separated from him. But she knows that is what has to happen, so once they are on the gallery, she bids him goodnight and kisses him on the cheek.

"Goodnight, my darling," he whispers back and it almost makes her beg him to come to her room with her but that would be entirely inappropriate.

Without thinking about where she is going she goes to her mother's room and when she knocks, her mother says "Come in" with so much anticipation in her voice that she knows that her mother is aware of what happened. Her mother is in her room by herself which surprises her.

"Where is Papa?"

"He forgot to write a business letter. He is doing it now so that he won't have to do it in the morning. But he'll come here once he is done."

"I said yes" she says without further preamble and her mother smiles at her and grabs her hand.

"It's a beautiful ring. It suits you very well. I don't think I have ever seen a purple diamond before. But it is lovely. And I am so happy for you my ouch." She looks at her mother in alarm, but her mother looks down at her stomach, places a hand on it and say "You be still, I am taking to your sister. I am sorry Mary, but whenever I get excited that child wakes up and kicks me." Her mother says that in a slightly exasperated voice that is still full of love and she just can't help it and laughs out loud at this.

"It's alright Mama. The little one just wants attention. If that one is just a tiny bit like me, he or she will not be thrilled by the prospect of an older sister getting married just about the time he or she is prepared to enter the world and become its center of attention." Her mother is laughing now too and then says

"You'll be a very good mother one day, Mary."

"I doubt it." She really doubts this, but maybe her little sibling will give her the chance to practice.

"And I am sure of it."

"You have rather a lot of faith in me." She says this more seriously than she should have and her mother looks at her as if she was weighing what to say next.

"Mary, I won't ever mention the Pamuk incident again after tonight, I promise. But please know that I have forgiven you for it, for all of it."

"Thank you. But how can you?" She knows her mother is forgiving, but she has put her through so much.

"You are my daughter and I love you. It is as plain as that." Her mother than pulls a face again and she wonders what it means until her mother takes her hand and places it on her stomach.

"Can you feel that?"

"Yes," she says in fascination. She knows it is her sibling moving and it makes that child so real to her. She is going to be a big sister again, she can't wait for it. A little sibling to cuddle and spoil. She doesn't remember whether her mother ever let her feel Edith or Sybil move, she supposes so, but this is different, she really understands what this means.

* * *

_Robert _

Because he goes to his wife's room through his own he doesn't knock and he wishes he could take a picture of what he sees. His wife is sitting on her bed, their eldest daughter is sitting close to her, her hand is resting on her mother's swollen abdomen and they look at each other in fascination. The moment he sees this, he knows that Cora has truly forgiven Mary, that Mary said yes to Matthew and that Mary really would be happy about a brother, even if that meant her losing a title and an estate.

"I suppose you said yes," he says by way of greeting his daughter. She lets go of her mother, turns to him and nods.

"I did Papa, I did."

"I am very happy for you my darling child. Though I will be sorry to see you go."

"Go where?" He wonders if he touched upon something Mary hasn't thought about yet.

"Where ever you and Matthew will go."

"That won't be far. We have decided to stay here. We can always move out should we want to do that, but we don't want that, not now. Unless you want us to live somewhere else."

"Of course I don't want that. Matthew is more than welcome to live here with you. It might make for a nice change to not be the only man at dinner anymore." Mary laughs about this and he thinks that it is the first time in years that he has Mary heard laugh so openly. When she was younger she was like Cora in so many ways, but she changed more and more into a mixture of him and Rosamund, no doubt thanks to her granny's influence. But maybe his eldest daughter will be a little more like her mother again now.

"Poor Papa, four women driving you mad."

"I've gotten used to it," he says and the laughter in his daughter's eyes makes him very happy.

"Who knows," Mary says "maybe you won't be that outnumbered anymore come November." Although he knows her answer, he has to ask this question.

"Mary, are you quite sure? Are you sure that you will be happy as the wife of a lawyer?" Mary looks at him and he knows that Mary understands why he asked that question. Not because he wants her to wait, he'd let them get married tomorrow if Mary was sure, but because he wants only the best for her.

"Yes Papa, I am. I love Matthew, that is all that counts, isn't it?"

* * *

_Carson_

He asks all the staff to come to the servants' hall where bottles of wine and glasses have already been placed. His lordship told him that he could make an announcement among the staff as soon as he knew what Lady Mary's answer to Mr. Crawley's question was and he knew the moment he saw them come back inside, hand in hand, obviously blissfully happy. Everyone looks at him expectantly, he clears his throat and then says

"I am happy to announce that Lady Mary is engaged to Mr. Crawley." There are quite a few cheers among the staff as glasses are passed around. He sees Anna and Mr. Bates smile at one another and Anna touches Mr. Bates forearm in a quite an affectionate way. He doesn't know what to make of this, but he puts it to the back of his mind for now.

"You don't really think she'll marry him if the baby is a boy." Of course it is Thomas who has said this.

"Of course not. Her ladyship might disillusion herself with something like that but Lady Mary is more cautious than that. The baby is due in November, the wedding will take a long time to plan and it will take longer than that. They'll probably set a date for Spring. And if the baby is a boy, the wedding will be cancelled in December, mark my words." He looks at O'Brien questioningly and she says "I only say how it is." But that is not how it is, Lady Mary looked too happy, that is not how it is, he is sure of it.


	5. July 1914 III

AN: It is Thursday, so here it is, Chapter number four!

Thank you all for your reviews and favoirtes and follows. I have never put as much work into a story as I am putting into this one, so each review is like a little present.

Next update on Sunday.

Let me know what you think about this please :)

Kat

* * *

_Bates_

"And that's the dressing gong." Both O'Brien and he get up.

"I hate this part of the day. Dressing her. She'll be going on about that baby again." He only shakes his head at that.

"Why are you a lady's maid then?"

"Because it pays well." That is true of course, as far as jobs in service go, it is a job well paid in general and the Crawleys pay all their staff a little more than they would actually have to, compared to what is paid at other houses. But his lordship once told him that this was almost a Crawley tradition, that his father and grandfather had done that too and that this practice led to rather low overturn of staff, which was good for both staff and family.

Bates doesn't mind his lordship talking about the baby, although admittedly the Earl hardly ever does. He worries less about the baby and more about her ladyship, but Bates does not mind that either. He remembers his Lordship as Lieutenant and then later Captain Crawley in the South African War. As his batman he had been privy to quite a lot of his lordships affairs and he always admired him for the love he obviously bore for his wife and their daughters. Whenever he received a letter from his wife, and there were quite a few of them, he wouldn't talk about anything else for days. Unless they were involved in battles. His lordship was a different man then, but Bates banishes those thoughts. He had hoped to find a woman he could love as unconditionally as his Captain loved his wife, but it did not happen. Maybe it has happened now, but he can't do anything about it.

"Hello Bates, don't you knock anymore?"

"I am so sorry your lordship." He was so lost in his thoughts that he just opened the door.

"Don't worry, I knew you were coming in here after all and there is nothing scandalous I do in here anyway."

"No, you do the scandalous things in her ladyship's room." The moment the words are out of his mouth he wants to vanish into the ground but his lordship gives a hearty laugh at this.

"Has O'Brien been complaining again?" He gives a non-committal shrug. "Well, I don't like her. I don't know why her ladyship, let's forget about that."

"Congratulations on Lady Mary's engagement."

"Thank you."

"I suppose you are rather happy about it."

"So very happy I find it hard to find the words. And I am very proud of her. She made a decision for love and what more could I want?"

"Indeed."

"It is rather strange though. I feel as if I was going through all aspects of fatherhood at the same time now, with Lady Mary getting married and her ladyship's pregnancy." He doesn't really know what to say to that.

"I am sure it is."

"I'll be changing the nappies of one child while waiting for another one to tell me that she'll turn me into a grandfather." He has to chuckle at this and his lordship seems to be put into a rather jovial mood by this thought.

"Don't you ever wonder what it would have been like to have a child of your own Bates?" Yes, he did wonder. He pleaded with Vera to have a child but she … He has to stop that thought.

"Sometimes your lordship. But I am happy with my life the way it is."

"Good good. That'll be all. Thank you Bates." His lordship turns around and opens the door to her ladyship's room. He can hear him compliment his wife on her new dress and then the door is closed. He picks up his lordship's shoes and shirt and goes downstairs where to his great joy he finds Anna alone in the servants' hall.

"Hello Anna." She smiles at him and he smiles back. He wishes he could tell her how he feels about her, but he can't get a divorce.

"How are you?"

"Well. The girls are all very exciting about Lady Mary getting married, so they were all rather chatty. I like that."

"His lordship was very excited about that too. He told me how strange it was that he was going through all aspects of fatherhood at the same time."

"He seems to enjoy that."

"He does. He says so and it is true. I knew him when the girls were much younger still, when we were in South Africa. He loves being a father."

"Don't you ever regret not having a child?"

"His lordship asked the same question today."

"So do you regret it?"

"I don't know. His lordship is certainly excited about becoming a father again."

"Would you be excited about becoming a father?"

"Anna, why are you asking all these questions?" He thinks he knows but he can't give her what she wants, it is not in his power.

"I am just curious."

"No she's not." Thomas and O'Brien have entered, as usual together.

"Thank you Ms. O'Brien," Anna says and then leaves.

"She droned on and on about the baby and then he came in and they started to talk about Lady Mary. It drove me mad."

* * *

_Isobel_

"She said yes. I proposed again and she said yes." Those words still ring in her ears. Matthew said them to her yesterday and she didn't want to believe them. How could her boy, her only son, her only child be so stupid? He should know better. She knows that Mary will back out if Cora's child is a boy. Haughty Lady Mary the wife of a lawyer? What was Matthew thinking?

So she has invited the woman who pretends to want to be her daughter-in-law regardless of Matthew's status as the heir. She'll get it out of her and then she will set Matthew straight.

"Lady Mary Crawley."

She gets up and is momentarily taken aback by the way Mary smiles at her.

"Hello Cousin Mary," she says and the woman who wants to trick her boy says

"Don't you think we should just drop the cousin?"

"If you insist."

"Thank you for inviting me here. Where is Matthew?" Of course she wants to know where he is. She needs to put on act after all.

"With your father. They are doing something concerning the cottages, I think." For a moment she thinks that she sees disappointment flicker across Mary's face, but it is gone in an instant and she thinks that it must have been a trick of the light.

"So you accepted Matthew's proposal." Mary breaks into a smile again. She is a very good actress.

"Yes, I did. And I couldn't be happier."

"Have you set a date yet?"

"No."

"When do you think you will get married?"

"I am not sure, but I would like to get married before Christmas, sooner if possible. It all depends on how well my mother is doing and how fast the planning can go. I can't drag my mother to church when she is about to give birth. My father would have a fit. But I thought that maybe I could ask Aunt Rosamund here. If she helped with the preparation, maybe a wedding in October would be possible." Oh this girl is so good at acting, she should be at the Gaiety.

"Mary, don't put on an act. We both know you have no intention of getting married in October."

"I don't?" Mary looks so taken aback by this that she almost believes her.

"You are only going to marry Matthew if your mother's child is a girl."

"I am going to marry Matthew regardless of that." Mary is furious now and Isobel wonders how good an actress she is. She must be a good one, she seems to have fooled Patrick Crawley too after all.

"Isobel, you have to believe that. I love Matthew with all my heart. He has forgiven me more than I would ever deserve, and he says there was nothing to forgive, although I know there is and for that alone I love him. And there are so many other things about him that I love. The way he smiles, the way he makes me laugh, the way he truly challenges me."

"If you say so. I am sorry Mary, but I have to leave now." Mary looks rather relieved at that and that is her final clue. Mary is glad that she doesn't have to put on an act for a few hours.

* * *

_Mary_

When she gets out of the car and sees her father and Matthew walking towards the house, she almost runs to them. Isobel has hurt her but what bothers her more is that she is sure that Isobel told Matthew in no uncertain terms what she thought and she has to tell Matthew that his mother has got it all wrong.

Her father leaves them after he has greeted her, something he should not be doing, strictly speaking, but they are in front of the house. She turns to Matthew.

"Matthew your mother," but he puts a finger to her lips and looks into her eyes.

"I know what she thinks and I know that she is wrong. I don't doubt you." She could get lost in those deep blue eyes.

"But she is right that we have to set a date."

"We can get married whenever you want to." Matthew has got such a beautiful smile. She wants to kiss him and do all kinds of things to him.

"How about now?" Matthew chuckles.

"I think both our mothers would kill us if we did that."

"How about October then?"

"If you like. But wouldn't it be better for your mother if waited until she has had the baby?" Matthew's concern for her mother melts her heart. She couldn't have found a better man.

"I thought I'd ask Aunt Rosamund to help. She'll love it. She doesn't have a daughter of her own, so helping to organize a wedding for her niece will be like an early Christmas present for her."

"A very early Christmas present."

"But a very good one. So, is it to be October then?" Matthew smiles at her, a loving smile but she sees there is something he wants to ask.

"Oh for heaven's sake Matthew, just ask."

"Are you sure, really sure that you want to get married before the birth of the baby?" She knows he only asks out of concern for her, but it makes her furious regardless.

"Yes Matthew, I am sure. I thought you did not doubt me."

"I don't Mary, of course I don't. I just want what is best for you and if you think," she can't stop herself from rolling her eyes.

"I constantly think about what I want to do with you once we are married and that cannot come soon enough." She captures Matthew's lips with her own and he willingly gives into the kiss.

"You argue very convincingly."

"I am going to marry a man who argues for a living. I better be able to argue convincingly myself." They both begin to laugh at this and Matthew enfolds her in his arms.

"I love you Mary."

* * *

_Robert_

He always liked the garden party. When he was a child it was one of the very few occasions when he was allowed to take part in a social gathering, when he wasn't a child anymore but not yet an adult, it was the only time he was allowed to look at girls and once he was an adult, well it was outdoors and all his friends and family were there.

So he walks across the lawn in quite a jovial mood, looking for his wife for no particular reason other than that he wants to be with her. He sees her standing on the edge of the driveway, talking to an acquaintance and he walks towards her but he is stopped by his butler.

"Your Lordship, an urgent telegram." The butler looks worried and he is worried too. It can only mean one thing. All his friends and family are here, so there would be no reason for them to send a telegram, they would just talk to him. The only exceptions are Cora's mother and brother, but if the telegram had come from America, Carson would have said so. So he opens the telegram with trepidation and its contents are as bad he thought they would be. He shows it to Carson and then asks him to keep it quiet for a short while and that he will make an announcement in a few minutes.

"I need to tell her Ladyship first and alone," he says and the butler nods in understanding. He cannot make an announcement without having told Cora first, she would be too shocked and that would not be good for her or the baby. So he starts to walk towards her again and she turns to him and smiles but the moment she looks at him her smile falters. She looks at her friend, says something that sounds like an apology and then walks towards him.

"Robert," is all she says and he takes her hands and leads her away from the garden party, to a bench on the other side of the driveway.

"Cora, I don't know how to tell you this without shocking you. Maybe you should just read for yourself." He hands her the telegram, she takes it and holds it with shaking hands.

"So we are at war."

"Yes." He knows what she is going to ask him before the words have left her mouths.

"Are you going to offer them your services?" He has thought about this for some time, because war has seemed almost inevitable for a few weeks now and he has made his decision.

"I have to defend my country."

"Robert," there is pleading and fear in his wives voice.

"But I won't offer my services before you have had the baby. I owe you that." She nods and squeezes his hand. "And I want to make sure, make quite sure that I will be able to hold that child at least a few times. So that you can tell her how much I loved her. Just in case." Cora nods again and there are tears running down her face.

"I won't play the hero. I promise."

"Thank you darling." He knows she understands why he has to do this. She understood when he went to South Africa too. And this is one of the many, many reasons he loves her.

"I'll come with you now."

"What?" She has caught him of guard.

"You have to make an announcement now, don't you?" She gets up and holds out her hand for him to take. He does take it and the feel of Cora's hand in his makes this a little easier. They walk back to the center of the lawn, she nods at him and he takes a deep breath.

"My lords, ladies, and gentlemen. May I have your attention, please? Because I very much regret to announce that we are now at war with Germany."

* * *

_Matthew_

He knew something was wrong when he saw Robert and Cora walking towards the center of the lawn. They both looked so worried and Robert's words are now resonating in his head. Mary walks up behind him, puts her hand in his and he turns towards her.

"What will you do?" He knows what she means and he is sure that she also knows the answer.

"I will volunteer. I have to do what I can, don't I?"

"I'd prefer if you stayed but I understand. I am not happy about it, but I understand. My father will do the same, I am sure." She looks at him and he wishes he wasn't so damn honorable, he wishes he would not feel that he has to volunteer. But he can't change anything about it.

"We have to move the wedding."

"What? I am going to war." He doesn't really know what she means. But he can't think straight right now. He is going to offer his services, he is going to offer to threaten his life for his country, there is no room left for thinking straight.

"Then we should move the wedding. To before you leave." She is right. Maybe it would be kinder to her if they did not move it, maybe it would be better for her if they remained engaged until she could be sure that he would come back unharmed, but he loves her too much to suggest it and she would dismiss that suggestion in any case.

"Yes. We should do that."

* * *

Robert's announcement has of course been taken from S1E7.


	6. August 1914

AN: As always, thank you for the reviews and favorits and follows.

Also, as it is a one shot and I can't thank you there: Thank you for the reviews on _Meeting the Man_.

Please let me know what you think about this chapter.

Kat

* * *

_Mrs. Hughes_

"And how am I to plan and prepare all the food for a society wedding in only five weeks? It is not just the wedding, mind you. There will be countless dinners with relatives before the wedding, I am sure that his lordship's sister will come here soon and probably her ladyship's mother and brother. How am I supposed to take care of all of that in such a short amount of time?"

"They have to get married now unless they want to wait until after the war. Mr. Crawley has to go into training in September and then to the front in October. You will manage."

"How? With only Daisy for help? That girl is good for nothing." This bothers her rather a lot. She likes Mrs. Patmore, considers her a dear friend even, but her treatment of poor Daisy, the youngest of the servants, sometimes borders on despicable.

"That girl is good for a lot more than nothing. She is a good learner. And it won't really be a society wedding, half the guests have already said that they can't come on such short notice."

"That will put a damper on Lady Mary's spirits."

"No, it doesn't. She says she's happy about not having to spend the day with people she hardly knows." Anna has entered the kitchen now, looking for a sandwich.

"How will she get a dress?"

"She is the eldest daughter of the Earl of Grantham. She found four dressmakers in Ripon who were more than willing to provide her with a wedding dress."

"Anna? Lady Mary has rung for you."

"Thank you Mr. Carson." Anna leaves, the sandwich only half eaten left on an abandoned plate.

"I'll be glad once this is over." She looks at Mrs. Carson.

"Really Mr. Carson? Once this is over Mr. Crawley will have to go to war. Are you really looking forward to that?" Mr. Carson looks slightly shocked.

"No, of course not, Mrs. Hughes. I have come to like him. More than I thought I would like him."

"You like him because he makes Lady Mary happy. And he has changed her quite a lot." Mr. Carson now looks as if he was remembering something.

"He changed her back. To what she was before she was presented, to what she was before she was fully aware of the fact that she would have to marry Mr. Patrick. They got along well enough, but nothing more. Her ladyship always believed that love would come for Lady Mary and Mr. Patrick, but I was sure it wouldn't."

"Her ladyship is quite the romantic."

"Yes. She is quite silly in that regard, but then again, she knows that love exists. And I am very glad that Lady Mary has found that as well. Even if I would have preferred her to wear a Duchess' coronet to being the wife of a lawyer."

"Really Mr. Carson? She is so happy."

"You know me too well. Love must be a wonderful a thing."

"It is."

"How do you know?" He looks at her a little angry now.

"I've been in love. I told you about it. It is a very nice feeling. To love someone and know that person loves you back." Her heart is beating faster than it has in years and she wills Mr. Carson to understand. They are more than friends, at least to her. She knows it is impossible, a housekeeper and a butler being married, but then again her ladyship is a romantic and she might be prevailed upon to allow it and if her ladyship did not object than his lordship wouldn't object either. But that of course is just daydreaming. Her reality is a different one.

"Maybe that is nice, yes. But we will never know, Mrs. Hughes, will we? We've made a decision when we were younger and that decision cannot be reversed. And it was a very good decision; we have done very well for ourselves."

"Yes, yes, we have." He looks at her questioningly and she touches his arm very briefly. She wishes he would understand, but he doesn't.

* * *

_Violet_

"So, Mary is sure about Matthew." She scrutinizes her son. She is afraid that he pushed Mary towards marrying Matthew regardless of the baby. She knows how much Robert likes Matthew, she knows how much Robert wants that boy as a son-in-law and she also knows that Robert's ideas of what makes a marriage worth embarking on are clouded by his own blissfully happy marriage. She doesn't begrudge him that last aspect, she is glad he is happy, even if his wife is an American. But sometimes he lets the soft side of him take over.

"Yes. They are getting married on the last Saturday in September, after Matthew's return from training. It won't be as big a wedding as it would have been had they gotten married later, but it is a war time marriage. It is what both of them want. It is what will make them happy."

"And you are sure you want your daughter married to a lawyer."

"It will be a girl, Mama. I don't seem to be any good at making boys." He even wants to take that blame of his wife. But that is not what they should talk about now.

"Suppose you beat the odds and this one is a boy."

"Then Mary and Matthew will still be happily married. Mary's settlement is large enough for them to live comfortably and Mary says they want to live her anyway. So even, if against all odds, this child was a boy, nothing would change that much for Mary, except that she wouldn't be a Countess one day, but I think she is more than willing to give that up for Matthew. And if he wants to, I will involve him in the estate. To tell you the truth I am afraid that things will change after the war and I could use someone who knows about business."

"Do you really want Mary as the wife of a lawyer who helps you with the business matters of this estate?" She can see that Robert is losing his temper with her. His eyes narrow, his cheeks go read and he clenches his fists. He reminds her of the little boy he once was.

"Mama, I want Mary to be happy with Matthew. He turned her back into what she was four and a half years ago. She is not that bitter haughty woman anymore that has been sitting at our dinner table ever since sometime between her first and second season. She is still sharp-tongued of course, but she is nice and almost gentle again, she has found what her mother has given to her again. Am I to take that away, to let her go back to being haughty and unhappy because I want her to wear a Countess' or Duchess' coronet instead of being a lawyer's wife? She'll always remain a Lady and if that is enough for her than it should be more than enough for me." She is barely ever close to crying, the last time she actually did cry was after her husband's funeral more than ten years ago, but now she has to pull herself together. Patrick would have said the exact same things in nearly the exact same words, with less emotion in his voice, but the emotional side of her son is something that Cora brought out. Robert usually hides it, at least when she is around, but he has shown her a little of it from time to time and quite a lot of it now. To gloss over how much he just touched her, she says

"Well, you better pray for a son in any case." Robert's eyes narrow even more now, his cheeks go reader and he spats out

"What?"

"If you had a son, you and Cora would have done your duty." She only says this to cover up how emotional he has made her.

"You said you'd be happy with a girl."

"I would, but I'd be happier with a boy. And you want a son."

"Of course I want a son and so does Cora. We have always wanted girls and boys but if that is not to be, then we'll be happy nonetheless."

"But if you had a boy, that would rectify everything that is wrong about your marriage."

"There is nothing wrong about it. Cora has made me very happy." They have had this argument a thousand times, they are both tired of it, everyone is tired of it, but she just can't stop herself and decides to dig a little deeper this time.

"That is not why you married her."

"Mama, enough is enough. I have told you a thousand times that I do not want to be reminded of my motives for pursuing Cora. And you will never bring them up again. I couldn't be happier." She is going in for the kill now, as Patrick would have said, half laughingly, half admonishingly.

"But you could have been happy with one of the other girls as well." She knows this to be true because Robert was not in love with Cora when he married her. He fell head over heels for her, but only about half a year after they had been married. And she is sure that he would have fallen for another woman as well.

"Maybe, I don't know. But not the way I am happy now. You keep complaining about our marriage being unusual and it is. But not because of the reasons we got married but because of what this marriage is. It is a happy marriage, based on mutual love and trust. And I need Cora for that. She is who she is because she wasn't raised among the English aristocracy. She spent part of her childhood in the American Midwest. Her values are different from mine and her idea of what a good marriage should be like differed greatly from what I thought it should be like, but she convinced me. And no one else could have done that." How can he be so emotional about this?

"You don't know that." Sometimes she almost hates herself for saying things like this. She likes Cora, but she just can't stop herself.

"Rosamund knew how I felt about Cora long before I did. She once said to me that had I not appraised women by the size of their dowry but had I opened my eyes and looked for love, had I proposed because I was in love, I would still have married Cora. And Rosamund was right. And I won't discuss this with you anymore."

"You could have been happy in a different type of marriage."

"Mother," he hardly ever says that to her, only when his temper has gotten the better of him. "Among all those girls that were available when I had to get married there was one, just one, who cared for more than the title and the estate, who really cared about me, who liked me, maybe even loved me. And I thank my lucky stars every single day that she said yes when I asked her to marry me."

"You sound as if you were about to write a romance novel." She has to laugh at her own joke but Robert is about to explode, he looks like a two year old about throw a tantrum.

"You should stop complaining. Why did you refuse old Lord Hepworth in the 60s?"

"Because we couldn't afford one another."

"Oh, he could have afforded you back then and you know it. And in terms of social status that would have been a good match for the younger daughter of a baron. But you sent him away because you hoped that Papa would propose to you as soon as he was back from his trip across Europe. And you did not hope for that because he was a future Earl." He has almost stunned her into silence. Almost.

"Who told you that story?"

"Your mother. And Papa said it was true."

"I did not hope for him to propose to me. I knew he would do it. Your father was a man who kept his word."

They are interrupted by Sybil and Edith then and that puts an end to their conversation.

Later, when she gets home she finds a letter from 'that woman'. She can't refer to Martha Levinson in any other way. That woman is just horrible and not fit for polite society in any way. Considering who her mother is, Cora actually is quite nice. She reads the letter through and that woman is threatening to come to England to be there for the birth of the baby. So she sits down and makes up a story of Dr. Clarkson having said that Cora was not to be excited in any way and that the girl would be very excited about seeing her mother and that thus her mother couldn't come before the birth of the baby. It is utter rubbish of course, the reason she doesn't want that woman to come is that she knows that she would set Cora's teeth on edge and would drive her up the wall.

To her surprise Cora visits her later that afternoon. "I am so bored sitting around all day. I know I should not say that with a war going on but it is the way I feel."

"So when you are bored you come to visit me."

"Obviously." She doesn't know whether Cora only confirmed what she just said or if that was supposed to be some form of American joke.

"Your mother has written to me."

"I am sorry." Cora's blunt statement makes her laugh and she knows that Cora really does feel sorry about it. Cora is not on the best of terms with her mother either. 'I get along with her as long as there is an ocean between us,' she once said.

"She said she wanted to come over soon to," she now gets the letter out and quotes 'support Cora through the difficult phase of her pregnancy and to give her advice on how such things are done over here because Americans are much better at it.'"

"Oh dear God." Cora looks as if she was about to hide in the attic until her mother was gone.

"That is what I thought. I wrote a letter back to her, explaining to her why she couldn't come before the birth. I told her to come and admire the baby once it was here."

"Thank you. The last thing I want when delivering this child is for my mother to be in the room with me. The absolute worst part of Mary's birth was my mother telling me that I was not doing things the way I should. I wanted to throw something at her."

"You did throw something at her my dear. It was the water jug and it was full of water. Rosamund told me about it very gleefully." Cora is laughing now.

"It was what she deserved. Honestly. Ouch."

"Is anything the matter?" She does not like to admit it, but she is very worried about Cora. Cora isn't too old to have a baby, she would not be pregnant then, but she is in her mid-forties and it is different to being pregnant at twenty or thirty or even thirty-five.

"Robert's child keeps kicking me." She has to laugh about Cora referring to the baby as 'Robert's child'. As if it wasn't her child as well.

"Don't laugh. It is not funny. Well it is, but you still shouldn't laugh about me." Cora now places a hand on her stomach and says "Shh, be quiet, I am talking to your grandmother and she doesn't like to be interrupted."

"Don't use me as an excuse. Tell the child it is bothering you." Cora looks at her and smiles and she asks her daughter-in-law "Do you think it will be a boy or a girl?"

"I don't know. Robert is sure it will be a girl but I really don't know. I was sure Sybil would be a boy, given how much she moved around and kicked me. This one does as well, so I am quite sure of the fact that Sybil will, in Robert's words, find a partner in crime among her siblings soon." She looks at Cora, who absentmindedly strokes her stomach while talking about the child. She doesn't really listen, she knows what it feels like to be pregnant. She is glad she did not have to go through it more than twice, and sometimes she pities Cora for having to go through it for a fourth time, but Cora doesn't seem to mind, she seems to be genuinely happy, if sometimes a little uncomfortable. She knows that both Robert and Cora are looking forward to being the parents of a baby again very much, they have after all both said so and she will never forget the look on Robert's face when he told her about this baby. He looked so happy. Cora made him so happy. She keeps staring at her daughter-in-law who is now animatedly talking with her hands about either the baby or maybe Mary's wedding, but she can't take in what the girl is saying. Cora of course isn't a girl anymore, but she still sometimes thinks of her that, just as she sometimes thinks of Robert and Rosamund as children. She of course never knew Cora as a child, but she met her when the girl was only 18 years old and thrown into a society she knew nothing about. Cora had to be taught how to be a Lady but she was a fast learner and her general openness and happiness made her rather popular among their social circle within less than a year. She always pretends to be still indignant about the fact that Robert married an American, in a way she still is indignant about it, but she can't be indignant about Cora anymore. The girl has proven to be more than able to fulfill her role.

"Mama, are you listening to me?" Cora looks at her questioningly and there is quite a lot of mirth in her eyes.

"I am always listening when someone talks to me." She hopes Cora won't question her.

"So what do you think? About the flower arrangements for the wedding?" She is sure that Cora is going over the top with whatever she has planned, but she can't say that now because she doesn't know how exactly Cora is planning on going over the top.

"Just don't use too many colors." That should do it because Cora always uses too many colors.

"It is Mary's decision of course."

"Yes." Good. Mary has a much better taste than Cora. And so does Rosamund who will hopefully be here soon.

"I am sorry, I have to leave. I promised Robert I would be back for tea and if I am not back at least half an hour earlier than I said I would be, he begins to worry. I sometimes think this pregnancy is harder on him than it is on me." Cora laughs at her own words but there is a grain of truth to them.

"He is very worried about you."

"Yes. But it costs me quite a lot of energy to think of that as sweet and not as suffocating."

"When is Rosamund coming?" She has to gloss over the fact that what Cora just said touched her almost as much as what Robert said earlier. Because Patrick was like Robert and she told her husband in no uncertain terms that he was suffocating her.

"She'll start her interference on Saturday. But I prefer Rosamund's interference to that of my mother's, so I will not complain. Too much. Would you like to come for dinner?" Her instinctive answer to this question would be 'yes', but she thinks that maybe today she should stay home.

"No. Spend the evening with Robert and your girls."

"And Matthew."

"Does he ever leave?"

"I don't think so. But why should he?"

"Why indeed. The fiancé of your daughter living in your house. Why would that be a reason to be concerned?"

"Exactly. Goodbye Mama." Cora gives her a very fleeting kiss on the cheek and then leaves.

* * *

_Isobel_

"Matthew, what a surprise!" Her son hasn't been home in over a week. She has seen him of course, she goes to the Abbey quite frequently to plan a wedding she wishes would not happen, but seeing Matthew there is different to seeing him in their house.

"I'll tell Mrs. Bird to prepare dinner for two."

"Don't bother, I am dining at the Abbey. I only came to get a few personal things." It feels as if he had moved into the Abbey already. She knows that Mary and Matthew want to live at the Abbey after the war, although she is not sure whether that is a good idea.

"I would like to have dinner with you."

"Then come to the Abbey. I am sure Cora and Robert won't mind." Robert certainly wouldn't but she is not sure about Cora.

"Matthew this is all going too fast. Much too fast. Take some time to reconsider." She does not want him to tie himself to a woman who will despise him should she have a brother.

"What is going too fast?"

"You moving there. The wedding. Everything."

"Mother, I will have to go to war in a few weeks. I am going to the training camp next week. There is no too fast for us, only too slow."

"But your engagement is such a short one, shouldn't you wait until you are both sure?" Matthew looks as if he was about to yell, but her dear boy pulls himself together.

"Mother, we are sure. I have loved Mary for almost two years now and she has loved me for quite some time too. There were misunderstandings in our way, but we dealt with them and now it is time that we lived our lives together." Oh, her poor, helplessly romantic boy.

"Matthew, I don't doubt that you love her. But she"

"Mother, I know what you accused her of, still accuse her of and it is simply not true. I know how she feels for me." Matthew says this with such intensity that she knows why he spends every night at the Abbey and she also knows that Mary is probably not sleeping in her room anymore.

"Matthew, be careful."

"Why? We have hardly any time left and we are about to get married."

"I think you should move the wedding to after the war, although you probably have to wait with making a decision now to see if," Matthew is now bright red in the face and she thinks he has never been so angry with her.

"Mother. What Mary and I may or may not do is none of your business. The only person who would have the right to say anything about this is Robert because it happens in his house, but he doesn't know about this and it will stay that way. You will not tell him or Cora or Cousin Violet or Edith or Sybil for that matter. This is between Mary and I. It is our decision and we are getting married, whether you like it or not. I want to go to war a married man and she wants to stay behind a married woman. We love each other. And I will not say anything else on the matter." With that Matthew leaves and bangs the door the way he used to do when he was still a child. She goes after him.

"Matthew, I am sorry. I will accept the fact that you will marry her, although I cannot agree with it. I am not sure that you won't regret getting married in a wave of sentimental haste." Matthew looks at her, says "I won't" and then gets into the car that will take him back to the Abbey.


	7. September 1914

_Cora_

She looks at her daughter in the mirror and Mary smiles at her. It is a true and happy smile, the kind of smile she was afraid she would never see on her daughter's face again. Mary had changed, sometime between her first and second season, had turned form generally kind-hearted and warm into haughty and arrogant. Admittedly she has always been a little arrogant and rolling her eyes in exasperation has been a trademark of her daughter since before her sixth birthday. But in general, Mary had been nice. She is still rather sharp-tongued and doesn't get along with Edith, but Matthew brought Mary's softer side out again.

"You look beautiful, Mary."

"Thank you Mama."

"I can't believe you are getting married my darling girl." It drives her to tears. She knows it is the pregnancy that makes her extremely weepy, but she thinks that right now she'd be crying even if she wasn't pregnant.

"Oh Mama, don't cry. I won't go anywhere."

"If you have any questions" Mary smiles and shakes her head.

"No Mama. I know quite a lot more than you did."

"If you are sure."

"We've done a test run. We wanted to take the pressure of the wedding night. It works." She has to laugh about this. It is so typical of her pragmatist daughter.

"I your father knew that."

"I want my husband alive, so Papa will never know."

"It might be prudent not to tell him." Mary turns around now and looks at her.

"Did you really wait until the wedding night?"

"Yes. I had no intention to do a 'test run' as you call because I was pretty scared. My mother wasn't too kind when she told me what would be waiting for me."

"Didn't that put a damper on the wedding day?" She doesn't know how honest she should be, she doesn't want Robert to know any of this because he'd feel very guilty.

"Don't tell your father."

"I won't."

"It did not put a damper on my wedding day because it wasn't a very happy day to begin with. I knew what I was doing, I walked into that marriage with my eyes open, but I was terribly disappointed. I had been sure that your father would fall for me before the wedding, but he didn't. To him it was a business arrangement and nothing more. It was a horrible feeling because I already loved him then."

"It must have been horrible for you. The wedding night I mean." She shakes her head as she remembers that night. The night that had been the beginning of a wonderful marriage.

"No, it wasn't. Not all. I thought it would be horrible and would hurt and I was sure that your father would" she doesn't know how to go on.

"do his duty and leave," Mary finishes for her.

"That's what I had been told."

"But he stayed, didn't he?"

"Yes, he did. And he never left again." Again she has to cry and Mary gets up and wraps her in her arms.

"He must have loved you then."

"What?" She has no idea why Mary thinks that but she is sure that her daughter is wrong.

"He wouldn't have stayed if he hadn't loved you. He is a creature of duty and just like you he must have been told that he would have to his duty to Downton and then leave you. But he didn't. And to go against a rule like that is not in Papa's nature. I know he breaks society's rules every single day but only for the people that he loves. Maybe he just didn't know that he loved you then." She wishes Mary was right, but it is in the past and she should not fret about that.

"Did Matthew stay?"

"No. But we were in his room and I stayed. That was what we both wanted"

"Mary, don't think of it as a duty."

"Don't worry. It is too much fun to be a duty." She wonders about the finality of that comment. It makes her think that Mary and Matthew may have already spent more than just one night together. Her thoughts are interrupted by her other daughters entering the room.

"Mama, did you cry? Shouldn't you be happy?" She looks at Sybil and shakes her head.

"Wait until your eldest child gets married and then we can talk about this again."

* * *

_Robert_

The day of his eldest daughter's wedding is one of the happiest of his life. His daughter is getting married for love and that was all he ever really wanted for her. Of course he had wanted her to have a position, certainly wouldn't have objected to her marrying someone with a title, but her dowry is large enough for her to marry for love and he is glad she found love in a very good man. If he had had to pick one of all the men more or less Mary's age he ever met as a husband for her, he would have picked Matthew. When he sees her walking down the stairs in her wedding dress only a few weeks after the announcement of her engagement, it is hard for him not to cry. She is so beautiful and she looks like her mother so much. Hesaid goodbye to Cora only minutes before and she joked about their eldest child getting married before their youngest is even born, but it makes him rather sentimental. He knows that Mary will stay with them, and not only because Matthew will have to go to war. They will stay after the war too, Matthew has already agreed to that, mainly for Mary's sake. But regardless, his first child, the first baby he ever held, is going to start her own family. He is so proud of her for the choice she made, for having enough courage to marry Matthew when others, Isobel and Rosamund in particular, call it foolish, but he doesn't think it foolish, he thinks it rather smart. He still beats himself around the head for having wasted so much of his own marriage by telling himself that he didn't love his wife, by not admitting to his own feelings, by not acting according to his feelings. Because he had been in love with Cora before they got married, he had already loved her when he proposed to her. He just was too scared of the emotion, too scared of the power his heart would have over him if he admitted to the feeling. But he still remembers the way he stopped breathing after having proposed to Cora and before she had said yes. It had only been a few seconds but he had been scared of her saying no. And he still remembers how he almost welled up when he placed the wedding band on Cora's finger. He now wishes dearly he had just let his emotions reign over him but he hadn't been able to do so. He still isn't very good at that, his first reaction to Cora telling him of her pregnancy had been abominable and she had found it very difficult not to yell at him and only the fact that she knows him as well as she does had prevented them from having argument right there and then. But Mary, the daughter that is the most like him, seems to have overcome that particular family trait because she is smiling and obviously so very blissful. So when she asks him how he feels he tells her exactly how happy he is and he is glad the he did, because the smile she then gives him is priceless, is something he knows he will remember forever.

When he walks Mary down the aisle he catches Cora's eye and she smiles at him, just as him she is incredibly glad and relieved that he will give their daughter away to a man she loves and who loves her. When Mary and Matthew turn around to face the congregation after having been pronounced husband and wife they both radiate with blissful happiness.

"I am glad she dared to do it," he says to his wife while they leave the church arm in arm.

"Yes. She is very courageous, getting married for love only."

"She is very happy."

"Yes and that is all that matters. And you stop kicking me," she says, placing a hand on her abdomen.

"Cora, don't talk to the baby in public." He actually loves it when she talks to the baby, it makes the baby real to him, but he is afraid of what people will say.

"Why not? You do it too."

"Because not everybody needs to know how silly we are. And I don't do that in public precisely because I don't want people to know."

"You hear that? Stop moving around so much, lest I embarrass your Papa because of you." He can't stop himself from laughing now. He helps her get into the car that will take them back home and then sits down next to her.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes, darling. It's just that this child seems to think that every moment he or she doesn't kick me is a moment wasted. I don't think that child ever sleeps."

"It's not that much longer."

"Easy for you to say. But honestly, I'll be glad when it's over."

* * *

_Isobel_

She watches her son and daughter-in-law accept the well wishes of their guests. They both look happy, she can't deny that. Her conviction that Mary married Matthew in the hope that her sibling would be a girl began to waver weeks ago. Matthew spent the last five weeks in training, he came home only twice and Mary seemed to seriously miss him. The girl even came to visit her with the sole purpose of talking about Matthew.

"I am driving my sisters and parents up the wall, but I thought that you must miss him terribly too," Mary said and then they spent hours talking about him. Mary asked about childhood stories of Matthew and she was happy to tell them, for years no one has been interested in those stories, but Mary seemed to generally enjoy them.

"They look happy, don't they?" It is Dr. Clarkson who asked the question. She was surprised to hear that the doctor had been invited, but Mary had shrugged her shoulders and said that as he had been her physician for 18 years he probably deserved to be at her wedding.

"Very happy."

"Congratulations on gaining Lady Mary as a daughter-in-law."

"Thank you. Maybe that really is worth congratulating me on." Dr. Clarkson raises his eyebrows.

"You were not sure about this before? She might be giving up rather a lot for him."

"Maybe. I just hope that she won't despise him if her mother's child is a boy." Dr. Clarkson and she both look at Mary and Matthew. They have finished accepting well-wishes and are now talking to Mary's aunt Rosamund. Matthew's hand rests on the small of Mary's back and they look at each other every so often.

"I just never thought that he would marry the daughter of an Earl."

"I doubt Lord Grantham thought that his daughter would marry a lawyer." This makes her chuckle. In fact, Dr. Clarkson makes her chuckle quite often.

"Not until Matthew was his heir."

"Sometimes love comes along when we least expect it." She looks that Dr. Clarkson now.

"What?"

"Nothing, please forget I said it." But she can't forget what he said. And she can't stop wondering why he said it.

* * *

_Thomas_

They are coming back from church and Bates is hobbling in front of him. How he despises the man. Bates took his job from him. He should have been Lord G's valet. Not that cripple. He got on alright with Lord G after the old valet left and he is sure that Lord G would have kept him on if John Bates had not written, asking for a job. And now that insufferable idiot has been working his job for two years and there seems to be no way to get rid of him. Why do all the bad things always have to happen to him? Why is he the one who is different? Maybe this would not feel as bad as it does if he wasn't so different, if he wasn't such a sinner. He sometimes wonders if Bates is his punishments for his sins. If he'd be his lordship's valet if he wasn't different. He hates being different, he hated it all his life. He realized that something was wrong when he was twelve and still at the village school of his hometown. The other boys were suddenly interested in girls, began to kiss girls and talk about what else they would like to do with those girls. He kissed girls too, two of them. Marie was the first one, a pretty girl with long blonde hair and a kind face. She liked him. All the girls liked him, he was handsome after all. 'My little handsome heartbreaker' his mother used to call him. But when he kissed Marie he felt nothing besides a little disgust at the thought of having put his tongue into a girl's mouth. He was fourteen then. A year later, shortly before he left the village school, he kissed Valerie. Another pretty girl, this time with dark hair, and he liked her. As a friend. And when they kissed, she touched him. But still there was nothing. The other boys had told him about the girls touching them and how that had made them feel, but for him, there was nothing.

He worked at his father's shop for a while and then one day a young man came in. He had blue eyes, not unlike the eyes of Matthew Crawley, but he looked different. He had dark hair, was tall and muscular. They began talking and he told him that his name was Kenneth. Kenneth came back every day, he was a man of the world and told him stories. Told him that there were places in Italy and France where people who were different weren't called sinners. Publicly they were called sinners of course, but there were houses, communities where it wasn't called a sin. One late evening, after he had just locked up his father's shop, Kenneth was waiting for him and he said "I know you are like me." That had been the third time that he kissed someone and first time that he felt what he was supposed to feel. They did much more than kiss and it had felt so good and yet so wrong. But with every time they did it felt more right and for four blissfully happy weeks he forgot that what he was doing was a sin. And then his father caught them. He did not sent him away right then, he told him to look for a place in service, told him that in the end he would be better off in service than as a clockmaker. He knew that his father did not want to work with him anymore, but at least he still cared for him enough to offer him a dignified way out. It wasn't unusual for the children of shopkeepers to go into service after all. Eventually he found a place at a small house in Yorkshire, a place with only ten servants. He was a footman, officially, but he did a thousand other things as well. And for a year he did not dare to complain. He had to clean the pots after cooking, clean the dishes after dinner, light the fires in the house, none of these tasks were the job of a footman and it bothered him. That was the first time that he thought that he was being punished. But then, luck seemed to strike. He read an advertisement in the paper, the butler of Downton Abbey was looking for a new footman. Downton Abbey was the country home of the Earl of Grantham, a huge house with more than 50 servants, an Earldom that included a town house in London. So he applied and he was given the position of second footman. He liked the house and he liked the family. They were a rather young family, considering that the father was an Earl. The Earl and Countess had not been forty at the time he joined their staff, the oldest daughter had just been presented, the youngest was only thirteen. The Earl was nice, even if he thought that the way he sometimes infantilized the women in the family was a little overdone. But the oldest and youngest daughter just ignored that, while the middle daughter didn't seem to notice. The Countess seemed a little dimwitted at first, because it appeared that she did not notice her husband's 'there, there little lady' attitude either, but he found out quickly that the Countess did notice, but thought of it as a sweet way in which her husband wanted to protect her and their daughters. And over the course of time, he realized the Earl in fact did listen to his wife and sometimes even to his daughters. There were two reasons why he wanted to be his lordship's valet. The first one was of course the promotion, but the second one was the security of the job. If his lordship liked him enough, maybe there would have been a chance that he wouldn't have cared should he have ever found out. Quite opposed to what Ms. O'Brien always says, Lord and Lady G and their daughters are far more liberal than the average aristocrats. He supposes that is due to Lady G being an American. But of course, it all came to nothing when Bates arrived. He then put all his hopes on the Duke of Crowborough, a man he met a year earlier. They had a heated fling and he thought that it was love, the Duke said so, he wrote him love letters, they were so good together. But then of course, the Duke changed his mind and all that went down the drain as well.

He watches Bates sit down next to Anna.

"It was a nice wedding."

"Oh yes. Very romantic. Especially with Mr. Crawley picking Lady Mary up in front of the church and swinging her around."

"He is a romantic."

"Are you a romantic too, Mr. Bates?"

"Who knows?" Anna and Bates are smiling at each other now.

"We could make something of that, you know?" It is Ms. O'Brien, his partner in crime. He is never sure whether he likes her, but she is devious and so is he.

"I am listening."

"Let's have a fag."

So they go outside and smoke.

"If Lord and Lady G knew about this, those love birds would be fired."

"I don't think so. You keep complaining about Lady G being such a romantic, I doubt she'd fire anyone over this. And Lord G likes Bates too much.

"If we told them that they behaved indecently? Maybe we should tell Mr. Carson and tell him that he should tell Lord G."

"And then?"

"They would be fired. And you'd be his lordship's valet."

"Ms. O'Brien, I like your way of thinking." He goes to bed at night, dreaming of being made the valet of an Earl.


	8. October 1914

AN: Thank you for all the reviews!

* * *

_Isobel_

Her dear boy is going off to war and it is breaking her heart. She is proud of him, if he hadn't volunteered right away, she'd have talked him into it. It is his duty to his country to fight. But right now she wishes he wouldn't go. When she looks at him in his uniform, all she sees is the little boy with unruly blonde hair who used to drive her crazy with his endless questions about life and death and right and wrong. Of course he had many questions about death, Reginald died when Matthew was seven and she remembers Matthew asking "But mother, father was a doctor. He saved other people's lives. Why couldn't he save his own?" She hadn't been able to give him an answer then, all she did was cry and hold onto that dear little boy. She remembers how disappointed she was when he decided to become a lawyer and not a doctor. She wanted him to go into medicine; she wanted him to follow in his father's footsteps. "Mother, I know why you want me to become a doctor. But I am not my father, I am not like him." And he was right, he isn't like his father. He looks like him a little, but not much, and he has a different view of life. But he chose an honorable profession regardless and when he came home a lawyer, when he held his first job and talked about his work with as much passion as his father used to talk about his work, she knew that he had made the right decision. She hoped that he would find a nice girl and settle down, become a father, maybe even present her with more than just one grandchild. But no girl could ever really hold his interest. "They are all so boring. None of them is a match for me." He has always been rather blunt. Then of course the letter came and he thought that he would be the next Earl of Grantham. He still is, but she supposes not much longer. They moved to Downton and she watched him get accustomed to his new role, accept what was coming his way. She also watched him build a relationship to Robert that was more of a father-son relationship than anything else and at some point it occurred to her that while Matthew may not be like his father, he is quite a lot like Robert. He is more liberal of course and less set in his ways but in many ways, those Matthew and Robert share the same values.

She also watched her son fall for Lady Mary head over heels and it broke her heart. That haughty, aloof woman was not for him. But all her pleading did not help and Matthew tied himself to her. Although slowly but surely she begins to believe that maybe, just maybe, Mary really loves Matthew.

"I will miss you," he says to her when he hugs her one last time before he leaves for the Abbey. She decided not to say goodbye to him there, she does not want to watch him having to say goodbye to Mary.

"I will miss you too and I am proud of you."

"Thank you."

"Don't play the hero."

"Would I ever?"

"Yes."

"I won't. I promise. Please take care of Mary. And the rest of the family."

"Yes." She does not know whether that is what she wants, but the family at the big house has become Matthew's family.

"Goodbye."

"Goodbye," she replies and gives him a kiss on the cheek, something she hasn't done in at least ten years. Only when he is gone does she realize that this might have been the last time she ever saw her son.

* * *

_Cora_

She doesn't really know what to say to Matthew. She will miss him. He has become part of her family, in many ways he made her feel less of an outsider, although she doesn't really feel like an outsider. She has no idea how to put this, she tried to explain it to Robert and he looked at her and said "You'll miss him. That is all that is important." She had then seen the tears in her husband's eyes and knew that he would miss him even more. She likes Matthew very, very much, she couldn't have wished for a better son-in-law, but that is what he is to her. A son-in-law, very beloved, of course, but nothing more, although it is so much that it makes her heart break to see him leave, quite apart from the pain his going to war will cause her dear darling girl. But to Robert, Matthew has become a son, she knows that and she doesn't hold it against him. She supposes that had Matthew moved to Downton without Isobel, she might think of him as a son too.

"Matthew," she says to him and tries to smile.

"I already promised Mother I wouldn't play the hero, so you won't have to ask me to promise that."

"Good. I'll miss you. We will all miss you. Edith and Sybil have already said their goodbyes I suppose."

"Yes. They did it this morning, they said they did not want to interfere here. I told them that was rubbish, but they insisted. It probably was Sybil's idea."

"It was." This makes her smile. Matthew knows her family, his family, so well.

"Cora, take care of yourself, please. I want to get a letter from Robert full of praise for his youngest child in a few weeks."

"Thank you for not holding it against us." She really is thankful for that, Matthew could have left and never talked to them again. Instead he married Mary and made her blissfully happy.

"How could I? It is romantic. And it has made Mary see sense I think. I will have to thank that child profusely for making itself known at exactly the right moment."

"Be careful Matthew."

"I'll try my best." She gives him a hug, something she has only done once before, after his wedding, and then lets go of him.

* * *

_Violet_

She does not want him to get killed. And she will miss him. That is more than she would have thought two years ago. She of course never wanted Matthew dead, but she never thought that she would miss him. It reminds her of saying goodbye to Robert when he left for South Africa. But she won't let that memory overcome her.

"Goodbye Matthew," she says. He looks at her and then smiles a crooked boyish grin at her.

"Goodbye Granny," he says and gives her a kiss on the cheek. She is lost for words.

* * *

_Robert _

He doesn't really know what to say to Matthew. He will miss him. He has become part of his family, in many ways he has become his son. Not only because he married his eldest daughter but because of who he is, because of their history.

"I know your mother and Cora have probably already said this, but please be careful and don't play the hero." Matthew shakes his head and chuckles. He will miss the boy so much.

"You are right. They did say it. But I know it is important to you."

"You are important to me." He takes a deep breath. He debated with himself all last night whether he should tell Matthew this. He kept Cora awake by throwing himself around in their bed and eventually she said "for heaven's sake Robert, just tell the boy."

"Matthew, whatever may happen, you will always have a home here."

"Mary lives here."

"Yes. But regardless of that. Please don't think for just one moment that I would think differently about you if the child was a boy."

"I know," Matthew says and takes a deep breath.

"I'll miss you son."

"I know," he says again and then looks at Mary.

"Say goodbye to your wife. Take your time." He remembers saying goodbye to Cora when he left to go to South Africa. Saying goodbye to his mother and sister had been bad enough, saying goodbye to his daughters almost tore him apart, but saying goodbye to his wife was the hardest thing he ever had to do.

"Will you take care of her? I know this is the wrong way around, but"

"I will. Don't worry." He claps the boy on the shoulder once more and then walks over to Cora and places an arm around her. She leans into him and he knows that it is hard for her to stand this long.

* * *

_Mary_

There are no words. When Matthew stands in front of her, all she can do is cry. There are tears running down his face too and he is lost for words just as much as she is. He puts his arms around her and she leans into him and she never wants to let go. She feels the hard material of his army uniform against her face but she also feels the warmth of his body. She can hear his heart beating. She missed him so much when he was in training, but she knew he'd be back after a few weeks and there was still the wedding to look forward to, but now there is nothing. He will leave and she doesn't know when she will see him again or if she will ever see him again.

"Mary, I" he chokes out but doesn't get any further. She shakes her head against his shoulder and says "I know".

She knows what he wants to tell her. She knows he wants to say that he loves her and that he will miss her and that he is glad that they got married before he left and that he can't wait to be home, to be with her again. And that he loves her so very much. She knows he wants to say it a thousand, a hundred thousand times to her to make it last a life time in case he doesn't come back. Because that is what she wants to do. But just like her, he isn't able to say it. But she knows and he knows too. He is the love of her life. She told him so last night, when she gave him her old toy dog. She has had it all her life and it has always brought her luck. So she gave it to Matthew, for luck, and made him promise to return it to her unscathed.

"I love you," he says to her eventually.

"I love you too," she replies. "And such good luck."

But neither one of them is able to let go.

* * *

_Robert_

Mary and Matthew have been standing in front of the house with their arms wrapped around each other for almost twenty minutes now and he knows that Cora can hardly stand up straight anymore. He tries his best to hold her upright, regardless of the looks his mother throws him for it, but he knows that soon Cora will have to go inside and sit down. So with a heavy heart he lets go of his wife and walks over to his daughter and son-in-law.

"Matthew, if you don't leave now you will miss the train," he says as he puts a hand on Matthew's shoulder. Matthew looks at him with a tear-streaked face.

"I know." He watches as Matthew tries to ease the grip that Mary has on him. "Mary, darling, I have to go. I'll try to not get myself killed, I promise. I won't play the hero."

"Matthew, I wish I could believe that. But I know you have to go." Mary lets go of Matthew reluctantly and breaks down in tears the moment the car taking Matthew to the train station, the war, leaves. There is nothing he can do besides taking hold of his crying daughter. He looks over at Cora apologetically who nods at him and smiles and then turns around and walks inside. He signals to his mother to go inside as well and she does as he asks her to for once. He stays outside with Mary and lets her cry. He wonders who held Cora up when he left for the war in South Africa and whether she cried as bitterly as Mary is crying now. He doubts it, because when he left they had been married for 10 years and all their girls had been there, watching him go. He supposes that Cora pulled herself together for them, although he left her alone with three young children. And he is about to do it again because he doesn't believe what so many others believe. He doesn't think that this war will be over quickly and if it isn't, he will have to leave and fight; it is his duty to his king and country. And again he will leave Cora behind, this time with a small child and three just grown up daughters, one of whom is terribly afraid for her husband.

He wonders if it wouldn't have been easier for Mary if she had not gotten married and not for the first time. He voiced that thought to Cora three days before the wedding, but Cora had said that while she too thought that it might be easier on Mary if Matthew left for war as her fiancé and not her husband, she also argued that they would be taking the comfort of knowing that they are married, that they took that all important step, away from them if they stopped the agreed with her, as he almost always does when it comes to matters of the heart, but now he wonders if knowing that they are married is worth it, is worth causing his little girl so much pain.

The moment he thinks that he knows that it is worth it, because Mary is not only his little girl but also Cora's. He remembers how elated he felt when he held Mary for the first time, when he realized that he had become a father and how much he was aware of his love for Cora at that moment. And how that had been the first time he ever really, painfully, regretted not admitting his love for Cora sooner. Until then he had felt guilty about it because he had caused her unnecessary pain but the moment he held their first daughter, a child that had been conceived out of love and not duty, he realized that he had wasted too much time and that realization had been rather painful. From that moment on he has tried to do everything to make up for it but he thinks he never really did. Cora disagrees with him on that, she keeps telling him that they are so happy that those first few months didn't matter anymore but to him they do. And if they hadn't let Mary and Matthew get married now, they'd have deprived them of the same happiness that he and Cora have, they'd probably have taken years of happiness from them because even if Matthew is at the front of a bloody war, they are still married and from that thought they can take both comfort and happiness. They'd have condemned Mary and Matthew to the same feeling of regret he still can't turn off.

"Papa?" Mary's voice sounds like that of a small child.

"Yes?"

"I think I am ready to go back inside."

"If you are sure."

"Yes."

He guides her back inside, into the library where he knows the rest of the family is waiting. Mary turns around to him and says 'thank you' before she sits down between her sisters who both put an arm around her shoulder. He is surprised by that, he would have expected Sybil to do it, but not Edith. He knows that things between Mary and Edith have become progressively worse ever since Patrick died, but apparently they seem to have forgotten that in this moment.

He sees his daughters as the three little girls they once were, wreaking havoc everywhere, and realizes that over worrying about Mary not being married yet and Edith not having had a single potential suitor yet and Sybil being too outspoken and too political and most of all worrying about the baby and even more so about Cora, he had almost forgotten that the three young women living in his house are not just his grown up daughters, but his children. Children, who although they are grown up, still need, want and have the right to their father's attention. So he decides to spend more time with them without thinking about how many worries they have caused him. Edith looks at him questioningly as if to ask whether he thought it right that she comforts Mary and he nods at her and smiles and she smiles back at him and squeezes Mary's shoulder.

* * *

_Sybil_

The war is real. Matthew leaving has brought that home to her. She of course knew it was going on, she knows how it started, she diligently reads her father's papers every day after all. She even started to visit Isobel to read _The Manchester Guardian_. But not a single article in any of the papers she reads made her realize that there really is a war going on as much as Matthew leaving made her realize it. And nothing has shown her how horrible this war is as her crying sister did. After they left the library, Mary said that she wanted to lie down and when she walked past her room half an hour later and heard her sister cry, she opened the door and found her sister lying on her bed, still dressed, clutching a picture of her and Matthew's wedding. She said down next to her and tried to calm her down, to no avail.

Eventually Mary had turned to her and said

"You know that once the baby is here, Papa will volunteer too, don't you?" She hadn't known until that moment although she should have. It is like her father to volunteer to go to war for his country again. One of her earliest childhood memories is that of her father leaving for the war in South Africa. She was four at that time and she didn't really understand what it meant, all she knew was that no one knew when he would be back, when he would be able to read a bed time story to her again. She doesn't need that anymore of course, but she misses Matthew terribly much, she will miss her father even more, but that is nothing compared to how Mary must feel now, how she will feel once their father is gone too, or how that will make her mother feel, who will be left at home with a vast estate and little baby.

"I am so sorry, mi lady,"

"What? No, it was my fault. I was lost in my thoughts." She has run into Branson, the chauffeur.

"Is there anything I can do for you?"

"What? No. I don't know why I walked this way, I walked around without having anywhere to go."

"There is something weighing heavy on your mind." She looks at chauffeur, his hair somewhere between brown and blonde, his eyes somewhere between blue and grey. He himself somewhere between working for the English aristocracy and fighting for freedom for Ireland. She likes him a lot, they sometimes talk about Ireland or women's rights. He understands her, he takes her seriously. And she takes him seriously too. Maybe there was a reason why she came here after all.

"Matthew leaving for war. And Papa probably leaving soon as well." She knows she has broken the rules, she should have said 'Mr. Crawley' and 'his lordship', but she does not feel like it, not when she is with Branson.

"It must be hard to send someone you love over there. I feel sorry for you and for Lady Mary."

"I thought you were against the war." He looks at her with a soft expression on his face that somehow reminds her of the way her father looks at her mother and Matthew looks at Mary.

"I am. But that doesn't mean that I can't feel sorry for those whose loved ones believe in this war. Or hope for them to come back unscathed." She has sat down on a bench in the garage. It will probably make her dress dirty, but she doesn't care.

"Do you really hope for them to return here unharmed?"

"Of course I do."

"Even my father. An Earl, a royalist to the extreme."

"Yes. He isn't just an Earl, is he? He is a son, a brother, a husband, a father. Just as all the other men going off to fight. Most of them leave someone behind, many more than just one person."

"It is so hard on Mary. That Matthew is gone. She tries to put on a brave face, but I know that she cries herself to sleep at night."

"She had to let the love her life go to risk his own life. And they have been through quite a lot." Branson has now sat down next to her.

"Yes. This is all so unfair. And I feel so helpless. There is nothing I can do."

"Who knows? War deals us strange cards. Maybe something will come up for you. And in the meantime, take care of your mother and sister." He smiles at her.

"You don't like them."

"I find Lady Mary a little aloof, if I may speak out of turn, but I do like your mother. She is like you in many ways."

"What am I like?" She should not have asked this question, but she couldn't help it.

"Caring, loving, gentle. You take my breath away." He is getting too comfortable.

"Does my mother take your breath away?"

"Of course not. That is just you." She looks into his eyes and they both lean forward, but she can't do it.

"I am sorry, Tom. I"

"You are not ready. I understand. Don't worry. Come by here whenever you like, you are always welcome. More than that."

"Thank you. I should go back to the house, the dressing gong is about to be rung. But I will return here, I promise. I won't see you again today, I think, so goodnight, Tom." He smiles at her. She knows what she said, and she nods at him to give him permission to do the same.

"Goodnight Sybil." She turns around and goes back to the house.

"Sybil?"

"Oh, hello Granny." She didn't know her Granny was coming for dinner but it makes her happy. She wonders if her mother knows. If her mother doesn't know it will make her less happy. "Does Mama know that you are here?"

"Yes. She invited me. For Mary. She thinks Mary needs all the cheering up she can get."

"She does. It is very hard on her." Her granny scrutinizes her. "Granny, just say it."

"I was picked up and brought here by Branson."

"Yes?"

"He talked about you."

"Oh?"

"Sybil the chauffeur is not supposed to talk unless spoken too." She wonders what her granny is getting at. She doesn't think that Tom really said anything.

"He is a bit of a free spirit. I think that is why Papa employed him."

"He did certainly not employ him to steal one of his daughters."

"I don't know what you are talking about."

"My dear, don't start a relationship with a servant. That is all I have to say. Your parents are coming down, I think." She looks at her granny, who gets up to greet her mother.


	9. November 1914

_Robert _

"Robert, wake up." He has no idea what time it is, but it is dark outside and that means that he should still be asleep.

"No." He won't budge. He is too tired. He is sorry for Cora feeling uncomfortable, but he being awake won't really help.

"You have to wake up."

"Why?" Sometimes she drives him up the wall. But he loves her.

"Because the baby is coming."

"That can't be. It's too early." Maybe she has an upset stomach. He just wants to get back to sleep.

"I am telling you, the baby is coming now."

"Are you sure?"

"I've done this three times already, so yes, I am sure."

"But Sir Philip Tapsell isn't here yet." He tried to find the best doctor in the country for Cora and he thinks that he was successful. Tapsell has already seen her once and he will come to them next week. The baby can't be born before then.

"I don't care about him, I've already told you so. And your child obviously doesn't care either because it is coming now. And rather fast I think. So you have to telephone Dr. Clarkson now. And then wake Edith and Sybil and send them in here."

"What about Mary?"

"Let her sleep."

"Why?"

"Robert, call the doctor. Now!"

The urgency in his wife's voice finally sets him in motion. He is a little worried that the doctor he chose won't be there for the birth after all, but then Dr. Clarkson has probably brought every child born in the village within the last fifteen years into this world, so he supposes that Clarkson knows what he is doing. He wakes Edith and Sybil then, just as Cora asked, although he still doesn't understand why she doesn't want Mary to be woken, especially since Mary is the only one of their daughters who is already married. But he supposes that thanks to his outspoken sister and liberal wife, the other two know quite a lot about how babies come into this world and about how they are made for that matter.

When Dr. Clarkson arrives, Robert sends him upstairs with the instruction to save the mother, should a choice have to be made between saving the child and saving the mother. He then goes into the library. This is the part he hates the most about becoming a father. The waiting. And he has to wait by himself this time. His own father had still been alive when the girls were born and although his father made fun of him during the waiting, at least he kept him company. He was only twenty when Mary was born and out of his mind with fear for Cora. He is forty-four now and again out of his mind with fear for Cora. When she gave birth to Mary, he thought maybe she was too young, that they were maybe too young to become parents, now he thinks that maybe she is too old, that maybe they are too old to become parents of a baby again. His fear was irrational then and it is irrational now, he knows that, but he struggles to keep it at bay.

He is glad he decided not to let his mother know what was happening because the last thing he needs now is his mother prattling on about how important it is that the child be a boy. So when he hears Carson saying something in the hallway and he hears a female voice answer, he prays to the heavens that it is not his mother, that there hasn't been an eager servant who thought he had wanted her to be informed. But when the library door opens, it is Mary who enters.

"I suppose the baby is coming," she says to him and sits down next to him.

"Yes. And I am stuck here, waiting."

"You hate everything to do with doctors. You wouldn't want to be in that room."

"Heavens no. After you were born your mother told me about it a little and I had nightmares for weeks." This is an exaggeration but he is nervous beyond belief.

"Would you like me to keep you company?"

"Don't you want to go upstairs?"

"No. I shouldn't be in that room. Too much excitement."

"You are like me in that then."

"Maybe." He wonders what Mary means and wants to ask her but at that moment Sybil and Edith enter the library as well.

"She kicked us out."

"Edith, she asked us to leave."

"That wasn't asking."

"You were making a fuss."

"So were you." Why do they have to bicker now of all times? Sybil usually doesn't bicker, why does that change now? When his teeth are on edge anyway?

"It doesn't matter. Papa, how are you?"

"I don't know," he says as he looks at his daughters. It seems as if he will have company after all and maybe they are done bickering.

The girls start to talk about one of the neighbors and he has no idea what they are saying because he doesn't really listen, but their voices and laughter have a calming effect on him. Although the drink that Edith put into his hand at some point might have helped as well. The girls seem to have moved on to another topic, they are talking about Matthew and he tries to listen to what Mary says about him because he does care about Matthew quite a lot, but he can't concentrate, his mind keeps wondering off. He is nervous and scared. Scared that something will go wrong and nervous about being the father of a baby again. For the past two weeks he has let himself hope that this baby will finally be a boy. He wants a son, not only because he'd have an heir then, but because he wants to raise a boy. He loves his girls, he wouldn't want any one of them to be a boy and he knows that if this baby was another girl he would love her just as much as he would love a boy. But ever since Cora told him of her first pregnancy, he knew that he wanted to be the father of a son. He loves being the father of daughters, daughters are wonderful, but, as Mary once said, he already has three of them. At the same time he feels terribly guilty for hoping for a boy, because that would mean taking the estate and title away from Matthew and Mary. Both of them have repeatedly assured him that they wouldn't mind that, and he wants to believe it, he believes Matthew, but he can't really believe Mary. He wants to believe her, but she was raised to be the lady of a great house and a brother would take that away from her now. She'd still be a lady, but only as the daughter of an Earl, not as the wife of an Earl. She'd be the wife of a middle class country lawyer for the rest of her life. Upper middle class he corrects himself and has to smile about it. He has plans for Matthew, of course he does, and he is almost sure that Matthew would agree to them. Mary and Matthew will stay at the Abbey no matter what, he knows that, but in hoping for a boy he feels that he betrays his eldest daughter.

"Lord Grantham?"

He is startled out of his reverie by Dr. Clarkson and he gets up. His heart is beating so loudly he is sure that his daughters can hear it. It is too early for the baby to be born already, something must have gone wrong.

"Yes?"

"Lady Grantham is well and you are the father of a healthy boy." He hears his daughters scream and they all hug him and then urge him to go to their mother and Mary says something about having to finish a letter to Matthew right now so that she can tell him 'even more good news' and Sybil keeps saying something about finally not being the youngest anymore and Edith almost pushes him out of the room. "Now, go upstairs or Mama will be cross with you." He knows she meant it in jest but he also knows that there is a grain of truth to it so he leaves the room in a daze. In the hallway he meets the butler who asks him if it is true that Downton has an heir and he just nods and keeps on walking and ignores his butler's congratulations. He has to take several deep breaths before he is ready to open his wife's bedroom door.

"May I come in?" he asks her although he doesn't know why he does that, as she is certainly expecting him.

"Yes, darling," she says. She looks tired but blissfully happy and she is holding their son.

"How are you?"

"Happy. And in complete disbelief." He has to laugh at this because it is exactly how he feels. He kneels down next to the bed and looks at his son.

"So we really have son?" he asks and turns to his wife.

"Yes."

"I can't believe it."

"No. It is hard to take in. He made us wait for 25 years and then suddenly he couldn't wait to enter this world." He lifts his hand up to her face and puts a lose strand of hair behind her ear.

"It was rather quick, wasn't it?"

"Yes. And very painful."

"I am sorry." He wishes he could have made it easier for her.

"It was worth it."

He looks into her eyes now. "I love you." She smiles at him and says "I love you too." She moves forward to meet him in a kiss and while she does that she jostles their son who wakes up from it and makes a funny noise. He stops kissing his wife and looks at their son.

"You can hold him if you like," she says and smiles a soft and loving smile at him that makes him so weak in the knees that he is glad that he is already kneeling next to her bed.

"Of course," he says and takes the boy out of his wife's arms. He remembers how elated he felt when he held each of their daughters for the first time and it doesn't feel different now, with the exception that he feels as if a weight was lifted of his shoulder. The weight of having to produce an heir. Ever since the doctor had said that another pregnancy was unlikely for Cora after Sybil, he had told her and himself that it didn't matter that there was no heir. They were both fond of Patrick and they both love Matthew, but to him this feels different. He will pass the Earldom on to his own son.

* * *

_Cora_

She watches her husband take their son and it makes her cry. She hoped for that to happen for such a long time. She knows that Robert loves their girls very much, that he wouldn't have them any other way, that he wouldn't give up any one of them for a boy, but she also knows that he always wanted a son. He looks so blissfully happy, holding their child and staring at him. He is very good with their son, she can see that and she knows it, because he was very good with their daughters too.

"He is perfect, Cora."

"Of course he is."

"He is your son."

"He is our son. Do the girls know?"

"Yes. They were with me when Clarkson told me. They all seemed very happy. Including Mary. She said something about finishing a letter to Matthew with 'more good news'."

"Did she?" The thought makes her smile because it probably means that she is right.

"Yes but I have no idea what she meant. But I really don't care. I am glad she is happy."

"I am sure she is. And so will Matthew be." She is getting incredibly tired, but she doesn't want Robert to leave her yet. "Sit down next to me please." He does as she asks, he always does and she loves him for it. She puts her head on his shoulder and looks at their son who he has placed on his bent legs. He used to sit with their girls in exactly the same way. "I can't believe we've finally done our duty."

"Cora"

"I know. But when Dr. Clarkson said 'it's a boy' I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I didn't even know that I was burdened with it." He tears himself away from their son and looks at her, understanding written all over his face. In that moment she knows that he feels the same. That while they have told each other for 18 years that it did not matter that they did not have a boy, it did matter to them. They both want to raise a son and they both felt incomplete without one. And although their marriage hasn't been dictated by duty for over 25 years now, they still felt that there was a duty they needed to do. Robert had a duty to the estate, and she to her parents, to all the money the spent on her marrying into the English aristocracy, the money they spent on her having a titled son. But most of all, they fulfilled each other a wish that had been deeply engrained in both of them.

"I know what you mean. And I am very happy this child is a boy although I wouldn't have been disappointed by another girl." He wouldn't have been disappointed. She remembers him holding Mary for the first time, how everything of her husband had seemed to transform in that moment. From a loving yet sometimes slightly awkward husband to a father of a child conceived out of love. Their relationship changed after Mary's birth, Robert took care of her in a different way, his urge and need to protect her had become greater and although he had always been sweet and gentle to her, that became even more pronounced. And she loves him so very much for it.

"What did your mother say?"

"She doesn't know yet. Unless one of the girls told her. Edith might have done. The other two are too busy. Mary with writing her letter and Sybil with being happy that she isn't the youngest anymore."

"Robert, you should tell your mother right now. Otherwise she'll hear it from somewhere else and she would be very upset. And she'd have a right to be."

"I am afraid you are right. Would you like me to take him? Show him to his sisters? You need to sleep."

"Yes to everything you've said."

"All right, love. Sleep well." She smiles at him and feels him kiss her but she can't kiss him back because she is already half asleep.

* * *

_Robert_

He carries his son and heir through the house for the first time and finds two of his daughters still in the library. They squeal at seeing their brother and coo over him so much that he is afraid that it is too much.

"Where is Mary?" he asks them.

"Still upstairs. That letter to Matthew seems to be rather long. Papa can I hold my brother, please?" He looks at his middle daughter who isn't really a middle child anymore.

"Of course you can. Would you two watch him while I telephone your grandmother?" He passes his son off to Edith who holds him as if she was afraid to break him.

"There you are little brother. We've waited for you for a long time," she says and it makes him smile. When he telephones his mother's house, the butler tells him she isn't awake yet and he tells him to have her woken up and brought to the Abbey as soon as possible. He knows this is enough for her to know that the baby is either on its way or already there and that is all she needs to know. He eventually takes his son up to the nursery, a room he was sure he would never bring a child of his in again. Grandchildren yes, but not his own child, especially not a son. He instructs the nurse to stay with the baby as long as none of the family are in the nursery and to bring the child to Cora, and wake her should she still be asleep, if the boy needed feeding. He then goes downstairs to wait for his mother. Both Sybil and Edith have left and when he looks outside, he sees both of them on the path that Cora and he usually take and they seem to be in deep conversation. He loosens the grip with which he had been holding onto his chair when he sees them laugh. He doesn't know why, but for a brief moment he had had the feeling that something was wrong. But apparently not.

The butler announces the Dowager Countess a lot earlier than he had expected and when he sees his mother he laughs out loud.

"Don't laugh at me Robert. Don't you dare. When my maid woke me, I thought something terrible had happened. So I told her to not make a fuss."

"You asked her to not do your hair."

"Well, she can do it later, once you've told me what happened. I gather nothing terrible or you wouldn't be laughing at me."

"No. Cora had the baby."

"Did everything go well?"

"Yes. Both her and the baby are fine."

"Is it?" He knows he can't draw this out any longer.

"It's a boy, Mama."

"Finally. So that wife of yours is good for something after all." If he wasn't so blissfully happy, he'd yell at her.

"Mama."

"What?"

"I thought you would be happy."

"I am. But"

"But what?"

"Nothing my dearest boy." She hasn't called him that since the day of his wedding and it shows him how much it means to her that he has finally had a son, finally done his duty.

"Would you like to see him?"

"Yes."

"I'll get him. And I'll ask Anna to do your hair."

"Thank you."

He knows that it will take a while for Anna to do his mother's hair, so he looks into his wife's bedroom first but she is either still or again fast asleep, on his side of the bed. She always sleeps there when she is alone in their bed and it makes him love her even more than he already does. The door of the nursery is slightly open and he hears his son make a noise that babies usually make when they wake up. He wants to go inside but stops when he sees that it is Mary who is standing at the crib and not the nurse.

"You are finally waking up, then," she says and picks her brother up. He wonders why all of his daughters seem to know how to hold a baby. Maybe they are naturals at this. Or maybe Isobel taught them. That seems far more likely. He stops that train of thought when Mary begins to speak.

"Let's see, who do you look like? Well, you've got dark hair but that is not a surprise. Your eyes are blue, not a surprise there either, all babies have blue eyes. And you are cute, but you are my brother so that is a given as well. I suppose I can't say who you look like, not yet. We'll see. Now that you are awake, let me show you something. I put this in here for you. It's a picture of my wedding. I chose it because every member of our family is on it. Or almost every member of our family. Grandmama and Uncle Harold didn't come over. I wonder if they will come here now with the war going on in France. They live in America, that is very far away. Mama used to live there too. She is American, which makes all of us half-Americans I suppose, something that drives Granny mad. That's her. She pretends to not have a heart, but it's not true. She is as soft as a fluffy pillow when it comes to her grandchildren. Or children. Or daughter-in-law. She would never admit to it, but she loves us all, including Mama, no matter what she pretends. She'll love her even more now that you are here. Next to Granny is Aunt Rosamund, Papa's sister. She is nice and modern and she didn't want me to marry Matthew, which was quite a lot for her to say because she married a banker out of love, so why should she be against me marrying a lawyer for the same reason? I asked her that and she stopped complaining after that. Now, those two are Edith and Sybil, our sisters. They'll love you to pieces, that is all you need to know. Those are of course our parents, but I don't have to tell you anything about them because you've already met them. Know only this: They love you very, very much, regardless of how horribly you behave. But please be nice, they don't deserve another me. Because I haven't been a very good daughter, not during the last few years anyway. So please be a good boy. Not too good, you can be a little bit of a rascal, you should be, Mama and Papa would love that. But don't do anything really bad. Now this of course is Matthew, my husband. He used to be Papa's heir until you were born and he will be very relieved that you are a boy. Papa always says that Downton is in his blood and it is true but it isn't in Matthew's. He'd have been a good earl, but it wouldn't have come to him naturally, it's nothing he ever wanted. He'll be much happier being a lawyer. But Downton is in your blood, you were born to be an Earl one day and you'll be a very good one because Papa will be an excellent teacher. Regardless of what others will tell you, I did not marry Matthew in the hopes of becoming Countess of Grantham one day. It was a very real possibility, but not the reason I married him. I love him, that is why I married him. I know that Papa is worried that I will be disappointed after all, but I am not. Not at all. I love you. Although I don't even know your name. Yes, I suppose that is a reason to gurgle and spit at me. Well, let's think, what could be your name? Let's start with the middle name. I'd bet quite a lot of money on it being Robert. You will be our parents' only son and I am sure Mama insisted on naming you Robert. And Papa will like it too. But what about your first name? I know it isn't George because I asked Mama to not use the name and she promised she wouldn't. I also asked her not to name you Josephine had you been a girl, but that is irrelevant now and also was rather stupid because it is my middle name. Children in this family are not often named after dead relatives, so I doubt that your first name is Patrick. Or James for that matter. I am sure it isn't Charles either because Papa does not like that name, he says so every time an acquaintance names a son Charles. It could be either Edward or William. But those are rather conventional names and Mama does not always go in for conventional, hence my middle and Sybil's first name. I know Papa likes the name Nicholas, he told me once when we heard a child named Nicholas being yelled at by a nanny in London. He said that the boy seemed rather badly behaved but had a nice name. And it is a nice name. Nicholas Robert Crawley. That sounds about perfect for you. I hope it is your name. Maybe I should suggest it to Mama and Papa in case they haven't decided on a name yet. What do you think? More gurgling and spitting. I take it as a yes. It's funny that I never asked our parents what they would have named a boy, I wonder why I never did that. Maybe because I was sure I would never have a brother. And you did make us wait for a very long time. But I am glad you did, I am glad you don't have to fight in that stupid war that Matthew has to fight in. I am so scared, so scared that I am afraid of losing my mind. But now that you are here, I might talk to Mama about it. I didn't dare to before you were born because I didn't want to upset her. Matthew hasn't been gone very long but I miss him so very much and I am so scared that I won't ever see him again. What if he dies? What am I going to do then? We haven't been married long yet, but I feel as if I am only half myself when he isn't here. And Papa thinks that it will be a long war, he doesn't believe the politicians who say it will be over in a few months. Sybil agrees with him and I am afraid that I do too. How am I going to raise Matthew's and my child by myself? Because you are going to be an uncle soon. Sooner than would be appropriate I am afraid. I need your help with that. Would you distract Papa and Granny enough for them not to notice that I am further along than I should be? And once the baby is here, make such a fuss that they won't notice that although the baby is almost two months early, he or she still looks like a baby who arrived just on time? Because I think that Granny and especially Papa would be very disappointed and I can't disappoint Papa even more. Matthew and I didn't mean it to happen, but we didn't have much time left and it just happened. I don't know why I keep doing things that disappoint Papa, I wish I could stop, but somehow those things keep happening."

Mary stops talking now and looks at her brother. She is standing with her back to the door, so she doesn't see him when he enters the room. He places a hand on her shoulder and says "I am not disappointed in you Mary." She turns around clutching her brother as if she needed him as a shield and in a voice dripping with fear asks "How much did you hear?"

"Everything. I know I shouldn't have listened, but it started out innocently enough. I didn't know you would move onto something you would not want me to overhear. I am sorry for that, but at least now your brother only has to distract your grandmother and I am sure he will be able to do that. And even if it doesn't work, well, you said yourself that your grandmother was as soft as a fluffy pillow when it comes to her grandchildren and that is true. She might make a few sharp remarks, but nothing more."

"What about you?"

"I will only say this: You won't have to raise your child alone."

"So you are not disappointed?" How could he be? She is pregnant because Matthew was about to go to war and they are married now. He doubts that among the news concerning the war anyone would notice and even if they did, it wouldn't be too bad. And Mary was right. They didn't have any time. Cora and he tried to make the most of the little time they had left when he knew that he was going to war in 1899 and those weeks were among the most intense of his life.

"Of course I am not disappointed. You said it yourself. You had hardly any time left. What were you supposed to do?"

"Thank you."

"You are welcome. Now give your brother to me so that I can satisfy your grandmother's curiosity." When Mary passes the child on to him she gives her brother a kiss on the forehead.

"You are very good with children, you will be a very good mother."

"Thank you, Papa." He watches his eldest child leave the room as he holds his youngest but then calls her back.

"Mary?"

"Yes?"

"Would you like to present your brother to your grandmother?" She deserves this. His poor little girl has been through so much and he wants her to believe that he is not disappointed by her, that he loves her.

"Papa, I can't take that from you."

"I want to spend some time with your mother, and I have already presented three children to your grandmother."

"But only girls."

"Mary, never say 'only girls' again, please."

"If you really didn't mind, I'd like to take him to Granny." So without further thought he passes his son back to his oldest daughter. Once the boy is securely held by Mary, he puts both of his arms around her.

"Congratulations Mary. You are turning me into an old man, but I am very happy for you and Matthew."

"Thank you."

"You were right about the name. I am surprised you remembered that."

"I like the name too. It is a very good name for a little rascal." He has to laugh about this. And Mary is right, he does want Nicholas to be a bit of a rascal. Not too much, but he wouldn't mind the boy playing a few pranks on his sisters. Or maybe niece or nephew.

"Alright child, take you brother to your grandmother, or she will come up here and I would like to keep her out of your mother's room at least for a little while longer."

* * *

_Violet _

When the door opens, she fully expects her son with her grandson but it is in fact her eldest granddaughter coming into the room, although she is carrying a baby.

"Is that him?" That was the dumbest question she has ever asked anyone. Who else should this baby be? But Mary nods and smiles and then says

"Yes Granny. Meet Nicholas Robert Crawley, Viscount Downton, heir to the Earl of Grantham. And your grandson." Mary holds the baby out to her and without conscious thought she takes the little boy from her. She looks at him and is stunned. She feels transported back into the past. He looks like Robert, exactly like Robert looked. The boy has got the same dimple in his chin, the same slightly unruly dark hair, the same eye lashes, curved to perfection. And when he opens his eyes, she thinks that it is Robert looking at her.

"Granny, are you alright?" Mary has put a hand on her shoulder and she looks rather worried.

"I am perfectly alright. Where is your father?"

"With Mama."

"Good, good." She needs a moment to catch herself and so she sits down.

"Nicholas. Well your mother was always one to go the unconventional way and it sounds nice." Mary now sits down next to her and strokes her brother's head.

"As soft as fluffy pillow. Just as I told you."

"What?"

"Nothing Granny. It's between Nicholas and me."

"Is it?" She has an idea what Mary is talking about but she will leave at that. She looks at her granddaughter, she wants to make sure that Mary really is happy and she takes in Mary's soft features, the way she gently strokes her brother's head, her gentle and kind smile and the almost motherly look on her face. And then it hits her.

"This will be a story to tell at dinner parties."

"What?"

"The day that my youngest grandchild is born, I find out that I will be a great-grandmother soon."

"Granny, I" She wants to make a sharp remark but then she see tears in Mary's eyes and her heart melts for her granddaughter.

"Mary, sometimes children come along sooner than we think. And sometimes that is quite alright. And now I think that you should take this little boy up to your mother."

* * *

_Cora _

She wakes up when Robert comes into her room.

"How are you?"

"Tired. Where is Nicholas?"

"Mary is showing him off to Mama." She releases a breath she didn't know she was holding.

"Did you not want to do it yourself?"

"No. Mary deserves this and I need a quiet moment with you. With just you." This is something new. He never wanted that after the births of their girls, in fact he was hardly able to leave the room they were in.

"Are you alright? You look flustered."

"We are going to be grandparents." She has to laugh out loud at this.

"So I was right. I have had a suspicion for a few weeks but I did not want to upset Mary if I was wrong. Oh cheer up Robert." He looks as if someone had just told him that Christmas and his birthday had been cancelled.

"Are we that old Cora?"

"No. We were both very young when we had Mary. It did not seem like that to us then, but we were. So now we are very young when we have our first grandchild. And let's not forget that there is a little boy somewhere in this house who will make sure that we won't feel too old for quite some time."

As if on cue, Mary now walks in with said little boy.

"Mama? I think he is hungry."

"Thank you Mary. And congratulations." Her daughter's face lights up like a Christmas tree.

"Thank you Mama. You are not mad, are you? For stealing some of your thunder?" She hadn't even thought about that.

"Of course not. Stay if you like."

"No. Granny wants breakfast and I'll keep her company, so Papa can stay here. You can tell me everything I need to know later on." Mary hands Nicholas to her, gives her a kiss on the cheek and then leaves.

She leans back when her son begins to nurse. Robert looks at them in fascination, his eye as bright as stars. "I've seen you do that hundreds of times but it still melts my heart every time I see it." She smiles at this, he smiles back at her, sits down on the bed next to her and pulls her closer to him, so that she leans into him.

"I love you," he whispers.

"I love you too," she says.

* * *

AN: The part in which Mary talks to her brother was the first part I wrote for this story. Everything else just developed around that. This is the chapter I feel the most unsure about because it is so important, but I hope that you like it.

Let me know what you think!

And thank you for the reviews.

Kat


	10. December 1914 I

AN: Thank you for the many reviews on the last chapter and thank you for saying that you liked the Mary/Nicholas part so much because I was really nervous about that.

Kat

P.S.: I have no idea whether tourists could travel from America to England in late 1914 with the war going on. I did some research but did not find a real answer. However, I do think that if there was one who'd have done it, it was Martha Levinson :)

* * *

_Anna_

She has been trying to get a stain out of Lady Mary's gown for half an hour now and while she tries to clean the dress, she lets her thoughts wonder to the Viscount Downton. After showing her the stain, Lady Mary had also shown her the Viscount.

"I am so sorry Anna, but I am afraid it was my brother who put it there. He threw up on me. But even then he was cute. Would you like to see him? He is in the nursery now." She nodded at that and followed Lady Mary.

"My grandmother says that he looks just like my father. I am not sure about that but I suppose that is one thing she really does know better than anyone. I wonder what it will be like to have my own child."

"Congratulations, my lady." Mary smiled at her and didn't ask how she knew, but she supposes that was obvious. She may not be the one to do Lady Mary's laundry, but she is the one who takes it downstairs and that is quite enough. The thought of Lady Mary having a baby somehow makes her feel warm inside. The news get worse every day, the war is the dominant topic of conversation everywhere, but at least in this house it is not all encompassing. Little Viscount Downton is a joy and the knowledge that he will be joined by the child of Lady Mary and Mr. Crawley soon makes everyone's lives a little brighter.

"What are you working on, Anna?" Mr. Bates makes her stop daydreaming.

"Oh hello Mr. Bates. The viscount threw up on Lady Mary and I am trying to get the stain out. I suppose it is good practice."

"For when you have your own child?"

"For when Lady Mary has her child."

"So you know about that?"

"Of course I do Mr. Bates."

"His lordship told me the day that Viscount Downton was born. He was flustered about it, but I suppose I would be too if the day my youngest child was born, my oldest told me that I was about to be a grandfather." She looks at him now and he is the most beautiful man she has ever seen. She never sees the walking stick or the limp. All she sees is his full hair and his kind eyes and the lips she longs to kiss.

"Do you think we will ever have children?"

"Maybe." She leans closer to him and he leans closer to her and they kiss. She feels as if she was lifted off the ground, although she knows that she is not and it is the happiest moment of her life. It feels so perfect.

"I should not have done that." Oh the honorable Mr. Bates.

"Yes you should have. It was wonderful."

* * *

_Martha_

Her grandson is three and a half weeks old now and she has braved the stormy sea to see him. Finally a grandson. That is why she dragged Cora to England all those years ago. Both she and Isidore wanted their grandson to be titled. At least one of the two grandsons they hoped to have. Harold's son was supposed to take over the business eventually, but given how much Harold has always been like his father in many ways and how little he cares about continuing the business the way his father meant him to do, they knew early on that is was a long shot. Cora however had always been a dutiful daughter. They had admittedly hoped for her to marry a duke, but Cora let her heart decide and picked a future Earl. It was not a bad decision, Robert is nice and he never objected to Cora returning to American from time to time. Martha and Isidore agreed that a future Earl as a grandson would be good enough. It was one of the very few things they could agree on. They got married because they had to, Harold was born only five and half months after their wedding. Cora came along about two years later but she wasn't followed by any other children, maybe because by the time that Cora was born, her parents' marriage was at and end.

Isidore and she just did not get along anymore and he started to be interested in other women again. She never really held it against him, she knew what he was before she married him, she had in fact not been sure that he would marry her at all after she told him about their little accident. Their flame went out eventually, but they stayed married and Isidore doted on their children, especially on Cora and while it did not make her love Isidore, it made her appreciate him. It was hard for Isidore to let his little girl go to England and marry a man she hardly knew, but just like Martha, he had known that it was for the best. Everything went better than they thought, Cora praised her husband to the heavens in her letters and when Robert took Cora to America for their first wedding anniversary, it became obvious that theirs was a marriage full of love and devotion. The only thing that was missing, remained missing was the son. Until three and a half weeks ago.

When her car arrives at the Abbey, she is greeted by a full complement. Cora comes to her first and kisses her on the cheek. The girl has gained quite a lot of weight but she bites her tongue just now. Robert greets her rather unenthusiastically, but she knows he doesn't like her. Her three granddaughters aren't any more enthusiastic than their father and she wonders if they dislike their other grandmother as much as they dislike her.

"So, where is my grandson?"

"Asleep in the nursery, Mother." She wonders why Cora sounds so unnerved. She has never seen the boy, isn't it natural for her to want to see him?

"Well, can you take me to him?"

"Of course." Cora throws Robert a look that clearly says 'I told you so.'

"You've repainted the room." It used to be a different color, she is sure.

"Yes. Robert was adamant about having that done. But we've kept the furniture."

"It looks nice." Cora smiles at her and nods.

"Yes, I think so."

She peers into the crib and there is a child in there who looks nothing like Cora or Harold. This child is clearly a Crawley.

"So this is Nicholas."

"Yes. Isn't he adorable?"

"He certainly does not look like a Levinson."

"Mother, he is a Crawley. You cannot seriously complain about him looking like Robert."

"Does he look like Robert?" Cora shrugs her shoulders slightly and then says

"It's what Robert's mother says. It makes her happy I think. And if she is right, this little boy will break many hearts when he is older."

"I thought you would name him after Robert's and your father. Patrick Isidore. I thought Violet was playing a trick on me when I read the telegram, until I read Robert's telegram, stating the same name."

"We decided on a name we liked."

"But he hasn't been christened yet."

"No."

"You could still change the name."

"But we won't. Nicholas Robert it is."

"It is disrespectful to both your father and Robert's father. It is enough that you did not name one of the girls after me. But not to name your only son after your father. Cora, how can you do that?"

"Very easily Mother, because I have already done it. There is no tradition in this family to name children after dead relatives." Cora's face has gone red now and she knows there is a tantrum coming.

"Cora, child, your father did so much for you."

"I know, but our son's name is entirely Robert's and my business."

"What does Robert's mother say?"

"That she likes the name." She is sure Violet only said that because Violet knew that she would hate the name. Violet always opposes her on everything. Cora's attention now moves away from her to Nicholas. She lifts the boy up and says

"You are awake early. Did you wake up just for your Grandmamma?" It looks as if Cora had held the child countless times before, it looks so natural.

"Would you like to hold him?"

"No." She is scared of babies. She'll drop him. She never held Cora or Harold when they were small. Not for a long time anyway. They had nannies for that, even when they still lived in the Midwest. The boy begins to cry now.

"I am sorry mother, he is hungry."

"Call the nurse then."

"No. I'll feed him, but I'd like you to not watch me do it."

"So you haven't stopped this nonsense of feeding your children yourself."

"It did not hurt the girls."

"Cora that is not how things are done."

"Mother, this is how things are done by me." She knows she has been dismissed and goes downstairs where she meets Violet in the library.

They exchange their usual rather unfriendly greetings in which they accuse each other of being old and ugly. They haven't seen each other in 12 years, but they sent letters to each other, and those letters always start and end with accusations. But maybe she can actually find an ally in Violet now.

"Cora kicked me out of the nursery to feed the baby."

"She doesn't like to be watched when she does that. Only Robert and the girls are allowed to watch, although I would not want to see that in any case." Good. Definitely an ally.

"So you think this is ridiculous too."

"It is unusual, but in the end it is Cora's decision." This woman always has to oppose her.

"And that name."

"The name is nice."

"Do you really think so? Don't you think the child should have been named Patrick?"

"Why? We don't name children after dead relatives. It makes for a rather gloomy start in life." She wants to rip that woman's head off.

"Why are you on her side?"

"I am not on anyone's side. I only make my opinion known."

"Which is the same as Cora's."

"Not very often." Violet must have a very wrong picture of herself, at least regarding her treatment of Cora. She always agrees with the girl and it has always been like that. Cora sometimes writes about fights with her mother-in-law, but they can never have had a serious falling out. The main reason for Violet writing to her is to tell her off about something she wrote to Cora. A few weeks ago she wrote to Cora, cautioning her not to gain too much weight, something that apparently fell on deaf ears, and what she got as a reply was a three page letter from Violet telling her that it was not her business what Cora did and did not eat during her pregnancy and that in any case, Cora looked just right. The letter ended with a rant about how she had upset her own daughter and how unkind that had been. Violet and Cora are as thick as thieves.

The girl now comes into the library as well, carrying the baby.

"Hello Mama, I didn't know you were here. Why didn't you come up?"

"Oh no. I did not want to intrude on your mother and you." Violet laughs while she says this and Cora can't help but smile. She is sure they are sharing some private joke. Cora now walks over to Violet and places the baby in her arms. It utterly astonishes her.

"Mother, don't look like that. I offered you to hold him, you did not want to do that."

"Why ever not?" Violet now looks at her rather surprised.

"I am not made for holding babies. What if the baby threw up on me?"

"You think it would be a pity if baby spit landed on that dress?" Cora now does her signature move of straightening her upper body and putting her chin forward. It means that she is amused but doesn't dare to say so.

"Cora? Could you come with me for just a few minutes?"

"Of course darling." The girl still smiles at Robert the same way she used to when they got married.

"Mama, would you mind watching Nicholas for five minutes?"

"Of course not. He is fed and changed, nothing too exciting is likely to happen."

"Right." She watches Cora go into the entrance hall to talk to Robert.

"She leaves the child with you."

"Sometimes."

"And you don't mind."

"As long as I don't have to anything. And this one looks so much like Robert."

"Cora said so. It's a pity he doesn't look like a Levinson." Violet now stares daggers at her.

"Is there anything, anything at all that you do not complain about? Can't you leave her alone for just a few minutes? She has done her duty, what more do you want? She cannot influence what a child looks like."

"She has done her duty. That is as far as you care about her."

"When did I ever say that? I am glad they have had a boy. But that is not why I like her. Or not the main reason."

"Then why do you like her?"

"Well, she is nice, a good mother to my grandchildren and she makes my only son very happy."

"Is she a good Countess?"

"Yes." She doesn't believe how much Violet tries to provoke her. She knows that Violet does not think that. Being with Violet feels as if they were fighting about who loves Cora more and deep down, very deep down she is afraid that she would lose that fight, that Violet does love Cora more than she does and that Cora prefers Violet.

She watches Cora for the next few weeks and realizes that she has never seen her as a Countess. Cora and Robert have of course visited her in America at least every second year, usually with their children in tow, but the last time she was at the Abbey was in 1902, when Robert's father had still been alive. She can't believe how different her daughter is here. She has never seemed authoritative to her, in fact it has always been rather easy to push her over. But not here. She is obviously in charge of the house and the servants. She is very kind to everyone but it is obvious that no one would ever question her. They hold a dinner party at some point and she is surprised by the fact that Violet actually lets Cora be the hostess and there seems to be no doubt or dispute about it. In fact, Cora does many things the way Violet used to do them and it shakes her to the bones. Cora is still herself but Violet has influenced her very much. In many ways Cora has become Violet's daughter.

* * *

_O'Brien_

"I have had it with them."

"What?"

"Anna and Bates. I've caught them kissing twice now. I've spent three nights awake looking at Anna's door to see if she'd come out to go to Mr. Bates but that hasn't happen and I fear it won't. They are both too honorable for that."

"So what will you do?"

"Tell her ladyship about the kissing. She won't like it."

"Are you sure? She is quite the romantic, our Lady G." Thomas is of course right but she has thought of this.

"Well, I won't put it romantically. I'll tell her what kinds of problems could be caused by this relationship. Especially with her mother present, she won't want any problems." Thomas raises his eyebrows and smiles.

"Good thinking."

"You'll be the new valet, mark my words. I'll talk you up. And then we've got both of them. We'll be practically running this house." Thomas only raises his eyebrows again, but the thought makes her happy. If she and Thomas had both Lord G's and Lady G's ears, they could manipulate them to no end. Maybe they could even set them up against each other. But no, she promised she would let no harm come to her ladyship and a serious fight with Lord G would surely harm her. Although she'd deserve it for all that baby spit she has to deal with. For some reason she does not understand, the laundry maids are not responsible for that, getting little stains out is part of 'mending' the clothes. But there are stains almost every day, it is if that boy did it on purpose. Maybe he already has a sense of entitlement, being called Viscount Downton at his age cannot be good for the child. But of course, that little boy will be spoiled even more than the young ladies. And all that just for being a boy born to the right parents. That child is one lucky bastard. No, not a bastard, his parentage cannot be doubted.

"Hello O'Brien."

"Your ladyship." She starts to do Lady G's hair, she picked something that would take a while to fix tonight, so that she would have ample time to talk to her ladyship. As usual, her ladyship's small talk consists of a report of the Viscount's day and her fights with her mother. Oh if that woman only left. Nobody in this house seems to like her. Absolutely nobody, including her ladyship.

"Is anything the matter?"

"I don't like to say mi'lady." She needs to tread carefully here.

"Are you sure? Is everything alright downstairs?" That woman is always so terribly concerned. As if she really cared.

"Yes. That is no. There is something."

"Well, what is it?"

"It's about Mr. Bates, mi'lady."

"Again? I am sorry O'Brien, but everyone will just have to get used to him. I thought you had already."

"That's not it. It's about him and Anna." She hates that Anna, who is now Lady's maid to Lady Mary but still wants to be called by her first name. She should be called Smith, but Anna says she does not like it and does not mind being called by her Christian name. She would like to rip her head off for that. She would go ballistic if anyone dared to call her Sarah.

"Oh?" Lady G is intrigued now, that is good.

"They, well, I don't know how to put this."

"Just put it plainly then." Oh, she is so American. It is going to kill her someday.

"They kissed. I saw them. A few times. I am not sure if they've done anything else." Her ladyship raises her eyebrows now and a small smile is playing around her lips. This is not the reaction she had hoped to get.

"Well, I doubt it. Bates is too honorable."

"Not too honorable to kiss, apparently."

"Hardly any man is too honorable for that. And the same goes for women. If you like someone, you kiss him. And as long as it is just that, there is no harm done."

"I am not so sure."

"O'Brien, you have never been in love I presume. Let them share their few moments of happiness. God knows we all need it with this awful war. Lady Mary hasn't heard from Mr. Crawley for weeks now." This did not go how she thought it would. Not at all.

"What if they wanted to get married?"

"Then it would be up to his lordship and Lady Mary to decide whether they would like to keep employing them. I dare say there is hardly a question about it. And until they make an announcement, let the matter rest please."

"Very well, your ladyship." She will find another way to get rid of them. She will find another way. And she is not sure about the not wanting to hurt her ladyship part anymore. Especially since Lady G now returns to her favorite conversation topic. The Viscount Downton that little bugger.

* * *

_Matthew_

Bang. Another canon. And another one. All he sees is dust and debris, all he hears is gun fire. He is in hell. He is in living hell and he is leading men to their deaths. And he feels ashamed of it. He is killing other men. The enemies. And he gains satisfaction from it. Oh, how good it feels to shoot one of those bastards. Those bastards that are to blame for his hell. And another one down. Yes. Very good Crawley. He thinks of himself as Crawley when he fights. Not as Matthew. That is a first name, almost a term of endearment. But that is not him. Not anymore. He is Lieutenant Crawley. Not a sharp shooter but as good as one. And another one. He yells at his men to aim more precisely. Just like him. Another one. Yes. And another one. Kill them before they kill you. And he is good at killing, so very good. They won this time. The enemy is retreating at least a little. They go back to their barracks.

He sits down on his makeshift bed. There is a picture of a woman on his makeshift desk. A woman with dark hair and eyes. Mary. His Mary and he slowly returns to being Matthew again. He slowly returns to being the man who hates Lieutenant Crawley. Because that man is a killer machine. But Matthew is not. Matthew is kind hearted, gentle and loving. Lieutenant Crawley and Matthew are two different people and one is afraid of the other.

"Lieutenant Crawley?"

"Yes?"

"There's a letter for you."

The sergeant hands the letter to him. It is from Mary and according to the date, she wrote it more than four weeks ago. There won't be any news of her mother's child then. He reads the first two pages and his heart soars with joy. This news lets that killing machine in him dissolve into thin air and the loving husband Matthew return in full force. He is going to be a father. His darling Mary is pregnant. He stares at her picture and wonders what their child will look like. They look so different. Maybe it'll be boy with Mary's hair and his eyes. Or a girl with his hair and Mary's eyes. Regardless of that, it will be a beautiful child because they have made it out of love. Mary writes something about being concerned that she is almost two months further along than she should be, but that does not matter to him and he doubts that Mary's parents or sisters or his mother would really care. They are married and they surely are not the first married couple to have a baby a few weeks early. Oh what joy this news brings to him.

And then he reads the second part of the letter.

_Mama has had the baby and it is a little boy. They are both very well and you are free Matthew, free of the burden of being an Earl one day. Little Viscount Downton will be prepared for that all his life. It will be so much easier for him than it would have been for you. _

He doesn't really take in the rest of the letter. Mary rambles on about not having seen her brother yet but being sure that he is adorable, not knowing the name but being sure that the middle name will be Robert, about how happy her father is, for she was there when Dr. Clarkson told him and how happy her mother surely must be, she hasn't seen her either yet but is sure that she will be very, very happy. And on and on it goes. And it is driving him mad. Little Viscount Downton. So it really has happened. He is no longer Robert's heir and Robert will no longer think of him as his son. With the birth of the Viscount Downton, he has not only lost an Earldom but a father. And it is the second time he has lost a father. Oh and he will have lost Mary. For all her assurances that she wouldn't care, for all her prattling about her little brother, he is sure that once she realizes what this really means, she will despise him. He once was sure that she would not, he once believed her. But that was before he went to war, before at least a part of him turned into Lieutenant Crawley. Before he knew that people who mean to do only good can turn into killer machines in the blink of an eye. And Mary won't have to turn into a killer machine, only into a woman who hates her husband. And she will, oh yes will.

He takes Mary's picture of his makeshift desk the next day and hides that little stuffed dog, that lucky charm that hasn't brought him any luck at the bottom of his trunk. He does not want to be reminded of Mary. Or Downton. Or any of it. Not even his child. Especially not his child. A child who will hate him because he has nothing to give.

The next time they fight, he returns to being Lieutenant Crawley in full force but this time he doesn't make any effort to turn back into Matthew. Why should he, Matthew is dead. He died with the announcement of the Viscount Downton's birth.

So when he goes home for the leave that he has been granted over Christmas, Lieutenant Crawley goes to Downton Abbey a changed man.


	11. December 1914 II

AN: Thank you once again for all the reviews! I really appreciate the time you are taking to write them. You rock!

Kat

* * *

_Robert_

"Cora, I am taking Nicholas outside, just for a moment. Would you like to come?" She smiles at him, gets up and walks towards him and their son who is resting on his shoulder.

"No. But thank you for asking darling. It is too cold outside for me right now." She then touches their son's face.

"But you go with your Papa. You are like him, you don't mind being in the cold, do you?" She then gives the boy a kiss on the cheek and then him a kiss on the lips. "Don't stay out too long. He is still so small."

"I won't." He smiles at her again and then leaves. Once he is outside, he decides to walk along a pathway that won't take him far from the house. Both Nicholas and he are bundled up, but it really is cold. Before he goes onto the path, he sees a car coming up the drive way and decides to wait.

Once the passenger gets out of the car and he realizes who it is, only his paternal instincts keep him from dropping one son to the ground as he realizes that his other son has come home.

"Matthew," he says and walks towards him. "I am so glad to see you. What a surprise. Mary will be overjoyed. And so am I. Welcome home, son." He doubts this is appropriate, but he hugs the boy with one arm. How could he not. He missed him so much. "Your mother is coming to dinner, she will be so happy to see you. Everyone will be so happy."

"Truly." This is not a question and he looks at Matthew who does not smile, whose deep blue eyes don't sparkle.

"Of course, my dear boy." Nicholas begins to wail at those words and he wonders whether that is because he calls him his dear boy too.

* * *

_Lieutenant Crawley_

The child begins to wail and Robert's attention focuses on his heir. Of course it does.

"Would you like to say hello to Matthew? Matthew, meet Nicholas." Robert turns the child to him and he looks at the boy. At least Robert did not say meet 'my heir', but that was probably just careful consideration on his side. He knows he should say something to or about the baby, but he can't, so he just stares at it, then looks back at Robert and says "I better go, see my mother."

"Mary is here. Don't you want to see her first?" Robert looks rather confused, but he is probably a good actor. He knows that Robert will be glad to be shot of him as soon as possible. He is probably drawing up divorce papers already. Well, at least he can be his own lawyer.

"No. I don't want to," but at that moment he hears a scream and Mary comes running towards him and throws her arms around him.

"Matthew, oh my God, Matthew. I thought the kitchen maid was playing a trick on me when she came into the library and said that she had seen you. But a kitchen maid would never come into the library unless it was really important. Oh Matthew, I am so glad you are home." Mary then kisses him full on the mouth but he doesn't respond. Such a good actress. But he won't fall for her. Not again.

"Is everything alright?"

"Perfectly," he lies. "I am going to visit mother."

"I'll come with you." That is the last thing he wants.

"No. I want to go by myself. Please, just leave me." With that he turns around and walks away.

While he walks away, he hears Robert speaking to Mary. "Give him time Mary. He has to get used to it again. It is horrible in the trenches."

* * *

_Martha_

"So that elusive son-in-law of yours has vanished again. I start to wonder whether he really exists or if he is just a cover-up for Mary's pregnancy."

"Mother!" Cora looks as if she was about to explode. Her eyebrows are drawn together, her cheeks are red and her lips are pursed. She looks like a two year old about to scream for a snack.

"I am just saying what I think."

"There are some thoughts in your head you better kept to yourself."

"Cora, I am an American. I say what I think."

Cora's voice now drops to a dangerous whisper. "I am an American too, but I would never even think such a thing, let alone say it out loud. There are some rules of propriety even Americans can follow."

"Cora, my dear, I didn't know that finally giving birth to the heir had turned you into such a snob."

"Mother, if you don't get a grip on yourself, I will make you leave my house." She'd like to see her pushover of a daughter try.

"You wouldn't dare."

"Wouldn't I? Greater wonders have happened. Anyway, I think I should take care of Mary now."

She wonders if she should be less harsh on her daughter. She is good girl; she did everything that was asked of her and more.

* * *

_Thomas_

He has got it now. A way to cross distress amongst the family. Mr. Moseley told him that Lieutenant Crawley does not feel valued or needed anymore now that there is a 'real heir'. He will put salt into this wound and then the family will bleed. Maybe with some sort of scandal about Lady Mary being divorced. He does not like Lady Mary anyway. She is worse than her mother. At least that American Countess is nice sometimes. Lady Mary is just aloof. So when he is upstairs and sees Lieutenant Crawley walking along the corridor by himself, he stops him.

"Lieutenant Crawley, might I have a word?"

"Of course. Anything to delay my appearance in the drawing room." Thomas smiles a careful, measured smile at this. He is good at creating impressions and he knows it.

"You know that as a lady's maid, Ms. O'Brien talks to her ladyship quite a lot."

"Go on."

"Well. She, her ladyship that is, has said things about you." He needs to be very careful now. He can't exaggerate too much.

"What things?"

"Well, that now that there is a real heir in her words, you are. Forgive me I shouldn't have said it." Of course he should have. He is causing animosity between the two Crawley brunches.

"You don't need to go on. I know what you mean."

"His lordship agrees." He does his best to look astonished at his own words, but of course they were calculated.

"How do you know?"

"Now, this is of course very private."

"Thomas."

"His lordship often joins her ladyship before they go downstairs. Ms. O'Brien heard them talk about you. About how they were rather lucky that you are not the heir anymore." Lord G said no such thing. He said that they had been lucky that they finally had a son, but Lord G certainly does not want to get rid of that upstart lawyer. But if the lawyer left, there would be such an uproar.

"Thank you Thomas. Thank you for your confidence." The Lieutenant's eyes are going red and they are filling with tears and for one tiny moment Thomas hates himself for what he has done. This family has done nothing to him. But they are part of a system that makes him a sinner. So he gets over feeling sorry rather quickly.

* * *

_Lieutenant Crawley_

So that's it. He was right. The Crawleys don't need him anymore and so they don't want him anymore. They are glad about him not being the heir anymore. He will tell Mary that he knows and then leave. Later tonight.

"Mary."

"Hello darling." Mary looks surprised that he has come to her room. It is the first time since he came back. She tried to get him to come to her room before, but he found excuses. He keeps telling her he does not want to endanger the baby. He knows that is rubbish, but still, it usually works as an excuse.

"I talked to Thomas today."

"The footman?" She draws her brows together as if talking to a footman was something dirty.

"Yes, the footman. He told me something rather interesting."

"Pray, what might that have been?" She is so arrogant. How could he ever have believed her.

"He told me what your parents think about me."

"That is not a secret. They love you." She looks as if she thought that he would believe that.

"Mary, don't lie to me." She looks taken aback by this.

"I am not lying. Why would I lie? You know how my parents feel about you."

"Yes. They are glad they have had a boy. And that I am no longer the heir."

"Matthew. Of course they are glad that they have had a boy. They hoped for a boy even before they got married. They hoped for a girl just as much, but they have had three girls and of course they wanted a boy. I want boys and girls. There is nothing wrong about that. But that does not mean that they don't love you. My mother thinks of you as a very much beloved and perfect son-in-law. And if your mother didn't live in the village my mother would think of you as her son. And my father does think of you as his son." She lies through her teeth and she is good at it. If he was still Matthew and not Lieutenant Crawley, he'd believe her.

"No Mary. He loved me as his heir. But I am not the heir anymore. Thanks to your brother, I have been relegated from heir to spare. And I will only be the spare as long as your brother is still small. I am an insurance for your father, if that at all. And should your child be a boy, your father won't even need me for that anymore. He'll have a son and a grandson then to follow him. And that child of yours will be relegated the role of the spare to a spare as soon as your brother has a son of his own."

"That child of mine? Matthew that child is ours. We made that child out of love. I love you. I love you so much. I know there is something wrong with you right now," she is going too far now.

"Are you calling me a lunatic now?" He is about to explode.

"Of course not Matthew. All I wanted to say was that I know that what you are going through with the war and everything."

"Do you Mary? Do you? Do you know what this feels like? I don't think you do." Everything around him goes red now and he hears swishing and hissing in his ears. And the sounds of canon blasts.

"Matthew, I love you. I am going to have your baby. We got married for love." She is lying. He has a hard time controlling himself.

"We got married in a wave of sentimental haste, if that at all. And that is it. It was a mistake. I am leaving now. And once the war is over we will talk about our future." He is focused now, focused on making Mary feel his pain.

"Matthew, what do you mean?"

"Once the war is over, we will get a divorce. I know the procedure. Goodbye Mary." He turns around and leaves.

"Matthew! Matthew!" Mary yells after him but he has understood her game now.

"Matthew! What are you doing here? I was about to leave to go to the Abbey. Robert and Cora invited me to sleep over there tonight, so that I'll be there for their Christmas breakfast tomorrow morning and then we all go to church together."

"Mother, it was you who told me that I shouldn't have married Mary. And you were right. Don't tell me you've changed your mind about it all."

"Mathew, I was wrong. Mary does love you, that much is obvious."

"Mother, don't disappoint me that much."

"Matthew, what is going on with you?" His mother must have lost her mind.

"I have finally come to my senses."

"I think you have lost your mind."

"If that is what you think, you and Mary should get together more often because she thinks that too."

"She is right." Sometimes his mother is infuriating. Why can't she be on his side in this? Why does she always have to oppose him?

"That is it. I am leaving. I'll go to the house, get my stuff and rejoin my regiment. At least there I am valued for what I am." He wants to be back at the front, he wants to shoot those bastards on the other side, he wants to shoot at everything that is wrong with his life.

"Matthew! You can't leave now. Stay for Christmas Day at least, see if things improve."

"They won't improve. And I don't want to see that … Viscount… being showered with presents."

"Nicholas is your brother-in-law. How can you talk like that?" He has lost control now. Somewhere, very deep down a voice that sounds both like Robert and his father tells him not to yell at his mother like this, but he doesn't listen to it, there is no reason to listen to it.

"That boy took everything I've lived for the past two and a half years."

"That is not true. He is the heir, yes, but he did not take the family from you and he most certainly did not take Mary from you. She loves you."

"No mother, she doesn't. And once this war is over, I will divorce her. Don't tell me I can't. I know I can."

"She is pregnant. Matthew, she is having your baby." The next person who talks to him and says 'your baby' might find out that he cannot only aim well with a gun but with a fist too.

"Mother that baby is the result of a marriage that Mary entered because she thought she'd gain a title form it and that I entered in sentimental haste. You said it yourself."

"Oh, I wish I hadn't. I was wrong Matthew and if you leave now, you are making the biggest mistake of your life." He doesn't care. This is not a mistake.

So he goes to the Abbey, throws everything in his trunk, throws Mary, Robert, Cora and Sybil who have all come to talk to him out of his room and leaves without saying goodbye. He feels elated by this. He has freed himself. The divorce is just a legal matter he will deal with after the end of the war, it won't be difficult. He has freed himself of it all. And he has lost it all. His wife, his unborn child, his father, his baby brother. And quite possibly his mother.

* * *

_Isobel_

This was the worst Christmas of her life. Not even the year that her husband had died was Christmas this horrible. And it is all Matthew's fault. Or rather the fault of the war that turned Matthew into that bitter man in just a few short months. She loves her son dearly, but right now she can't help but feel disappointed in him. Robert of all people told her not to be too harsh on Matthew.

"Being in the trenches, shooting at other people, it does something to you. You can't help it. I think that Matthew was overwhelmed with it all. He did not come home to what he knew, so many things have changed. He is not the heir anymore, Mary is obviously pregnant. This is not what he left to fight for on the day that he went to France. He doesn't know what he is fighting for anymore. Give him time, please. Don't send accusatory letters to him. Don't stop writing to him, even if he stops writing to you." She wondered what Robert had been through in South Africa and asked him but he wouldn't tell her. Neither would Cora.

"He really only told me about it once. And it was horrible. But I am not betraying his confidence. I am sorry, but I can't. He made me swear I wouldn't tell a soul. But don't be too harsh on Matthew." In that moment she felt horrible for Robert. But all her sympathy for Robert is nothing compared to how sorry she feels for Mary. The poor girl is five months pregnant and thinks that she has lost her husband, a man she loves beyond words. It was difficult for Isobel to believe Mary whenever she said that she loved Matthew and did not care whether he was the heir or not. But she finally and fully accepted that Mary was saying the truth when she saw her with Nicholas for the first time. Isobel had almost been sure of Mary's love for Matthew long before that of course. But when she saw her daughter-in-law with the boy who essentially took the title and the estate from Matthew and thus from Mary, the few lingering doubts that she still had, vanished into thin air. Mary was so gentle to her brother and she introduced him to her.

"Now, Nicholas," she said. "This is my mother-in-law, Matthew's mother. I hope you remember who Matthew is. My husband. You better be nice to his mother you little rascal because you might find a partner in crime in her from time to time." She laughed about that and at that moment knew that any sort of animosity towards Mary was uncalled for because Mary would not have said that if she didn't love Matthew.

But Mary does not cope with Matthew's behavior well. She, Cora, Violet and even Martha all tried to cheer her up a little over Christmas, and Mary did keep her composure during most of Christmas Day, but when Isobel went into the library later that night to get a book because she couldn't sleep, she found Mary crying her heart out on Robert's shoulder. She has never seen anything that pitiful. Robert tried to calm Mary down, he kept telling her to think about the baby, but all Mary kept saying was "Matthew is gone and he won't come back." She wanted to help but Robert motioned to her to leave again and so she did. She went back to her room and then cried her own heart out. Over Matthew having left like that and over Mary suffering so much.

* * *

_Violet_

New Year's Eve. Another year gone by and quite possibly one of the saddest of her life. The saddest year of her life was of course the year her husband died, but this year might be the one second to it. The beginning of that horrible war and Matthew leaving Mary like that. Robert keeps telling everyone not to be too harsh on Matthew and Cora always agrees with him, and she tries her best not to be too harsh on Matthew, but it is hard for her. Her heart breaks for Mary every time she sees her poor granddaughter and for Robert, who with the birth of one son seems to have lost another. The birth of Nicholas was of course a very happy event during this dark year. She sometimes still can't believe that she has a grandson.

She knows that right now her grandson is in the nursery in all likelihood, so she walks there and then tells the nanny to leave. She looks at the little boy in the crib, sleeping peacefully without a care in the world. He does not know what is coming his way, he does not know the responsibility he will be carrying one day. But she knows that he will be a good earl. She knew that about Robert too when he was still very small, she knew the moment she saw Robert for the first time that he would be a good and dutiful son. And he was, he still is. Except for his marriage to an American, he never did anything that disappointed her. And Robert was right in defying her that once. Cora is a wonderful wife, mother and countess. This is the order that counts. She'd never say that to anyone, but that is what counts. Husband, children, earldom.

The little boy moves in his sleep and she once again realizes how much Nicholas looks like Robert. Her own mother-in-law told her that Robert looked like Patrick, it was one of the very few times that that woman actually was nice to her. And she was right, once Robert became a little older the resemblance between Robert and his father became uncanny. She knows it will be the same with Robert and Nicholas. She is happy about that, naturally, but it also gives her a slight pang every time she thinks about it. She has always missed Patrick; since the day he died missing him has been part of her life and it doesn't really bother her because it is a sign of her deep love for her husband, but the wish to talk to him, the wish to let him see their grandson becomes stronger every day and there is nothing to be done about it. He would be so happy and so proud. He'd be so proud of Robert and what their dear little boy has made out of his life. But as that dear little boy put so aptly a few months ago, titled gentlemen never see their sons carry on their titles. It is the nature of things.

It drives her to tears. Missing Patrick becomes too overwhelming.

"Mama, Robert sent me to look for you. Are you crying?"

"No. I have got a cold."

"You lie. You are crying. Wait until I tell Robert. Our cold hearted mother crying. Once you've collected yourself, please come downstairs. Tea is about to be served." She watches Rosamund leave and wishes it had been Cora Robert had sent to find her. She knows that Rosamund was only teasing, her daughter has a good heart, even if she hardly ever shows it. But she is not very good a taking other people's feelings into consideration and Violet is afraid that is something the girl inherited from her mother. But Cora would not have teased her, she'd have understood immediately. She probably would have said something very nice and gentle and then left the room, still pretending that she hadn't noticed her mother-in-law's tears. Sometimes she wishes that Rosamund was just a tiny bit more like Cora. This thought make her feel sorry for Cora who has had to deal with her own mother for four weeks now and Mrs. Levinson's behavior towards her daughter is despicable. But at least that woman will only stay for two more weeks. Maybe the next year will be better than the last. Although she does not know how that is possible with a war going on.


	12. March 1915

AN: Thanks again for all the reviews and favs and follows! That's what keeps me writing!

Stephanie: Take a deep breath and reread Lieutenant Crawley's last three sentences in the previous chapter. BTW, I am not offended or hurt by your comment, why would I be? You took the time to write down your opinion and I am glad that you did, I appreciate that. And you weren't unkind or anything, so don't worry. I'd really like to talk to you about the reasons I had for the Matthew/Lieutenant Crawley plotline, but I won't do it publicly (for spoiler reasons), so I can't really say anything now as you commented as a guest. But if you like, sign up and send me a pm and then we can discuss this, I'd really like to do that, I am always up for discussing my stories.

Kat

* * *

_Cora_

"How is Mary?" Her husband looks very concerned when he asks this question. He is very concerned and worried about their daughter, just as much as she is. Mary, in fact no one, not even Isobel, has heard anything from Matthew since he left the day before Christmas. They know that he is still alive because Robert calls the war office several times a week just to be reassured of Matthew's continued existence, but that is all they know. It is hard for all of them, she knows that Robert suffers very much, that Isobel suffers even more and that it is tearing Mary apart.

"Not very well. She feels left alone. She hopes for a letter every day but she says she knows that it is in vain. And the pregnancy is difficult for her."

"Is she alright? Physically?" Robert looks even more concerned now.

"Yes. But the child is kicking her as much as Sybil and Nicholas kicked me. But while it bothered me from time to time, over all I didn't mind, it made them real to me. But to Mary it makes the pain of seemingly having lost Matthew real. She says that every kick that the child gives her reminds her of the fact that Matthew has left her." They are both sitting on the bed now, next to each other, holding hands.

"Do you think I should talk to her? Should I tell her what I once told you? How horrible it is, how it changes you?" She looks at Robert's face which is full of worry for their daughter. It touches her very deeply that he would talk to Mary about this, just to help their daughter.

It had been so difficult for him to tell her and she remembers how he had asked her to put the room into darkness when he told her, how they had lain in her bed next to each other, but not touching, how he had asked her not to interrupt him. And then he began to speak. "It is hard to put into words. You become a different person. You forget about your home, you forget what you are fighting for. There were times when we were in a battle when you could have walked up to me and I would not have recognized you. I'd have shot at you had I thought that you were the enemy. Because you shoot at your enemy and in those moments there is nothing more satisfying than to place a shot that kills. There were times at night when we were waiting, when somebody could have asked me 'how are Mary, Edith and Sybil?' and I would have had no idea who that person was talking about. Those periods were always brief, they occurred during and right after battles, but they make you wonder. They make you wonder whether if you are able to forget everything, to forget the names of your children, to forget what your wife looks like, whether it is worth fighting for, whether you shouldn't just put an end to your miserable life." He stopped to speak then and she hardly dared to ask a question burning in her mind, almost tearing her apart. "What made you not end your miserable life?"

"There comes a point, every time there comes a point, at which you remember why you went to war, who you left behind and why fighting this bloody war has some sort of sense and more importantly why you should try your best to survive that bloody war. A point at which I suddenly remembered you and our lovely girls, a point at which I couldn't stop thinking or talking about you. And knowing that that moment would always come was what kept me from just ending it." He began to sob violently then and all she could do was to hold him and to let him cry his heart out. Once he had calmed himself, he said "I am sorry, what must you think of me? I am such a blubbering fool and you probably hate me now anyway." She whispered a strangled "no, of course not" at that, of course she did not hate him, she loved him and in that moment she loved him more than anything and she knew he needed reassurance of that. So she leaned into him and kissed him on the lips, each kiss more demanding then the first. He pulled her a little closer but she knew that it was up to her to take the lead that time and so she straddled him and kissed him and moved against him. He gave in to her and she then began to undress him and kiss him everywhere. His face, his neck, his chest. Every kiss she gave him elicited a hiss, and every hiss was more desperate than the one before. Eventually he had almost demanded she took off her clothes, and she did as he asked. He pinned her to the bed then but didn't do anything. She had known then that he thought he wasn't worthy of her and so she guided him to show him that she thought him more than worthy of her. What had followed had been one of the most frantic lovemaking sessions in their marriage, but it had served its purpose. When Robert almost fell on top of her, his breathing out of control, his body full of sweat and the air around them carrying that specific smell that only lovemaking can produce, she knew that she had her husband back. "I love you. Oh God, I love you so much," he said and kissed her. They never talked about the war in South Africa again, not like that anyway, but she understood.

"Robert, I am not sure that would be right. I'd say yes if she wasn't pregnant. But," it is hard for her to go on, to put her fears into words.

"You are concerned for the baby. You think that Mary's current state of mind might harm the baby."

"Yes. Maybe it is ridiculous, but I think that unborn children somehow experience their mothers' moods. It is just a feeling I can't put into words." Robert has pulled her close to him now and he draws circles on her upper arm, something that makes her feel like home, because it is one of those things that he often does absentmindedly.

"You might be right. But I will tell her again that Matthew wasn't really himself when he was home. She needs to know and to believe that."

"Why were you able to turn it off so much better than Matthew? The war?" She can feel him take a deep breath.

"South Africa is further away from home and when I was on the ship back, I knew I came back for good. It wasn't possible for me to return home and then go back to war. I knew what I was coming home to and I knew I'd still be the heir when I came back. And by the time I left we had been married for over ten years. Our marriage was secure, we had already had three lovely, wonderful children and I knew that I could be sure of your continued love for me. It is different for Mary and Matthew. People, Rosamund and Isobel I am sad to say were the leaders in that, kept telling Matthew that Mary only married him because she hoped for a title."

"But that wasn't true. And people, especially your mother told you that I had only married you for a title."

"Yes darling. But first of all, I could be sure that I would not lose that title. I was the heir apparent. Secondly, you had given something for that too, all of your inheritance. And thirdly and most importantly, by the time I left we had been in love for more than nine years. We had had more than nine years of a blissfully happy marriage."

"Did we? Is that really what you thought?"

"Of course." She loves him for that answer. He is so sure of it. She is too, of course, but she knows that he did not marry her for love. It came along for him and he keeps telling her that she has made him happier than he ever thought he could be and she believes him, she feels the same about him after all. But it still makes her heart burst with joy every time he says that she has made him happy.

"Have you offered your services?"

"Yes. I sent them a letter about a week ago. I am waiting for a reply."

"I'll miss you. And so will the girls and Nicholas." He holds her even tighter to him now and she knows that this will be hard on him too.

"I'll miss you too. You and our children. And our grandchild. But I have to do this."

"Will it affect you the way it has affected Matthew?"

"I don't know. I hope not. But I can't promise you that."

"He hasn't written to Mary since Christmas. It's been more than ten weeks."

"I know. And I have been wondering whether I should not write to him and tell him what he does to Mary."

"Tell him that he is more than a spare for Nicholas to you. That is what Mary and he fought about. Thomas told him that O'Brien overheard us talking about being happy that he wasn't the heir anymore."

"Cora, I know we've talked about this, but don't you think it was about time you let O'Brien go?"

"No. I trust her. No Robert, don't argue. She does her work well." She knows what Robert thinks about O'Brien but finding a new lady's maid isn't easy at any time and especially not during war time. They can't really let Thomas go either because they wouldn't find another young able bodied man.

"Well, it is up to you."

"Maybe we should both write to Matthew and tell him how much we like him and how important he is to us." Robert gives her a kiss on the lips now and whispers "Thank you, darling." He is just about to deepen the kiss when there comes a wail from his room. They put a crib into Robert's room for Nicholas to sleep in; Robert does not need the room anyway and they have always taken care of their children at night themselves. They used to store the crib for the girls in her room during the day and only move it once they had been left alone. Bates however makes such things much easier and does not comment on the baby's bed in Robert's room.

"Your child wants attention, my darling." Robert gets up, mumbling something about having to teach his son that sometimes his parents need time for themselves.

"Well my dear boy, you don't pick your times for wanting attention very well. Your Mama and I were busy." She can hear the love and laughter in Robert's voice. Of course it does not really bother him that Nicholas needs attention at night, she knows that Robert enjoys those moments just as much as she does. When Robert comes back to their room, their little boy is resting on his father's shoulder and clutching his pajama. Robert looks so at ease with their darling son. He had the same ease with their girls and it makes everything she feels for her husband more intense. They go through their usual routine of her feeding their son and Robert changing him and as usual, Robert complains about being the one having to take care of what is left of the food once it has passed their son's body. She knows he isn't serious, she offered him a hundred times that she could do that, she did the same when their girls were small, but Robert insisted that he didn't really mind. "Sometimes I like to complain, my dear," he said every time she offered him to do it. And they have always switched as soon as their children had been weaned and that will happen within the next few weeks anyway.

Robert has now sat down on their bed with their son. He never returns the boy to his crib right away, he loves spending time like this, just the two of them and their son. They did that with the girls too.

"Before you leave for war, we should do something with Nicholas and the girls. Just us and our children. Take them to London and just spent time with them." And make memories. Because she knows that her darling husband might not come back.

* * *

_Anna_

She feels so sorry for Lady Mary. She considers Lady Mary to be her friend, regardless of what Ms. O'Brien says about this. Anna came to Downton right after school, when she was fourteen. She started out as a regular housemaid and cleaning and tidying up the girls' rooms had been one of her first responsibilities. The house keeper told her she was to clean the girls' rooms because she obviously was a very good worker, so they could start her off with something that would allow her to show her potential. She had been at Downton for a little over two months when Lady Mary, then only twelve years old, came back to her room while Anna was still cleaning it. At that age, Lady Mary had cared a lot less about propriety than she does now and she had been curious about what Anna was doing in her room. They started to talk and realized they got along very well. When she came to Lady Mary's room the next day, the young girl was in there and obviously waiting for her. This became an almost daily routine. Lady Mary was either waiting for her or came in shortly after she started working in her room. Sometimes, if they had a lot to talk about, Lady Mary would follow her into her sisters' rooms. This went on for almost four years.

When Lady Mary was sixteen and it was about time she started to attend family dinners every day, she did not need a governess to take care of her any more but a lady's maid. As was the tradition, none of the girls were to be given an actual lady's maid before getting married, so it was decided that one of the house maids would double up as lady's maid, first only to Lady Mary, and then successively to Lady Edith and Lady Sybil as well. It was Lady Mary herself who suggested Anna take a course on hair dressing 'and whatever else is necessary so that you can take care of me. I want a friend to do it, someone I trust and more importantly like very much,' she had said to Anna and apparently to her parents as well. The day after her engagement Lady Mary asked her to become her lady's maid and of course she said yes. She needs a lot more time to dress Lady Mary than Ms. O'Brien needs to dress her ladyship, but Lady Mary and her spend quite a lot of time talking and the sentence 'Anna, I'll cover for you,' is part of their daily routine. She asked Lady Mary to please still call her Anna because she does not like being called just by her last name. 'Well, if someone were to call me 'Crawley', I suppose I'd think I was my father and be yelled by an army officer, so Anna it is.'

Anna had been pondering for quite a while whether she should talk to Lady Mary about Mr. Bates and had actually decided to do it, but then Mr. Crawley left to go back to the front the day before Christmas and Lady Mary has been in a bad state since then. She cries every day, she is afraid for her unborn child; she is scared of having to tell that child why his or her father left. She tries to calm Lady Mary down every day but hardly to any avail, in fact it gets worse every day. Sometimes now, when she comes upstairs, her ladyship is with Lady Mary but even the mother can't help in this. It is the same today. Lady Mary is sitting on a chair in her room when Anna enters, staring outside the window. Her ladyship is sitting on a footrest, talking to her daughter. "Mary, please. Come down for dinner. You have to eat. If you don't eat, you'll harm the baby."

"I don't care about the baby anymore. All it does is remind me of Matthew."

"Mary, please don't say that. You may think that you don't care about your child right now, but you will, once it is here."

"Mama, not everyone's world is as perfect as yours." Although she knocked on the door, neither one of the women in the room has heard her and so she gives a small cough.

"Oh hello Anna. I'll leave you two to it." On her way out, her ladyship stops and whispers "Please talk to her. She might listen to you." She nods.

"I know what my mother told you. That you should talk to me."

"It is what she asked, but I would have done that in any case."

"You are my lady's maid, I dictate what we talk about." She is not hurt by this because she knows that Lady Mary is not doing well.

"Maybe. But I am responsible for your wellbeing and you are not well, my lady."

"How would you feel if your husband left you pregnant and all alone?"

"I am not sure he really left you. War does things to you. I am sure he will come back, my lady."

"How can you be? You did not hear what he said. All those ridiculous things. I have written to him twenty times, but never gotten a reply. His mother has written to him, my parents have both written to him to assure him that none of what he was told is true, but he just does not react. He does not care anymore and I am left alone." She wonders if she should tell Lady Mary what Mr. Bates told her about being at war. A few weeks ago, they were the only ones left in the servants' hall. When her ladyship hadn't rung by midnight, O'Brien had gone to bed, saying that she was sure that his lordship would undress her. But Lady Mary hadn't rung either by that time and neither had his lordship. So she and Mr. Bates stayed downstairs and all by themselves and they began to talk. Eventually they talked about Mr. Crawley and Mr. Bates then told her about the hell that war was. He had never talked to anyone about this before, but he almost broke down in tears when he told her. Ever since then she has been wondering whether it would help Lady Mary if she told her what Mr. Bates said, but she isn't sure. Knowing what Mr. Crawley is probably going through right now might make her even more desperate. So she doesn't say anything.

* * *

_Edith_

He asked her. He really did ask her to become his wife. What started out as a project to show Mary that she too could get a man to like her, to lust after her because that was what Anthony had done, he had lusted after Mary, but who could blame him, even she knows that Mary is beautiful, turned into so much more. When Matthew took Mary outside to propose, she had talked to Sir Anthony. And she realized that he did not like her less than he liked Mary. Maybe he liked her even more because she was not eying Matthew while he talked to her. But how could she, Matthew was proposing to Mary at that moment. After a while she forgot that Mary and Matthew had left, she even forgot to be indignant about her parents holding hands and kissing in the drawing room. Sir Anthony was an excellent conversation partner and she enjoyed talking to him. She was almost sad to see him go and when he said 'until next time', he heart skipped a beat. He came back only three days later and by chance met her coming back from a walk. "Mary is engaged to Matthew," was the first thing she said, those words just fell out of her mouth. "That is not a surprise and I am very happy for your sister. I shall congratulate her once I see her. But I came to see you."

He took her on a drive in his car then, told her about his first wife, how many people had not liked her but how he had seen the wonderful sides of her. How he had mourned her for over four years, but how he was sure that he was passed that now. How he was ready to fall in love again.

"I am ready for that too," she said.

"Have you ever been in love?" And without thinking about it, she told him about Patrick, how much she had loved him and how much it had hurt her that he so obviously preferred Mary. How men always seemed to prefer Mary.

"Not always, Lady Edith. Not always." He stopped the car then and helped her out and showed her a view of his estate. It was beautiful. Not as huge as Downton but much more intimate, much more to her liking. "I don't prefer your sister."

"You flatter me."

"You deserve to be flattered." They both laughed then. It hadn't been a joke, but it still made them laugh. The absurdity of the situation. That he had been chosen by her mother as a potential husband for Mary. That the day he came to dinner to meet Mary another man proposed to Mary. And that they had somehow ended up together. They had been the unwanted ones. Until they met. And now they want each other. She knew it was too early, they had met only twice after all, but when Sir Anthony leaned in to kiss her, she did not object. But she told him that it was too early, that she needed more time and he had understood. In the flurry of the war, Mary's wedding, her brother's birth, Matthew leaving again the day before Christmas and Mary having been a wreck ever since then, her relationship with Anthony has gone unnoticed. She thinks that is a blessing in disguise, they were able to get to know each other without anyone putting any pressure or hopes on them. She knew she loved him when he gave her beautiful necklace for Christmas. He came to the Abbey very early in the morning and threw stones against her window. Apparently he bribed a hall boy to tell him which room was hers. She stole downstairs then and he gave her the Christmas present and with that captured her heart. And now, finally he proposed. And although she loves him, she did not give him an answer. Because she knows that he wants to go to war and because she sees how her sister suffers. And she does not want to go through that. She does not really know what to do, but she knows that she should talk to Mary about this and so she looks for her sister and finds her in her room.

"Mary, how are you?"

"Pregnant and left by my husband. What do you think how I am?" Maybe this is the wrong the time, maybe she should just leave. "Now that you are here, you might as well say what you have to say."

"Anthony Strallan has proposed to me." Mary's face shows no reaction.

"So all your secret meetings have actually led to something."

"You knew about that?"

"Yes. I thought he'd propose on Christmas Day."

"Why?"

"Because not all the stones he threw landed on your window." She chuckles but when she sees her sister's face, she pulls herself together.

"Well, he did propose but I don't know what to say."

"Do you love him?"

"Yes." Mary's face is still emotionless, but she has turned to her now.

"Then say yes."

"He wants to go to war." Mary raises her eyebrows now.

"Say yes. I don't regret marrying Matthew. Those few weeks that we had together were wonderful."

"But," her sister shakes her head.

"Edith, I am saying this with your best interest at heart. I am not trying to hurt you. Make the most of loving Anthony because love can be a fleeting thing." She knows that Mary won't say anything else. Not on that matter, not on anything. Because her sister sometimes just stares out of the window without realizing what is going on around her. And she is staring now.

* * *

_Mary_

She keeps dreaming about Matthew. In her dreams they are happy. She has had the baby and they are as happy as her parents. But then she wakes up, usually by a pain stinging in her heart because she knows it is just a dream. But now she is woken by a stinging in her abdomen. That should not happen. She has never been in such pain and she needs help. She needs her mother. So she gets up and tries to ignore the pain. She does not put on her dressing gown. That is on her chair and she needs to walk the other way. She is afraid the baby is coming. But it is four weeks early. All she wants is her mother to tell her that everything is alright. So she walks towards her parents' room and hopes that she won't interrupt them. The thought makes her grin despite everything and that causes a wave of pain she has never felt before. All she can do is gasp and try to hold on to the wall. She knows she isn't there yet, but she calls for her mother and then she slides down the wall. The world around her begins to spin. She hears people moving around her and then a pair of strong arms lifts her up very gently and carefully. She is sure it is her father who is carrying her back to her bed.

"Mama," she says. Maybe her father can get her.

"I am here, my darling girl. The doctor has been called for, so you don't have to worry. Everything will be alright." Everything is clearly not alright. She drifts in and out of consciousness; she is in pain she never imagined a person could be in. It feels as if she was split open from the inside. People around her are yelling things, she doesn't know what. At some point she realizes that the sun is shining and a while later the moon is in the sky again. She screams herself hoarse; she cries more tears than she has ever cried in her life. Her mother keeps talking to her, keeps telling her what to do and she tries to listen to her mother.

"One final push Mary darling, just one more and it will all be over." It will all be over. That is what she wants. So she pushes one more time. A moment later she hears a baby scream, her baby, but she knows there is nothing she can do for the child.

"It's a boy, Mary," her mother says. She nods and then realizes that maybe there is something she can do for him after all. Her mother will certainly grant her a last wish.

"Name him George Matthew please. And take good care of him for me." She hears her mother sob and take a deep breath.

"I will my darling girl. I will take care of your son as I have taken care of you. I love you Mary."

And then her world fades to black.


	13. March 1915 II

AN: Thank you for all the reviews, especially to the guests who I can't send a pm to because, well, you can't send a pm to a guest.

FYI: The percentage method for feeding babies became popular around 1907, so that is how George and probably at least to some extent Nicholas are fed here. Just so you won't get confused :).

Let me know what you think!

Kat

P.S.: I might not be able to put the next chapter up before Monday night, but I'll do my best to put it up on Sunday. But don't worry if I don't, I haven't forgotten about it :)

* * *

_Carson_

He almost grabs Anna when she comes down the stairs.

"Is there any news?" His heart is beating so fast he thinks he might collapse.

"No. She is still the same. She is conscious sometimes, but Dr. Clarkson says it doesn't look good."

"Thank you."

He asks Anna for news whenever she comes downstairs. Lady Mary gave birth in an ordeal that lasted over 20 hours three days ago and ever since then the house has been waiting for her death. Dr. Clarkson said he was surprised that she was still alive, but according to Anna she is barely breathing. He has debated with himself whether to ask his lordship if he could see Lady Mary once more but he did not want to intrude upon the family. But maybe it is time now. So he goes upstairs and eventually finds his lordship in the nursery, feeding the young Viscount.

"I am sorry your lordship for the interruption."

When the Earl of Grantham turns around to face him, Carson is painfully reminded of that twelve year old boy he met more than thirty years ago. That carefree boy who now looks like a man who has aged ten years within the last four days.

"Carson. What is the matter?"

"My Lord, I know this is out of the ordinary. But I wonder if I might see Lady Mary."

"Yes, of course. Her ladyship is with her now. Lady Mary was conscious a few minutes ago when I took Master George to see her. She knew who he was, which was better than this morning when she thought that her son was Lord Downton."

"So is there hope for improvement?" The Earl looks at him and starts to blink rapidly and then the tears begin to fall when he shakes his head.

"No. And I can't deal with any of this. Mary is 24 years old. She is so young. How could that have happened? I was so sure it would go well. She is twenty years younger than her mother and Cora was fine after she had Nicholas." He has never seen his employer lose his composure like that. He has never heard him refer to his wife as 'Cora' and most of all, he has never seen him cry. And he doesn't know what to do. He feels incredibly sorry for this man.

"Forgive me Carson, I am embarrassing you. You may go to Lady Mary's room if you wish."

"Thank you." He leaves but turns around when he is at the door. "I know I am speaking out of turn my lord, but you have not embarrassed me." He then leaves the room.

"Come in." It is her ladyship who utters those words.

"Oh hello Carson. Lady Mary will be happy to see you. I'll leave you two alone, I have to return Master George to the nursery."

He is sure that her ladyship has to do no such thing, but he is glad she leaves him with Lady Mary. He takes Lady Mary's hand and looks at her pale face.

"My dear girl, I don't know what to say. Only that I hope that you will pull through. I have seen your son, he is a wonderful little boy and he would bring you so much joy. But I know you are suffering, I know you are in pain. So should you not be able to stay with us know this: I would miss you very much. You and your siblings are the closest I have ever gotten to having children myself and I care for you quite a bit."

"Thank you Carson." Mary slowly opens her eyes and her voice is hoarse and raspy. "I am glad you think of us this way. Please let George and Nicholas hide in your pantry the same way you allowed us to do it."

"I will."

"Good. Would you get my parents please? Both of them?"

"Of course." He is afraid that she is ready to say goodbye to her parents, that she knows that she is about to die.

* * *

_Violet _

She has to find the chauffeur and no one is supposed know that she has talked to him so she walks to the Abbey and then goes to the garage, where thankfully Branson is working on one of the cars.

"Hello Branson," she says. The man stands up straight, shock written all over his face.

"Was I supposed to pick you up? Did I forget? I am so sorry your ladyship."

"No no, don't worry. But I have a task for you and I'd like you to not breathe a word to anyone. No to anyone."

"Understood mi'lady."

"Tomorrow morning at six o'clock I want you to pick up Lieutenant Crawley from the station."

"He is coming here?"

"Yes."

"Forgive me, but how did you do that?" She should be indignant about the chauffeur but for some reason she likes him. He is clever and not afraid to speak his mind. She does not agree with his political ideas, but at least he is political. She usually talks to him when he drives her, which is something she has never done before, but there is something about Branson that appeals to her. Maybe it is his respect for Sybil. And she is rather flattered by his obvious admiration for her getting Matthew to come here.

"I called in more favors than I could count, I telephoned everyone I, his lordship or my nephew the Marquess Flintshire know at the War Office. I did already did that while Lady Mary was still in labour. Lieutenant Crawley has been sent home to 'rest and recuperate' for two weeks. He does not know that Lady Mary has had the baby or how badly she is doing. Don't tell him. When he asks you where you are taking him, just say 'home'. Smuggle him into the house through the back and then tell him about Lady Mary and the baby."

"Of course your ladyship. And might I add: I think you have made the right decision."

"Well, thank you for telling me what is right and what is wrong." She is far less bothered by him than she should be.

* * *

_Branson_

He is incredibly relieved that Lieutenant Crawley is coming home. He has watched him and Lady Mary since the day he came to Downton and he knows they love each other very much.

"Tom?"

"Oh hello Sybil. How is your sister?" He hopes that Sybil coming to see him means that Lady Mary is better. Sybil usually comes to see him after dinner, it has been their routine for more than five months now and he enjoys these moments with her. But the last three nights she didn't come to see him, she couldn't come to see him of course.

He wishes they had progressed a little further in their relationship, maybe not to a point where he'd have had the right to be with the family, but maybe to a point at which he knew that that right was coming. But he understands Sybil, her mother's baby, her sister's pregnancy, her brother-in-law's unceremonious leaving the day before Christmas which led to Lady Mary being seriously depressed have caused Sybil trouble and worries.

"Not better. Tom, I am afraid that she is going to die. She asks for news of Matthew, Papa sent a telegram to him but he hasn't replied. I think Mary wants to hold on to see if Matthew will come and see her and the child but he won't and that is what is killing her. That is what is costing her her will to live. She fell asleep half an hour ago and I am afraid that she will not wake up again."

"What makes you think that?"

"She said goodbye to us all. First Edith and me, then Carson and then Mama and Papa. Mama hasn't stopped crying since and Papa only keeps staring out of the window. Not even Nicholas can cheer them up anymore. I fed him tonight because they just weren't able to take care of him. And I didn't want him to be fed by the nanny the night his eldest sister is likely to die. I know it doesn't make any sense, but that's how feel. I won't stay long tonight, Tom. I will go back upstairs and take care of Nicholas and George. That is what feels right to me."

"So you'd rather do what feels right to you than what other people would like you to do." He knows that of course, but he needs to hear her answer to make his final decision.

"Of course. You know that Tom."

"Yes. I do. Sybil, your grandmother has asked me to do something and to not tell a soul but I think that you should know."

"What is it?" He takes a deep breath but he knows that this is the right thing to do.

"She asked me to pick up Matthew from the train station tomorrow morning at six."

"What?"

"Apparently she pulled a lot of strings, telephoned a lot of people. Matthew has been sent home to 'rest and recuperate'. He doesn't know anything about the child or how badly Mary is doing. But he is coming here."

"I have to tell Mary."

"I think you should."

"Oh Tom, this might save her."

"I hope it does."

"Please, forgive me. I have to," she gestures wildly with her hands and causes him to smile a small smile.

"Yes. Go." She kisses him on the cheek and the runs to the house. He touches his cheek where she kissed him and prays that her sister will survive.

* * *

_Sybil_

She storms up to Mary's room and hopes that her parents adhere to Mary's wish and are not sitting beside her bed. Mary asked Edith and her and their parents to not come back, to just leave her alone. It broke all their hearts and she knows that her mother wanted to ignore that wish, but she also knows that her father thinks that if that is Mary's wish then there is nothing to be done. She listens at the door and there seems to be no one in the room so she opens the door slowly. She kneels down next to her sister's bed and takes her hand.

"Mary?" she asks. To her great relief Mary moves her head ever so slightly.

"I know you did not want me to come back in here, but there is something important that you have to know. Matthew is coming home. Granny pulled a few strings and Tom will pick him up at six o'clock tomorrow morning and bring him here. Please Mary, if you could just hold out until then. Please." She looks at her sister imploringly and then she sees Mary give a tiny nod.

"Would you like me to stay with you?" Mary nods again. So she settles down on the bed next to her sister and holds her hand.

* * *

_Lieutenant Crawley_

"We are sending you home, Lieutenant Crawley. For two weeks."

"I shouldn't be given leave." He does not understand this. Why is he sent home? What has he done wrong?

"It is to rest and recuperate. You have spent more time in the trenches than anyone else in this regiment. So you are sent home for a short while."

"But this is a war."

"Yes. And we want our best officers to always have their wits about them. But that is only possible if they get a break from time to time and it is your turn now."

"But"

"Lieutenant Crawley, this is an order."

So he packs the very few belongings that he has and begins his journey home. He is determined to not go to the Abbey, he will stay at Crawley House and tell his mother to not admit Mary or anyone else of the family under any circumstance, not even if Mary had the baby while he was home. He knows that baby is due sometime in April, but hopes it won't come before he is gone again because he knows that his mother would try to force him to look at the baby. But he does not want to see it. He is done with that family and trying to bring him back with a baby won't help. He has trained himself not to think 'my child'. He only ever thinks about it as 'the baby', because thinking about it as his child breaks his heart. Although he doesn't really have a heart anymore. He noticed that he does not feel compassion anymore, he does not really feel sorry anymore for the men, English men, who die around him. He wishes they didn't have to die and he tries to save as many lives as he can, but if men under his command die, it does not touch him anymore. At least not as much as it should.

He spends the first part of his journey home thinking about new strategies for battles and the second part thinking about strategies on how to keep the family away from him. He briefly considers staying in London, but he would like to see his mother, at least for a day or two. Maybe he should go to London afterwards. When he gets off the train at Downton at six o'clock in the morning, he is determined to walk to his mother's house and starts down the road.

"Lieutenant Crawley."

"Branson!" What is the chauffeur doing here?

"I am to take you home."

"I can walk." He does not want Robert's servant to cater and bow and scrape to him. It is so typical of that family to make the poor chauffeur get up that early just to drive him a way he could walk.

"I am afraid I have to insist. Orders from Major Clarkson. You are to rest. And walking to your mother's house after a three day journey is not resting." He thinks about fighting Branson on this, but the man seems to want to take him to Crawley House, so he doesn't see the point, even if this feels wrong.

"Alright then. Although I am exceedingly sorry that they made you get up this early."

"Don't worry about it." He watches the village pass the windows and only realizes after they have already passed it that Branson did not stop at his mother's house. He calls for Branson to stop and turn around, but the man seems to have gone selectively deaf. Lieutenant Crawley imagines himself being greeted by the whole Crawley family in front of the Abbey for a few frantic minutes and tries to come up with an escape route, but Branson is taking the car around the Abbey and stops in front of the servants' entrance.

"Here we are Mr. Matthew." Mr. Matthew. What is that man thinking? If he wasn't too tired, he'd give him a piece his mind. But he just asks "What?"

"You are to come with me."

"Am I being abducted by a chauffeur now?" He knows this is below the belt but he doesn't care, he is too tired and too confused to care.

"In a manner of speaking, yes. You can either follow me quietly or I'll pull you."

"You can't. I would win a fight with you."

"Matthew. You might be good with a gun and good when it comes to thinking strategically. But I am good at pub brawls. What would this resemble more?"

The chauffeur is right, despite having just called him Matthew. Whatever this is, he will give in and then run as fast as he can. So he follows Branson to the family wing where they are expected by Sybil. He thought it would be Mary and for the first time in months, he feels something akin to concern for his wife.

"Hello Matthew. Thank you Tom." Tom? He needs to get to the bottom of that. Or rather not, because it isn't his business anymore.

"Sybil. What is this?"

"Listen to me Matthew. Don't say a word. Just listen." He wants to protest, but somehow this young woman who he once thought of as almost a sister looks at him so imploringly that he nods.

"Mary has had the baby. George is fine, he is doing well. But Mary is not, she is a lot closer to death than to life. The birth took more than 20 hours and she has been very weak ever since. She knows you are coming because I told her to hold on until you were here. I wanted you to have the chance to say goodbye. To make your peace with her. Because I am sure that you would regret it if you didn't." His world begins to spin out of control and he has to hold on to the wall and the moment his hand touches the wall of the house he once thought would be his it all comes back to him. How much he looked forward to being a father, at least for a few minutes until he read about Nicholas. Nicholas who took all this away from him, Nicholas who took a huge burden off his shoulder. And Robert who turned into a father figure to him the moment they met, Robert who told him that he wanted him as his son, regardless of Nicholas. But most of all he becomes aware of the power and magnitude of his love for Mary. His darling wife who is about to die.

"Mary will die?" How can that be? She is still so young and full of life and they have just had a son. She can't die.

"It is very likely. Go to her. She is in her room."

He goes to Mary's room, the room that should have been theirs, as if he was in a trance.

Mary is on their bed and she looks lifeless. But she can't be dead. He needs to talk to her, he needs her to be alive. So he falls to his knees next to her and takes her hand.

"Mary, my darling, I am so sorry. About everything. Everything I said to you the last time I was here, and for every letter I did not write to you. I am sorry for disappointing you like that, for not being the husband you deserved. I know it is not an excuse, but war changes you and I let it change me too much. Far too much. I lost track of what is important. Please Mary, wake up. I love you. Terribly much."

But Mary doesn't stir. He knows she is still alive because he can hear her breathe. It is very shallow, but she is breathing. He starts to draw circles on her hand. "I love you. Don't die. I love you. Don't die." He has no idea how often he says this, maybe 50 times, maybe a hundred times, maybe a thousand times. But she does not react. "I love you. Don't die." It is like a mantra and he hopes to God that she hears him. Maybe she can hear him but hates him so much that she doesn't care what he wants or feels. He would deserve it. "I love you. Don't die." He regrets how he talked to her, what he accused her of the last time he was home so much. "I love you. Don't die." He wishes he could have the letters she sent to him back. Letters he threw into the fire unopened. "I love you. Don't die." He stops to think and just looks at her. "I love you. Don't die."

He is interrupted by a baby's cry and looks at the other side of her bed, the place that should have been his. A very small baby is there in his stead. He supposes that Sybil placed him there shortly before he went into the room. He lets go of Mary's hand, walks around the bed and picks up the baby. He knows how to hold a baby, his mother taught him long ago. "You will need that skill one day," she said to him and she was right.

"Hello George," he says and looks into his son's eyes. His son. His and Mary's son.

"Matthew," Mary's voice is soft and almost feeble but she is awake. He looks at her and she smiles a very faint smile at him

"He's perfect Mary. Absolutely perfect, my darling."

"I am glad you came. Sybil said you would, but I wasn't sure whether she wasn't lying."

"I am glad I came here. I love you Mary. And I am so so sorry. For every word I said to you when I was here the last time and for every letter I did not send to you." She nods.

"I have never held him." This makes him feel even sorrier.

"We can rectify that. Can you sit up? Just a little?" Mary moves enough for him to sit halfway behind her and lift her up a bit more, which isn't easy as he is holding George with one arm. He then places their son into her arms, turns a little and pulls Mary towards him, so that she is resting against him.

"He is perfect. You are right." He doesn't think that he has ever felt love as strongly as he feels it now for his son and his wife.

"I love you. Please don't die."

* * *

_Robert _

"Cora? Cora?" She is still asleep. She cried herself to sleep sometime between four and five in the morning. He tried to calm her down but she just wouldn't. And he felt the same. Their eldest daughter who is on the brink of death asked them to not come to her room anymore. It broke their hearts.

"Cora?"

"What?"

"Do you know where George is?" They put George into his room just as they do with Nicholas and it is now seven o'clock in the morning and neither of the boys has yet cried. He isn't surprised that Nicholas hasn't stirred by now, the boy is a sleepyhead, just like his mother, but George is not even a week old. The boy should have cried.

"Maybe Sybil took him. She took care of the boys last night. How is Mary?"

"I don't know."

Cora gets up, puts on her dressing gown and leaves. He grabs her hand halfway down the hallway.

"Cora, you cannot go into her room."

"I need to know whether she is still alive Robert. I need to know that." He can't object, because he needs to know that too and so he follows her and once they reach Mary's room, he almost stumbles over Sybil.

"Sybil. Why are you sitting on the floor in front of your sister's room?" He holds out a hand to her to help her get up.

"I am keeping watch. And waiting for Dr. Clarkson."

"Dr. Clarkson? Has she? Is Mary?" Cora begins to sway next to him and he has to put his arm around her waist to make sure that she won't fall.

"No. Go inside and see for yourself. I am sure they won't mind."

"They?"

"Just see for yourself."

He walks into Mary's room and sees her sitting on the bed, feeding her little son with a bottle. Matthew is sitting behind her, holding on to both Mary and George.

"What the bloody hell are you doing here?"

* * *

I hope Violet has not become too out of character here, but I like to make her out as a little softer than she actually is and I think that having the grandson she always wanted makes her a little more accepting of Sybil's choices.


	14. April 1915

AN: A little later than usual, but I made it.

Thank you for all the reviews on the last chapter!

I hope you like this one as well.

Let me know what you think.

Kat

* * *

_Matthew_

He has dreaded this conversation ever since Robert came into Mary's room and asked "What the bloody hell are you doing here?"

Mary stopped any kind of fight then by saying "Leave him Papa, please." Cora and Robert had then concentrated on Mary and once Dr. Clarkson came and examined her and then said that Mary would most likely survive, they were so relieved that they forgot all about him. Or rather, they did not really forget about him, they talked to him, but they forgot what he did. But he knows they are mad at him and that they are mad at him for a very good reason. And he needs to talk to at least Robert about this. So he follows him outside when he sees him leaving the Abbey with the dog.

"Robert"

"Oh hello Matthew."

"Would you mind if I walked with you?"

"No. Of course not." Robert smiles a kind smile at him and it makes him feel much worse than he feels anyway. He does not deserve this kindness.

"I owe you an apology. I should not have left the last time, I should not have believed that footman. I should have had more faith in you."

"Maybe."

"Certainly."

"Matthew, you don't have to apologize to me. To Mary, yes. But not to me. I know what it is like, I know that you think the dumbest things when you are in a battle. And I know that none of this could have been easy for you. While I wish that you could have had more faith in Mary and Cora and me, the reason I wish for that is that it would have made your life easier. But I understand that there comes a point at which you don't know why or who you are fighting for anymore. And you forget what is important. And I know that it must have been very hard for you to suddenly not be the heir anymore. And I am exceedingly sorry about it. I cannot say that I am sorry that I have Nicholas but I am sorry that I took all this away from you after having told you that it was your future and after having uprooted your whole life." Robert gestures at the Abbey and the estate surrounding it.

"I know. And I am sorry about my behavior. Mary for some reason was able to forgive me for it, so that makes two of you." Robert now smiles a very kind, fatherly smile at him.

"Matthew, you have to forgive yourself."

"Easier said than done. If your mother hadn't intervened, I wouldn't have come home and who knows what would have happened then." He shudders to think about it and he wishes he had not said it, because it seems to make Robert very uncomfortable.

"Let's not go down that road, Matthew. I am very glad you are home and so is the rest of the family. That is all that matters. For how long will you stay?"

"Six more days. And then it is back to France."

"I wish I could go with you."

"No you don't."

"I've been to war, Matthew." He knows that and he wishes to God he had talked to Robert before he left to go to France. He'd have joined the army one way or the other, but if he had known what was coming his way, he might have been able to deal with it differently.

"I know. And that is not what I mean. But the hardest thing I will ever have to do is leave my infant child behind. I know you left the girls, but they were older, you had already seen them grow up, at least a bit. You knew they would remember you. George will not remember me. When I come home the next time and pick him up, he will cry and be scared because he does not know me." Robert looks at him as if he was pondering something.

"So you are quite happy about George?"

"There are fireworks exploding inside my chest."

"Good." He knew Robert was worried about that. Mary told him so, she told him that neither Robert nor Cora were quite sure about his reaction to little George. But he loves his son so much he can't describe it. Although he knows that he doesn't have to describe it to Robert.

"Matthew, my offer still stands. If you want to come back here after the war, you can stay at the Abbey. We'd love to have you. Not just Mary and George, but you too. And you could be as involved here as you wanted to be." He knows that Robert is serious about this, he knows that Robert wants him back at the Abbey, but he still doesn't know whether he can do it.

"Robert, I, thank you. But I don't know if I can do this. This used to be my future, but it is not anymore and that is hard to deal with."

"I know. But your future can still be at Downton."

"I can't make a decision without Mary in any case and I dare say she will come up with a few arguments for staying here." He has to laugh about his own words. They are true and he knows that he will eventually give in to her.

"I dearly hope so, Matthew, I really do." Robert claps him on the shoulder and he knows what this means.

"I have to go. I promised my mother I'd see her today."

"Bring her here for dinner if you like." He leaves and once he is halfway down the driveway he turns around, looks at the Abbey and wonders if it will ever really be his home.

* * *

_Robert_

He watches Matthew leave and then sees him turning around and looking at the Abbey. He dearly wishes that the boy will be able to make his peace with all of it because he wants him at the Abbey just as much as he wants Mary to live there.

When he comes inside, the nanny crosses his way, carrying Nicholas.

"Good morning your lordship. I just took Lord Downton for a walk."

"Thank you. I'll take him from here." The nanny hands Nicholas over without any protest. This is the third nanny they have had since Nicholas' birth and the first who does not protest when Cora or he or one of their girls want to take care of the boy, or George for that matter. Cora keeps saying that is because the nanny is American and he thinks that it might be true. But she is also still rather young, just a year older than Sybil, so that might help too. He wasn't too keen on this nanny when she applied for the job. She came to England with a rich self-made family who dismissed her as soon as they found out that people were looking down on them for employing an American nanny. Cora of course gives no credit to these things and was quite impressed with this one during the job interview and so she got the job.

"Well, you have a country solicitor for a son-in-law, an Irish socialist for a chauffeur, why should you not have an American nanny?" his mother said rather bitingly when she found out about the new nanny.

He takes Nicholas into the library with him. He needs to go over a few ledgers, but he thinks that it doesn't matter whether he'll do that now or in half an hour.

"Well, my dear boy, how about you help your Papa? Or at least keep my spirits up? Because going over the ledgers and writing business letters is not exactly what you would call fun. But, it is part of what we have to do to take care of the estate. And sometimes that is very hard work. But you will learn that soon enough, I am afraid. I wish Matthew made up his mind to stay here and help. I want him here just for the sake of having him here, but if he really lived here, I'd know there was someone who'd help you if I couldn't for some reason. And we have to be realistic about this, it is possible that I won't be able to help you for as long as you need me because I am an old man. The army has told me so in no uncertain terms. That is why they don't want me. Because I am old. And they are right. I am a grandfather after all. And if I didn't have you, I'd go thoroughly depressed over this. Your sisters are all grown up, Mary has a child of her own, they don't really need me anymore. I love them dearly of course, but I am of hardly any use to them. Although your mother thinks differently. But it is different for her. Girls need their mothers a lot longer than they need their fathers. And boys need their fathers longer than their mothers. I am so glad that you are a boy, that you will need me, that I can pass all this on to my own son. That's what keeps me going."

* * *

_Edith_

"I am so glad that you are a boy, that you will need me, that I can pass all this on to my own son. That's what keeps me going." She knew it. Her father prefers her brother to her and her sisters. He always wanted a boy after all. And although she knew all along, it still drives tears into her eyes. Because that means that every time her father told her that he was glad to have her, that every time he told her he loved her, it was a lie. He loves Nicholas but not her and probably not her sisters, though he seems to still prefer them to her. She can't wait to get married and move out of this house.

"Edith? Are you alright?" She wonders if she should lie, but there is no reason to lie.

"No Sybil. And neither will you be once I've told you why I am not alright. Where is Mary?"

"In her room."

"Then let's go there." Mary must know this. It pains her to hurt Sybil, but she doesn't mind hurting Mary. Or so she thinks until she remembers how hard Mary's life has been the past few months.

"What's this?" Mary is sitting on her bed with George placed on her bent legs.

"We have got to talk."

"Do we?"

"Yes. And you better listen. Both of you."

"I am all ears." Sometimes she hates Mary for her arrogant manner.

"I heard Papa talk to Nicholas. He said something about being glad that Nicholas was a boy and would need him and how happy it made him to be able to pass the estate onto him."

Neither Sybil nor Mary shows any reaction to this. Mary keeps looking George and Sybil looks at her as if she had no idea why this was bad news.

"That does not bother you?" She can't believe that.

"Why would it?"

"Sybil, don't you see? He loves Nicholas more than us."

"No he doesn't." Sybil looks completely flabbergasted.

"Then why would he say that Nicholas would need him? As if we didn't."

"Edith, I am sure he meant that Nicholas needs him for different things. And that is true." She would really like to know why Mary always has to oppose her.

"Really?"

"Edith, of course it is. Do you honestly think that I talked to Papa about my pregnancy problems? Of course I didn't. But I did talk to Mama quite a lot. And so will you, should you ever become pregnant."

"He said he was glad he was boy."

"Edith, of course he is glad about that. Mary once said herself that she wants girls and boys and so do I, I think. That is just natural. And there is nothing wrong about that."

"That is all good and well for you, but you aren't overlooked all the time."

"Neither are you. You just think you are. And no one stops you from joining Papa when he goes outside walking or from getting up early to have breakfast with or from talking to him during and after dinner." A little nagging voice tells her that Sybil is right about that, but she has always muted that voice and that is what she does now.

"Maybe that is true for you, but it certainly isn't true for me."

Her sisters' words did not help, if anything they showed her that her father really does prefer them, if it does not hurt them how glad he is about Nicholas being a boy. So she decides to tell her mother about this, because if there is one person in the world who can stop her father from completely forgetting about his middle daughter, it is her mother. Even if her sisters don't really seem to care, her mother will. She finds her in the drawing room and tells her what she overheard.

"I am sure you misunderstood." Sometimes it infuriates her how much her mother trusts her father, how well she thinks of him. As if that man could do no wrong.

"He said it like that. Word for word."

"Yes. But he did not mean to say that he loves you less than your brother. And he doesn't." Her mother is too soft and her view of her family is too clouded.

"You always think that everything about this family is rose-colored. You think this family is perfect. But it is not, Mama. Papa prefers his son to his daughters and Mary and Sybil to me."

"That is not true Edith. Don't say such things. Your father loves his children equally, just as I do." She wants to believe her mother, but she can't, not really. To her mother their family is what she always dreamed of, a nice husband, a few nice girls and an heir. She just doesn't see clearly.

"Well, I don't believe that." With that she leaves the library. Apparently her mother does not want to help.

* * *

_Cora_

She wonders if there is any truth to what Edith said. Whether Robert really prefers Nicholas over the girls. She doesn't really think so. It is true, he spends a lot of time with the boy, he takes him on walks, he sometimes has him with him when he works in the library, but he did the same with all their girls. He always wanted an heir, he had been told he needed one in essentials from the day of his own birth on and wanting to pass on his estate and title to a son is not wrong. And wanting a son just for the sake of being able to raise a boy is not wrong either. She always wanted a son too. Not because of the title and the estate, but just because she wanted to raise a boy and even more than that, she wanted to fulfill Robert one of his greatest wishes. Maybe she should talk to him.

As this is a rather serious conversation that should not be overheard, she decides that this is a conversation for the bedroom.

"I didn't think you'd still be awake," he says when he comes into her room.

"Well, there is something I'd like to talk about." He settles down next to her and takes her hand. She loves him so much.

"Edith thinks that you prefer Nicholas over her and the other two girls." Robert looks truly surprised by that.

"Really? Why?"

"She heard you say something to Nicholas about how you glad you were that he was a boy."

"That does not mean that I love her any less. I'll talk to her."

"Maybe you should." She sounds more doubtful than she wants to sound, but she can't help it.

"I will. Cora, you know this isn't true, don't you?"

"Yes. Of course I know." She still is not completely convinced and she has no idea why. It does not make any sense at all, she shouldn't doubt her husband, he has never given her any reason to do so and rationally she is aware of this, but she still has an unexplainable fear that Edith is right. Maybe that is because they are so blissfully happy and she thinks that something will have to wrong eventually. That thought doesn't make any sense either, but she can't stop it.

And Robert wanted a son so much and she remembers Mary's words from long before they knew that Matthew would not be the heir after all, about half a year after Matthew had arrived and talked Robert into repairing the cottages. 'You heard him. Matthew this. Matthew that. Matthew, Matthew, Matthew. Oh, Mother, don't you see? He has his son now. Of course he didn't argue with the entail. Why would he when he's got what he always wanted?'

"You are doubting me. We have been married for 26 years now. I know you well enough to know that you are doubting me right now." He sounds a little hurt and she supposes he has a right to be hurt.

"It is stupid, I know."

"But?"

"But you wanted a son so much, you are so happy about him that I can't help wondering." He now takes a deep breath and she wishes she hadn't said it.

"Cora, of course I wanted a son. Very much so. But if we had had three boys, nothing would have made me happier than the fourth child finally being a girl." He says this with such vigor in his voice that she believes him.

"You are right. If the first three had been boys and the fourth one a girl, the boys would now be complaining about you taking far more care of their sister than you ever took of them."

"They would be doing no such thing. They'd be on the continent, risking their lives. And we would not get all of them back after the war. You have no idea how thankful I am that our girls are girls, that they do not have to fight in that bloody war." This conversation has taken an unexpected turn, but this seems to be something that Robert needs to talk about, so she doesn't steer the conversation back to its original topic. They were finished with that anyway.

"You talked to Matthew, didn't you?"

"Yes. And I am so worried for him. He does not deal with the war well. Being responsible for his son might make it a little better, but I am not sure whether he will come out of the war more or less unscathed. I hate that he has to go through that." She takes his hand and squeezes it.

"And yet you want to go yourself. I don't really understand that."

"I am not expecting you to understand it. I want to, have to defend my country, no matter how horrible all of this is. But the army doesn't want me, I am a useless old man." She wishes she could make him understand that that is not what he is.

"You are not a useless old man to me. Shouldn't that be enough?"

"No. Maybe it should be, but it isn't." This breaks her heart into a thousand pieces.


	15. June 1915

AN: This is a rather short chapter, but there are longer chapters coming up, so don't worry :)

Kat

* * *

_Bates_

He has to break her heart. He knows she hoped for the divorce to go through easily, she put all her hopes and dreams onto his divorce. And so did he. But his wife, whom he would like to refer to as his ex-wife more than anything in the world, is making things very difficult, if not impossible.

"So?"

"So what?" he snaps back at her. He feels sorry the moment he has done it, Anna looks so downcast at this.

"I am sorry, Anna. Vera did not agree. I can't get divorced, not easily, it proves to be extremely difficult in fact."

"So we can't get married."

"No." There are tears in her eyes now and he puts his arms around her. They are alone in the courtyard; it is late at night but still warm. It would be the perfect night for them to walk around the quiet estate, to talk, to make love. But they can't do any of it. He knows that Anna would probably not object, but he can't ask it of her. He can't ask the love his life to become his mistress, to become an outcast just because of him and his idiotic bitch of a wife.

"I don't care."

"Anna, don't say that. Please. Because I care. I cannot let you be my mistress. I'd make you an outcast and that is the last thing I want. I'd ruin your life." She steps away from him now and looks at him.

"Do you know what is ruining my life? This. That I cannot be with the man that I love. And maybe it is unfair, seeing how Lady Mary misses Mr. Matthew so much, knowing that there are millions of women in the world who fear for their husbands lives. But at least they are their husbands. Lady Mary goes to bed at night, knowing that she has a husband, knowing that even if he died, there would still be so many memories. But we don't even have that. I want to make memories with you."

His determination is wavering. He wants this as much as she does but he has to be the stronger person in this, it has to him who stops them.

"Anna, imagine you became pregnant."

"I want to be pregnant."

"What?" She can't be serious. He wants children too, there is no doubt about it, the two little boys in this house have shown him how much he would like to have a child, but this is utter madness.

"No Anna. You would ruin your life and the life of our child."

"Would I really ruin everything? Don't you think that his lordship and Lady Mary could be prevailed upon to show a little mercy?"

"Anna, even if they did that, even if they did not fire us, which they would have every right to do, they could still not prevent our child from being a bastard. I am married to another woman."

"I don't care. I don't care about any of that. I want to be with you. I want to be the mother of your children. I love you." He doesn't know what to say or do.

* * *

_Mrs. Hughes_

What she has just seen and heard lets tears run down her face. She feels so sorry for Mr. Bates and Anna. She has known Anna ever since the girl was fourteen, she has seen her become a grown woman, turn from housemaid to head housemaid to lady's maid in a rather short amount of time. She watched her become close friends with Lady Mary and navigate the thin line between being a servant to a Lady and being a friend to a Lady flawlessly. And she saw her fall in love with Mr. Bates. Mr. Bates is a good man, a very good man, they'd all be lost without him. He is the right man for Anna, he'd never do wrong by her. But now she is afraid that Anna will do wrong by herself. She understands why Anna wants to be with Mr. Bates regardless of his or rather their marital status; she knows what it is to love a man. But she also knows that Anna is treading on very dangerous ground here. No matter how honorable Mr. Bates might be, if Anna keeps pushing him like that, he is bound to give in. He loves her too much to not give in and he also loves her too much to not regret it endlessly afterwards. And Anna would regret is too. Even if she was right and the family would keep her on, she'd still be notorious. And she doesn't know how the family could keep her on. Anna would be bringing shame to the house, even if that is certainly the last thing that Anna wants to do.

"Anna."

"Yes Mrs. Hughes?"

"A word in my sitting room, please."

"Of course."

She doesn't really know how to begin, but they need to talk about this and she believes in saying things straight out.

"I overheard you and Mr. Bates. I should never have listened. I know I shouldn't have but I did."

"Mrs. Hughes,"

"No Anna, let me say what I have to say. I like you and Mr. Bates very much and I wish you all the luck in the world. I am exceedingly sorry that you can't get married, at least not now. But Anna, please, don't do anything foolish. I know it would be out of love and not lust. But you'd ruin your life and that of a possible child. Mr. Bates is right about that. And no matter how much support the family might be willing to give to you, you'd still be notorious. So please Anna, whatever you do, don't do what you said to Mr. Bates. Don't make yourself unhappy for the rest of your life."

"Would you despise me if I did do it?"

"Of course not. I'd even understand, at least parts of it. But I think that is something you would regret forever."

"How could I ever regret having a child?"

"You will regret having a child without being married. Once you see how that child is treated by other people, you will regret that." Anna nods, but there are tears running down her face.

"I'll keep in mind what you've just said. I will, don't worry."

"That is all I ask." She squeezes Anna's hand and gives her smile.

After Anna has left, Mr. Carson enters her room.

"I couldn't help but overhear. The door was not properly closed."

"Oh?" He looks at her somewhat strangely, as if he didn't know what to say or whether to say what he thinks.

"Oh just say it."

"I hope Anna listens to your advice."

"So do I."

"But you don't think she will."

"I am not sure."

"But surely Mr. Bates so honorable" She hast to stop him now. She likes Mr. Carson a lot, her feelings for him go beyond friendship, but he never understands those things.

"Mr. Carson. Mr. Bates is in love and the love of his life has offered herself to him. I am sure that he wants to resist, but I am not sure he will be successful."

"How can Anna even think of such a thing?"

"How Mr. Carson? She loves him, she wants to be with him."

"But a child?"

"She sees how much joy a child can bring every single day. The Viscount Downton and Master George are proof of how wonderful it is to have a child."

"But to give in to your … desires … just like that." He has no idea. He has no idea how strong that desire becomes when love is involved, especially when there is love on both sides.

"Mr. Carson, not all children are products of duty or desire. Some children are made out of love."

"I know Mrs. Hughes. There are quite a number of children like that in this house."

"I think you are right. And that should make you understand."

* * *

_Sybil_

She has decided to tell her grandmother first, because for some reason she has the feeling that her granny will be the one to understand her best, besides Isobel of course. Her mother sometimes still sees the little girl in her and would not want her to work because she thinks that she is too young and her father thinks that women should not work, regardless of the cause. Her father's 'there, there little lady' attitude sometimes infuriates her, but her mother insists that all her father wants is to protect her and she believes that. She knows that her father loves her very much, and in contrast to Edith and Mary she has never doubted it. Her father might not say 'I love you' to them every day, but when they are in private, he does tend to wear his heart on his sleeve. Mary seems to have overcome the notion of her father not loving her and Sybil knows that Mary thinking that her father might not love her at all had been triggered by her father refusing to try to make Mary his heiress. She could understand Mary's disappointment, although the injustice that goes along with entails is certainly not their father's fault. What she does not understand however, are Edith' constant complaints about not being loved by anyone besides Anthony Strallan. While the man certainly loves Edith very much, Edith was not unloved before. In fact, Sybil always considered herself and her sisters and now her brother too as well loved. Their parents love them unconditionally and so do their granny and aunt Rosamund. And they love all four of them equally, there is no doubt about it. She also does not understand why Edith keeps complaining about their parents showing their affection so openly. She does not understand what is wrong about holding hands in a drawing room or calling each other 'darling'. Their parents' show of affection is so much easier to deal with than what their cousins James, Annabelle and Rose have to deal with every day with their parents who do not like each other. Their parents always fight. And her parents almost never fight and if they do, they usually make up within a few hours.

She has been so lost in her thoughts that she did not realize that she almost walked past her grandmother's house.

"Hello my dear."

"Hello Granny."

"You are up to something. You look like your mother looks when she is up to something."

"I am not really up to something. But there is something I would like to do and I think that I might need your help to convince Mama and Papa to not be too upset about it."

"Sybil, that does not make me comfortable in the least."

"Granny, you see, I want to be a nurse. Cousin Isobel found me a place in a training course. It only takes three months and then I could be working at the hospital." She feels her granny's eyes on her but she knows that her grandmother won't object too much.

"Well, Sybil, you'll probably see things you can't even imagine. And I don't think that it is necessary that you do it, I'd much rather not be a nurse. But if that is what you want, then you should do it. We see photos of princesses pretending to be nurses every day, why should the daughter of an Earl not be a real nurse. And you are only a third daughter of an Earl who has a son, so you are practically irrelevant."

"Thank you Granny, that cheers me up to no end." She knows what her grandmother means and she knows that her grandmother is right. Outside of her family, no one really cares about her and she is very relieved by that. But she can't resist commenting on this, a trait she thinks she probably got from her grandmother.

"Spoken like your father and misunderstood on purpose like your mother. You truly are your parents' daughter. What I meant to say was that you are in many ways irrelevant to society. I did not say that you were irrelevant to any of the people who really matter."

"Like you for example."

"Like me for example."

"So will you help me?"

"Yes, I will help you convince your parents to support you in this. But even if they don't, you should still do it if it is what you really want. At some point your parents will have to learn that you are an adult."

"Thank you, Granny."

"Would you like some tea?"

"Yes please." She wonders if her granny would actually be the most understanding person considering another subject as well. She wondered about talking to Mary but it is always hard to know whether Mary will be supportive or outraged.

"Granny, you say that I am practically irrelevant to society and I don't mind that."

"I know you don't."

"If that is the case, then I could marry whom I wanted to marry, couldn't I?"

"Sybil, who do you want to marry?"

"No one." That is not a lie. She does not want to marry Tom, not now, but she wants to know whether her family would cast her out if she did at some point. She doubts that that would stop her, she knows that her mother would come around eventually, after lots of tears, and that her mother would make her father come around after even more tears, but if she could forgo making her parents unhappy and driving a wedge between them, then she'd prefer that.

"You mean it would not matter if you wanted to marry a servant."

"For example. Mary did marry a lawyer."

"Matthew might be a country solicitor, but he also is a close friend of the family. I am not sure your father would have been happy with Mary marrying someone like Matthew if that someone wasn't the man he thinks of as his son."

"But if I were to fall in love with someone Papa knew and liked," her granny raises her eyebrows now and smiles slightly sly smile at her.

"Sybil, your father may like the chauffeur, but he will not be happy about that man becoming his son-in-law. Oh, don't look like that. I know you spend a lot of time with him. And as long as it just that and nothing more, I won't say anything. But don't go any further than being friends with him. Call him Tom by all means when you are alone with him, discuss your political views with him but do not do anything else. Do not fall in love with him. And if you have already fallen in love with him, then fall out of love with him right now."

"Granny, how can one fall out of love with someone on purpose?" She isn't sure if she is in love with Tom, but she has now idea how to stop loving someone.

"Ask your father. He fell _in_ love with someone on purpose, maybe he knows how to fall out of love with someone on purpose." This makes her laugh although she doubts very much that her father fell in love with her mother on purpose. She is sure that her mother tried to make him fall in love with her and that she was very successful, but she just can't imagine her father saying 'oh, I'll fall in love with my wife' to himself.

"Thanks for the tea Granny. I have to go home because Mama and Papa are at a charity event and I promised Mary I'd help her with Nicholas and George."

"Keep in mind what I said, my dear."


	16. August 1915

AN: Happy Downton Abbey Day! And to those of you who actually get to see it tonight: Have fun!

I'll have to wait until the DVDs are out and then order them from the UK, which means that I will get to see it sometime in December. But I will get up 15 minutes early tomorrow morning and read up on what happened, because if I really wanted to wait to find out until I can actually see it, I'd have to abstain from FanFiction, Facebook and The Guardian, and that is not going to happen. But I won't spoiler anything here, I promise.

Thank you for all the reviews, they make me smile and I love reading them and I really appreciate the time you are taking to write them.

Kat

* * *

_Robert_

"Finally," he exclaims when he reads the letter from the War Office. Sybil looks at him questioningly. He looks back at her. She is already wearing her nurse's uniform, but today she at least decided to have breakfast with him. He has the feeling that his girls are slipping away from him and he has had that feeling for quite some time. Mary is caught up in taking care of her son with Matthew absent and helping her mother run the house on a much smaller staff than usual due to the war, and Edith spends almost all her time with Anthony Strallan. He does not like that, not one bit and he told Edith so in no uncertain terms. He would not object to them getting married, although he would not be very happy about it either, but Edith constantly going to Locksley all by herself and then staying there for hours on end, sometimes even for dinner, does not sit well with him. And Sybil spends almost all her time at the hospital, and when she is home she talks about socialist ideas and women's rights and possible freedom for Ireland. He suspects she spends quite a lot of time with the chauffeur, he talked to Cora about this once, but all his wife said in response was "Let her. If you told her to not spend time with him, she'd probably move into his house tomorrow." He wondered if she knew something he did not know, but he didn't ask, he knew she would not say anything. He misses his girls. They all live in his house, but he still misses them, he misses talking to them, he misses them coming to him for advice. Cora told him that he was not useless to her, but he often has the feeling that he is useless to their daughters. And that won't change, but his general feeling of uselessness has evaporated.

"What is it Papa?"

"I am to go to France after all."

"What Papa? Surely not to fight."

"No, to organize the supply for some of the regiments. But at least I will be in the war. And maybe I will eventually be allowed to fight."

"Be allowed to fight? Papa, you cannot be serious. I see the horrors that come with fighting all day long. You know how it affects Matthew."

"I'd rather go through the horrors of war than sit around here and let others defend the country. You of all people should understand why I want to be useful." That is what Sybil keeps saying after all. That she finally has the feeling to be useful.

"Maybe I do understand, I don't know. But please be gentle and not too happy when you tell Mama about this. Because she will be very unhappy." Sybil has a point. Cora once said that she'd understand if he went to war, although she seems to have changed her mind about that and she certainly won't be happy about it. She'll be terribly afraid and he will place the burden of not only having to run the house but also the estate on her.

"I better tell her now, lest she hears it from somewhere else."

"Yes. Goodbye Papa." Sybil gives him a kiss on the cheek and he briefly wonders about hugging her but thinks better of it.

"Will you be home for dinner?"

"I don't know."

"Please try."

"Alright. But I can't make a promise." He nods and smiles at her and gives her kiss on the cheek in return and then sends her off, although what he wants to do is beg her to come home in time for dinner. But he knows he'd have to listen to a sermon on how unimportant grand dinners are and how important her work is.

"May I come in?"

"Of course, darling." She smiles at him and he wishes he did not have to tell her what he is about to tell her. He sits down next to her and takes her hand.

"Cora, I have had a letter from the War Office. They are sending me to France after all. Not to the front to fight. I'll stay behind and organize the supplies for two or three regiments. Including Matthew's regiment, so I might see him from time to time."

"But I thought they said that you were too old."

"They did. But apparently they've changed their minds."

"And you are going to go." It is not a question. There are tears in Cora's eyes and his heart breaks for his wife. But there is nothing he can do. He has to do his duty, he wants to do his duty.

"Yes."

"I don't understand."

"Why? You said you would when we got the news that war had been declared."

"Yes, but things have changed, haven't they? You have got an heir now."

"Which makes it easier for me to go."

"What?"

"Cora, should I not make it, there will still be an Earl of Grantham."

"A boy who is not yet a year old. Do you want to place that burden on the shoulders of the son that you love so much? Do you want him to be an Earl all his life?" She is almost shouting and the tears he saw in her eyes only moments ago are now running down her face.

"Of course I don't want that."

"Then don't go." It's so easy for her to say. She just doesn't understand.

"I have to go. I have to do my duty."

"Don't you have a duty here? Shouldn't your first duty be to prepare your son for the fate that awaits him one day? Who is supposed to teach him how to be an Earl if you die?"

"Matthew is more than ready for that. And he would do it. We've talked about it, he promised he'd do it." Cora shakes her head.

"What if you both die?"

"Then you will have to teach Nicholas."

"Robert, you can't be serious. I can't do that."

"You can. You've run the house and the estate by yourself before, you know what is necessary." Cora's tears are flowing freely now and it breaks his heart.

"Robert, I wish you wouldn't do this."

"But you understand why I must do it?"

"No. And I don't think that I ever will understand. You've already served your country in one war, you don't have to do so in a second war. Especially not with such a young son at home."

He takes her hand but she jerks it away and this shows him more than anything that she will not understand. If he is lucky, she may pretend to accept his decision for a few days, to not ruin the last few days they have, but she won't understand and she will hold a grudge against him.

"When are you leaving?"

"Two weeks from today."

"Two weeks from today?"

"Yes. I'll go into training for two weeks and then straight to France."

"If that is what you think you must do. Please leave me." He does as she asks, hoping that she just does not want to see him cry, but he thinks that his going to war might have already caused considerable damage to his marriage before he has even left.

* * *

_Mary_

She finds it difficult to believe that her father is going to war and she prays to God that both her father and husband will survive the war. She isn't sure whether God exists, but praying for Matthew's survival and save return has become part of her evening routine and she will now include her father in those prayers.

"Mary?" She didn't even notice her mother coming into the room.

"Yes?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"How do you deal with Matthew being gone?"

"Not very well. But I have gotten used to it, I suppose. But I miss him terribly." Her mother looks at her but doesn't say anything.

"Mama, Papa won't do any actual fighting. He'll be behind the lines. He'll make it through the war unscathed." Her mother has sat down on her bed now and she sits down next to her. Her mother is playing with a loose thread on her dress and Mary feels as if their roles had been reversed. She has to take care of her mother now the way her mother has taken care of her for about a quarter of a century.

"Mary, I don't believe that your father will stay behind the lines. He'll do that at the beginning, but he will ask to be sent to the front. And the longer this war takes, the more likely it is that he will be granted that wish." She can't remember having her seen her mother really cry before. She has seen her sad and close to tears but never seen her cry. She also knows that her mother is right about her father.

"I know. But you've gone through this before. Both Papa and you have made it through him fighting a war before. You will do so again." Her mother takes a deep breath and then looks at her, although she keeps playing with that lose thread.

"I don't think that will happen this time. I hope to God that your father returns safe and sound but something between us broke when he told me that he would go to France. I can't really put a finger on it, but your father going to war has already put a toll on our marriage, has already caused some irreparable damage." This breaks her heart. Her father told her this morning that her mother had been 'anything but happy and quite accusatory' after he had told her about the letter telling him that he would go to war and she had already been afraid that this war might be more difficult for her parents to deal with than for Matthew and her, at least considering the current state of her marriage to Matthew.

"Nothing could put a permanent strain on your marriage. You've been happy far too long."

"He is leaving me with our only son who is not even a year old. What if your father dies? Nicholas would be an Earl then. I could not teach him all he needs to know and just think of the burden that would place on your brother."

"Matthew would help. Papa has taught him so much."

"Suppose Matthew died too." She hates to think about that. Even more than she hates thinking about her father possibly not returning. Matthew's death would be almost impossible for her to deal with, in fact she thinks that if it wasn't for George, Matthew's death would kill her.

"Then we'd both be left with an infant son who will never remember his father."

"And that does not bother you? When your father went to South Africa, Sybil was four. We could be sure that all of you would remember your father. But Nicholas would have no memory of him. And neither would George remember Matthew." This breaks her heart, the thought of George not knowing Matthew or Nicholas not knowing their father is frightening and sad, but there is nothing they can do, they are at war.

"Mama, don't think about that too much. I just try to push those thoughts to the back of mind and hope that they stay there."

"I am not like you Mary. I don't think I'll be able to do that. I am so mad at your father and so very disappointed in him." She has never heard her mother say anything like that. Her parents have always been so very happy. Of course they have the occasional fights, but never anything too serious. This however could go the wrong way.

"Mama, promise me one thing. Don't let your disappointment ruin the last few days that Papa is home for what could very well be a very long time. Don't let your last memory of him be that of a fight. Please."

"I'll try Mary. Thank you." Her mother gets up and leaves and Mary doubts that her mother is able to do what she just asked of her.

* * *

_William_

"Thomas asked his lordship to be allowed to go as his batman." Anna raises her eyebrows at this.

"Mr. Bates, you know Thomas wants to go with him so that he can have your job once the war is over, don't you?"

"His lordship won't fall for it." William could kick himself. He wanted to ask his lordship the same question but he did not have the courage to do so and now Thomas was faster than him. He was almost sure that his father would have accepted him going to war if he went as his lordship's batman.

"William I thought you wanted to ask his lordship about that." Anna is always so kind to him, she is like an older sister.

"It's too late, now that Thomas has already asked."

"Oh, don't be so sure William. Just ask him. He won't bite."

"He won't bite you, Mr. Bates." But maybe Mr. Bates is right, maybe he should just ask his lordship. There is nothing wrong about asking, hardly any harm can come from it and he is sure that his lordship has not told Thomas he could go yet, because the whole house would know about that. So he goes upstairs, his heart beating like a drum in his chest.

Mr. Carson tells him that his lordship, who is apparently soon to be called Major Crawley, is in the library. He finds him there at his desk, buried in mountains of paper work.

"Your lordship, William wondered if he might have a word." He is thankful to Mr. Carson for having said this, maybe Mr. Carson knows what he is about to ask, because the butler leaves immediately.

"Yes, of course. What can I do for you?"

"Your lordship, I know I am asking a lot. But"

"But?" His lordship is always so kind, but he is still a little scared of him.

"I thought that I could come with you. As your batman."

"Why would you want to do that?"

"Because I want to fight for my country, I want to be useful. But my father does not want me to enlist and so far I haven't done it to not hurt him. You see, my mother is dead and I am all that he has left. But if I went as your batman, it might be easier for him to accept my decision. And we wouldn't be at the front, would we? I wouldn't mind going to the front, but this would be kinder to my father, I think." His lordship looks at him and then slowly nods.

"I suppose you know that Thomas asked the same question."

"I do my lord."

"Although he gave me a very different answer when I asked him why he wanted to go with me. I'll think about it and then let you know when I have made my decision."

"Thank you, your lordship." The Earl smiles and nods once more and the turns back to whatever he is doing.

* * *

_Robert_

"Cora?"

"What?" She is still mad at him. He wishes she wasn't, he hates fighting with her and now is an especially bad time for that. He will be home for only a little more over a week and he does not want to fight with her.

"Please darling. Don't be like that. I am not doing this to hurt you." He takes her hand and squeezes it. She jerks it away and stares at him.

"But you are hurting me."

"I know. But I have to do this and I know that you don't understand it. I wish you could, but you are not like me and that is quite alright. But please don't let our last days together for what might very well be a long time be clouded over by a fight about something that we cannot change."

She looks at him defiantly and says "You could change it."

"No, Cora I couldn't. I have to do this. But that does not mean that I do not love you. I love you very much."

"I know, darling." She smiles a sad smile at him now and he knows that while she may still not agree, she has at least accepted his decision, if only grudgingly so and if only for this moment. It is better than nothing, but he does not disillusion himself by believing that their fight is over. Far from it. She may pretend that she isn't mad at him anymore, but she is mad, he knows that, he has known her for too long and knows her too well to not be aware of this.

"I am going to the Masons' farm."

"You are going to see William's father?"

"Yes. William wants to come with me as my batman and I'd like to take him, but I owe his father an explanation. William is an only child." Cora now smiles at him and says

"You are very kind. You don't have to do this. But I know you want to and I admire you for it."

He pulls her close to him and kisses her but she does not kiss him back. "Thank you for saying that." She smiles at him but he knows that she still has not made her peace with his decision.

"Your lordship." Mr. Mason almost falls of his chair when he sees him.

"Mr. Mason. How are you?"

"My son wants to go to war." Well, apparently Mr. Mason is not one for small talk.

"Yes. He asked me to take him as his batman with me."

"I know."

"I will offer him the position tonight, but I wanted to talk to you first. I cannot promise to keep him save or to return him to you at all. But I will take him under my wing. He is a good lad and he has got potential."

"I know you can't keep him safe my lord. But I thank you for taking him. I feel better knowing that he is with someone he knows and not fighting."

"I can't promise we won't have to fight either."

"No. But you taking him makes easier for me regardless."

"Thank you Mr. Mason."

On his way home he thinks about how much he misses Matthew, how much he wishes for Matthew to be out of danger and about how glad he is that Nicholas is still so small that he won't fight in this war, that at least one of his boys is safe. That is a comfort that Mr. Mason does not have.

* * *

_William_

"I have decided to take you with me."

"Oh, thank you, your lordship."

"I am not sure this is something you should thank me for. Come with Bates tonight, there are quite a few things you have to learn." That is of course true. He has never worked as a valet before, although he thinks that being a batman will not be the same as being valet. But then Mr. Bates was his Lordship's batman during the South African war, so maybe Mr. Bates will be able to give him a few hints. Because he does not want to disappoint his lordship.

"What are you smiling about?" Oh, Thomas deserves this so much. For more than three years, Thomas has made his life difficult. William got the job at Downton because another footman, the first footman had left. So William was made second footman and Thomas was made first footman. That was in January 1912. And ever since then, Thomas has tormented him. He made fun of him being homesick, of him wanting to please just for the sake of doing a good job, of his feelings for Daisy. Thomas that sick twisted soul even pretends to like Daisy just to get at him and Daisy is too innocent to understand that Thomas is not a 'lady's man'. Everyone seems to know it and no one ever talks about it, so he does not mention it either, but he thinks it is wrong. He knows that Thomas did not ask for it and he pities him for it, but it is no excuse for how Thomas treats him. So this is his moment of triumph.

"I am going to war with his lordship. As his batman."

"So he picked you then."

"Yes."

"Well, I'll join the medical corps then. They won't send me to the front and I won't have to be a servant any longer. Perfect for me." Thomas marches off, fists clenched, shoulders slumped. Thomas is disappointed about it, it is as clear as day to William.

He briefly wonders about talking to Daisy, but she is too enamored by Thomas to really notice him, so he holds his tongue and packs his belongings.

A few days later he says a tearful goodbye to his father. His father asks him to be safe and to listen to his lordship and he tells his father that his lordship is now Major Crawley and that he is so proud to be serving him. His father hugs him then and says "I am proud of you my dear son and your mother would be very proud too if she saw you like this." He then walks away, back to Downton from where they will leave the next morning for an undetermined amount of time.

* * *

_Robert _

He feels transported back 16 years. His family is standing in front of his house to send him off to war and he now has to say goodbye to each and every one of them and he wishes he did not have to do this. He chose this, he would never have been called up if he hadn't volunteered, but seeing his whole family there makes him regret his decision for a moment. But he knows his duty. So he starts with Isobel, gives her a peck on the cheek and asks her to watch out for Mary and George. She promises to do just that and that she will keep an eye on Cora as well. He smiles at her in thanks for that.

His mother is next and he hopes that she won't become too emotional because they'd both be embarrassed. So he gives her a one armed hug and says "Mama, I'll miss you and I'll come back. I promise."

"Don't make a promise you know you might not be able to keep. But do try your best to keep it. You have a duty here."

"I know." Sometimes his mother is driving him up the wall but he will miss her regardless. He gives her a kiss on the cheek too and then turns to Cora who hands Nicholas to him.

He knows that this might be the last time that he is holding his son the way he is holding him now, supporting the boy's weight with just one arm. He knows he is going to miss a very important part of his son's life and he knows that if things go wrong, he will never see that dear boy grow up. It tears him apart, but Matthew was able to leave George, so he will be able to leave Nicholas. So he gives his son a kiss on the forehead and hopes that he will come back before Nicholas is too old for sentiments like that and then returns him to Cora.

There are tears running down Sybil's face and his attempt to soothe her goes horribly wrong.

"Don't try to reassure me Papa. I know a little about the hell you are going into voluntarily. I admire you for it but I also wish you'd just stay here."

"I am very proud of you Sybil, even if you sometimes do things I can't really agree with. Maybe that makes me even prouder. Because you have your own mind and you fight for what you think is right." Sybil throws her arms around him and says "I love you Papa. We all love you. Don't ever forget that." "I love you too," he says and then lets go of her.

"Edith, let me know if there are any developments concerning Strallan. Should you decide to get married, I'll try to be here to walk you down the aisle."

"Thank you." He knows she heard him say it to Sybil and he knows she thinks that he won't say it to her, but he does and so he says it. "I love you, my darling girl. Help your mother where you can, please." There are tears running down Edith' face now as well and he wishes she wouldn't cry.

He strokes George's head and then kisses Mary on the cheek. "I'll let you know if I see Matthew. I am sure he misses you."

"He does. He says it in every letter." Mary smiles a sad smile and then says "Papa, make sure you get out of this alive. Not for my sake, or Sybil's or Edith' or Nicholas' sake or for your own sake but for Mama's sake. She would not be able to deal with it if anything happened to you. She loves you so much. Regardless of how rocky your marriage might be right now, your death would kill her." Mary is of course right and she has got the measure of things. Cora and he are rocky at best. They spent last night together, but more out of a sense of obligation than anything else. Their love making was perfunctory and it just didn't feel right, it felt hollow. He doesn't really know what he feels for her anymore. He loves her of course, but somehow something has changed. Something between them has been broken and it cannot be repaired.

"I'll try my best Mary. Help your mother run the house, take Nicholas of her hands when it all becomes too much for her."

"I will."

"Thank you. I love you." Mary only smiles and then gives him a kiss on the cheek and he knows that this means that she loves him too. "I'll miss you, Papa."

"So, little brother, you are going to war again." Rosamund looks as if she was about to kill him. Which she probably is. She never really got over Marmaduke being shot while on patrol in South Africa.

"It is my duty."

"I know. And I will miss you."

"I'll miss you too." He kisses her on the cheek too and then turns around. Cora passes Nicholas off to Sybil and then walks towards him. He takes both her hands in his and she doesn't jerk them away, which he considers to be a good sign. She looks at him and bites her bottom lip and the expression on her face tells him that she too knows that their marriage is not what it was. Still, he does not want to leave her just like this.

"I'll try not to get myself killed."

She closes her eyes and nods. "Good," she says.

He doesn't know what else to say. He told her that he loved her last night but she did not say it back and it hurt him. He wondered how much it hurt her at the beginning of their marriage when she kept telling him that she loved him and he never said anything. He wishes he could turn back time.

As if she knew what he was thinking, she touches his cheek and says "I love you too. I didn't" but he stops her. He does not need an explanation.

"I know you love me. And I love you." They put their arms around one another and he tucks her head under his chin. They have stood like this countless times in the past 26 years. He feels Cora cry silently and he knows she does not only cry because he is about to put his life in danger but because the state of their marriage gives her a reason to cry. He lets her cry and fights his own tears and eventually she lifts her head of his chest and looks at him. He gives her a kiss on the lips and she kisses him back, but it somehow feels wrong.

"I wish I didn't have to leave like this."

"I know. We'll try to work on it once you are back. I won't run away or anything." This makes him chuckle because he knew that of course.

"Good. I'll miss you. So very much."

"I'll miss you too." He then lets go of her with an empty feeling inside of him. He gets into the car and once the family can't see him anymore, he can't stop himself from crying. And just like Cora, he is crying over the state of their marriage. He doesn't know what is wrong. They love each other so much, he will miss Cora so much that it will physically hurt him and she feels the exact same way about him, but still they aren't happy. And that is worse than going to war.


	17. October 1915

AN: Thank you for all the reviews and follows and favorites again!

I know I've said it many times, but you guys rock! I'd like to give a shout out to Tina, who always reviews as a guest and has reviewed many of my stories. THANK YOU!

This is one of the shorter chapters, though I hope no less enjoyable :)

Have a great day everyone and please let me know what you think,

Kat

* * *

_Isobel _

"Cora? Are you listening?"

"I am so sorry Isobel. Nicholas is sick and I was up all night. My mind wondered off." She feels sorry for her cousin, whom she has come to consider a good friend.

"I just said that we should think about turning this house into a convalescent home." She talked about it to Dr. Clarkson a few days ago. He came to her house to tell her something about a few more nurses being sent to the hospital and then she invited him to dinner on a whim. She has dinner with the family more often than not and she suspects it is Mary who insists on inviting her, no doubt to fulfill a promise she must have given to Matthew. But she had planned to stay at home that night and when Dr. Clarkson came shortly after tea and then did not show any inclination to leave, she just thought that it might be nice to have dinner with him. It felt good to talk to him. They talked about all kinds of things, but eventually their talk returned to the hospital and the lack of space there. So she suggested asking Cora to use the big house.

"I don't know. I am sure that Robert would not approve." Cora says this with a distant voice however, as if she didn't really care about what Robert approved of and what not. She knows that there is something wrong between Cora and Robert, the way they said goodbye to each other was not what she would have expected, but when she asked Mary about it, her daughter-in-law went rather somber and only said that she hoped for the best.

"Cora, if there is anything you want to talk about"

"No Isobel. Don't get involved. I know you mean well, but Robert isn't here, nothing can be done."

"I just thought that"

"Please. No." Cora looks daggers at her and she knows that she has to stop now although she finds it ridiculous that Robert and Cora were not able to bury the hatchet before he left.

"So what about my idea? Robert isn't here, you are in charge."

"What would it entail?" She tells Cora all of what it would entail. She decided to not leave anything out last night because that would be dishonest and they should not start something like this based on dishonesty.

"I'll talk to the girls. I can't decide anything without them."

"Well, Sybil will be all for it."

"I want her transferred here if we do this."

"That could be arranged, if it was Sybil wanted."

"It is what I want." Sometimes Cora just goes too far.

"Just because you are a countess you don't have the right to tell everyone what to do."

"I never said I did. But Sybil is my daughter, she grew up in this house, she knows how this house works and I trust her. I can leave things to her." She can only nod. She knows that Cora means that she could leave things to Sybil should she herself be responsible for the upbringing of an infant earl.

"Would you like to stay for dinner?"

She accepts the invitation and when she looks around herself once they are in the dining room, it brings tears to her eyes. Cousin Violet is there too, looking as formidable as ever, but neither of the other women at the dinner table has changed into evening clothes. They are all wearing very simple dresses, Sybil still wears the hairstyle she always wears under her nurse's cap and they all look subdued. There are no men at the table with both Robert and Matthew in France and the only male servant in the room is Carson. The dinner is served by two maids. She does not mind that, she thinks the way they have dinner here is not suitable during war, in fact not suitable at all and she talked to Mary about that once. Mary told her that it was what they knew and that to take that away from them would shatter their world even more than it had already been shattered. She does not really understand that, but what she understands is that this must be very hard on the family. It is very hard on her, she misses Matthew very much and she also misses Robert whom she considers to be a friend just as much as she considers Cora to be a friend. But it must be so much worse for Cora and Mary, both of them left at home with a very young son and they cannot know whether their husbands will return.

Eventually the conversation turns to the possibility of turning Downton Abbey into a convalescent home and Mary, Edith and Sybil are all in favor of it. Violet of course objects but Cora silences her by saying that house belongs to Robert and her and that as Robert it isn't home, she is the one to make the final decision. Isobel has the sneaking feeling the two main reasons for Cora's agreement are that she wants to put Violet into her place and that she knows that Robert won't like it, but the Abbey will be put to good use, so Isobel refrains from commenting on this.

* * *

_Sybil_

"Hello Tom."

"Sybil." She loves the way Tom smiles at her. He always smiles at her when she comes to the garage.

"Is it true?"

"What?"

"That the house will be turned into a convalescent home."

"Yes. But we will still live her. Mama and Isobel have been ripping each other's heads off about the logistics for three days now. But I think it is good for both of them." Tom begins to laugh and his eyes begin to sparkle and there are little wrinkles around his eyes. He is so beautiful and she wishes she could make him laugh more often.

"They are both rather stubborn."

"Yes."

"Will you work here or at the hospital?"

"Here. It was Mama's condition." Tom raises his eyebrows and huffs. "Tom, I truly don't mind that. I know that Mama wants me home, but not only because she does not like me working at the hospital. She thinks that it might be helpful to have someone among the medical staff who knows the house, knows how things work. And she is right."

"So you are doing what the countess tells you." Sometimes Tom jumps to conclusions much too fast and he thinks in stereotypes too much.

"I am doing something my mother asks of me with very good reason. I will be more useful at the house than at the hospital, my mother is right about that. And I don't go against my parents' wishes just for the sake of it. I only ever go against their wishes if I have a good reason for it."

"You are much less of a rebel than I thought you were." This is something she has been afraid of for quite some time. That Tom would realize that she is not what he thinks she is. She is very close to her family and she loves her siblings, her parents and her granny very much and she would never intentionally hurt them. And she is afraid that this is something that Tom won't understand.

"I think so." Tom actually smiles at her.

"You are a family person."

"Yes. I love my family."

"And you want to have a family of your own one day."

"Yes."

"You want children." Her heart begins to flutter and her hands are shaking. He stirs desires in her she never thought she had. She thinks that she might feel for Tom what Mary feels for Matthew.

"Yes." Her voice is unsteady as she imagines what their children would be like.

"Good. Because I want children too." He leans towards her but she stops him. She wants to kiss him very much, but it would mean the loss of her world and she isn't yet ready for that.

"Tom. No. Not yet. I am sorry." He strokes her cheek and she lets him.

"Don't be sorry, Sybil. Take as much time as you need." This almost makes her kiss him in thanks for his consideration, but she stops herself.

"I ought to go back inside."

"Goodnight Sybil."

"Goodnight."

He takes her hand and only lets go of it once she has walked so far away from him that he has to let go. She wishes he could hold her hand forever.

* * *

_Edith_

"My father said he'd try to come back to walk me down the aisle. I am sure that he could manage it. He knows a number of people at the War Office. Maybe he'll even be able to make them let Matthew go home as well. For the wedding of a sister-in-law that might be possible." She looks at Anthony imploringly. He has been stalling and she does not understand that. It was he who proposed to her, not the other way around. It is he who asks her to always come back, it is he who asks her to stay for dinner three times a week. But whenever she mentions them getting married, he finds excuses.

"Edith, my darling, even if that were possible, I don't think us getting married would be a good idea. Not now."

"Why all of a sudden?" He looks as if he was to say something unpleasant and then she knows. Just like her father and Matthew he is going to war. So there will be one more person she will have to be horribly afraid for, one more person to pray for at night.

"I am going to France next week."

"Next week? Why didn't you tell me earlier?" He should have told her earlier, she would have had more time to prepare then, maybe they would have had time to get married. With or without her father and Matthew present. She is sure that if it came to it, Carson would have given her away, or maybe her father's cousin Shrimpie could have come from London to do it. She also could have walked down the aisle by herself, she does most things by herself. But a week is just not enough.

"Don't say it. I know why. Because you were afraid I would push you towards marrying me before you left." The look on his face is answer enough.

"Edith, try to understand. I am too old for you as it is. I know you say you don't care and I believe you. But I might get hurt, I might return a cripple."

"You might not return at all."

"Precisely. I don't want to turn you into an old man's widow."

"But" She is crying now because she is afraid that Anthony will never marry her, that although he loves her, he won't go through with it in the end because of some stupid notion about age.

"No but."

"Mary and Matthew got married because Matthew went to France."

"Matthew is a much younger man." She does not understand this.

"What difference does that make?"

"His chances of recovery are much better than mine, should he get hurt."

"But his chances of dying are just the same as yours." She has to make him see this. She can't let him go to war as her fiancé.

"Suppose we went to the registrar's office before I went to France. What if I left you pregnant?"

"Then we'd have a child. That would be wonderful."

"I am too old for a baby."

"My brother is not even a year old."

"No. But he wasn't your parents' first child. They already knew how to deal with a baby. Neither one of us has any idea what that would mean."

"Mary and my mother would help. I am sure of it." Why does he have to make this so complicated? If she didn't love him so much, she'd hate him.

"No."

"We could get married and not have the wedding night until you came back."

"Is that a realistic option?" It is not. He is right about that. "Let me go to war. And if you still want me when I return and if I return unhurt, then we can set a date." She is afraid that he hopes that she will find someone else in the meantime. But even if she wanted to find someone else, which she doesn't, how would she be supposed to accomplish that with almost all the men in France?

"Anthony"

"That is my final word on this subject. I am sorry." She doesn't say anything because she does not know what to say to him.

On her way back home she thinks about Anthony asking her to come back at least once more before he left but she told him she didn't know whether she could do it. She saw how her parents' marriage almost fell to pieces within the space of two weeks because her father went to war and she is afraid that the same will happen to her relationship with Anthony. With the added difficulty that they are not married, they don't have a reason to try and work on their relationship after the war.

"Edith? Are you alright?" She looks up and sees that Mary is standing right in front of her.

"Yes, of course. Why would I not be alright?"

"I just thought you looked downcast." She hates her sister, she hates the way she stands in front of her, with her son in her arms and the wedding band on her finger. But maybe Mary is the only person she knows who would understand.

"Actually I am downcast. Would you walk with me?"

"Of course. Wait a moment, I'll return George to the nanny." Mary really returns only moments later, without her son, but with a coat. "Let's go then."

They take the path their parents usually take and somehow that makes her even sadder. She tells Mary about her conversation with Anthony, his reasons for not marrying her after all, and why she thinks that he is wrong. Mary listens without interrupting her, but looks at her when she is finished.

"Edith, I think that Anthony is right. I am not sure that it was such a good idea that Matthew and I got married before the war. I know that I once told you the opposite, but I think differently about it now. I love Matthew very much, but I'd love him just as much if he was still my fiancé. But we would not have George if we hadn't gotten married. And while I love our son unconditionally, I am constantly afraid of him having to grow up without a father. Or grandfather for that matter."

"So you wish you'd never had your son?"

"No. I would not give him up for the world. I just think that it would have been better if we had had him after the war. When we could have been sure that he would grow up with a complete set of parents. Imagine you and Anthony got married and he left you with a child. Imagine that child was a boy. He'd be Anthony's heir. Ask Mama about how scary that would be." She wonders what Mary means. Their mother has probably told Mary something she would never tell her. She noticed that her mother spends a lot of time talking to Mary. As if Mary was her only child or at least her only grown up child.

"Edith, she talks to me a lot because we are facing the same troubles. Although her troubles are much worse than mine. If Matthew died, I would not be left with an infant earl, but that is what Mama is facing, should Papa not return. And you'd be facing something similar if Anthony left you with a son and then did not return." She knows that her sister is right, but it doesn't make it any easier on her.

"I just love him so much."

"I know you do. I may not understand why, but I know you do." She has to laugh about this. She knows Mary said this the way she said it to cheer her up. Maybe she should try to be a little nicer to her sister.

"Let's go back to the house. I have to help Mama with something and I am afraid that it is fighting Isobel that she wants my help with."

"That cannot be fun for you. Helping our mother fight with your mother-in-law."

"You have no idea." They both laugh and she thinks that maybe, somehow, things between Mary and her have just become a little better.


	18. November and December 1915

_Robert_

"Major Crawley, what do you think you are doing?"

"I am packing my things, general. I've been given leave to go home for my son's first birthday." He has been looking forward to it and not just because he will see Nicholas again but because he wants to make things between Cora and him right again. Whatever it is, he thinks that they will be able to work it out. And he misses her so much.

"You will do no such thing, Crawley. Your leave has been revoked for an indefinite amount of time."

"Why?" He has done nothing wrong, he is sure of it.

"We need you here, you just can't go."

"My wife expects,"

"I don't care about your wife, Crawley. You volunteered for this, don't complain. You won't be allowed to go home before sometime in 1916." With that the General leaves and he is dumbstruck. He is disappointed beyond words and he knows that Cora and the girls will be very disappointed too. Cora wrote to him that she was looking forward to seeing him and that was more than he would have hoped for when left. And now he has to tell her that he won't come home for their son's birthday and that he has no idea when he will be home at all. It frustrates him to no end and when he sits down at his desk and begins to write the letter, he breaks the first pen with the force he uses to slam it on the paper.

* * *

_Cora_

She can't remember the last time she was so mad at her husband. She had been looking forward to him coming home; she thought that they might be able to make things better between them. And now he is not coming and the letter he wrote is beyond unfeeling.

_Cora,_

_I won't be able to come home. My leave has been revoked, don't ask me why. I don't know when I will come home, but it certainly won't be this year. _

_Robert_

It isn't even a real letter, it is just a note. When Robert was in South Africa, he wrote so many long letters to her. Letters that went on for pages. The longest letter she has received from him so far was only one and half pages long and most of it dealt with how little Robert liked his commanding general. Maybe the general read the letter and that is why Robert's leave has been revoked_. _The letters he sent from South Africa had been full of love and he began every single one with the words 'My darling wife' and ended all of them with the words 'I love you'. He hasn't written those words to her once yet. All his letters start with 'Cora' and he never seems to put in the effort to find any sort of parting words. And yet she misses him more than she has ever missed him before. She loves him so much that it is tearing her apart and knowing that things between them have somehow gone wrong almost kills her. She wants to tell him how much their son reminds her of him already and tell him about the almost outrageous things Sybil says when she talks about politics and how that still makes her proud of their wonderful girl. She wants to tell him how both Edith and Mary are much more involved with the convalescent home than she thought they would be, how Mary helps her run it, and what a good mother Mary is, and how Edith seems to know every single patient, how she talks to them, gets books for them, helps them write letters and makes them feel better. She wants to tell Robert how proud she is of their girls and how she knows that Nicholas will be just like them because all three of them take such good care of their little brother. But she can't tell him any of that because somehow it would be wrong to put this in a letter considering how things are between them.

But even more than that, she wants to just be with him, to fall asleep next to him, to wake up with the knowledge that he is still there and loves her. She is sure that he still loves her, it is not possible for them to not love each other, but she wonders if the love he feels for her hasn't changed from romantic love to something else. And she needs his love for her to be romantic love, her whole life depends on that. She remembers Mary saying that she thought that Robert must have already loved her the day they got married and she wants to know whether that is true. She never dared to ask him that for the fear of his answer, but she needs to know now, because had Robert really loved her then, even if he hadn't realized it, their marriage would actually have been a love match right from the start and for some reason that has become important for her. Maybe that is because the marriage of Mary and Matthew is a love match, maybe it is because of something else. But she needs to know and she can only ask Robert if he is home. But he isn't coming home and apparently he is making no effort to get his leave back. If Violet had been able to get Matthew home for almost two weeks after George's birth, than Robert should be able to get himself home for their son's birthday or at least for Christmas. But apparently it is not worth the effort to him, apparently he does not want to come home because he does not want to see her. She needs him to know how she feels about this and so she replies to his letter.

_Robert,_

_How dare you not come home?_

_If you can't come home for your son's first birthday, you at least could come home for Christmas. Your mother was able to get Matthew home, you should be able to get yourself home._

_But I suppose you don't want to come home, you don't want to see me. It is obvious that you don't really love me anymore, seeing as you never write that and I won't write it anymore either because I don't know how I feel about you anymore. I was sure I loved you very much until that note you sent to me. Could you not at least have said that you were sorry and that you missed me? Even if it had been a lie, it would have been much kinder to me. _

_I suspect you don't want to see the house be put to a use other than to be bored in either. Your mother made it quite clear to me that I made a mistake when I agreed with Isobel and we turned the house into a convalescent home. And I am sure that you think along the same lines. _

_You didn't ask about this, but I'll tell you that your daughters, your son and your grandson are all doing well, because somewhere deep down I hope that although you may not care for me anymore, you might still care about your children and grandchild._

_Don't bother writing back, at least not to me. If you have got something to say, write to one of the girls._

_Cora_

* * *

_Robert_

The letter is full of tears and his heart breaks for Cora when he sees the blotched ink. Once he has read the letter, his heart breaks again. How could she think like that? Doesn't she know him at all? His first urge is to reply to Cora, to explain himself, to tell her how sorry he is about all of it, to tell her that he loves her more than anything in the world and that he could not live without her, to finally tell her how he felt when they got married, how he felt when he proposed. He never did tell her that he must have already loved her then, because when he realized that far too late, it seemed embarrassing to him to admit it, but now that something went wrong between them, that he has a small idea of how she must have felt during the first months of their marriage, he thinks that it does not matter whether he is embarrassed by it. She deserves to know. But this is not something he can tell her in a letter, this is something he has to tell her face to face, something he has to tell her when they are alone in a meaningful place. So he decides not to write back to her at all but to ask all three of his girls in separate letters to write to him very regularly and let him know how their mother is doing. He knows she runs the convalescent home and he is so proud of her and more than that, he is proud of having a wife like that. She must have fought his mother on this and now she is probably fighting with Isobel constantly, but she does this to do good and from what he has heard, what he has read in letters, what he has been told by one of his superiors, Cora must be doing a superb job. Although her decision surprised him, he did not think it wrong. He realizes that he never told her that either and thinks that he should, but again not in a letter. He will just have to wait for his leave, whenever that might be.

* * *

_Mrs. Hughes_

"You look as if Christmas had been cancelled, Mrs. Hughes."

"Hasn't it Mr. Carson? With her ladyship in such a state, it certainly seems as if it had."

"So her moods are getting to you."

"I think her insufferable bad mood is getting to everyone. Even Lord Downton is fussier and cries more than he usually does. I wish she would understand that the world does not always go the way she wants."

"That was unkind, Mrs. Hughes." She knows that it was, she knows that something must have gone wrong between his lordship and her ladyship and she knows that her ladyship is suffering because of it. Although the Countess of Grantham is certainly the last person she ever expected to have to suffer of a broken heart. The marriage between the Earl and the Countess always seemed so blissfully happy, but now nothing of that seems to be left.

"I know it was, Mr. Carson. She does not do this on purpose although she behaves like a love sick teenager."

"It does hurt when you realize that you have lost the person you love." Mr. Carson is staring into the distance and she wonders what he means and more than that how he knows. She is all too painfully aware of Mr. Carson not being in love. She wishes he was in love with her but while he considers her a friend, maybe even a close friend, she is sure that he does not love her. Not romantically.

"I suppose it does."

"But then, most great loves fall to pieces at some point. The question the involved parties have to ask themselves then is whether it is worth the effort to stick the pieces back together." She dearly hopes that Lord and Lady Grantham will think it worth it to stick the missing pieces back together. She does not worship the family as Mr. Carson sometimes seems to do, but she can't deny that she likes them. Both the earl and countess are very nice and considerate, they make the servants' lives comparatively easy. Her ladyship can be high maintenance sometimes, but even then she is kind about it. And she doesn't seem to think that she is better than everyone else around her just because she is a countess. She remembers meeting the countess for the first time about ten years ago when she applied for the position of the housekeeper. She had been slightly surprised when she realized that the countess was only in her mid-thirties and even more surprised when she heard her speak with an American accent. At some point during the interview, the library door had burst open and a girl who must have been about 10 years old had burst in, chased by a dog. The countess had skillfully caught her daughter and pulled her close to her, which had made the dog stop running. "I am so sorry Mrs. Hughes, but my youngest daughter sometimes is a little wild." She expected the countess to scold her daughter then, but instead the girl received a kiss on her head from her mother. The door was pushed open further less than a minute later and a man about the age of the Countess had come in, looking rather flustered and without seeing her, he just said "Cora, darling, have you seen either Sybil or, oh there they are. Sybil you weren't supposed to run off like that."

"We have a guest Papa." The earl then looked up and turned bright red in the face. That was the moment that she decided to take the job if it was offered to her and she wasn't surprised when at the end to the interview, the countess did offer her the position right away. She met Mr. Carson the day she started and she remembers thinking that she was right in taking the position if it meant working with a man like that. For more than ten years now she has been dreaming of him constantly, has imagined them being married. But he is stubborn and won't realize what is in front of him and she does not want to destroy the friendship that has formed between them.

* * *

_Isobel_

"Cora, you cannot just do what you want."

"Of course I can."

"No, you always have to talk to me; we are running this house together."

"You are responsible for everything to do with medicine and I am responsible for everything else."

"Yes. And the nurses have something to with medicine, don't you think?" She is sure she has got her now. She likes Cora very much, but the countess is a pushover, there is no denying it. She always thought it a little feeble of Cora to hardly ever openly disagree with anyone, especially Robert, but now her lack of ability to fight will be rather convenient.

"Maybe. But your nurses' schedule made the schedules of everyone else working in this house impossible."

"Oh, the servants can adjust. They only have to take care of you and the girls." She knows that Cora will falter now.

"The servants take care of this house. They clean it. They wash the linens and the clothes, not just ours, but those of the patients. Our kitchen staff is responsible for every single meal that is served in this house. I know the army supplied two kitchen maids and a few housemaids, but the biggest chunk of the work falls to our servants. And they do the work without complaining. But if they have to eat lunch at 11:30 and then only get tea at 6, they will have to go without a proper meal for 6 and a half hours and that is not acceptable. And don't you tell me that my nurses' schedule somehow clashes with medical needs. It doesn't. Sybil helped me write it and Dr. Clarkson said he did not see a problem with it. So if you please just let the matter rest." She is stunned by this. She did not think that Cora was capable of saying something like this, of actually standing up for what she thinks is right. Although what Cora thinks is right in this case is of course wrong.

"But you must see that,"

Cora has now gotten up and looks daggers at her. Right now Cora is an arrogant countess who desperately holds on to the notion that just because of her position she knows everything best.

"I don't have to see anything. I know I am right. Running this convalescent home is far closer to running a country house and estate than to running an actual hospital. And with all due respect Isobel, you have never run a house like this, you have no idea what that entails." She cannot believe it. How can Cora be so full of herself?

"The fact that you somehow managed to snatch up a future earl in financial distress with the help of your rather large dowry does not mean that you have universal knowledge." She knows this was below the belt when she sees the tears in Cora's eyes. But she can't take those words back, she just can't.

"Maybe you should leave. Come back tomorrow and we can talk again then."

"If you are asking me to leave, then I will leave for good. I'll go to France, work with the Red Cross."

Cora has sat down again and turned away from her.

"You hear that? I am going to France." Cora now turns back to her and she has never seen her so angry.

"Yes. And I wish you all the best."

"Cora!"

"I thought you wanted to leave."

"I do."

"Good." Cora turns around again and starts to write something. So she turns too and leaves and makes plans for going to France.

...

"Isobel? Oh there you are. Moseley wasn't there, so I just let myself in. I hope you don't mind."

"Of course I don't mind Mary. Where is George?"

"At Downton, where you will visit him tomorrow." Mary looks at her as if she was up to something. She looks exactly like Cora looks when she is up to something.

"No Mary, I won't go back. Your mother and I" Mary shakes her head.

"My mother and you had a shouting match. I know. But that is no reason for you to go to France." Mary does not understand this either.

"It is. Your mother made it quite clear that I am not needed at the house."

"That is not what she said."

"She said"

"I know what she said. You both yelled loud enough for me to hear. And she did not say that you weren't needed. All she said was that she knew more about running a house like Downton Abbey than you do and she is right about that."

"Mary, your mother has no medical knowledge." If she can't make Cora see sense, then maybe she can make Mary see sense. Mary must oppose her mother from time to time.

"No, she doesn't. But she isn't stupid or anything. And she is very good at managing a large house."

"If you say so. But I think that my ideas"

"Isobel." Mary's voice has become quite sharp and she thinks that she should put her daughter-in-law in her place, but she can't get a word in because Mary keeps talking. She is very good at this. She must have learned how to have an argument from Matthew. "Just because you think that my mother is a pushover because she hardly ever opposes my father when they are in company does not mean that she actually is a pushover. Far from it."

"She lets him get away with things that are impossible."

"She does not let him get away with things that are impossible. She tells him what she thinks when they are alone and she does that because she understands the position that my father is in. She cannot criticize him in front of others. He is the Earl of Grantham." How can Mary, a modern woman, an intelligent woman, believe that?

"Yes. And your mother is the Countess of Grantham."

"Precisely. And as that she has to support her husband publicly. And before you have to ask, should Matthew ever take me to an important meeting somehow related to his work or estate business or whatever else comes to mind, I will hold my tongue if that is necessary. I might give him a piece of my mind later, but not in public if that was unsuitable."

"So your mother cannot oppose your father but she can oppose me?" She knows the question is stupid and will most likely make Mary angry, but she can't stop herself.

"If she is right yes. And she is right."

"So you are on her side in this."

"Of course I am on her side. She is my mother and what is more, she is right. And while we are on the subject, what you said to her about snatching up a future earl in financial distress was below the belt. You know that they are not on the best of terms right now and it breaks Mama's heart. Don't rub the reasons my father claims to have had for marrying her under nose."

"He claims to have had? Did he actually have a different reason?"

"Yes. He loved her. He may not be able to admit to it, but he must have loved her already then. Don't ask me how I know this, but I am sure about it. He is just too stubborn for his own good. Something that seems to a family trait by the way."

She looks at Mary and wonders if she was accusing her of stubbornness. Logically that wouldn't make any sense, she married a Crawley, she wasn't born one, but she doubts that Mary was thinking like that.

"You think I shouldn't leave."

"I think you should stay and apologize to my mother."

"Mary, I"

"That is all I have to say on the subject." Mary is so much like Robert sometimes. She wishes Matthew was more like Reginald, she knows it is stupid and Matthew is such a wonderful young man, but sometimes wishes that stem from love are irrational. And sometimes things said under immense loads of stress are irrational too.

"I'll talk to you mother."

"Thank you."

* * *

_Branson_

December 24th, another year almost gone by. He doesn't know what to think. He is sure that he has made some progress with Sybil, but not as much as he wanted to, but then again the war puts a damper on all of them, so maybe this is all he can expect of her. Especially with a brother-in-law she loves like an actual brother and her father at war.

"Tom?" He knew she'd come, she comes to see him almost every day.

"Hello Sybil."

"Aren't you cold in here?"

"I was waiting for you, so no, I am not cold."

"You are either very good or very bad at flirting." Her laughter sounds like church bells ringing and her eyes sparkle. He can see her breath in the cool air and knows that she must be incredibly cold. And yet she came to see him. It warms him from the inside.

"Well, I'll go for very good then."

"Good choice." Despite her smile and her sparkling eyes, she seems somewhat downcast.

"Are you alright?"

"To be honest, no. It is Christmas Day tomorrow and neither Matthew nor Papa is home. And they won't come. This is not some great romantic novel in which the soldiers at war miraculously show up at home Christmas Day. They just won't be here. And it feels so weird and so wrong. I remember celebrating Christmas without Papa when he was in South Africa, it just wasn't the same."

"No, I should think not."

"He loves Christmas. He always gets so excited, he loves to give presents to us. He is very good at picking them. People always think he doesn't really know us but he does, he always finds something perfect for all of us. But it must be so much harder on the men at the front then on their families at home."

"I suppose it is." He doesn't really know what to say to her. That he has to celebrate Christmas without the woman he loves? He'd just put her under too much pressure. While he gets a little impatient with her sometimes, he does not want to push her, not at a time like this.

"All those families and loved ones torn apart on what is supposed to be the best day of the year."

"Yes."

"I wish I could celebrate Christmas with everyone I love. Everyone." She looks at him expectantly and he knows what she expects. He watches the clouds her breath makes vanish into the air, he feels those clouds on his skin when he moves closer to her. He looks into her eyes and she looks back at him, scared and excited at the same time. When he feels her soft lips on his and she puts her arms around him, he lifts her off her feet and swings her around. He always wondered why men sometimes do that, it always seemed rather daft to him, but now he understands. It is caused by a wave of love. And he needs to tell her.

"I love you." She nods and smiles at him. He knows she isn't ready to say it yet, but he knows that she will be ready eventually and that is the best Christmas present anyone has ever given to him.


	19. April 1916

AN: Thank you for all the reviews! I really appreciate you taking the time to write them. You rock!

I have almost finished writing this story (I am on Chapter 29 out of 30), but to bring it to a good end, I think I need a short writing break from it. But I don't need a break from writing per se, in fact I'd like to write a few Robert/Cora and/or Mary/Matthew one shots, so if you have any ideas or prompts, or if there is anything you'd like to read, just let me know. Either in a review or by pm. This really can be anything, it can be set in this universe, or one of the other universes I have written in or something you have made up or whatever.

Thank you!

Let me know what you think about this chapter, please :)

* * *

_Matthew_

He is finally going home. After a year of not having been at Downton, of not having seen his family, of not having seen his wife, of not having seen his son who was only a few days old when he left him. Mary sends a picture of George once a month, in fact she sends pictures of Nicholas too. He keeps the pictures of Nicholas safely hidden in an envelope at the bottom of his trunk because he wants to give them to Robert. That is why Mary sends the pictures of Nicholas. Apparently Robert and Cora must have had a huge falling out, Mary wrote she couldn't explain it, only that it had gotten much worse after Robert's leave had been cancelled in November. He saw Robert only once, a few days before Christmas, and by accident. They met at the headquarters of his regiment and he had had no idea that Robert would be there. Had he known, he'd have taken the pictures with him, he kicked himself afterwards because he should have known, but it had been too late then. But now he knows that he will see Robert. He has planned his return journey to take him to Robert's camp. It is a detour, it will mean a day less at home with his family, but he has to try to make Robert see sense. According to Mary, Robert and Cora have not written to one another once since last November and it reminds him painfully of his own behavior a year ago. There are so many parallels and he hopes that he can help Robert get over whatever it is the man needs to get over to make things with Cora all right again.

When he gets to Robert's camp, a sergeant tells him where to find Major Crawley and he asks not to be announced. He walks up behind Robert and says "Major Crawley". Robert turns around and says "Yes?" and then his face transforms. Although not into a smile as Matthew had hoped it would but rather into an expression of annoyance.

"Matthew. What do you want?" This hurts him quite a lot. He did not expect Robert to hug him the way he did when he came home shortly before Christmas 1914, he knows Robert cannot do that in front of his fellow officers, but he would have expected a smile and an 'how are you?'. But maybe this is all part of the great trouble between Robert and Cora.

"I wanted to see you. I am on my way home and I decided to come by here."

"That must cost you a day."

"It does. But I am going to home to see my family and you are part of that."

"I wish you hadn't done that. You are taking time away from Mary." He wonders what he should say, whether he should be honest but he thinks that would be best. So he takes a deep breath and forces himself to look straight into Robert's face, although it feels strange to him to give his father-in-law marital advice.

"Robert, Mary writes to me quite regularly and I know that there is something wrong between Cora and you. And I just came to tell you that whatever it is, I think you should fix it. Because these things can be fixed as I know only too well." Robert smiles a sad smile at him now and he can see that his father-in-law is battling with himself.

"Let's walk."

They walk along the camp which isn't big, but Robert as its commanding officer seems to be proud of it. "Matthew, this is different. You did not know how to deal with the war and the changes that Nicholas caused in your life. But Cora and I, I don't know how to say it. She is not what she once was. She used to be understanding but she is not anymore. She accused me of things I could not do anything about, she does not want to me to write to her anymore. It is quite different from what you and Mary went through."

"And you don't care to talk about it." He knows his father-in-law well enough to know that. Robert never talks about his feeling, or hardly ever. He just never learned how to do it.

"No. But Cora doesn't need me anymore. According to my mother she does quite a marvelous job of running the convalescent home. She is just not the same person anymore."

He knows that now is as good as time as ever and maybe being reminded of his son, a son that is also Cora's son will help Robert to think about it all a little differently.

"I've got something for you. Actually it is from Mary, she sent it to me." He hands Robert the six pictures of Nicholas that Mary has sent to him over the course of the last half year.

"It's a picture for every month. She does it with pictures of George for me too. I've got those pictures with me too, if you are interested." Robert looks at the picture as if he didn't know what to feel. Matthew knows this particular feeling, it is a mixture of pride and sadness. Pride usually is the more dominant feeling for him, but for Robert it seems to be sadness.

"We've missed quite a big chunk of our young sons' lives."

"Yes. But we are fighting this war to make the lives of those little boys better."

"Maybe."

"When's your next leave?"

"It actually starts two days from today." He smiles at this. The whole family will be home, if only for a very short time.

"Would you like me to wait for you so that we can travel back together?"

"No. In fact Matthew, I am not sure I will go to Downton. I might just stay in London." He understands why Robert would want to do this but he also knows that that would be the wrong way to go.

"Please come to Downton. If not for Cora's sake then for that of your children. They miss you. All of them."

"Matthew, I don't think so."

"I would be very sorry if you really didn't come. Because I miss you too." Robert looks at him as if he was about to say something, but he stops himself and only shakes his head and then stares into the distance.

"I have to leave now or I'll miss my train."

"Have a save journey home." He nods and walks off but then turns around. Robert is already walking back to where he was before. He has a strange feeling that if he doesn't do anything, if he just goes to Downton, he will never see his father again. So he decides to stop in London first.

* * *

_Isobel_

She looks at her son and can't believe that he is home. And that he looks so well. A little haggard maybe, although not too much, and well rested. He arrived the night before and according to Mary he said a quick hello to everyone, went to bed and slept for 15 hours straight. She did not want to take Matthew from Mary and thus she did not go to the house in the morning, but Matthew has now come to see her and he has come alone, something that surprises her.

"Am I to learn now what you did in London?"

"Yes. I have to talk about this to someone and I can't tell Mary or Cora. I went to London to tell Rosamund to not let Robert into her house in case he came there but to force him to go to Downton. I did not tell her why precisely and she didn't ask."

"But you are about to tell me."

"Yes. Mother, I went to see Robert before I came here."

"Go on."

Matthew then tells her about Robert, how unenthusiastic he had seemed about Matthew visiting him, about his reaction to the photos of Nicholas, how Robert did not want to go to Downton though he had a leave coming up and how he had kept talking about something with Cora not being 'right'.

"He said he wanted to go to London, I didn't tell him that he won't be able to stay at the house and that the club has been closed down for the time being. He will go to Rosamund who will send him on his way here, but I am a little afraid of what will happen once he is here."

"You are afraid of his behavior towards Cora."

"Yes. And towards Nicholas. It is not unlikely that Nicholas will not recognize him and I am afraid that that might be the final blow for him." She thinks that Matthew is right. When she went back to the Abbey after her fight with Cora a few months ago and apologized for her behavior, Cora apologized too and eventually told her about her troubles with Robert and how mad she was at him.

"I don't think there is anything we can do besides trying to keep the peace between Robert and Cora. But I will help you with that."

"Thank you mother."

"I suppose you want to go back home now." Matthew grins like a schoolboy who has just been offered a piece of his favorite cake and nods.

"Yes. I want to spend time with George, even if he has no idea who I am." With that Matthew gets up, gives her a kiss on the cheek and leaves.

* * *

_Anna_

She can't believe it although she thinks she should. It was just one night, but one night is enough. She is going to have a baby and she is not married. She knew the risk she was taking, both her and John knew it, but they kept telling themselves that one night couldn't hurt. How wrong they were. She has no idea what to do now. She can't get rid of the baby, it is a child conceived out of love, she cannot kill the child. Although it will most likely ruin her. It is making her sick already. She has to throw up all the time and she is incredibly dizzy and tired. She thinks that Lady Mary might have a suspicion. "Anna, if there is anything you should tell me, please do so. I won't fly off the handle, I won't judge. I promise." But she just shook her head, she couldn't tell her best friend about the pregnancy because it would mean the end of their friendship. Lady Mary would have to send her away, even if she would not judge her.

…

"Anna? Might I have a word?"

"Yes, Mrs. Hughes." Mrs. Hughes probably knows what is going on just as well as Lady Mary does.

"Anna, I won't beat around the bush and I don't want to accuse you of anything, so if I am wrong, please do not be offended."

"I don't think you are wrong, Mrs. Hughes." The housekeep looks at her, her eyes full of disappointment.

"So you are pregnant." She can only nod, tears stinging her eyes.

"I thought you had more honor. I thought you both had more honor."

"We just couldn't help it." She knows it is a very feeble excuse, but it is the explanation Lady Mary gave for her slightly early pregnancy. But Lady Mary at least knew that she was going to marry the father of her child.

"Anna, you know what this means." She nods, she does know what this means. Both she and John will have to leave Downton.

"Mr. Bates has got a bit of money put by and so do I. We won't starve."

"I am glad to hear it." She knows that Mrs. Hughes is saying the truth. She has always gotten on very well with Mrs. Hughes.

"Thank you."

"But there is not much else I can do for you. I will talk to her ladyship about giving both you and Mr. Bates a character, what you have done now does not diminish the value of your work.

"Thank you."

* * *

_Mrs. Hughes_

There are tears running down Anna's face and she wishes the world was a better place. She can't hold the pregnancy against Anna. She herself has dreamed of a future with Mr. Carson often enough to be able to imagine how difficult this must be for Mr. Bates and Anna, for those two who love each other, for Anna, who is loved by the man she loves.

"Anna, I am sorry." She does not really want to let Anna go, she was a good head housemaid and she is an excellent lady's maid. If a lady's maid had to be fired it should be O'Brien, but that vile creature has done nothing that would bring shame on the house.

Anna and Mr. Bates on the other hand, who quite opposed to Ms. O'Brien do not try to manipulate their employers twice a day, have given in to love and are now to leave the house. She hopes that her ladyship is kind enough to write a character herself, a reference written by the Countess of Grantham might help Anna and Mr. Bates at some point in the future.

"Your ladyship?"

"Mrs. Hughes. Come in." She nods and enters the small library. It is a tiny, cramped space now, with all the furniture form the actual library squeezed in and an extra desk for her ladyship.

"How may I help?"

She tells her ladyship about Anna and Mr. Bates without holding anything back, she does not see any reason for holding things back and it is best to be honest in any case. Her ladyship does not look as shocked she thought she would, so maybe she will write the characters.

"Mrs. Hughes, thank you for telling me about this without sugar coating anything and without accusations. I appreciate that. However, I already knew this and I have made my decision already."  
"How do you know?" She wants to bite her tongue off; she is not supposed to speak to her ladyship like that, although she supposes that the American countess won't mind.

"Lady Mary told me. Anna did not tell her, but Lady Mary knows enough about pregnancies to have recognized the signs. Anna is Lady Mary's lady's maid, so the decision was hers, I would have agreed it with it in any case and in the absence of his lordship, it is up to me to decide how to proceed with Mr. Bates. Neither Anna nor Mr. Bates will be given a character." She wants to protest, she wants to tell her ladyship that they did excellent work, but the countess holds up her hand and continues speaking. "They won't be given a character because they won't leave our employ. I know this might make the family notorious for a while, but there is a war going on and there hopefully won't be too much gossip." She doubts this is the right decision and she has a suspicious about why her ladyship is willing to keep Mr. Bates and Anna in her employ.

"My lady, might I speak out of turn for a moment?"

"Yes."

"I don't think this is the right decision and I am afraid that you have come to it by a route that you better had not taken."

"What?" Her ladyship's voice has gone a pitch higher, as it always does when she is either surprised or upset.

"You said there was a war going on and I know that this is completely inappropriate, but I am afraid that you have come to this decision to fight your own private war against his lordship." She wishes she hadn't said it the moment her ladyship gets up. She hardly ever does, she hardly ever really is a countess in terms of treating employees the way that other high born ladies often tend to do.

"Mrs. Hughes, I gave you permission to speak out of turn, I did not give you permission to comment on the state of the relationship between his lordship and myself. And my decision has nothing to do with that. Lady Mary asked me to not send her best friend away and before he left, his lordship gave me instructions to keep Bates in our employ, regardless of the length of the war and the fact that the job Bates is paid to do is nonexistent as long as his lordship is in France. I will honor both requests and I assure you that his lordship will agree with my decision. Now, I will overlook the way you just spoke to me because I value your work very much, but I sincerely hope that you will never speak to me like that again."

"Thank you, your ladyship." She has never been at the wrong end of one of her ladyship's outbursts of rage and she does not want to be there again. The countess did not yell, but her voice sounded both disappointed and angry.

* * *

_Robert_

London. A place he calls his second home. He walks to his house and it seems eerily quiet. They never have much staff at the house as long as they are not there, only a housekeeper, a cook, two maids and a footman. They bring everyone else from Downton when the whole family goes to London, but if it is just Cora and him, they only ever take O'Brien and Bates along. He stops thinking along that road because thinking about Cora hurts him too much. He wonders if there will ever be a time at which he can think about his wife again and the pain won't almost kill him. When he rings the doorbell, Jerkins, their rather old footman, opens it and tells him that he is the only one left at the house, that the rest of the staff have been sent to Downton to help with the convalescent home and that there is no way that anyone can stay at the house.

"I don't think her ladyship expected anyone to want to stay here." He only nods and turns around and decides to stay with Rosamund instead. His sister never asks many questions and she usually is on his side.

"Robert. Oh I am so glad to see you," his sister says when he enters her sitting room. She gets up and hugs him and he almost begins to cry. For a second he considers telling her about his troubles with Cora, but Rosamund won't be able to help.

"Can I stay here for my leave?" Rosamund smiles and he is sure that she is going to say yes.

"No."

"What?"

"You will go to Downton."

"I don't want to go there." She is his sister, she cannot tell him what to do.

"I don't care. And I will make sure that you go to Downton."

"How are you going to accomplish that?"

"By coming with you."

"Rosamund, you don't know," but she interrupts him.

"What I do know is that you need to speak to your wife." How does she know about this? Their mother must have told her, because Cora would never have said a thing, she'd never have stabbed him in the back like that.

"I don't,"

"Yes you do little brother. No, don't sit down. We are leaving now. We are going by car and there is nothing you can do about it." He hates it when he calls her 'little brother' like that. She sometimes does is affectionately and then it does not bother him then, he actually likes it when she does that then because he is her little brother and she used to call him that when they were children. But he can't stand it when she becomes so condescending. But he also knows that there is nothing he can do.

"I don't stand a chance, do I?"

"No." So he goes outside with her and gets into the car with her. He hopes that she does not want to talk to him about Cora the whole way, but she hardly says anything for about the first third of the journey. Afterwards she begins to talk about mutual acquaintances and he actually enjoys talking to her.

Talking to his sister about trifles has somehow made him feel a little less apprehensive about returning home and maybe that is because the conversation with his sister has let him forget about the war, at least a little. However, the war returns to him in full force when he sees the entrance hall of his home. It is full of injured man. Most of them with visible injuries, some of them even with missing limbs. He didn't tell anyone that he was coming here and when looks around, he only sees people he does not know. So he starts to look around, sees that the small library has been cramped with furniture and it seems to be the only private room left. The large library is full of officers, there are beds in the drawing room, the piano and the couch have been taken away, there are beds everywhere. A nurse who obviously has no idea who he is tells him that if he was looking for someone he might have to go upstairs because most guest rooms have been turned into bedrooms for the sick as well. It sounds as if only the family wing was left untouched. He still hasn't seen any of his daughters or his son-in-law or his wife, or any of the staff for that matter. He stops in the middle of the entrance hall and looks around himself and it drives tears into his eyes. This is not his home anymore, this is living hell. His family is going through the same hell he is going through.

The door then opens again and he watches Cora come in, accompanied by a nurse. He hears snippets of their conversation and it is obvious that Cora is giving instructions to the nurse. The other nurses and the officers all greet her and it becomes obvious to him in that moment that Cora is running this convalescent home more or less by herself and that she is doing an admirable job. He wants to go to her and tell her that and then he wants to take her somewhere secluded and kiss her senseless. When she looks his way, his heart stops to beat and the moment she walks over to him, his hands become sweaty and he begins to shiver. He tries to smile at her but he doesn't know if his facial expression qualifies as a smile.

"The girls are at the hospital, Matthew is down at the cottages to look at something that needed fixing and Nicholas is in the nursery. I have no time for you."

She has whispered this, apparently she did not want anyone to overhear, but once she is finished she walks away again without sparing him another glance. He is stunned, and so disappointed and hurt that he can't move.

"It's your own fault, little brother." He ignores Rosamund, he wishes she wasn't there.

"I don't often say it, but your sister is right." He looks at his other side and his mother is standing next to him.

"Mama," he says and gives her one armed hug.

"Now, now, that is quite enough. I am happy to see you alive and well but I'd be happier to see Cora well too." So his mother is on his wife's side. That is a first, apart from anything that concerns Cora's own mother.

"And if you don't want to talk to her, then at least go upstairs and greet your son." He had almost forgotten about Nicholas.

"Yes, I'll do that."

So he goes upstairs into the nursery and watches his son sleep. He envies the little boy who knows nothing about the horrors of the war. He cannot believe how big the boy is, but Nicholas is almost one and a half years old now, so it shouldn't surprise him. The door opens and he expects the nanny to walk in, but it is Cora.

"Oh, I was just about to wake him. His nap time is over and it is time for his tea. But you can wake and feed him if you like." He knows this is a peace offering and he knows that he should take it. So he begins to stroke his son's face.

"Nicholas, my dear boy. Wake up. It is time for your tea." The boy begins to stir and he lifts him out of his bed. The moment Nicholas realizes what has happened, the boy begins to wail at the top of his lungs. He tries to calm him down, but to no avail. Eventually Cora takes the child from him and Nicholas stops to cry immediately.

"I am sorry Robert. I wish he had reacted differently. I tell him about you every day before I put him down for the night. But he is still so small." He nods. He can't say anything because he knows he would start to cry the moment he opened his mouth. His son has no idea who he is and his wife is completely estranged from him. And still she tells their son about him every day.

"And I am sorry about how I greeted you. That was unkind and uncalled for. I am relieved to see you safe and sound." But while she says this she looks at their son and it hurts him. He wishes she would look into his eyes. When he sees her shoulders begin to shake slightly he knows he can't stay in a room with her any longer and leaves without saying another word.

He decides to take a long walk around his estate to calm himself and to think about all of it. He just needs to get his head straight. He has no idea for how long he has been walking around when he finds Cora slumped on a bench on the far side of the estate. He walks towards her and once he is close enough, he can hear her cry. His heart breaks for her, no matter how difficult and insurmountable their problems might be, he cannot stand to see her cry. So he sits down next to her and takes her shaking hands in his. "Cora," he sighs and she looks at him. She is beautiful even when she is obviously overly tired and her eyes are bloodshot from having cried her heart out. She looks at him without saying a word for a few minutes but he doesn't know what to say either.

"I am sorry Robert. About all of it. That letter and not writing to you anymore and greeting you the way I did. And about Nicholas not recognizing you."

"That is not your fault. He is not even one and a half years old, he has not seen me in nine months. He cannot remember me, even if you tell him about me every day. And I thank you for that."

"Mary has a picture of George taken once a month and she sends the pictures to Matthew. I wish I had done that for you too. I wish you had pictures like that."

"I do have pictures like that. Mary had pictures taken of Nicholas as well and she sent them to Matthew who gave them to me."

"She is such a good girl."

"Yes."

"We must have been good parents to her."

"I think we are good parents." Although he can't explain why, this conversation is the most painful thing he has ever experienced. Maybe that is because he knows what is coming. They will have to talk about their future.

"What went wrong between us Robert?" There are tears running down Cora's face again and he fights the urge to wipe them away.

"I don't know."

"We were so happy, so very happy."

"Yes." He knows the next question before she asks it and he knows that she deserves an honest answer and he also knows that it will hurt her endlessly.

"Do you still love me?"

"I don't know." She nods with an expression on her face that tells him that she expected that answer but that it hurts her very much nonetheless.

"Robert, the thing is, I still love you. Very much. And I want to fight for us but I don't think that I can win that fight without your help." He looks into her pale blue eyes, eyes that he has gotten lost in millions of times and the tears in those eyes drive tears into his own eyes. He wants to fight those tears but for some reason he suddenly has to think about Mary's wedding day, about how he thought about his own wedding that day, about how much he had wished that he had let his emotions reign over him on his own wedding day, about how that thought had made him give in to his feelings when Mary asked him how he felt and how glad he was that he did give in to his feelings when he saw her smile. This is different, so very different and so very sad, but somehow he thinks that he should give in to his feelings now as well and so he lets his tears fall.

Quite opposed to him, Cora does not fight the urge to wipe his tears away and the moment her fingers touch his face it feels as if an electric current shot through him. He stops her hand and puts it down.

"Cora, I don't know if I can fight for us. Not now. Not with the war going on." She nods in understanding.

"Then I'll wait. I have to stay here anyway, even after the war. Nicholas is too small for me to leave and will be so for many years to come. And I cannot take him away from you. So I'll stay. We'll have time to fight for our marriage after the war." He nods and then they both begin to cry in earnest. They cling to each other for dear life now and he knows that it is the grief for their marriage that has reunited them for the moment.

He feels deflated when he goes into his room to get changed for dinner. Cora and he walked back together eventually, but they did not touch and hardly spoke. It feels like a truce they are both not satisfied with. He is immensely relieved when he comes into his room and sees that Bates is already there.

"Good evening my lord."

"Hello Bates."

"Is anything the matter my lord?" Usually a valet should not ask a question like that and if it had been William who asked that question, he would have told him so, but he sent his batman home, the lad deserves a break as much as he does. But it is a different matter with Bates. They have known each other for a very long time and his valet has the right to ask a question like that even if that question might remain unanswered.

"Just tell me something to take my mind of things."

"I can certainly do that."

Bates then tells him about Anna, a night of passion and the baby, about the divorce appearing to be very difficult and about Cora and to some extent Mary having allowed them to stay at Downton.

"I hope you won't think too ill of me my lord." He has to sit down on the bed. This he did not expect.

"Well, you certainly took my mind of things" He has no idea what to say, although instinctively he knows that Cora and Mary were right. "I don't appreciate you cheating on your wife, regardless of the state of your marriage. But I also know the strength of mutual love and I agree with her ladyship and Lady Mary. It wouldn't help anyone to make you leave. But please try to get your affairs in order before the child is born. If money is an issue, please tell her ladyship, I am sure she will come up with a solution."

"Thank you my lord."

"You are welcome Bates. And congratulations." Bates nods again and begins to leave, but once he has opened the door, he closes it again and turns around.

"Might I speak out of turn my lord?" He wonders what is coming now, he thought the 'thank you' was quite enough.

"Yes."

"You said you knew the strength of mutual love and I know that you do. And I urge you to not lose it."

"What?"

"I think you should take better care of your wife." He is about to be indignant but he did give Bates permission to speak out of turn.

"What?"

"You once said that you had hoped that we had crossed the divide between servant and master, that you thought that we were friends. I consider us to be friends and as your friend I am telling you to not ruin your marriage. Whatever it is that went wrong between you and your wife, fix it." He should tell Bates off, should tell him not to speak like that to him, but he just can't say anything and apparently Bates takes this as permission to go on.

"That letter you sent to her when your leave was revoked was something you should be ashamed of."

"How do you know about that?"

"Anna and Lady Mary are friends too. You hurt your wife with that when she was in pain because of you anyway. I understand that you had to go to war, but you did leave her with a little baby who would be the earl if you died and that was, still is, very, very hard on her. You used to write her such long letter when we were in South Africa. Would it really be so much of an effort to do that again?"

He doesn't know why he is about to answer, maybe because he needs to talk to someone about this. Matthew of course offered to listen, but Matthew is so much younger than him.

"I loved her then. I am not sure whether I still love her."

"You are not sure whether you still love her? The woman who gave up her world for you? The mother of your children? Even if you really aren't sure anymore, shouldn't you fight with everything you have got to get back what you once had? Have you any idea how lucky you are?"

"I know I've been very lucky with Cora and the children."

"Then do something." With that Bates picks up the shoes and the clothes to take them downstairs. He tries to follow him out of the room.

"I think you should go through the other door." He takes a deep breath, says "Yes" and then walks towards the door that connects his room to that of his wife.

* * *

AN: I know Bates is a little out of character here, but I thought that it would be fitting to have the wall between Bates and Robert drop at least temporarily. They have known each other for a long time after all.


	20. April 1916 II

AN: Thank you for the reviews and the prompts! The price for best prompt definitely goes to eyeon, even if it was an idea for a longish multi-chapter story.

Also thank you for the reviews on the _That American Girl_ companion piece!

Let me know what you think about this one :)

Have a great day, everyone, enjoy Downton Night if you are in the UK,

Kat

P.S.: A small part of this chapter is M-rated, but I did not want to give the whole story and M-rating because of that. If you don't like to read that, just skip what is in between the double lines :)

* * *

_Robert_

He has been home for five days and four nights now. Things between him and his wife are still very rocky and if someone were to ask him whether his marriage was happy right now, he'd probably answer 'no'. Although he did spend the four nights he has been home in Cora's room. She was surprised the first night he came to her but he said that he wanted to sleep in his own bed and that his bed was hers. She smiled at that and gave him a kiss on the cheek. They then turned off the lights and somehow it was easier to talk in the dark. They didn't talk about themselves, but about their children and somehow things seemed a little easier the next morning. They briefly held hands the second night and fell asleep holding hands the third night. The previous night they kissed, but nothing more and it felt wrong to him but at the same time he was exhilarated by it. But he is sure that they won't go any further. They can't, their relationship is too shaky for it and he can't take Cora to bed as long as he isn't sure whether he still loves her.

Cora asked him to take care of Nicholas after the first night and he forced himself to spend time with the son who does not recognize him. But the boy doesn't scream anymore when he picks him up or talks to him, in fact he has become rather clingy. Nicholas now screams when he tries to put him down or leave the room without him. He wants to leave now, it is time for him to go to bed, he only came into the nursery to not have to go into Cora's room before she was changed and in bed. He does not want to see her get changed. He is sure she'd expect him to send O'Brien away and help her himself and he probably couldn't stop himself from doing things he shouldn't be doing then. So he looked in on his son. The boy woke up as soon as he entered the room, stood up in his bed, stretched out his arms and said "Papa". It drove him to tears, not only because he heard him say it but also because he is sure that somehow, Cora got the boy to say it. He lifted the boy out of his bed then and gave him a kiss on both cheeks. "Yes," he said. "I am your Papa. And I love you." He tried to put the boy back to bed a few minutes later, but to no avail and so he decided to do what he has always done whenever a child of his could not sleep. He put the child on his lap and read to the boy. He has been reading to his son for half an hour now and he is sure that Cora must be waiting for him. But Nicholas is only half asleep and putting him to bed now would probably lead to a tantrum. So he keeps on reading.

* * *

_Cora_

She has been waiting for husband for almost an hour now. She wants to talk to him about fighting for their marriage because she thinks that they might be able to save it if he was only willing to put in the effort. They might be able to save it now and she does not want to wait until after the war. She hates loving him while she can't be sure that he loves her and she knows that he knows this. Thus she thinks that he might be stalling because he does not want to talk to her because he hates talking about such things, even if the purpose was to save his marriage. But it is what she wants and so she gets up and starts to look for him. There aren't that many places he could be. It is dark in his room, so he is certainly not in there and the other places she could find him are the nursery and the library, in that order. So she goes to the nursery first. The door is only half-closed and she can hear Robert read to their child. He has always read to their children. Their girls loved it and she is sure that Nicholas loves it too. When Robert was in South Africa, all their girls, including nine year old Mary, cried themselves to sleep every night for the first three weeks because their Papa could not read to them. They were so used to him reading them a bedtime story that they couldn't sleep without it and she reading to them was a very poor substitute. She loves to listen to his reading voice too, when their girls were still young she'd often join them and Robert at night because she wanted to listen to him. And she listens to him now and the love he puts into reading to their son is so pronounced that she has the feeling that she can almost touch it. She eventually slips into the room and sits down on the bed that the nanny would sleep in if they did not make her sleep next door. Nicholas is half asleep, his eyes keep opening and closing and he holds onto Robert's pajamas with his right hand, his head resting against Robert's chest. The love she feels for her husband and son almost knocks the wind out of her. Robert looks up and smiles at her and she smiles back at him. He goes on reading because they both know that if he stopped now, Nicholas would become fully awake again. It was the same with all their children.

"I think he is asleep now," she says after their son hasn't opened his eyes for several minutes.

"Good. But I am afraid of moving him."

"Then stay like that for a few more minutes." He smiles at her again and she is sure that he remembers what she remembers. When their girls were small, they sometimes all sat down on the one big bed and once the girls had fallen asleep, they did not dare to move for hours because they were afraid of waking their children. They used to talk to each other very quietly then and Sybil once told her one of her fondest childhood memories was when she woke up one night, halfway leaning on her father, her sisters asleep next to her and her parents quietly talking about the upcoming Christmas dinner.

"Yes. Who knows when I will be able to hold him like this again."

"Tomorrow." He chuckles at this.

"You know what I mean."

"Of course I do." He strokes their son's head now, very gently, and the boy snuggles up closer to him in his sleep.

"You are a wonderful father, Robert."

"Thank you."

"Our children are very lucky to have you." He smiles at her again and she thinks, she hopes that it is a loving smile.

"They are very lucky to have you too."

"Thank you darling." She says it without thinking and wants to apologize but as if he could read her mind, Robert briefly shakes his head and says

"Don't apologize for that. Please don't ever feel the need to apologize for calling me that."

She can feel the heat rise to her cheeks and she feels as if her insides were on a rollercoaster. "Robert, I"

"I think we can try to put him to bed." She gets up and eases Nicholas' grip on Robert's pajama. Once she has gotten Nicholas to let go of his father without the boy waking up, Robert takes hold of her hand and when she looks at him, she knows that he feels what she feels, that there are butterflies in his stomach too. She puts their little boy to bed and Robert and she stand next to each other, looking down at their youngest child. She feels Robert take her hand and she squeezes it and then looks into his eyes. His eyes are full of questions and insecurities but she nods at him and he leans forward, takes her other hand in his free hand and then captures her lips with his. She lets go of his hands and puts hers into his hair. He puts his arms around her waist and pulls her close to him. She has no idea how long they have been kissing, but when they break apart they need no words. Robert takes her hand and leads her to their room.

* * *

He begins to take off her nightdress before he has even closed the door to their room. He kicks it shut with his foot because his hands are busy roaming over her body. She loses the ability to think coherently and lets her emotions and instincts overwhelm her. She begins to undress him too and they touch and kiss each other everywhere they can reach and when she feels Robert's reaction to what they are doing, it makes her so dizzy, she has to cling to him. They are now standing in front of her bed, holding onto each other, skin to skin, and Robert lifts her face up and begins to kiss her in earnest. He lifts her up a little and she knows what he wants, they have played this game thousands of times. She puts her legs around his waist and he holds her like this for a short moment. He then lowers her onto the bed and her need for him is so desperate that the loss of contact almost physically pains her. Robert looks at her with eyes clouded by passion, desire and love. She is sure that there is love.

_Robert_

He looks at his wife, lying on their bed, waiting for him. Her need for him is so great that she lifts her hips involuntarily in a motion to tell him what she wants. It is driving him almost senseless. He stopped thinking when he kicked the door shut and he is only dimly aware of what he is doing or saying now.

"I want you, Cora. Oh God, how much I want you."

"Then take me."

She moves her hips again and this time he lowers himself onto their bed, between her legs. He feels her wrap her legs around his waist again and he has to grab the sheet beneath her and concentrate on something else for a second to not end this sooner rather than later. They find their rhythm almost immediately and that sends a wave of love through him. Love for his wife, the woman who is so uninhibited around him that she lets herself go completely, the woman he loves so deeply that he can let go of everything too.

He watches her as she becomes completely undone beneath him and when he feels her clench around him, he can't hold on any longer and lets pleasure wash over him.

"Robert," she says, her arms around his neck and her legs still around his waist. They are still so close to one another, they are still touching and they begin to kiss again and the kisses they are giving each other now are kisses of thanks. This is a form of intimacy that can only come with years of happy marriage, that can only work in a happy marriage. They have completely lost each other in themselves, they have become one.

Cora now lowers her legs and he rolls onto his side, pulling her with him, so that her face is pressed against his chest.

* * *

"I love you Cora. Oh dear God, I love you so much."

He feels sobs wrecking through her body and holds her even closer to him. "I love you too," she says. They hold onto each other for a while and he wonders whether she has fallen asleep. He loves it when she falls asleep in his arms like this, because it is a manifestation of how much she loves and trusts him and how close he is to her.

"Robert, can I ask you something?"

"Of course you can."

"Did you truly not love me when we got married?" He wonders where that question is coming form but that is not important, at least not as important as the fact that he is finally able to tell her, after 27 years of marriage. And he thinks it quite fitting that she asks that question now, when they are holding each other so close, with nothing in between.

"I think I loved you. I think I loved you before I proposed to you. I was just scared of the power my heart would have over me once I admitted my feelings for you. But I remember almost fainting after I had asked the question but you hadn't yet answered. And when we were in church and I placed the wedding band on your finger, I had to fight tears of happiness. And I am sorry that it has taken me 27 years to admit to that. But I am still rather ashamed of not just accepting what I felt for you because I could have saved you a lot of pain." She kisses his shoulder now, probably because that is the only place she can reach without moving.

"Don't dwell on it."

"Why did you ask that now of all times?"

"I don't know. I have been wanting to ask you since the day of Mary's wedding but it was never the right the time. It was something that Mary said to me. I told her to ask any questions that she might have but she said she did not have any questions at all. She told me they did a 'test run' to see if everything worked." This makes him laugh out loud.

"That is so typical for our pragmatist of a daughter."

"Yes. Although she did not tell me how early that first test run took place and I am sure there were many more test runs."

"Oh yes."

"Regardless of that, she asked me if we had really waited until the wedding night, which was something she could hardly fathom. So I told her we did and she asked about it. I did not tell her anything too intimate but I did tell her that I thought that you would leave after you had done your duty but that you stayed and that you never really left again. She said that you must have loved me then because you were a creature of duty and must have been told that you would have to leave afterwards. She thought that the fact that you threw propriety over board then must have been a sign of love."

He realizes that he has been playing with his wife's hair for some time now and it sends a shiver of love down his entire body. He always plays with her hair when they are this close and he knows that she likes it, she says it makes her feel like home.

"I think that Mary is right. I just did not have the heart to leave you. I knew you needed me close to you and I needed to be close to you too. Our wedding night was not very traditional after all, at least not measured by the standards that my father had given me as a reference. According to him I was to only undress the lower half of my body and to push your nightgown up and then 'get it over with'. And I am sure you were told that you had to lie back and let me do my duty. But that was not what happened, was it?"

Cora now chuckles. "Thank God it wasn't. It made me so happy when we ended up exactly like this, with you holding me close and nothing in between us. I was ashamed for a very short time about what we had done, about how I had reacted, but when you pulled me close to you and told me that you were happy, I wasn't ashamed anymore. I was happy too."

"I wish I had told you that I loved you. But I didn't really understand it at the time. But I do understand it now. I love you my darling."

He wakes up in the middle of the night because he is extremely uncomfortable. He is half lying on his back and half on his side, Cora is more or less lying on top of him and her hair, still wet from sweat is plastered across his face. It drives tears of happiness into his eyes.

"Cora, my darling, can you move?" She mumbles something, but turns around and while she does that, she steals his blanket. He moves behind her, gently eases her grip on his blanket, covers both of them with it and then puts an arm around her waist.

* * *

_Matthew_

He got up early because he feels that it is his duty to help with the estate and the convalescent home as much as possible while he is home. Especially considering the decision he and Mary made last night. So he is rather surprised when he meets his father-in-law on his way to the breakfast room.

"Hello Matthew."

"Hello Robert. What made you get up so early?" He wishes he hadn't said anything because it is quite possible that Robert's night was much lonelier than his own.

"Cora kept stealing my blanket." He bursts into loud laughter at this. It makes him rather happy because it means that things between his parents-in-law must have become much, much better but he also would have never expected Robert to say something like that, even during very happy times of his marriage.

"Well, that is a habit she has passed on to at least one of her daughters, I can assure you of that."

"Our children are like her in many ways. It is obvious with the girls, but Nicholas is so much like the girls that I think that even although he looks like me, he is like Cora. But that is nothing to fret about."

"So things between you two are better." They have now both sat down for breakfast. Carson is the only member of staff present and as usual he pretends to not be listening. Although Matthew supposes that O'Brien will tell everyone in any case. She may not have woken Cora yet, but she has been her lady's maid for over a decade and Matthew is sure that she recognizes the signs of a night of passion.

"Much better. In fact they are very good. Excellent so to speak."

"I am very, very happy for you."

He looks at Carson now and he sees the butler smirk. Matthew is sure that just about everyone at Downton will be relieved that things between the Earl and Countess have been put to rights again. Downton without Robert and Cora happily married just wouldn't be the same.

"I have business on the other side of the estate today, there are a few wives of young farmers at war who want to talk about financial support for them. Would you like to come with me? It would be a great help for me if you were there too. I am not opposed to helping them and I know that Cora wants to help them, but it might be helpful to have a lawyer there in any case."

"I got up early to help, so yes, I'll come with you."

He is rather surprised when Robert drives them himself. "I learned it in the army. The driver I had there was horrible and I thought that if Edith can do it, I could do it too and I was right. I now understand why she likes driving so much."

"I'm impressed."

"Thank you. Not just for that. But for everything really. For not saying anything to Cora about how I was when we met in France and for coming with me now. I appreciate it very much." He thinks that now is as good a time as any to talk to Robert about the decision he and Mary made last night.

"Mary and I have made a decision. Concerning our future."

"Oh?"

"I don't really like to talk about 'after war', it feels as if I was jinxing something, but Mary wanted to know what her future holds and in a way so did I. We've decided to stay here. We considered going to London or even Manchester but this is Mary's home and it is my home too. All the people I love are here, it would be stupid to move away. And I'll be involved here in any way you want me to be involved." Robert stops the car now, turns to him and looks at him in a way that tells him that he is very proud of him.

"Matthew, I am very, very happy to hear that. I will need your help very much. We'll be here for only a few more days and God knows when we will return. There will be so many things that will need attention at the end of the war that I will hardly be able to deal with them by myself. And I am very relieved to know that I won't have to now. In fact there is something I would like your opinion on now. It is about a rather large investment. I'll show the papers to you once we are back home."

They go about their business and Matthew realizes how well Robert and he can work together. Robert has always said so, but he was never really sure whether his father-in-law was saying the truth but now he is. He is infinitely glad that Robert shows him the papers for the investment he has been thinking about because it is a very risky business that would probably ruin the family. He tells Robert so and Robert listens to him. They look at different investment opportunities together over the course of the next few days and find something more suitable.

…

"I will miss you so much, my darling." Mary is lying in his arms, cuddled up against him and he wishes he did not have to leave. The last one and a half weeks have felt like living in paradise to him, despite all the injured officers living at the Abbey. But he was home, he was with his family, he was with his wife. And he will have to leave all of this behind now. Robert and he are set to travel part of the way together, but once they have reached Paris, he will have to say goodbye to him too.

"Mary, I know I don't really talk about 'after the war' and you know why I don't. But there is one thing I would like to talk about very much." She puts her arm around him and then looks up at him.

"You want another child."

"How did you know that?"

"Because I want that too. It would be such a blessing. I never would have thought it, but I'd really like to have a big family."

"Wouldn't that be wonderful? To have four or five children and live with them in peace?"

"I doubt that we could live in peace if we had that many children. But I know what you mean and I agree with you." They don't say anything for a while. He draws circles on Mary's arm and thinks that she must have fallen asleep.

"I wish you didn't have to leave again, Matthew. Can't you just stay?"

"I wish I could love, but if I did, the police would come and arrest me and that would take me away from you too."

"I wasn't serious."

"I know. I dread going back there. I know I have to and to some extent I even want to, I have to fight for what I believe is right, but I still dread it." He can feel her nod and then he hears her take a deep breath.

"We've only got a few hours left together. Try to think about something else. Let's make the most of those last hours.

What they make is a baby, or at least he hopes so. He said 'after the war' but what he meant was 'right now' and he knows that Mary knew this. He also knows that chances are rather small, he hasn't been home for even two weeks but he needs to hope for something.

* * *

_Violet_

She hates this, she hates it like the plaque. She is standing in front of the Abbey, watching her son saying goodbye to his wife and it breaks her heart for both of them. They obviously resolved their troubles but that seems to make saying goodbye to them so much harder. She knows how scared Cora is for her husband's life and she is scared for her son's life. She turns the other way and sees Matthew saying goodbye to Mary, a scene that is no less heartbreaking. She wishes this war had not happened, she wishes she didn't have to send her son and a man she thinks off as her grandson to that stupid war. She knows both of them well and although they keep promising that they won't play the hero, she also knows that they both will play the hero should they deem it necessary. And she is afraid that both Robert and Matthew deem that necessary rather fast.

Matthew has now pried Robert away from Cora and she watches them get into the car. She looks at Robert who looks the other way and she understands why. He does not want to see his family vanish into the distance.

"It is hard to send a son to war, to send him to endanger his life so much. I think it is the hardest thing that I have ever had to do." She looks at Isobel who seems to be close to wallowing in self-pity.

"Do you honestly think that seeing Matthew leave for war again is harder on you than it is for me to see Robert leave?" Isobel now turns to her and smiles a very sad smile.

"True. We are in the same boat, you and I, aren't we?"


	21. October 1916

_Anna_

She can hardly stand up straight any more. Her feet are killing her and the baby is kicking as if it was practicing for the Olympics. But she won't say anything, she swore to herself to be there for Mary until the day she gave birth. She is so thankful to her for not firing her and to her ladyship and his lordship who employed and paid for an array of lawyers.

"Hello Anna. You look dead on your feet. Sit down, please."

"No, Mary, I said I would help you and," but Mary shakes her head and insists on her sitting down.

"Anna, I can get myself ready for bed, it is not that complicated. But you stay here and rest. Tell me about your day if you like. Or anything else really."

"My mother has finally written to me. She is coming for the wedding although she said that she did not approve of what we have done."

"But she is coming. That must be a good sign."

"Thank you so much for your help. It must have cost so much money." She feels bad about all the money that his lordship, the family really, must have put into John's divorce.

"Think nothing of it, Anna. My father does not mind paying for it. And sit down and put your feet up." She smiles at Mary's command, but does as Mary says. Mary then sits down at her vanity and takes her hair apart herself.

"So, have you decided on a name yet?"

"No. How about you?"

Mary smiles and nods and then says "Matthew and I decide on the names of our first two sons and first two daughters before we were married. But I won't tell you, because I don't want you to steal the names." She has to laugh out loud as this and so does Mary. The wall that had always been between them, that had stopped them from being best friends, they have always been close friends, the wall that had always been there because Anna was the family's employee, fell when Mary found out that she was pregnant again. Being pregnant at the same time somehow changed things between them. The formalities between them had all but vanished when Anna who was plagued by morning sickness until almost the afternoon almost every day threw up into Mary's waste bin. Mary did not flinch but held her hair back and then made her lie down on her bed and cooled her forehead.

"Thank you my lady," Anna said to her and Mary looked at her and then said "After this, I think the time for you calling me 'my lady' has passed. Call me Mary, at least while we are alone."

"Are you looking forward to the wedding?"

"Yes. But I will be glad when it will be over. I hate being notorious and I hate dragging you and your family into the mud."

"You aren't dragging us into the mud and I hope that you won't be notorious. Not when they see that we all attend the wedding." Once she told Mary about the wedding date, Mary decided to come to the wedding and then told her a day later that her mother, her sisters and her mother-in-law were all going to come to watch her get married too.

* * *

_Carson_

He doesn't really know what to think. He likes Anna and Mr. Bates, he likes them very much even, they are good employees, good and honest workers, they are good people, or so he thought until about half a year ago when he found out that Anna was pregnant. He wishes the girl had just said 'no'. Men will always be men, even someone as honorable as Mr. Bates will reach a point at which he can't really control himself anymore, but the women should just say no. He wonders what is so difficult about it. Lady Mary wasn't able to say 'no' either, but she at least said 'yes' only after the wedding date had been set and the baby was early but not too much. Master George should have been born about seven and half months after the wedding, something the family could easily have dealt with, but the boy was in a hurry and came along almost four weeks earlier, something that did start some gossip, especially in the village, although Lady Mary's subsequent fight for her life somehow put a damper on the gossiping.

Anna and Mr. Bates have of course caused a lot more gossip than Lady Mary and Mr. Matthew, although the family is to blame for at least half the unkind things said about all of them. How could they allow Anna and Mr. Bates to stay on? He did not object because he suspects his lordship's agreement to her ladyship's plan was a peace offering and it worked, but really. He would not have minded if the family had quietly supported Anna and Mr. Bates, but keeping them on, paying a small fortune for an array of lawyers, it is just not what he would have done. When he very, very carefully broached the subject to his lordship, not to object, just to caution, his lordship replied "I think it is time that Downton took care of its own." He could only shake his head at that, to which his lordship in quite a jovial mood said "oh cheer up, Carson, enter the modern world." His lordship sounded like her ladyship then.

He looks to his right and his eyes fall on Mrs. Hughes and he wonders if he would sound like her if they were more than people who worked together and shared a glass of wine at the end of most days. He has often wondered whether he should not try his luck with Mrs. Hughes, but he chose a different path in life and he should stick to it. He is a butler and a butler is not to be married. But neither are a lady's maid and a valet to be married, and here they are at the wedding of a lady's maid and a valet, with the family they are working for in attendance.

The ceremony is short and to the point and of course not in church and he is glad when it is over. He had not wanted to go, but Mrs. Hughes told him that he couldn't very well stay away when her ladyship was going and she was right. He just doesn't want people to think that he approves of what Anna and Mr. Bates have done. Although he supposes that now that they are married it is not that bad anymore.

Mrs. Hughes and he walk back downstairs once they are at the house again because the family promised Anna and Mr. Bates could have a small celebration and the finishing touches need to be put onto it now.

"How many weddings has this house seen?" Mrs. Hughes asks him and he is utterly taken aback by the question.

"I don't know. Many I suppose. All the earls got married here and many of their children as well."

"And how many of these marriages were happy?"

"Oh, I don't know Mrs. Hughes. Some. His lordship and her ladyship are happy and so are Lady Mary and Mr. Matthew. The Dowager was happily married and so was Lady Rosamund.

"But not all of these marriages were looked upon with approval."

"No. That of Lady Mary and Mr. Matthew is the first marriage of that kind in quite a long time. And even there was some opposition. The Dowager wasn't happy about either one of her children's marriages and in turn her mother-in-law did not approve of the Dowager marrying into this family."

"No?"

"No. At least that is what I have been told. But it does not surprise me. I knew his lordship's grandmother and she did not approve of the Dowager. But I suppose it is understandable. The younger daughter of a penniless baron is not exactly an ideal match for a future earl. But he married her because he loved her. And she loved him too. They were quite different from his lordship and her ladyship, a lot more careful with showing their affection for one another, but it was there and it was obvious."

"Did they share a room too?" It is an impertinent question, but they are alone and they sometimes talk about such things.

"Not very often. Only when he fell asleep there and that hardly ever happened. No. Sharing a room is something that our current Earl and Countess introduced to this house. And they did so right after their wedding night. It caused quite a lot of gossip when Lord Downton was found in his wife's bed the day after the wedding." Mrs. Hughes now laughs heartily.

"What a scandal. A man spends the wedding night in his wife's bed and is found there the next morning. How very inappropriate." He has to laugh too now. At the time he thought it rather strange of the then Lady Downton to have made her husband sleep in her room, everyone was sure that it was upon her insistence, but not anymore. He is infinitely glad to work for a family that runs on love.

"So am I to understand that if you ever were to marry, you would expect your husband to share a bed with you?" He doesn't know why he asks this question. He shouldn't ask it. But he wants to know, it will be stuff for his dreams.

"Yes Mr. Carson. That is what I would expect from my husband." He wishes he could be that husband that will probably, hopefully, never exist. Because if she were to marry, it would certainly not be to him and that would shatter his heart.

* * *

_Edith_

"This one's for you." Her mother hands her a letter. They are having breakfast and ever since they have turned their home into a convalescent home, her mother has gotten up for breakfast almost every day. She always sits in her father chair and although she does not vanish behind a newspaper, she does many things exactly the same way. And the handing out the letters is one of those things.

"Are you alright?" Her mother sounds quite concerned and she supposes she has gone as white as a sheet. This is the worst letter she has ever received.

_Dear Lady Edith,_

_You do not know me, but you may have heard of me. My name is Mrs. Chetwood, I am the older sister of Sir Anthony Strallan, whom you know quite well, I assume. Maybe my brother has talked about me, I don't know._

_I am writing to you with rather grave news. My brother has been injured at war and has been brought to a hospital in London. He will in all likelihood survive, but he is not unscathed. I thought that you should now this._

_With kind regards_

_S. Chetwood_

There is a post scriptum that tells her which hospital Anthony is in and she decides to go there right away. She tells her mother where she is going and why and her mother looks at her with her eyes full of pity. "Oh my poor darling," she say but lets her go.

On the train ride to London she thinks about her relationship to Anthony and about how complicated it is. First he wanted to marry her but she wasn't sure whether she should marry him before the end of the war because seeing Mary suffer scared the hell out of her. When she finally decided that she wanted to marry Anthony, he had changed his mind, telling her that he could not risk turning her into a war widow. So they left it at that, she was not able to convince him. And now he has been hurt and is in London and if his sister hadn't been very kind to her, she would not even know this. She envies her parents. She envies them their easy relationship. They met, got engaged and then married within the space of six months when her father had been eighteen and her mother nineteen. And they have been happy ever since. But her relationship to Anthony is complicated, so difficult. She does not mind the age gap, but he does, he is afraid of making her unhappy when she knows that he will make her very happy. She asked him why he proposed in the first place, why he even started to court her, why even came to that dinner at which he was supposed to woo Mary. "Because sometimes I forget how old I am" he said when she asked him.

She takes a taxi to the hospital and is admitted and shown to Anthony immediately, which she supposes she should thank his sister for, although she has never met the woman.

Anthony is sitting upright in his bed and he looks perfectly normal except for a few bruises in his face and his arm in a sling.

"Edith," he says and his face breaks into a smile. But he gets his emotions back under control only a second later and looks at her rather solemnly.

"How are you?"

"Considering how many others are, I am well."

"Good. I am so glad to see you again." She walks to him now and gives him a hug and a kiss, but he pushes her away.

"No. That is over. It must be over." She can't believe her ears. Anthony cannot seriously have told her that it was over between them.

"Why?"

"Because my arm will stay like that. I took a bullet in the wrong place."

"But surely"

"No. There is nothing that can be done. I have to accept the fact that my arm will remain useless."

"I am so sorry for you."

"That is of course why I have to ask you to leave. I can't expect you to live as my nurse maid." That is not what she wants, she does not want to be his nurse and he does not need a nurse. He needs a wife.

"No. But I thought you wanted me to be your wife."

"No. I don't want that any longer. Leave. Please." He closes his eyes. She begs him not to shut her out, but he only shakes his head.

So she leaves but breaks down in tears when she does. A gentle hand is placed on her shoulder then. "You must be Lady Edith." She looks up and nods.

"I am , Sir Anthony's sister." The woman is kind and elderly, at least 15 years older than her mother. Maybe Anthony was some sort of surprise for his parents, just like Nicholas was for hers.

"Thank you for the letter."

"You are welcome."

"He sent me away."

"I'll talk to him. He loves you very much. But he needs time." She nods and decides to not go back to Downton. She will stay with her aunt and keep visiting Anthony.

* * *

_Sybil_

She needs to tell someone about her and Tom because it feels wrong to keep it a secret. She loves him and he wants to marry her now, she knows that, but he also knows that she does not want to cause an uproar with her father and brother-in-law at war. So he told her he'd be patient. He is such a wonderful man and quite besides the fact that she has the feeling that she is betraying her family, she also feels as if she wasn't really true to him if she kept their relationship a secret much longer. So she decides to talk to Mary. Mary once told her that the first person she told about her rather untimely pregnancy was Nicholas and Sybil briefly considered telling her brother, but when Mary told him about being pregnant, their baby brother had only been a few hours old. He is almost two now and rather intelligent, he speaks in two or three word sentences sometimes and she is afraid that he will unwittingly tell their mother. He might say something like 'Sybil Tom love' and that would be enough for her mother or her sisters or grandmother come to think of it, to understand what it means. But Mary can keep a secret and Mary has become very nice, so she might even understand.

When she tells Mary, her eldest sister looks at her flabbergasted, she quite looks like their father then, but at least she does not rage the way their father certainly would have done.

"Sybil. The chauffeur. Are you sure?"

"Yes, I am sure. I know the consequences, I know I won't be received at court, or invited to any sort of parties during the season, but that is not what I want, that is not important to me. But I'd like to remain friends with everyone here."

"That might prove rather difficult. I'll be on your side and I dare say that so will Edith. Matthew will surely support you but about the rest of the family I could not make any predictions." This is exactly what she thought, but she also thinks that having Mary's and Matthew's approval might help with her parents.

"I know. That is what I thought. But I love Tom and I can't give him up. I have thought about it very carefully and I will get married to him even if some people are against it." Mary now actually smiles.

"Isobel and Aunt Rosamund did not want me to marry Matthew either and still our marriage has turned out to be very happy, so I would not put too much emphasis on what other people think. But you do that a lot less than me in any case. But Sybil, I advise not to keep this from Mama for too long. It would not be fair to her and she might be prevailed upon a lot easier than Papa. And we both know that once Mama has given her approval to something, she will be able to bring Papa around rather sooner than later."

"That is true. Oh, I am so glad I am not Cousin Rose. Her parents disagree on everything, just for the sake of disagreeing and her brother and sister are at odd ends with both of their parents. I don't know how they can stand it." Mary now gets up and wraps her arms around her. She thinks it is fascinating how much more emotional women seem to get when they are pregnant. It was noticeable in their mother but it is far more pronounced in Mary, although that might be due to the fact that in general, Mary is a lot less open with her emotions.

"Would you like to feel the baby kick?" She nods and Mary takes her hand. She is fascinated by this. She of course felt her brother kick, but somehow her sister allowing her to do this, especially since she did not offer this once during her first pregnancy, has a different quality.

"That is your future too, little sister," Mary says and smiles. She hopes that Mary is right. She would like to have children very much and so would Tom.

* * *

_O'Brien_

She takes the telegram from Mr. Carson who looks at her apprehensively.

"It's from the War Office," he says. "You better give it to her now."

She usually does not appreciate being talked to like that, but she and Mr. Carson are afraid of the same thing and it just wouldn't do to argue now.

"Very well, Mr. Carson."

"Miss O'Brien," he calls after her and she turns around again. "Please let us know, if there is anything we need to know. "

"Yes Mr. Carson."

She is scared. She may not like his lordship very much, but both his lordship and her ladyship are good employers and she would feel terribly sorry if. But she can't finish the thought. She knows that her ladyship will be in the nursery now, she always goes there before the dressing gong.

"No matter how much work I have to do here, Lord Downton deserves some of my time every day," she once said to her.

The door is only half closed and she can hear her ladyship talking to the Viscount. She looks into the room and her ladyship is sitting cross-legged on the floor, the boy on her lap. She is usually appalled by her ladyship doing something like that, but not today. Today it breaks her heart.

"Well, Nicholas, your Papa sent a letter to you, shall we read it?" Her ladyship holds the letter out to her son and the boy smiles. She is sure he does not understand that it is from his father, but he likes being read to, and his mother holding out a letter means being read to, she is sure the child knows that. So far she has found it ridiculous that his lordship now sends so many letters. He used to not write at all and now he sends letters to her ladyship at least twice a week and letters to his children once a week, including letters to a two year old boy.

"My dear boy, I hope you are well. I am as well as I can be when I am not home. I miss you and your mother and sisters terribly much and although I don't know when I will be home again, I am looking forward to seeing you again more than anything. I met Matthew a few days ago and he is doing quite well. He asked a lot of questions about you, he likes you very much. I showed him the picture that Mary had taken of George and you and he said that you two looked like two little rascals about to steal the biscuits. I told him that's what you were probably thinking about. Don't cause too much trouble for your Mama. I love you, Papa" Her ladyship now stops speaking and gives her son a kiss on the head and then looks up.

"O'Brien! How can I help?" She can't say anything because she has trouble fighting the tears that threating to run down her face.

"Are you alright?" She nods and shakes her head almost simultaneously and then hands the telegram to her ladyship.

"This came for you. It is from the war office." Her ladyship takes the telegram, gets up, puts her child into his bed and then opens the telegram. The young lord is eerily quiet, as if he knew that something was not right.

"Oh dear God," her ladyship says and holds onto her son's bed.

"What is it?" she asks with more fear than she has ever felt before.

"His lordship and William are lost. For some reason they needed to go to the front and now they are lost."

* * *

AN: The sentence "I think it is time that Downton took care of its own" has been 'stolen' from the TV version of _Death Comes to Pemberley_. Mr. Darcy says something very similar about the illegitimate child of one of his servants, and since I already took the title of this story from _DCtP_, I thought I just might give another nod to it.

Thank you for all the reviews on this story, _Just Us For Lunch_ and _Because I Love You_!

Also, thank you for the many ideas on further stories!

Quite a few of you have asked about something in the _Playing With Fire_ universe, but I am not sure about it. I lost faith in the story before I had finished it, so I don't really know how to go on with it.

the guest who asked about a fic that includes Robert and Cora dying at the same time: If you haven't read it yet, read _The Beginnings_. But that is as far as I will go. I agree with you, it would be very interesting to see what would happened if Robert and Cora were dead and Mary and Tom were in charge, but I am not the person to write that story. I'd be crying my eyes out the whole time.

the two guests who asked for the same plot twist considering 5.03: I am working on it and I should be able to put it up either today or tomorrow.

Have a great day everyone,

Kat

P.S.: Let me know what you think about this one please!


	22. October 1916 II

AN: Thank you as always for the many reviews and favorites and follows!

You rock!

Have a great day everyone,

Kat

P.S.: Just because I have been asked: There won't be any Season 5 spoilers in this story.

* * *

_O'Brien_

She returns to the servants' hall in a trance. Her ladyship told her that no one would get changed for dinner today and that she needed to talk to her girls and mother-in-law now and so the lady's maid left. And it is now her task to inform the staff about his lordship and William missing. She wishes she did not have to do it. She may seem like a vain person, she knows that in many respects she is a horrible person and she sometimes resents herself for it, but this she can hardly stand. There is the kitchen maid, Daisy, who keeps talking about William as if he was the king. She is sure that Daisy and William would have found another after the war. Then there is Anna whom she almost hates but who thinks of William almost as if he was her little brother. And she knows what it is like to lose a brother in the war. It almost broke her when Thomas died. Not Thomas the former Downton footman, Thomas her brother. She has often wondered whether she felt such a pull towards Thomas the footman just because he was named like her favorite brother. She wonders if she'd be a slightly different person if she hadn't spent so much time with Thomas the footman and his corrupted mind. She does not mind his preferences, she could not care less about them, she is not interested in him that way, but he is a devil. Although he might be a devil because society would condemn him if his preferences became public. Sometimes, when she is alone at night, she doubts herself, doubts whether she has really always made the right decisions in life. And whether she shouldn't try to be more like Anna or Mrs. Hughes. And then she tries for a day or two, and then gives up again because it does not work for her. Being nice is just not something she is particularly good at. The only person she can be nice to is Lady G, though much of it is due to the fact that she can manipulate her best that way. And a dire consequence of being nice to Lady G is that the woman thinks that her lady's maid really cares about that little bugger. She just never stops talking about the Viscount Downton. Who might very well now be the Earl of Grantham.

When she enters the servants' hall, she can feel every single eye on her.

"His lordship and William had to go to the front for an unknown reason. They are lost, no one knows where they are."

Everyone stares at her. No one says a word for what feels like hours. Then there is a strangled sob and some movement. It was Daisy, of course. The sob seems to bring all of them back to reality.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Mr. Carson, I am sure. No one knows where they are. Her ladyship wanted to talk to the young ladies and the dowager and then call the War Office, but the telegram was to the point. No one has any idea where his lordship and William are."

"But they are alive?" It is Daisy who asks this question and she wonders how stupid one can be.

"They are lost, so they have not been declared dead. But we all know what this means. We will all be bowing and scraping to a two year old Earl. Little bugger."

"How dare you!" Mr. Carson bellows and out of the corner of her eye she can see Bates move his arm up and then stop in bewilderment. Branson that Irish chauffeur has stopped Lord G's valet from hitting her across the face.

"Ms. O'Brien. I will not allow such talk. His lordship and William are missing. There is still hope. And I will not accept you speaking about Lord Downton the way you just did. If that happens one more time, you will be fired."

This scares her. If Carson told Lady G how she sometimes talks about that little bugger, Lady G might actually have her fired. So she keeps her mouth shut just now.

* * *

_Dr. Clarkson_

"Were you able to find out something? Anything?"

"No, Mrs. Crawley. I am exceedingly sorry. I called everyone I knew, but I don't think that either one of them turned up in a field hospital."

"Well, it was worth a try." He can see that Isobel, Mrs. Crawley he has to correct himself, is very disappointed. She came to him the day Lady Grantham told her that Lord Grantham and young William Mason were missing.

"Please, Dr. Clarkson, ring every one you know. They might have turned up in a field hospital." And so he did. He spent more time on the telephone during the last three days than in the last three years but it has all come to nothing. Just like Isobel, Mrs. Crawley, he had hoped that Lord Grantham and his batman had been found alive and brought to a field hospital, but nothing of the sort happened. He likes Lord Grantham very much, the amount of money the family gives to the hospital is more than generous and Lord Grantham is a very nice man whom he considers to be his friend, a man who is aware of the responsibility that is placed on his shoulders, a man who knows how to deal with that responsibility. It would be such a shame if Lord Grantham had been killed. It would be a loss for the county, for the village, the hospital and most of all for the family.

"I am so sorry. Let's hope for the best though," he tries to encourage her.

"Yes. It would be a great loss for everyone, but especially so for the family. And no one would suffer a greater loss than Lady Grantham." He supposes that Isobel, Mrs. Crawley, is right. He has been the family doctor for quite a long time and he has seen Lord and Lady Grantham worry about one another.

"No. There is real love there."

"Yes."

"It must be nice to have it." Sometimes he wishes he could have experienced it.

"It is." He sometimes forgets that Mrs. Crawley was happily married once. That she'd still be happily married if her husband hadn't died. And it makes him wonder if that is the reason why she is so reluctant. But if he wants to move forward, he cannot stop moving every time they come within a ten mile radius of a husband who has been dead for over twenty years.

"Don't you ever miss it?"

"Don't I ever miss what?"

"Being in love." He sees her take a deep breath and look around herself as if she didn't really know what to do with herself or what to say. As if she would like to vanish into thin air and never see him again. Maybe he has pushed her too far, maybe she just isn't ready. Maybe she never will be ready. It would break his heart, but he'd hope to be allowed to be her friend then.

"I miss having someone I love around me, yes." She looks at him now as if she wasn't sure what he was getting at, as if she thought that maybe he wanted her but wasn't sure and didn't want to ruin anything.

"Do you think you could ever love again?" He doesn't dare to ask more. If she says 'no' now, he knows that he will never stand a chance with her but if she says 'yes' he knows that it might be worth fighting for her.

"Yes. I never thought I could, but now I think I can." His heart rate has reached a very dangerous level now, he should sit down and take a few deep breaths. But of course that is not an option right now.

"What makes you think that?" He should be fainting now; he is surprised that he can still stand upright.

"Richard," she says and nothing else. Oh dear God. As a doctor he has been privy to many scenes of love before but actually being in one almost paralyzes him.

"Are you alright?" Isobel looks at him rather worriedly and he realizes that he hasn't said anything.

"More than alright." He then leans forward the way he has seen so many men do and kisses the love his life for the first time. And she kisses him back. Despite the war, despite a good friend of him missing, despite everything, he is happier in this moment that he has ever been before.

* * *

_Anna_

It is getting worse, working becomes harder for her every day, but she can't stop now, not with his lordship missing. So she soldiers on and tortures herself walking up the stairs to Mary's room. She has to catch her breath before she enters the room, but she is still rather sweaty.

"Anna!" Mary exclaims when she sees her. "Are you alright?"

"Of course I am al," but she has to stop speaking because she is in pain now. Mary grabs her by the arm and pulls her to her bed.

"Get into bed. Don't move. Rest. I'll telephone the doctor." She hears Mary leave and then speak in the hallway.

"Mama, Anna isn't doing well. Would you telephone Dr. Clarkson so I can stay with her?"

"Of course. Tell her to stay calm."

Sometimes she can't believe how nice the family is to her.

"Anna, Dr. Clarkson will be here soon. Would you like me to get Bates?"

"No. He'd only worry." He worries the whole time anyway, he asked her to stay home again, but she just can't, she can't leave Mary in the lurch, not after what the family has done for them. She told her husband so, but John said that she was overreacting, that the family had made a conscious decision and that they would certainly not want to be repaid by one of their most trusted servants endangering her life and that of her child.

She feels Mary holding her hand. Her best friend is talking about something in a soothing voice. She has no idea what Mary is talking about, but Mary's presence and calm demeanor help her. Mary doesn't even leave the room when Dr. Clarkson arrives and she wants to thank her for it, but she ca't bring herself to sleep.

"Well Mrs. Bates, your child is unharmed and so are you. But you have to stop working now. If you work for just one more hour, you might seriously hurt the baby. In fact, you should not leave your bed any more before you have had the baby."

She is in a daze. That is something that is not possible. She needs to work or at least she needs to get home. She can't stay in Mary's bed, no matter how comfortable it is and how lovely it would be to just close her eyes, if only for a second.

"Are you feeling any better?" Both Mary and Lady Sybil are sitting at her bedside.

"Yes. I am sorry I shouldn't have fallen asleep in your,"

"Yes, you should have. You needed to sleep. Anna, listen to me. Dr. Clarkson said that you are not to get up again. And that you need almost constant medical care. So we've decided to give you one of the two guest rooms that have not been turned into rooms for the convalescent home. Lady Sybil will take care of you and I will help as best as I can. And we don't care where Bates sleeps. It is none of our business whether he goes home at night."

"Thank you. You are ever so kind." Mary now smiles a very kind smile at her.

"You deserve it Anna. God knows you both deserve it." She doesn't think so, but she nods and thus accepts Mary's offer.

* * *

_Sybil_

It is time for her to go and see Tom. She does not have to sneak out of the house anymore because she listened to Mary and told her mother about Tom. Her mother listened and nodded and then asked whether they were engaged.

"Not yet. But I am sure that he will propose and I am very tempted to say yes." Her mother smiled, took a deep breath and then said "Well Sybil, I did not think that you'd marry anyone form our own social circle anyway. But neither your father nor your sister married among their own social circle and you've picked someone we know is nice and has a good head on his shoulder. We only need to think about how to cushion the blow for your Papa. Because he will not be as easily convinced." She hugged her mother then and said "Thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you," to which her mother only replied "I love you too."

"Hello Sybil." Tom always greets her with such a brilliant smile that she wants to kiss him right away. But she hardly ever does, they can't go too far, not as long as she doesn't know whether her father will return home.

"Hello Tom." They begin to talk about trifles and then move on to the news. Tom never asks about her father because she asked him not to ask about that because she knows that once she starts to talk about it, she won't stop but that is not helpful and she doesn't want the short time that she and Tom have together to be clouded over too much, although there isn't a single minute in the day in which she does not think about and pray for her father.

"Sybil, there is something I think I ought to tell you."

"Go on."

"I overheard Ms. O'Brien talking to that maid Ethel. You know the one who keeps lusting after the officers."

"Yes." Tom knows how to make her smile even in the gravest of times.

"Ms. O'Brien said that she was fed up with having to take care of both your mother and sister and that she would make things interesting. Ethel of course wanted to know how that would happen and Ms. O'Brien said that she would cause a serious fight between your sister and mother."

"She wants to do that now of all times? When my father is missing and we have no clue whether he is still alive?"

"She is a vile creature Sybil."

"I am afraid you are right. I'll talk to Mary."

"You better do it now." So she gives Tom a kiss on the cheek and leaves. She briefly considers talking to both her mother and sister, but she is afraid that her mother would not believe her. For some reason beyond Sybil's understanding her mother likes O'Brien. She does her work well, no one would ever disagree with that, but she is, as Tom said, a vile creature. Sybil thinks that O'Brien might have influenced Thomas when it came to telling Matthew lies and the consequence of that had almost been fatal for Mary. And O'Brien was there when her mother fell during her pregnancy and yet it had been her father who took care of her mother and she shudders to think what would have happened if her father hadn't been next door when her mother fell.

She finds Mary in her room about to ring for O'Brien and so she briefly tells her sister what Tom told her. "We know we can trust Tom, as strange as it is for me to say that about a chauffeur who wants to marry my sister, so we should act."

"Yes. Mary, I've thought about it. O'Brien will start with you and then move onto Mama. Pretend that you believe her and then we will catch her out when she tells lies to Mama."

"How are we to overhear that? If we were in a room with both of them, she wouldn't say a thing."

"No. But she wouldn't know we were there if we hid in Papa's room and listened, would she?"

"So you want us do eavesdrop." It is not a question and she knows that Mary thinks this is a good idea.

"Yes. I think that would be best." Mary smiles at her and then winces.

"You little rascal," she says and places her hands on her stomach. In that moment Mary very forcefully reminds her of their mother. "I know you approve of our aunt's idea, but do you have to make that approval known by tap dancing?" She laughs out loud at this. Their mother would have said the exact same thing. "Oh Sybil, don't laugh." Her sister then grabs her hand and places it where the baby is kicking. "It's your fault, little sister." The baby really is kicking rather hard but it makes her laugh even more. "If there ever was an obvious choice for a godmother for any unborn child in this world, then it is you as the godmother of this little sweetheart. I bet it's a miniature version of you, however that is possible."

"I am looking forward to being the godmother of your miniature version of me very much then."

"Good. And now let's begin to stop O'Brien from causing too much trouble."

* * *

_Mary_

She never liked O'Brien and it seems to be rather typical of that vile woman to want to drive a wedge between her and her mother. So she listens to her mother lady's maid complain about 'her ladyship's antics and obvious dislikes of her daughters now that there is a son'. It is hard for her not to mention that 'now there is a son' is not that much of a catch phrase anymore as that son is almost two years old now and adored by all three of his sisters. But Sybil was right, she should just listen and then they will catch O'Brien out when she talks to her mother.

So a few minutes after O'Brien has left she joins both of her sisters in her father's bedroom and they listen at the door.

"O'Brien, for heaven's sake, just tell me what it is."

"It is Lady Mary, my lady."

"What about her? Is she unwell?"

"No. It is just that she said something rather unkind." Her mother doesn't reply anything and she wonders if her mother thinks that that is nothing to be surprised about.

"Oh, go ahead then and tell me what she said."

"This is not easy, my lady. Lady Mary said that she did not mind his lordship missing. That by fathering a son he took everything away from her and that his fate is what he deserves."

Her mother does not say anything and Sybil gently pushes her through the door. Her mother looks at O'Brien as if she couldn't believe what she has just heard.

"Mama, that is not true, I never said anything like that." Her mother looks at her in astonishment now. "Mary? What are you doing here?"

"I was listening and I am glad that I did. Mama, I would never even think that. I wish Papa was back here, safe and sound. I am so terribly afraid for him." Her mother nods, gets up and then hugs her. "Of course I believe that, my darling girl. Your brother is almost two years old, it is obvious to everyone who has ever seen you with him that you love him very much. And I know that you love your father. O'Brien, how could you have said such a thing? How could you lie like that?" Her mother has now let go of her and is looking at O'Brien who seems to be lost for words.

"Because she wanted to make things 'interesting'. Oh O'Brien, don't look like that. Branson told me that he overheard you talking to Ethel." Sybil has entered the room and Mary hopes to God that Sybil listened to her and has already told her mother about Tom.

"Branson, mi'lady? Don't you call him Tom? Don't you visit him every night? Because, your ladyship," O'Brien is now facing her mother, "Lady Sybil has an affair with the chauffeur." Her mother takes a deep breath, and forms her hands into fists. She has now turned from a mother concerned about her daughters into the Countess of Grantham who accepts no opposition and who, in the absence of her husband, runs both the house and the estate and is not to be contradicted on anything.

"O'Brien. Lady Sybil certainly does not have an affair with the chauffer. I know that she loves him and that they are considering marriage but that is all and that I don't mind. But what I do mind is you telling lies about my children to me. I know that you are not always honest, but you have overstepped your boundaries now. This was your last day in service here, you will pack your things tomorrow and you will be given what is owning to you but not a penny more. And you will not get a reference. Neither from me nor from Mrs. Hughes."

O'Brien stands rooted to the spot. "But my lady,"

"No. Leave now."

* * *

_Mrs. Hughes_

She is woken rather early and is surprised by Lady Mary standing in front of her door.

"How can I help, my lady?" Lady Mary now looks a little guilty, like a child who stole some biscuits. She sometimes wishes she had known all the Crawley children when they were still children. Little Lord Downton is such an engaging child and so is Master George. And according to Carson, all the young Ladies were like that as well.

"Her ladyship had to fire O'Brien last night."

"What?"

"O'Brien did, or rather tried to do something unacceptable."

"What are we to do now?"

"That is why I am here. I don't think that Ethel would be the right person to take over, so it must be you. Either for both her ladyship and me or just her ladyship. I can ask my sisters' maid for help, but with everything going on, I think her ladyship needs someone she trusts implicitly."

"So there are still no news of his lordship."

"No. And I am afraid that there won't ever by any. Be nice to my mother please. As kind as you can be. Because she is facing very troubled times."

She can see the tears in Lady Mary's eyes and knows that they are heartfelt tears, that the aloof Lady Mary Crawley is very worried about her father, that she believes him dead and that it is killing her and that yet her mother is still her biggest concern.

"I'll help her ladyship. Of course I will help her. In any way I can."

"Thank you Mrs. Hughes. Thank you so much." Lady Mary nods at her one last time and then turns around and leaves. She is sure that she can hear the young woman cry and it breaks her heart.


	23. December 1916

AN: Thank you for all the reviews!

Let me know what you think about this one.

Kat

* * *

_Matthew_

He is finally going home again. He hasn't been home for nine months. Nine months he thinks and smiles. If he is lucky, he will be at home for the birth of his second child. He hopes so dearly. This time he wants to be there for Mary and he wants to hold the child the day of its birth. He wants to sit in the library at Downton and be made fun of by his sisters-in-law during the waiting. Although what he wishes for even more than Edith and Sybil to make fun of him is for their father to make fun of him but that will not happen. He stopped at so many field hospitals that he lost count, he stopped at the headquarters of Robert's old regiment, he did everything he could think of to get news about Robert. But there is no news. Nobody knows where he or William are and he has been told twice that the only reason they haven't been declared dead yet officially is because of the fact that Major Crawley is the Earl of Grantham. If he wasn't an aristocrat, the army would have given up on him.

Despite his worry and sadness about Robert being lost, he still can't contain a smile when Branson takes him from the station to the Abbey. When he gets out of the car, he should be greeted by Cora, but his mother-in-law doesn't move and it is Mary who walks towards him. Despite the rather enormous size of her, she is heavily pregnant after all, he lifts her up and swings her around the same way he did when they got married.

"I am so glad you are home."

"As am I, my love." She takes his hand and for the first time in his life he feels a baby kick. It is a very strange feeling, but a very happy one.

"It might come while you are home. This baby might be a Christmas present," Mary whispers to him and it almost drives tears into his eyes. He greets the rest of the family, even Violet has come to greet him, something that rather surprises him. Mary then takes him upstairs to see George and Nicholas, but while Nicholas at least seems to have an idea that he might have seen him before, George screams bloody murder when he picks him up. But the child is only 20 months old, he shouldn't be surprised by this reaction and he isn't. Mary manages to calm down their son enough to at least stop the wailing and the love he feels for his wife and son and unborn child completely overpowers him and he can't stop his tears from falling.

"Oh Matthew, don't cry." He swallows once and looks into the eyes of the most beautiful woman he has ever seen.

"Do you know how much I love you and our children? I am so thankful for every moment that I am allowed to spend with you." Mary gives him a swift kiss on the cheek and smiles at him.

"I love you too."

Later that day he is left in alone in the small library with Cora. They can hear the rhythmic ping pong of soldiers playing table tennis and the low murmurs of conversation.

"Cora, I am so sorry. So very sorry."

"Don't be Matthew," she says and touches his arm affectionately. "I know you did what you could to find out something. And I appreciate that very, very much."

"I feel guilty." He does feel guilty, he can't say why but he thinks that he should have done more, although there is nothing more he could have done.

"Don't Matthew. And don't ever think that I am not happy beyond words about your return here, even if it is just for a very short while. Of course I wish to God that Robert was here but that does not lessen my joy and relief at seeing you safe and sound." He looks at her and he knows that she is in pain, that she must be in horrible pain and be horribly afraid. And still she runs the convalescent home perfectly and takes care of the estate as well.

"This is probably inappropriate for me to say, but I admire you for your strength very much. You are the only person I know who could stand something like this and still do everything you do."

Cora shakes her head.

"No Matthew. We are all capable of far more than we think we are. But I thank you for the compliment and it wasn't inappropriate. Not at all." She gives him a motherly kiss on the cheek then and leaves.

He spends the next two days with the family and slowly but surely, George cries less when he picks him up. The boy still cries, but who can blame him? He realizes how wary Cora must be of it all, how much she longs for at least news of her husband and his heart breaks for her. The same goes for Daisy, a kitchen maid he never really noticed, but the girl came to him and asked for news about William with such a tremble in her voice that he is sure that William is, or probably was, her sweetheart. When he told her that he really had no news, tears began to roll down the girl's cheek.

"Matthew?" He looks up. He and Mary have been sitting in the small library for about an hour now, Mary has been reading while he went over a few things concerning the estate that Cora asked him to look into.

"Yes?"

"I think the baby is on its way." It is hard for him to not lose his head. So far he has been able to keep the terror or rather what he imagined was the terror of George's birth at bay, but now he is more scared than he has ever been in his life. Major Clarkson and Sybil assure him that everything looks good and Sybil also tells him that Mary is in a different state now and that that will make the whole thing easier for her at any rate. He tries to keep himself occupied with doing what Cora asked him to do, but he can't concentrate. So he starts to walk around the library. Edith eventually joins him and does her best to keep his spirits up. She talks about Anthony Strallan quite a lot and tells her how he almost threw her out of his hospital room, how he made his sister swear to not let her see him again and how she is still determined to prove to him how much she loves him. He feels rather sorry for Edith, she is almost like a sister to him after all and he wants her happy, but right now he really can't concentrate on cheering her up.

"Matthew?" This time it is Cora who has called his name and she is smiling.

"Yes?"

"She's had the baby and they are both fine. You can go up. Would you like me to telephone your mother?"

"Yes, please," he says and then leaves. He can feel Cora squeeze his hand when he walks past her and again he wishes to God there was good news about Robert. To him it seems that in addition to everything going on in her life anyway, she also seems to have made it her responsibility to replace Robert in all their lives, at least to some extent. So he returns the squeeze in thanks.

"Darling? May I come in?"

"Of course." Mary looks simply radiant. Tired yes, but blissfully happy. He walks over to her and looks at the child in her arms.

"Meet your daughter," she says and smiles. He takes the little girl from her and looks at her.

"She's perfect Mary. We have the perfect little family. A son and a daughter, both of them healthy. What more could we want?" Mary smiles a sad a smile at him and of course there is something that they both want, but now is not the time to talk about that. He sits down next to Mary, places the child back into her arms and puts his own arms around them both.

"I love you," he says and he means both his wife and daughter. Mary smiles at him.

"Matthew, I want to talk about her name again. I know we've agreed on Josephine Mary but I would like to change it."

"To what?"

"To Josephine Cora. I am already in the name and Mama told me a few weeks ago that naming me Josephine was actually my father's idea. I always thought it was her idea, but apparently not. And so my father is in the name too and I would like to honor my mother. She has done so much for all of us." Mary looks at him pleadingly and he couldn't agree more.

"It's a beautiful name Mary and you are right."

"Tomorrow is Christmas Eve."

"Yes." He wonders what is on her mind.

"It's the second Christmas without Papa here. He'd be so happy to see his little granddaughter. He is so good with babies. I wish he was here and could meet her. And it is so hard on my mother. I know she tries to hide it, but I know her well and she is suffering. So much. And Nicholas keeps asking about Papa. I am not sure he really remembers him, but he keeps pointing on a picture of Papa that I once placed in the nursery and saying 'Where Papa?" I know it breaks Mama's heart."

"I am sure that it does. But I think it would be harder on her if Nicholas didn't have any concept of a father at all."

"You are right."

"When is the christening of little Victoria?"

"It is supposed to be between Christmas and the New Year. Permitting I can go to church then because Anna and Bates do insist on my being their child's godmother."

"That is not a surprise."

"In the absence of my father, they asked my mother to be a godmother as well. She'll do it. She said Papa would have done it in a heartbeat."

"I am sure of it."

"Matthew, I am tired. Very tired. Would you take Josephine for while? You could stay here or show her off to the family. And wake me when she needs to be fed because I've decided to do that myself this time." He nods and decides to stay, at least until Mary, his wife, the mother of his two children has fallen asleep.

* * *

_Violet_

This is the third time within a little over two years that she is presented with a baby. First Mary presented Nicholas to her, then Cora George, and now it is Matthew who is carrying a baby into the small library. He looks at her, smiles, and then says

"Meet your great-granddaughter." He very gently places the baby in her arms and the girl looks quite a lot like Mary, though she seems to have Matthew's eyes.

"Hello, little one," she says and looks at the baby. She is fascinated by babies. She has never really taken care of one, but she loves holding them, at least for a little while. Both Nicholas and George like to sit on her lap and although she does not want to admit to it, she enjoys it very much when her grandson and great-grandson show her so much affection.

"We've named her Josephine Cora."

"That is a wonderful choice, Matthew." She looks at the little girl again. "Robert would like that name very much."

"I know," Matthew says as he sits down next to her. She has to ask him, she can't not ask him.

"Matthew, if there was anything, anything at all that you found out about Robert, please tell me. I'd rather know the worst than not at all." She sees Matthew swallow and he now strokes Josephine's head the same way Mary stroked Nicholas' head when she presented him to her.

"Matthew please." She needs to know.

"They told me that if he wasn't the Earl of Grantham they'd have declared him dead. They haven't declared William dead either yet because it is certain that they were together when they vanished but that is all I know. And declaring someone dead doesn't mean that that soldier actually is dead. It is just a legal procedure that makes things easier, although I do not agree with it."

"So the army has given up hope." The child begins to whimper now and she places her great-granddaughter on her shoulder the same way she has seen Robert hold all his children and the one grandchild he met. The girl stops crying.

"I don't know. They just don't have the time to look for him. And they have no idea where to look. But don't give up hope."

"I am trying my best. I just couldn't stand it if my dear boy was killed."

"Oh, Granny." Matthew calling her 'Granny' takes away the last bit of self-control she still possessed and she just can't stop from crying anymore. Her great-granddaughter grasps her necklace and that makes everything so much sadder. She can feel Matthew looking at her but he does not say anything, maybe he knows that it wouldn't help. She has only ever cried in front of one person and that was Patrick. And she can't stop crying now. Eventually she feels Matthew touch her forearm and he begins to say something and somehow his calm voice helps her calm down. She looks at him and says "I am sorry for embarrassing you like that." Matthew shakes his head.

"Don't be sorry. Please. It is hard on all of us. I understand. I miss him too and I wish that he was here."

"He'd be very proud of you. He is very proud of you."

* * *

_Anthony Strallan_

"Captain Strallan, you will be pleased to hear that you are about to be released from the hospital. You will be transferred to a convalescent home."

"Which one?" His heart is beating in his chest and he thinks that he is going dizzy.

"Downton Abbey. It must be quite near your home." He doesn't know whether to be jubilant or horrified. He does not want to go to Downton because he does not want to see Edith, he sent her away after all and he had a good reason for it. But he still loves her, he is sure of that and he longs to be with her. He knows his thoughts don't make any sense but that is not unusual for a man in love.

When he arrives at Downton, she is waiting for him. Of course she is waiting for him. And she smiles at him, a lovely smile that tells him that she still loves him, that she isn't even angry at him for refusing to see her. And so he takes her hand when she offers it to him and the touch sends an electric current through him.

"I am so glad to see you," she says. And he is glad to see her too. She stays by his side for most of the first day but the second day she gets back to her duties. He is impressed by the work that she does and by what the other officers say about her. About how nice she is, how she remembers their favorite books and names of their children, wives, brothers and sisters.

Lady Grantham on the other hand doesn't really seem herself. She is kind to everyone and she seems to be doing an excellent job but she doesn't look right. He has always found her rather beautiful, in fact, after Robert had gotten married but he hadn't met Maude yet, he had been quite jealous of Robert. And if he is completely honest with himself, the reason he accepted that fateful dinner invitation years ago was not Lady Mary. He had of course been aware that he was supposed to be there as potential suitor for Mary, but he attended the dinner because he wanted to see and talk to Lady Grantham. He never had intentions towards her, that would have been rather mad anyway, because he is quite sure that any man coming too close to Lady Grantham would have to face Lord Grantham's wrath, and while Robert is actually a very nice man, he sometimes completely loses his head, especially when it comes to his beloved wife. But Lady Grantham being pregnant at that point had somehow given him the feeling to be young and maybe that was why he was fascinated by Edith. But he still worries about Lady Grantham and wonders what is wrong with her and asks Edith about it.

"Papa is lost and we haven't heard anything about him for three months."

"I did not know that. I am so very sorry." This touches him quite a lot. He likes Robert and he feels so sorry for the whole family. He can see that Edith is fighting tears when she says "But we must not give up hope, it is what Mama always says," and he wishes there was something he could do for her. His heart also breaks for the little Viscount Downton. The child must be around two years old now and to lose a father at that age must be horrible. But it also makes something clear to him.

"Edith, we can't move forward with this until we know more about your father." She looks at him rather surprised and he then realizes that he hadn't yet told her that he had actually considered moving forward with her. This puts a smile on Edith' face, although it is a rather sad one.

"You are right, of course you are right. As long as we don't know anything about Papa, all our lives are on hold." Edith sits down next to him now and takes his good hand. He would like to hold her and comfort her now but he can't not in front of all these officers. They'd be thinking that it was acceptable to be that close to a daughter of the house and of course it is not for any of them. It is for him because he loves Edith, but not for anyone else.

* * *

_Sybil_

She has taken to playing with her necklace. It was a present from her parents for her coming out ball and she knows that they actually picked it together, they told her so and ever since her father has gone missing, she has felt as if this was some sort of link to her father. She knows it is stupid, but somehow it helps her with her sadness, because quite opposed to her mother, she does not believe that her father is still alive. But she never talks to anyone about this, because saying it out loud would make it real and she doesn't want her Papa to be dead. There may be many things she and her father do not see eye to eye on, but she loves him very much. When she was a little girl, her father was her hero, he was so tall and people did what he asked him to do and he was always so kind and would always read to her at night. She has taken to reading to Nicholas and George at night, right before Mary and her mother bring them to bed. She loved it when her father read to her at night and he is much better at it than she is but she is afraid that he won't ever read to any child again.

Tom gently touches her hand and thus shakes her out of her reverie.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes." She does not want to talk to Tom about this. She loves him, but she doesn't think he'd understand the full scope of it.

"Good. Because there is something I wanted to do." He takes her by the hand and leads her outside, a little away from the garage. He then puts his arms around her waist and looks into her eyes.

"Sybil, I love you. You are the most wonderful woman I have ever met. And I think that we could make each other very happy. So please, Sybil, will you marry me?" The first thing that springs to her mind is that she should ask him why did not kneel down in front of her, but she supposes that would not have been them. And she wants to say yes very much because she loves Tom, but somehow she can't.

"Tom," she says and looks into his eyes. "I want to say yes, but I can't. Not as long as we haven't heard anything about Papa. Please don't misunderstand me, but" Tom shakes his head and gives her quick kiss on the lips.

"I do understand, I know what you mean. You love your father and he is constantly in your thoughts right now. So just take your time, love. Say yes whenever you are ready. But do say yes." The last sentence makes her smile.

"I love you," she says.

"Good."

"It would be horrible for Nicholas if Papa was," she can't finish the sentence.

"Yes, it would be. But Sybil, if we were to get married, Nicholas would be my brother-in-law and I would take care of him. Just as Matthew would if it was necessary. I can promise that. For both Matthew and me." She smiles at that. She knows that Matthew and Tom sometimes call each other by their first names, she is sure that Matthew knows about them and does not disapprove and she also knows that Tom is right, but what he has just said had touched her very deeply.

"Tom, I think I actually can say yes now. We just can't set a date yet." The most beautiful smile she has ever seen now breaks onto Tom's face and then he kisses her and when she kisses him back she knows that she has made the right decision.

* * *

_Matthew_

He promised his mother he'd spent at least a few hours alone with her and he had planned on walking to her house but it is raining cats and dogs and so he asks Tom to take him. He gave up on calling him Branson the moment Mary told him that Sybil and Tom were in love. They'll eventually be brothers-in-law, so why should he insist on calling Tom 'Branson' and Tom calling him Captain Crawley, or worse 'Mr. Matthew'. It does not bother him when people like Carson or Mrs. Hughes do it, but when Tom does it, it somehow feels ironic, so he told Tom that they should just drop all pretense. And in accordance with that, he gets into the front of the car. Carson looked daggers at him when he did it, but what does he care.

"Oh Tom, just say it." He knows there is something on Tom's mind and it bothers him if there is something people want to say and then don't say it.

"I proposed to Sybil and she said yes."

"Congratulations. Have you set a date yet?"

"No." Tom doesn't say anything else but he knows the reason.

"You want to wait until we can be certain about Robert." Tom nods. He knows it bothers Tom when he refers to Robert as Robert, he knows he should call him 'his lordship' in front of Tom, but that does not make any sense to him, especially now.

"Yes. Sybil is very worried. About her father and about her brother."

"I suppose it would be very hard on Nicholas if Robert did not come home."

"Yes. Matthew, I promised Sybil that we would help in case his lordship did not return. I told her we'd be there for Nicholas." He admires Tom for this, he of course already promised Robert that he'd be there for Nicholas and he thinks of the boy as his little brother anyway, so there is no doubt about him being there for Nicholas, but for Tom it must be different. Nicholas is part of a system that Tom despises and yet the man said he would help.

"And so we will be. That little boy won't be left alone. Tom, should Robert return, I'll do my best to make him come round to you and Sybil."

There is a very small and very sad smile playing around Tom's lips now and by the look on his face and although he can only see it in profile, he knows that he and Tom think the same. It won't be necessary to try to make Robert come round, he won't be able to, because Robert will not come back.


	24. April 1917

AN: As always, thank you for all the reviews, also on my other stories!

Kat

* * *

_Cora_

"Mama, where is Papa?" The ability of her son to form a grammatically correct sentence before he is even two and a half years old should make her very proud and deep down it does, but mainly it makes her sad because the question makes her sad. She doubts that Nicholas actually remembers his father, but there is a picture of Robert in the nursery, Mary placed it there at some point, and all her girls keep telling Nicholas about their father and they always point to the picture. She is glad that her girls do this, because she sometimes is not able to speak about Robert. She misses him so dreadfully and she is so scared. She tries to put on a brave face every day and she is glad that there is so much to do with the convalescent home because she thinks that she could not stand it if she wasn't busy all day long. It sometimes is hard for her to spend time with Nicholas because Violet was right. The day that Nicholas was born, Violet came to her room and told her that Nicholas looked exactly like Robert and that he would be a replica of his father. And that has turned out to be true. The boy is only a little older than two, but it could not be more obvious who his father is. And sometimes that makes spending time with her son rather painful for her, although she is careful to spend time with the little boy every day. The boy should not suffer because he looks like his Papa.

"I don't know my dear boy, I really don't know." She can't help but cry. She tries not to cry in front of any of her children, although she has broken down in front of all of her girls over the course of the last six months, but so far she has been able to keep it at bay in front of Nicholas, but she can't help it any longer.

"Mama, don't cry." That makes her cry even more.

The boy now stands up in her lap, turns around and puts his arms around her neck. "I love you," he says and she hugs him tightly.

"I love you too, my dear boy."

After she has put Nicholas to bed she wonders whether she should go down for dinner, but decides that staying in her room and crying all evening long won't really help matters. So she walks towards her room where Mary is waiting for her.

"Hello Mama." Her daughter says this in such a grave voice that she is afraid that Mary has either heard bad news about Robert or Matthew.

"What is it Mary?"

"Nothing. But I heard you cry and I thought that you could use some company." Mary is right. She sometimes is surprised by how close Mary and she have become because of the war. She always loved her daughter of course, but they were never very close. They got along well most of the time but there was nothing special about their relationship. And she was so disappointed in her because of the Pamuk affair. She'd still be disappointed in her if Robert hadn't asked her to forgive Mary. And now she often has the feeling that Mary is the only person in the world who understands her.

"Nicholas asked about your father and I just didn't know what to say." Mary looks at her with such a pitiful expression that she almost dissolves into tears again.

"I wouldn't have known what to say either. I don't know what to say. He asks us too, all three of us and it is very hard. And it seems so unfair. We've always had Papa, except for when he was in South Africa, but Nicholas is still so small. And he is the one who needs Papa the most, I think. I wish Matthew and Papa were here, I wish they weren't so damn honorable. Neither one of them would ever have been called up. But they have to 'defend their country'. I hope that what the newspapers say is true, that this is the war to end all wars because if I ever have to say goodbye to Nicholas or George because they are going to war, I will explode with fear and madness. I am so scared about Matthew and Papa." She nods and takes her daughter's hands. A few years ago she never would have believed Mary to be capable of saying anything even remotely like what she said right now, but now it seems almost natural for the two of them to talk like this. They are both terribly afraid that they will be widows before the end of the war.

"Oh Mary, I can't tell you how much I want your father here. How much I just want to be with him. And I keep dreaming about it. I dream that he is back and safe and sound and whole and that we are happy, all of us, we are so happy in my dreams and then I wake up and realize that it was a dream, that we have no idea where your father is. And it is killing me Mary, it is killing me." She breaks down in tears again, she doesn't even try to hide it. Her eldest daughter, the first child Robert ever took from her arms, now slides of the chair she has been sitting on and kneels down in front of her.

"Mama, I am so sorry. I wish there was anything I could do. I cannot fathom how much you suffer, because while Matthew is away, I know he is still alive. And I knew that even when he did not write to me for a while. I wish I could help you with the pain you are going through. If you want me to, I'll sleep here tonight, so you won't be alone. If that is what you want. Or you can come to my room. Whenever you need to, I don't care what time it is. Please Mama, just wake me, just tell me, if there is anything, anything I can do for you. If you want me to take Nicholas of your hands for a few days, I'll gladly do it. Or if you need a few days of rest, just take them. Edith and I can manage, don't worry about that, you've taught us well." There are tears running down her daughter's face too and she strokes her cheek the way she used when Mary was still a little girl.

"Oh Mary," she says again and her daughter then hugs her almost the way that Nicholas did just about half an hour before. Mary too puts her arms around her neck and says "I love you". That resemblance between her oldest and her youngest child breaks her heart. She doesn't really know why but it touches her so very much.

"I love you too my darling girl."

"Mama, I, we, will always be there for you. All of us. Don't forget that." She nods and she knows what Mary is about to say before she has actually said it.

"I think it is time that you prepared for the worst. I know it is horrible, but" She shakes her head. She knows that Mary is right, but she just can't prepare for the worst, she can't give up hope. Robert can't be dead. He just can't. It would be the end of her life. She'd keep it together long enough for Nicholas to not lose both his parents at the same time, but she isn't sure she'd have the strength to go on until he was an adult. She admires her mother-in-law for being able to live the life she lives. She knows that her parents-in-law loved each other very much and Violet did not do well for a time after Patrick's death, but eventually she soldiered on and became a wonderful grandmother to Mary, Edith and Sybil. She had already been a good grandmother before Patrick died, but after Patrick's death it seemed as if all her energy concentrated on her granddaughters for a while. But she doesn't know whether she could focus on anything but her own pain. She doubts it. She'd fall into a deep, bottomless hole.

Mary stays in her room and they just hold onto each other and she is glad that her daughter doesn't show any signs of wanting to be anywhere else. Eventually there is a knock on the door and Anna enters. Anna has been doubling as her and Mary's lady's maid, in addition to caring for her child, although they have allowed her to bring the child with her and let the girl be in the nursery with the other children in the house. In fact, she keeps thinking that they should just give Anna and Bates a decent set of rooms in the house and let their little girl grow up with Nicholas, George and Josephine. She wouldn't have to sleep in their room, but she could spend all her days with them. It would be very unusual and certain people would despise them for it, but she doesn't really know why little Victoria Bates should not get the privileged upbringing that they could give her. As a thank you for her parents staying on and especially her mother doing all the work she is doing. And she and Mary are the girl's godmothers after all.

"I am ever so sorry for the interruption your ladyship." Anna is always so kind. The day they employed that 14 year old girl was a very happy day.

"It's alright Anna. We have to get ready. Mama, would you like me to stay?" She still can't say anything, but she nods. It is comfort for her to have her girls around her, especially Mary who knows how hard this is on her. Mary too is left with two very small children after all, a boy almost half a year younger than Nicholas, a boy who has spent a lot less time with Matthew than Robert has with Nicholas and a girl who is only three months old and whom Matthew has seen for less than a week.

She listens to Anna and Mary talk about Victoria and Josephine and Anna says something along the lines of hoping that those girls will be friends and that she hopes the Victoria will eventually be Josephine's lady's maid to which Mary replies that Nicholas might not find that thought very alluring. She has no idea what Mary is talking about so she looks at her eldest daughter who laughs out loud when she asks her what she means and then says

"Nothing Mama. I was making a joke. One that came to my mind because Nicholas seems to be rather enamored with little Victoria." She shakes her head at her eldest daughter but she is also very thankful because Mary made her smile, if just for a second.

Dinner with her girls is as it always is. They try not to speak about Robert too much and the girls don't fight. They stopped fighting months ago. She wonders if that is because they've finally outgrown their childish behavior or because they decided on a truce. Either way, she is glad about this development.

Later that night, she stays in the library by herself when she remembers that she still needs to talk to Mrs. Patmore about something for next day's lunch. She supposes that the servants have not all gone to bed yet, so she just goes down to the servants' hall.

"It is a strange feeling, having to work for a two year old earl, isn't it?" It is one the housemaids who asks this question and Cora can't help stopping in her tracks and listening.

"Yes. Although I suppose until he is of age, we are actually working for the mother."

"I do pity her, having to raise an earl all by herself."

The servants are all at the table and she wills Carson or Mrs. Hughes or Anna or Bates to interject, but none of them says anything. They may not agree with what has just been said, but they do not disagree with it either. She just can't stand it any longer. So she enters the room and feels a vicious sense of pleasure when they all drop their knives and forks and scramble to get up on her behalf. She knows she should ask them to sit down again, but right now she can't.

"Your ladyship, how can we help you?"

"I wanted to talk to Mrs. Patmore, Carson, but I am quite shocked about the talk I heard in here. You will not talk about Lord Downton being the Earl of Grantham again, because he is not the Earl of Grantham. Not yet. I do not want anyone to talk about his lordship as if he was dead and everyone who does might find that he or she is out of a job rather fast."

With that she leaves to talk to Mrs. Patmore who looks at her with such a pitiful expression that she knows what the cook thinks about Robert and the chances of him still being alive.

Later, when she is alone in the library again, she thinks that she is probably the only person in this house, in her family, who does not believe that Robert is dead, except for Nicholas. He thinks his father is alive because he keeps asking for him. But that dear boy is too young to really understand what is going on.

"Your ladyship? Might I have a word?"

"Of course Carson." She wonders what the butler wants this late. If he wanted to apologize, he could certainly do so in the morning.

"My lady, I would like to apologize for the talk you overheard in the servants' hall."

"Thank you." She knows this cannot have been it, she knows there is more. She hopes to God that he has not received and urgent telegram from the War Office, telling her that Robert really is dead. The thought gives her a pang.

"But, my lady, with your permission, I'd like to speak out of turn." She nods at him.

"I think it was about time we started to refer to Lord Downton as the Earl of Grantham. His lordship might still return but it is unlikely and," she has to stop him just as she stopped Mary earlier that day.

"No Carson. Please don't say it. The Viscount will not be treated as the Earl of Grantham until his father has been officially pronounced dead. That is all I have to say on the matter."

* * *

_Carson_

He feels incredibly sorry for her ladyship. He likes her very much, that American who came Downton when she was nineteen, who had allegedly married Lord Downton for a title in exchange for quite a lot of money. But he knows that she married Lord Downton for love. The woman could have had a duke after all, that is common knowledge. And she is so kind and considerate, the servants at Downton are treated very well and while Lord Grantham surely is a very nice man and good employer, Carson is sure that a lot of the perks the servants get are due to her ladyship. A woman who believes in the good in anyone, a woman who always says 'the world will look better tomorrow', a woman who has had to learn that that is not true in the past six months.

"Very well your ladyship. If there is anything I can do for you," he leaves the sentence unfinished. The countess shakes her head and then says

"No. But thank you Carson. Or maybe there is something. Should Lord Downton really become the Earl of Grantham rather sooner than later, please don't treat him any differently from how you treated the girls or how you would treat him as Lord Downton. Let him hide in your pantry when he does not want to attend his lessons." This almost brings tears to his eyes. Lady Mary asked the same question after all, when she thought that she would not survive the trauma of her first child's birth.

"Of course, your ladyship." She nods and smiles and he makes a spur of the moment decision.

"Your ladyship, you know that I am older than you and that I will eventually have to retire. But know this. Should Lord Downton become the Earl of Grantham while he is still a child, I won't retire before he is ready. I promise that." He knows that this might mean working until he is eighty, but it is what feels right to him.

"Thank you Carson. Thank you very much." He nods and leaves.

He goes to bed only a little while later and can't remember ever having gone to bed feeling as sad he does now. Not even when Alice chose Charlie over him. His heart had been broken then, for sure, but this feels different. He is sure that Robert Crawley is dead and that thus Nicholas Crawley is the Earl of Grantham. That poor little boy who asks about his papa every day. And the poor mother. Turned into a dowager when she has child only a little older than two years.

* * *

_Cora_

Once Carson has left, she breaks down in tears again. What he said to her touched her very deeply but it also brought home to her that it was about time that she finally accepted Robert's death. She held on to the hope of him suddenly returning for a long time and maybe that time has already been too long. She needs to mourn him properly and it will be very, very painful, but she also thinks that it is about time. Because there can only be healing if there is acceptance. She will never heal completely, but maybe enough to see Nicholas through his childhood. She goes to his room and he stands up in his bed the moment she opens the door.

"Mama," he says and stretches her hands towards her. He wonders if he knows what is going on. She lifts him out of his bed and holds him close to her.

"Oh my poor little darling boy. I am so sorry, but I am afraid that you are the Earl of Grantham."

"Earl?" Nicholas asks. She knows he has no clue what this means and so she just gives him a kiss on the forehead and returns him to bed.

"Sleep well, my darling child," she says and leaves.

There is something she needs to do, something that will break her heart, but she needs to do it now, late at night, when she will have a night to deal with it. Before he left for the first time in August 1915, Robert gave a letter to her and asked her to only open it if he was dead. "It is about matters concerning the estate," he said and left it at that. She takes the letter out of the hat box she has hidden it in and with a very heavy heart she opens it and sits down on her bed, a bed that is now hers alone and reads the last letter she will ever receive from her husband. She is a little wary of it, because he wrote it when they were not on the best of terms, but she trusts Robert to not have put any accusations into the letter.

_My dear darling wife,_

_I am sorry, so very sorry for leaving you alone with our children and for not being there for you anymore. I wish I could change that, but I can't, although I would have liked to spend decades more by your side, regardless of the current state of our marriage. Because I love you so very much. Don't ever doubt that, please._

_Before the legal proceedings concerning my will and the entail begin, I think it is important for you to know a few things. _

_Nicholas is now in my stead, but he is of course far too young for it all. In my will it states that I want you to have full control over the house, the estate, and all the finances that come with it. I have not established a trust, because the person I trust the most is you. Don't feel overwhelmed by it, I know you can do it and I know that you will be an excellent teacher to our lovely boy. _

_Matthew has agreed to help you in any way he can and if you want to, you can put some of the burdens that you are now carrying onto him. I trust Matthew enough to let him care for the estate in any way you deem suitable._

_I do of course have a private fortune that is not part of the entail. It has just occurred to me how unfair that must seem to you, whose whole fortune is tied to the estate. Regardless of that, my will clearly states that all the money that is not part of the entail goes to you. It would 'naturally' go to Nicholas, but I thought it would be fairer if I left it to you. If I could, I'd leave it all to you, the house, the estate, everything that we own. But I can't, although I know that you will take good care of it all._

_Now my next point is something that we have never talked about and it only just occurred to me that we should have talked about it. But there is no time now, so I have added this to my will late this afternoon and had it witnessed by some of Matthew's colleagues. I know you don't like to think about it, and neither do I because a world without you would truly be a darker world, but I have made Mary and Matthew the legal guardians of Nicholas should anything happen to you as well. In case Sybil or Edith asks why I picked Mary over them, the answer is a very easy one. I know Mary's husband and while I am confident that Sybil and Edith will find nice, good husbands as well, I want to know whom Nicholas will grow up with, should he lose both his parents. Moreover, Matthew knows quite a lot about the estate and what needs to be done and he will be able to teach Nicholas all he needs to know. You may of course change that if you want to, it is up to you in the end. _

_I know it is unnecessary to ask, but please take care of my mother and sister. I know you will do so anyway, but it would have felt wrong to not ask. _

_Please tell all our children that I love them very much. They are the greatest gifts that have ever been given to us, all four of them and despite whatever may have happened to me, I died a very happy man._

_There is something else that I have to get off my chest now. My darling, I am very sorry for how we left things, I wish we had had the time to work it out, but I am sure that we would have worked it out, so please remember our marriage as the happiness that it was for most of the time. I am endlessly thankful to my father for having married the penniless daughter of a baron and thereby forcing me to marry as much money as I could, because while looking for money, I found love. I would not, could not have been happy with any other woman. I love you very deeply and very much. I know that I haven't told you often enough, that I hardly ever thanked you for having been the wife you have been but I do thank you profusely. And I thank God for you every day. _

_I thank you and love you for having been my lady, my countess, mother of my children, my best friend, sometimes my partner in crime, my lover. In short thank you for having been the love of my life and thank you for loving me in return. Thank you for giving your heart to me and thank you for taking care of mine._

_I love you,_

_Robert_

She is stunned and there are endless tears running down her face. She is glad she read the letter when she was by herself, in the middle of the night, because she won't be in any fit state to see or talk to anyone for a few hours. Robert wrote that letter when their marriage was rocky at best and he still trusted her with everything, everything he has given his life for. And he loved her so very much. She briefly wonders why he did not rewrite it after his last visit, but she supposes he either forgot about it or did not want to dwell on it. In any case, she is thankful for the letter exactly the way it is, because it shows that Robert always loved her, no matter what.

She eventually cries herself to sleep. For the first time since she has been told that Robert was missing she does not dream of him coming home to her. She dreams of his funeral instead.

* * *

_Carson_

"Mr. Carson, wake up, please." He is shaken awake by a young hall boy. He knows the boy is only 13, he left school a year early, something because of his parents dying. They took him partly because they couldn't find anyone else and partly out of pity. But it feels wrong to him. All the servants working at Downton should have finished their education, at least the basic elements of it. But war changes everything and makes hall boys who have to work in the middle of the night out of children who have just left the nursery. Although that hall boy has probably never been in a nursery.

"What is it Dean?"

"There's a telegram. From the War Office. For her ladyship." He jumps out of bed at this and almost rips the telegram from the boy's hands. He runs to Mrs. Hughes' room because she has to wake her ladyship. Strictly speaking this would be Anna's job, but Anna of course does not sleep at the house.

Once he has told Mrs. Hughes what is going on, she urges him to open the telegram to 'be able to tell her ladyship as kindly as possible' but she thinks that would be wrong. So he accompanies her to her ladyship's bedroom and without thinking about what he is doing, he follows Mrs. Hughes into the room. What he sees breaks his heart. Her ladyship is lying on her bed, still dressed and not under the covers, clutching at an item of clothing that certainly belongs to his lordship. It tears him apart.

After Mrs. Hughes has woken her, he hands her ladyship the telegram and says "From the War Office my lady. We thought you'd like to know now."

"Thank you," she says and turns on the light next to her bed. It is obvious that she has cried, her face is swollen, her eyes are read, her voice is hoarse. But he thinks that it is better this way. She has finally begun to mourn her husband which means that she has accepted his death. Reading the telegram will be much easier for her now.

He watches her open it with shaking hands and after she has read it, she closes her eyes and swallows her tears. And then she says "Mrs. Hughes, please get the girls."


	25. April 1917 II

AN: The first part of this chapter is set about a day before the end of the previous chapter.

Translations of the parts in German can be found at the end of this chapter.

Thanks for all the reviews! And please let me know what you think about this one!

Kat

* * *

_Robert_

The world seems a strange place to him. He looks at the stars, stars that are supposed to guide you, wherever you have to go and where he wants to go is home. The stars in the heaven who decide whether home is Downton Abbey, or heaven itself. Or maybe it is God who decides that, he doesn't know and he doesn't care, he just wants the right decision to be made and the right decision would be to send him to Downton Abbey. He remembers his first night at Eton. He tried not to cry himself to sleep because of homesickness, but he did cry. He missed his parents and even his rather bothersome sister so very much. Now he can't cry anymore because there are no tears left in him. And he misses so many more people now. He misses his dead father, but more than that he misses his mother, his sister, his girls, his boys and most of all he misses his wife.

He keeps playing with his signet ring. He refused to wear a wedding ring when Cora asked him to do so right before they were married. It just wasn't done, noblemen do not wear wedding bands. She asked again when they celebrated their 10 year wedding anniversary and he again said no and that the world had not changed enough for him to wear such a ring. She laughed about that, but she also was a little disappointed. He told her that he didn't need a wedding ring because all of England knew that he was a very happily married man. Cora kissed him senseless then and he smiles at the memory. Ten years later, when they had been married twenty years, she gave a ring to him. The signet ring. It has the letters 'RC' engraved in it and when she gave it to him she said "Now, my darling husband, the RC is of course supposed to mean Robert Crawley. At least if one of your old school chums asks." He let her put the ring on his finger and then kissed her and he knew that she knew that he had understood that to Cora RC did not mean Robert Crawley. It does not mean it to him either. He has never used to ring for its 'officially' intended purpose, he has worn it as wedding ring for the past seven and a half years. Or however long it has been, it is possible that it has already been eight years, he lost track of time. When he thinks 'time' he gets his pocket watch out. Cora gave that to him too, the night before he left for war again last April, or maybe the April before that, for all he knows it could very well be Christmas 1917 or even 1918. His fingers feel the markings on the edge of the pocket watch.

"Now, I wanted to give this to you when you came home for Nicholas' first birthday, but as your leave had been revoked, I couldn't of course. So I am giving it to you now," Cora said and then smiled. He took the watch from her looked at it and felt an engraving on the back of it. _To always guide you home, to let you know where you belong. I love you._ He had not really understood until Cora told him to have a look at the front of the watch and when he did look at it, he saw that the four points of the compass were engraved around the edge. It still didn't really make sense to him and so he took a closer look.

"Cora, the W for West is upside down." Cora smiled at him then and said "If you want it to mean West then it is upside down, yes." She then took his finger and pointed to each letter in turn, beginning with the N.

"Nicholas, Edith, Sybil and Mary," she said. He pulled her close to him then and held on to her for untold minutes. "I love you so very much," he eventually said and then kissed her.

He misses kissing his wife, he misses everything about his wife. But remembering her and their wonderful children is what has kept him going for quite a long time now.

At the beginning he wondered why his captors did not take the watch and the ring from him. Despite their emotional value they also have quite a financial value and he thought that his captors would either give them to their superiors or keep them for themselves to make some money of them. Probably more money than they could imagine. And they stripped poor William Mason of everything he owned except for his shirt, trousers and boots.

But listening to the guards brought his German back. When he was still rather young, Rosamund and he had a German nanny. His mother thought the German nanny would teach Rosamund and him discipline, but what they actually learned while they were in her charge was where the best hiding places in the Abbey were. With quite a lot of help from their father. And the butler, because they kept hiding in his pantry. But he also learned German from that nanny. He never spoke it well, but he apparently understands a lot of it.

"Warum hat der eigentlich noch den Ring und die Taschenuhr?" one of his captors asked one night.

„Weil die ziemlich wertvoll sind. Er ist vermutlich ein Adeliger und das müssen wir nacheweisen. Er soll nicht erschossen werden, sondern dazu benutzt werden, unsere Kriegsgefangenen freizupressen. Der ist schon einiges wert."

They talked about him as if they were talking about cattle. By listening to them, he found out quite a lot about the people who were watching him, he knew who was the most and the least watchful and he began to devise a plan. He could not communicate that plan to William because he couldn't be sure that his captors did not know at least a little English and so he tried to come up with a plan that he did not need to communicate to William. He could not leave him behind, that was not an option, but eventually he felt confident enough. So one night he stole the keys to his cell from a guard that had fallen asleep next to the cell. The guard mumbled something about "dieser gottverdammte Krieg" in his sleep and he almost felt sorry for him because he knew that in trying to free William and himself, he was probably sending the two men guarding them to their deaths. The second guard had nodded off too, those two weren't exactly the brightest. He knew that William watched him and was ready to run at any moment. He managed to turn the key without the lock clicking too loudly, he then opened the door and then they ran for their lives. They were of course seen and shot at, but somehow all the shots missed them, all except for one. When they had already left the camp, a shot hit William square in the back and the boy stumbled and pulled him down with him, which was lucky because the next bullet went straight over his head. He fell on a sharp stone and he heard his rib crack, but he was alive. He pulled William with him into the undergrowth but by some lucky coincidence or maybe guided by God or the stars or his will to live, he walked into the right direction. Why he wasn't followed he has no idea why, maybe they thought he was dead and wanted to collect his body in the morning. After only two and half hours of walking, he found a French field hospital, where they tried to set his rib. He is quite sure Dr. Clarkson would have had a fit had he seen the blotched work that was done, but he was still thankful and they got the bullet out of William, although they did tell him that William was very likely to die. They brought William and him to an English supply station then, from where they were sent on to England. William died on the way to the ship, but he insisted on the body being sent on because he knows that it will be important to William's father to have a body to bury. No one has ever told him what date or even year it is and he never asked about it. Maybe because time does not make any sense anymore, not as long as he is in this state of limbo, without his family, without his wife. He gazes up at the stars again and prays that the ship won't sink because if it doesn't, he will be England in about an hour and be transported to either London or the hospital in Downton. As he isn't injured too gravely, he hopes that he will be sent on to Downton right away, although if he were to be sent to London, Cora and the children could surely stay with Rosamund.

When he gets off the ship in England he is asked in how much pain he was and he tells them that it isn't too bad and so he is sent on to Downton.

"You'll arrive sometime tomorrow morning, between six and eight." He nods. Tomorrow morning, he will be home tomorrow morning. Or close enough to home for his family to come and see him every day in any case. Just one more day and he will be with his wife again. His darling wife who has probably been worried sick about him for however long she hasn't heard from him

"Please send a telegram to my wife." The officer who told him that was being sent to Downton looks daggers at him.

"And why would I do it?"

"Because my wife is the Countess of Grantham." The look on the officer's face tells him that the telegram will be sent. He doubts that it will be sent right away, but it will be sent. He makes sure that William's body is sent to the hospital as well, then gets into the ambulance and falls asleep.

* * *

_Cora_

She looks at her girls and sees how pale they are and she knows what they think.

"Your father is coming home. He will be at the hospital tomorrow morning. Apparently he was taken prisoner of war last October, but somehow he must have escaped. It says he is injured but not life-threateningly so."

The girls stare at her in disbelieve and she holds the telegram out to Edith who takes it and reads it through and then nods.

"Papa is coming home," she whispers and then walks towards her and hugs her. She can feel sobs wrecking through her middle daughter's body and she tries to calm her down. She doesn't cry, she is too exhausted and relieved to cry.

When she looks over Edith' shoulder she sees that Mrs. Hughes and Carson are still there, looking worried and relieved at the same time.

"There is nothing about William, I am afraid," she says and they both nod gravely.

She doesn't go to bed again and neither do the girls. They stay in her room, all of them and tell each other how relieved they are and eventually the girls begin to talk about something else. She tries to listen to them, but she can't focus. She will see Robert again in a few hours and if the telegram is to be believed, then he is more or less whole. But even if he wasn't, if he had lost an arm or a leg or whatever else, she'd still be beyond happy to see him again and to have him back. Her darling husband. She is afraid of closing her eyes because she is scared it is all a dream. This does not make any sense at all, but she can't think straight anymore. Eventually she asks the girls to not come with her to the hospital and they all nod in understanding. She needs to do this on her own, she needs Robert to herself at least for a short while.

So when the chauffeur drops her off in front of the hospital, she is by herself. There are others around her of course, other women waiting for their husbands or sons or brothers. She can hear them whisper about her, but she doesn't care. All she cares about is seeing Robert again. When a convoy of five or six ambulances arrives at the hospital and she sees Robert getting out of the first one, her heart soars to sky and falls into a bottomless pit at the same time. Robert is back, her husband is back, but he doesn't look well. He must have lost three stone, his hair is overgrown and he looks old. He walks towards her and when he stands in front of her, he just stares at her and she stares back at him. She doesn't know whether this moment lasts two seconds or two hours but eventually, he puts his arms around her and she grabs hold of him.

"You're back. You really are back."

"Yes."

She keeps her hold on him and slowly but surely, all her heart does is soar. Robert may look differently, but he's been to war. And the way he holds her, the way his silent tears wet her cheek and her dress tell her that he is still the same, that he is still her darling husband. She looks at him and then gives him a kiss on the lips.

They are eventually ushered inside, but Robert is told that he will have to wait before he is examined because according to the files that came along with him, he is in comparatively good health.

"It's just as well," he says to her when he settles on the bed that has been given to him. Thankfully and probably due to both his military and social rank, he has been given a bed in a corner and screens have been put around him. "There is something I have to tell you." Robert says this in such a grave voice that is scares her.

"What is it?" She takes his hand and draws circles on the back of it and he swallows once.

"William is dead. He died on the way to the ship." This is what she expected. The telegram did not say anything about William and when Robert arrived at Downton without his batman, she had thought, for only a very brief moment, that William must be dead. But that does not make it any less sad or any easier to deal with the matter. And she knows that William's death hurts Robert quite a lot.

"I am so sorry."

"He got shot when we fled. A bullet hit him in the back. He was right behind me and stumbled against me. We both fell and the next bullets flew over our heads. They must have thought that they had killed both of us. It was the middle of the night and so I was able to drag William away and when we arrived at the field hospital, he was barely alive. They did what they could, but it wasn't enough. I've asked them to bring the body here. I think that it should be me who tells the staff and Mr. Mason but I am afraid they won't let me leave here today and that needs to be done today." She knows what he is asking her without words and of course she'll take that burden of his shoulders.

"I'll tell the staff and then I'll go to Mr. Mason's farm. Should I offer him to come here and visit you? I am sure he would like to talk to you about William."

"Yes. William was a good lad, he would have done well for himself. Very well. Too many good men have died in this god-awful war." Robert now closes his eyes and she wonders if he is about to fall asleep or if he is trying to think about something else.

"The children are very well." This puts a smile on his face immediately. "I asked them not to come here now because we didn't really know how you were and I did not want to overwhelm you. Especially not with three small children." Robert now chuckles.

"So we now have two grandchildren."

"We do. Mary had a much easier time this time. Matthew was even here for the birth, although he hasn't seen the child since."

"Is it a boy or a girl?"

"It's a girl." Robert's smile becomes wider at this.

"Matthew wanted a girl, he told me so after we left together. He told me that Mary and he wanted more children and that he wanted a daughter. I told him that having daughters was a wonderful thing." This almost drives tears into her eyes, but she holds herself together, she does not want their first day together in a year, their first day together after Robert has been prisoner of war fir six months, to be marked by too many tears.

"How is my mother?"

"Very worried. I have hardly ever seen her beside herself, but now she is close to it. She is staying with Rosamund, we thought it would do her good to get away from Downton at least for a short while. They don't know you are back yet. I only got the telegram around two o'clock in the morning, they did not tell us anything before that. Sybil's waiting for me to come home and tell her how you are and then she and To-, Branson will take her to London then and bring your mother and sister and here."

"Sybil and Tom, huh?" She does not know what to say. It just slipped out. Sybil asked her a few questions about marriage lately and her daughter stopped referring to the chauffeur as Branson. But then again, why should she, she is about to marry him. And because Sybil keeps calling him Tom, she has started to think of him as Tom as well. But she should have been more careful now. She promised Sybil last night that she would not mention Tom at all to Robert today and that she would then cushion the blow. That did not work out well.

"Don't look so shocked Cora. We can talk about this later. I won't fly off the handle, I promise."

"Major Crawley? It's your turn now." He nods and then Dr. Clarkson says "Lady Grantham, this might take a while."

"I'll go home then. I might return with quite a large group of people."

"Including three very young children, no doubt." The Doctor rolls his eyes at this, but it is in amused exasperation only.

"Yes, Doctor."

"Well, thanks for the warning. Give my regards to Mrs. Crawley."

"I will." Robert raises his eyebrows at this but she mouthes 'later' at him and then leaves.

When she gets home, the girls and Isobel are waiting for her, but she takes a sleeping Nicholas from Edith before she tells them anything. She needs the little boy to anchor herself, otherwise she'd lose her mind with relief.

"He is quite well. He lost a lot of weight, he looks haggard and old, but I suppose Mrs. Patmore will rectify that within a few days. As soon as he is home, we'll have only his favorite dishes for at least a month. He is in a little pain because he broke a rib and he thinks that it has not been treated well, but he is in good hands now." She nods at Isobel at this, who smiles.

"When can we go to the hospital?"

"In a few hours. Dr. Clarkson said the examination might take a while and that we should come back in the afternoon. I warned him that there'd be quite a lot of people coming but he said that was no matter. Sybil darling, I think it is time you left for London."

"Yes Mama." Her youngest daughter gets up and kisses her on the cheek. "I am so relieved Mama. I am so relieved."

Then she remembers that there is something else. "Wait, just a moment. There is something else."

"What?" Mary's expression changes from relief to fear in the matter of a second and she realizes she should have worded this differently.

"William, your father's batman, did not make it. He died in France." No one says anything, not even Isobel and she knows they are all thinking the same thing. They aren't as sad about William as they should be because they are too relieved about Robert having returned more or less unscathed.

"I'll tell the staff and then his father."

* * *

_Daisy_

She is scared and hopeful at the same time. Mr. Carson asked all the staff to come to the servants' hall and everyone has already heard that his lordship is home. So this must mean that there is news about William as well. When she sees Mr. Carson's face, she knows that something is very wrong and she listens to her ladyship talk about William's death with a sinking heart and tears flowing down her face. She knows that William loved her and she liked him, at least as a very good friend and it hurts her so much and she can't imagine life without him.

Anna puts an arm around her shoulder and she is crying too. She has the feeling that everyone is crying. Someone asks about Thomas, but apparently he hasn't been mentioned in the telegram or by his lordship. But she does not understand why his lordship would know anything about Thomas. They aren't in the same regiment and she doubts that his lordship really is interested in Thomas. But William's death is overshadowing everything and she can't really think straight.

She is led away by Anna and brought to her room and only then does she realize that she had been quite hysterical. But she can't stop crying. William is dead. William is dead.

* * *

_Robert_

His rib needs to be rebroken and Dr. Clarkson has already told him that it will be very painful. He is not exactly looking forward to that, but then again, it is not the worst thing in the world. Considering what he has been through, having a rib rebroken is a rather small matter. And he is looking forward to seeing his family. Dr. Clarkson has told him what day it is and he knows that he has been a prisoner of war for half a year. For the past six months he fell asleep, dreaming of the war each night and he always woke up because of nightmares. And each time a nightmare woke him, he made himself think about his family and that gave him comfort. He played with his pocket watch and ring so much that they both need to be taken to a jewelry shop now to be refurbished. He knows that if he didn't have the comfort of thinking about his family, he would not have survived captivity.

He is sitting upright in his bed and there are still screens around his bed and he can hear his family before he sees it. He hears Mary tell everyone that they should be quiet and not overtax him and then his eldest child comes almost crashing through the screens and throws herself at him with such force that he thinks that maybe his rib has already been rebroken. She doesn't say anything, but sobs violently and uncontrollably.

"Mary, child, calm down please," he eventually says, but to no avail. He looks over her shoulder and sees Edith, Cora and Isobel who are each holding a child and when he looks at her, Cora puts Nicholas down who immediately hides behind Edith. She then gently pries Mary away from him and he wonders how scared his eldest daughter must have been, how scared she probably still is for Matthew. Edith then puts George down and gives him a hug too, although she is much gentler than her sister and he is rather thankful for that. He greets Isobel next who also introduces them to their newest grandchild.

"Is Mary alright?" he asks her and Isobel shrugs her shoulders.

"I don't know, she was very worried. She still is very worried, because now that she knows what you've been through, she is afraid that Matthew might have to go through the same thing and that is very difficult for her." He nods and then concentrates on his granddaughter, a girl who looks so much like Mary that it isn't hard for him to imagine her actually being Mary.

"I am horrified by the thought that Matthew might have to endure what I went through."

"We all are, Robert, but thank you for saying it." He looks at the boys who are standing next his bed, both of them holding on to Edith. He smiles at them and George hides but Nicholas looks at him curiously. He passes the baby back to Isobel. He holds out a hand to Nicholas who tentatively takes it and then climbs onto the bed with his help. The boy looks at him unsurely and he nods at him.

"Papa?"

"Yes," he says and then Nicholas throws himself at him the same way Mary did, something that surprises him because he can't imagine Nicholas actually remembering him, but he supposes that Cora and the girls talked about him constantly and it makes him very happy. He had been rather apprehensive of the fact that it might take weeks for his son to trust him again and the little boy's reaction is so much better than what he had expected. The boy has now settled down on his lap quite happily and Mary has finally stopped crying.

"I am sorry Papa," she says and gives him a kiss on the cheek.

"Sybil telephoned. She and your mother and Rosamund will come a little later because your mother insisted on having tea at Rosamund's house. Sybil says your mother wanted that because she needed to catch herself." He only nods to what Cora has just told him and he thinks that Sybil is right.

Isobel, Edith, and Mary and her children leave about half an hour later, promising to be back the next day, but Cora and Nicholas stay. Mary offered to take him, but the boy has fallen asleep on his lap and somehow he can't stomach the thought of giving him to someone else. He can't be sure that the boy will still be like this tomorrow, Nicholas might be scared of him tomorrow.

"How was it with Mr. Mason?"

"Horrible. He is devastated, which of course is understandable. He said he would like to see you soon. I told him we'd let him know when." He takes Cora's hand and holds onto it.

"The day after tomorrow. Dr. Clarkson will rebreak my rib tonight, I will be in a lot of pain tomorrow and it isn't unlikely that I will have to be given painkillers." He is more scared of it than he would like to admit but he sees understanding in Cora's eyes.

"I'll stay with you, if you like."

"Through the night?"

"Of course darling. Although we should ask Sybil to take Nicholas home then."

When his mother, sister and youngest daughter come to see him, it is surprisingly Rosamund who is the most emotional, although both his mother and sister leave after having seen him for less than half an hour, just like him they hate everything to do with hospitals. Sybil stays for a while and talks about her work in that serious tone of hers, before she tells him in a rather bubbly way that is just as typical for her that she started to show Nicholas the hiding places in the family wing, one which is apparently his dressing room.

"Oh Papa, you never do anything in there besides getting changed. Don't pretend that you mind us hiding in there."

He can only shake his head at that and laugh. He missed his children so much that even the knowledge that apparently all four of them went or go into his room when he is not there, to hide in there nonetheless, does not upset him. Quite the contrary.

Sybil leaves shortly afterwards and takes her brother with her, but not before the little boy says "See you tomorrow Papa. I love you."

"He is just like you. He may look like me, but he is like you." Cora smiles at him and says

"Maybe."

Dr. Clarkson is rather astonished when he tells him that Cora will stay the night and tells him that they don't have a bed for her. But Cora does not seem to be bothered by that and thus Dr. Clarkson agrees to her staying at the hospital. The Doctor then does his work and Robert cannot remember ever having been in more pain before. He is given morphine but not enough to not make him feel the pain anymore and not enough for him to fall asleep from it. He is sure he'd go mad if Cora wasn't holding his hand and talking to him. For a few hours all he can do is concentrate on her voice and try to not think about the pain too much. She mainly tells him stories about Nicholas, funny little things the boy has said or done during the last year. She also tells him about little Victoria Bates and about being her godmother. "Anna said that Bates would have asked you had you been home and I was sure you'd have said yes, so I said yes when they asked me. They also asked Mary, of course, so Mary and I are now godmothers of the same child." He squeezes Cora's hand and although she is holding the hand that is attached to that side of the body in which all his ribs are intact, it still causes a wave of pain to rush through him.

"You are right. I would have said yes in a heartbeat."

"Good. There is something that I have been wondering about. At the moment, we allow Anna and Bates to bring their child with them and to bring her to the nursery to let our nanny take care of her while they are working. We always explain it with the special circumstances of the war. But with Mary and I being her godmothers, I was wondering if we shouldn't allow that permanently. If we shouldn't allow little Victoria to grow up with Nicholas and our grandchildren, whether it is our duty as her godparents to provide the best education possible for her."

He doesn't really know what to say, this is something he needs to think about, although that causes him to think less about the pain, so he is thankful for Cora puzzling him like that.

"I don't know darling. I understand your reasoning, Mary and you and with that I are responsible for her in a way and thus we maybe should let her grow up in such a privileged way. But the question is whether we'd actually be doing her a favor. She'd grow up with a future earl, when the most that she will ever reach in life will be being the lady's maid of that earl's wife." Cora nods but she looks as if she didn't agree.

"Maybe you are right. But if we let her grow up in such a privileged way, she might not have to work in service at all. She could do something else. Become a teacher maybe."

"I'll talk to Bates, see what he thinks." The way Cora smiles at him tells him that Cora is sure of what Bates will say about this. Or at the very least that she knows what Anna will say. But Cora is right, they are responsible for little Victoria.

He nods off and dreams of his children and when he wakes up again, he looks at Cora and says

"What's her name?" Cora who apparently fell asleep as well jerks awake and says

"What?"

"Mary's girl. Isobel never told me her name."

"Josephine Cora." This makes him smile and appreciate Mary for that choice.

"It's a beautiful name."

"I feel quite honored. Isobel was a little less pleased, but she said that she could live with it." He can very well imagine the look on Isobel's face when she heard that the girl had been named after Matthew's mother-in-law.

"So, what about Sybil and the chauffeur?" It is dark and he can't really see Cora's face and it has just occurred to him that people could be listening, but somehow he doesn't care.

"I think he proposed to her."

"And she said yes."

"She hasn't said anything about it yet, but I suppose so."

"Hm." That is all that comes to his mind. He isn't thrilled by the thought of his daughter marrying the chauffeur, but he has been through so much that he wonders if this something he should be upset about, or fight about it with Sybil and probably Cora. "What about Edith and Strallan?"

"That is an unanswered question. He keeps changing his mind. She wants to marry him and he loves her but he thinks that he is too old for her and thus should not marry her. It is really rather complicated and no one really knows what he wants. They are not moving forward, not really in any case. Edith is determined but of course she can't force him. He is still staying with us, he still hasn't really healed, but he stays as a patient, not as a guest. I offered him a guest room, but he did not want it, he did not want any special treatment. While I believe that without any doubt, I also think that he did not want to be in a room by himself if there was even the slightest chance that Edith might visit him there. I don't think she'd frame him for anything, that would not be her, but she does make use of her weapons. And I do understand that. I do understand why she fights for him, tooth and nail."

Of course she knows. She fought for him the same way and he is infinitely glad that she won that fight. He'd be lost without her, he needs her to anchor his world.

"Why I am less worried about Sybil than I am worried about Edith?"

"Because Sybil will marry a young, unharmed man who loves her and who is sure that he wants to marry her. That is not what Edith is facing." No, it isn't. And Cora is right. Branson is young and unharmed. Maybe he loves Sybil, he will find out, he will talk to the chauffeur, he will ask him how he wants to support Sybil and possible children. But if the man passes his test, he might as well at least consider giving his blessings.

"I suppose they can't all find a man like Matthew."

"No. But Tom might be close enough at least." He smiles about this. Apparently Cora has already made a decision, which means that he has made one too. He does not want to, he cannot fight with her. He missed her too much and he won't let the marriage of their youngest daughter come in the way.

"I missed you Cora, so very much. When I was in that cell, I kept imagining conversations like this one. I thought I was going crazy, but I think it kept me sane."

She smiles back at him and gives him a kiss on the lips.

"Try to sleep a little, my darling."

* * *

"Warum hat der eigentlich noch den Ring und die Taschenuhr?" – „Why does he still have the ring and the pocketwatch?

„Weil die ziemlich wertvoll sind. Er ist vermutlich ein Adeliger und das müssen wir nacheweisen. Er soll nicht erschossen werden, sondern dazu benutzt werden, unsere Kriegsgefangenen freizupressen. Der ist schon einiges wert." – "Because they are worth rather a lot. He probably is an aorstocrat but we have to be able to prove it. He is not supposed to be shot but supposed to be used to pressure the English into returning some of our prisoners. He is worth quite a lot."

"Dieser gottverdammte Krieg"- "This God dam war."

I'd like to apologize to all the doctors and nurses out there for probably having written complete nonsense concerning the medical details in this chapter.


	26. June 1917

AN: Thank you for all the reviews! No cliffhangers today, just as last Thursday, but I will return to them eventually :).

If you are watching tonight, have fun!

Kat

* * *

_Robert_

He takes a good look at himself in the mirror and what he sees satisfies him. He does not look like an old man anymore. He gained quite a lot of weight, maybe even a little too much, but he looked so haggard, not like himself. Now he looks the way he thinks he should look.

"You look very nice darling." He laughs out loud at this and turns around. Cora is watching him and she might have done so for quite some time.

"I don't look that old anymore."

"No. You look like my husband again."

"Good."

"I wish we could" She smiles a sly smile at him and he mirrors that smile, walks towards her and kisses her.

"We can. Mary and Edith took all the children, including Nicholas, into the village."

"I know. But I have to work."

"Cora." He is rather exasperated by this. He asked his two eldest daughters to take Nicholas, George and Josephine so that he and Cora would have some time alone. Nicholas has been plagued by nightmares for weeks and sleeps in their room almost every night. He knows that is because the soldiers tell his little boy stories about the war. The boy likes to run away from his nanny and he usually ends up with one or more of the soldiers. Most of them are very nice to him, several men have told him that having three such young children in the house makes them believe in the good of the world again, but some of those poor devils are just not very good at dealing with the war and then they tell Nicholas about it. And then the boy has nightmares. And so he and Cora have hardly any time for themselves. And he misses her. Sometimes all he wants to do is take her somewhere secluded and be with her. Talk to her, hold her hand, laugh with her, make her smile. But she never has any time, she is always busy. And he hates it. He sometimes thinks that she is more interested in her work than in him.

"Robert I am sorry, I really am, but I have to talk to Dr. Clarkson and Mrs. Patmore about the meals and then Isobel and I need to go over the nurses' schedules and then I have to"

"Stop it!" He regrets yelling at her as soon as he has done it because she looks rather taken aback.

"What?" He takes a deep breath and then continues.

"I don't want to hear it, I don't care. I want to spent time with you."

"I know darling, but,"

"There is always a but for you." He wishes there wasn't. He wishes things were as they were before the war, he wishes Cora wasn't so busy. But she seems to enjoy being busy, something he does not understand.

"Robert, I"

"No. I won't be in your way." He leaves her in his dressing room and bangs the door. He knows he behaves like a child, but he had been looking forward to this afternoon so much. Although it might have been better to tell Cora about his plans, maybe she would have been able to find some time for him then. Maybe.

* * *

_Dr. Clarkson_

He looks at Isobel and she nods. They have been invited to dine at the big house, as Isobel likes to say. Although they have been invited separately, no one knows about their engagement after all. He finally plucked up the courage to propose the day before yesterday. Isobel had invited him for dinner, as she does at least once a week, and as they always do, they talked for a very long time and eventually ended up kissing. He feels like a love sick teenager and he told Isobel so who laughed about him heartily. And that gave him courage. So he slipped of the sofa and asked. With a ring he has been carrying around for weeks. And she said yes without deliberation and set a date for the wedding only five minutes later. That made him laugh heartily. He hopes that Major Crawley as he is still to be called, because officially the Earl is still on active duty, will be able to get Captain Crawley home for the wedding. Isobel would be so happy to have her son there.

"We've got an announcement," she says and when she has got everyone's attention, she unceremoniously says "We are getting married. Richard and I that is." Again he has to laugh. She always gets straight to the point.

"Well, it is about time," the Dowager says and laughs at her own reaction. Mary then is the first member of the family to really congratulate them and she is soon followed by every other person sitting around the table. He is relieved when Major Crawley offers his heartfelt congratulations because in absence of a brother or father, the Major has somehow become 'the male responsible for Isobel' although she certainly does not need one.

"Robert, would you try the get Matthew home?"

"Of course. When?" So they tell them the date and Major Crawley and Lady Grantham offer to host the reception in their house. "It'll be tight squeeze, but we will make it work," Lady Grantham says and smiles.

Mary then offers to take Isobel dress shopping and Cora and Edith then say that they will come too, something that seems to surprise Isobel and take her aback and all she says is "we'll see".

_Matthew_

"Captain Crawley, you are going on leave for two weeks."

"What?" He can't believe it. This must be a dream or a very cruel joke.

"Apparently your mother is getting married. And that is a reason to go home."

"What?" His mother is getting married? To whom? Why? When?

"I am sure she will tell you everything about it once you are there. You are leaving now." He shakes his head. He gathers his things and starts the journey home. He is sure that he will wake up in the trenches and find out that this has been a dream. But when he wakes up the next time, he is still on his way to England and two days later he touches English soil in the morning and arrives at Downton late in the evening. He is greeted by a full complement, including Nicholas, George and Josephine and once everyone has greeted him, once Mary has told him that she loves him, he takes his mother aside, looks at her and says

"Explain yourself."

"Aren't you happy for me?" His mother can be incredibly infuriating and condescending and right now she is both. Probably because she is nervous, which is not a good sign, because that means that she is doing something, or rather about to do something, she knows he won't approve of, at least not without putting up a fight.

"I'll be happy once you tell me when you are getting married, why you are getting married and to whom. And I'll only be happy if I like him."

"Four days from now, out of love and to Dr. Clarkson." He should have guessed. Who else could it have been?

"Well mother, I thought that this was sudden, but this is anything but sudden. It has taken the two of you years." His mother is smiling now, a kind of happy smile he hasn't seen on her face in a long time. Far too long. He thinks that his mother has been alone for too long. She loved his father very much, but not getting married ever again, which was what his mother originally intended to do, just seemed too harsh. Matthew has repeatedly told her to find a nice man ever since he was twelve and now she has finally listened to him.

"So you are happy for me?"

"Of course."

His mother tells him a little more about the wedding and he finds it even more difficult to listen to her than he found it to listen to Mary before his own wedding but he puts on a brave face and gets through it. Although he is incredibly relieved when Robert comes in to offer him drink.

"Thank you."

"I thought you could use a break. The wedding is all anyone ever talks about in this house. I am glad that it is a distraction but it is going on my nerves. Last night Cora woke up at three thirty, turned on the lights, jumped out of bed and began scribbling something down about flowers." Usually he would have laughed about a story like that about his mother-in-law, but somehow the way Robert said this makes the laughter die in his throat.

"Are you alright?"

"I've had a letter from the Army. I am not going back to France." He wants to jump into the air with joy or at the very least smile cheerfully, but he knows that Robert would be hurt by that. He is so glad that the man he thinks of as his father is out of danger, that Nicholas won't be the earl for quite some time.

"But you would like to go back?" He knows the answer, it is his answer. He wants to go back to France. He enjoys being on leave, he is glad that he will see his mother getting married, that he gets to spend time with his wife and children and the rest of the family, but ultimately, he wants to be fighting was his country.

"Of course. They've asked me to help with the training camp in York. But I am not too sure about it."

"Why not? You'd still be in the Army, you'd still help. And honestly Robert, you've been hurt, you've been a prisoner of war, you have more than done your duty."

"By sitting in a dark cell for half year."

"And listening to the Germans around you. I know that you were questioned by several Generals when you went to London a few weeks ago. Mary just wrote to me that you went there, but I knew what that meant."

"Still, I feel so out of place here. I had a purpose when I was in France, I don't have a purpose here. All I do is sit around and watch Cora work and listen to her talk about how busy she is."

That explains rather a lot. Robert's bad mood and his obvious unhappiness about not being sent back to France for reasons that have nothing to do with age.

"Take the position in York. You may not be able to come home every night, maybe you'll even have to spend a few weekends there, but I think you'll feel better doing it. You wouldn't sit around and watch Cora work anymore either." Robert looks at him uncertainly, as if he didn't know whether to go on.

"I am afraid that things have gone down the drain again. She doesn't care, she has no time, she," but then he stops speaking, swallows hard twice and then says "I am sorry Matthew. My marital situation is nothing to bother you with, not at all." He thinks that it is something to bother him with because he thinks that it would be healthy for Robert to talk about his feelings at least once, but then again if he can only do it once, and he doubts that Robert would be willing or able to do it more than once, then it should be to Cora.

"Tell Cora how you feel."

"No. She'd dismiss it and I don't want her to think that I am weak or starving for affection." He can only shake his head at that but he supposes there is nothing to be done, or hardly anything to be done.

"Robert, I like you, very much. You are more than a father-in-law to me and I think that you know that. And I am giving you one piece of advice now that comes from the bottom of my heart. Stop wallowing in self-pity. Either tell Cora how you feel and ask her to spend more time with you or don't tell her and accept that she does not have as much time as you would like. And take that position in York. You'll have less time to brood over Cora working then."

Robert looks taken aback and daggers at him at the same time and he wonders whether he has gone too far.

"Matthew, I, I, I'll think about it. Maybe you are right." Robert than claps him on his shoulder and he knows that the conversation has come to its end. But he said what he wanted to say in any case. They talk about different matters then, mainly concerning the estate and he is glad that Robert values his opinion so much.

* * *

_Mary_

"Mary, I think there is something we should talk about." She looks at her best friend in the mirror questioningly.

"What is it?"

"I know it is none of my business."

"Anna." She now turns around and looks at her best friend imploringly. She has always considered Anna to be her friend, but ever since the moment that Anna threw up into her trash bin and she held her hair, she has considered Anna to be her best friend. It feels a little strange to her to be served by her best friend, but that is the nature of things, and they are all doing all they can to provide Victoria with an upbringing that will lead her away from service. Although she does not think ill of the people in service, quite the contrary. But if they could offer something differently to her goddaughter, then it will make her happy.

"It's about her ladyship."

"Yes?" She wonders if her mother has had one of high maintenance fits. Usually her mother is comparatively easy to care for, especially because she hardly ever complains. But sometimes she changes her mind and then wants things done that are very hard to accomplish.

"Well, I see her with your father in private every day."

"And?" Maybe Anna has caught them in some sort of compromising position, although that would not really matter and she certainly wouldn't be the first.

"I think your mother is neglecting your father. She all but ignores him when he comes to her room, both before and after dinner. She only ever talks of her work, no matter what sort of conversation your father starts."

She isn't sure whether this is true. Her mother is rather caught up in her work, that is true, but she can't imagine her ignoring her father. Her mother was so worried about him and so happy when he finally came back.

"Anna, maybe you've misunderstood." Anna nods but Mary knows that Anna thinks differently and she also knows that Anna knows that she will at least think about it.

…

"I think your mother is neglecting your father."

"What? Why do you think that?" Matthew holds out both arms to her and says

"Come here darling and then I will tell you." She can't resist something like that. She loves Matthew so much and she just wants to be close to him. So she walks over to the settee Matthew is sitting on and joins him there.

"We could also go to bed darling. It is in the same room." Matthew chuckles at this and gives her a fleeting kiss.

"Yes. But I want to talk to you first."

"Then go ahead."

"I talked to your father today and he feels neglected by your mother. Whether she really pays him too little attention I couldn't tell you, but that is what your father feels." She then tells him about what Anna said and it makes her worry. Maybe Anna and Matthew are right. Maybe her mother should spend more time with her father.

"I'll talk to her," she says to Matthew who then smiles at her, gets up and then takes her to bed. On the settee.

…

She talks to her mother the next morning, but her mother dismisses the notion. "I am not neglecting your father. I wake up every night to check whether he really sleeping next to me," her mother says to her. She asks her mother to tell her father that but she isn't sure that her mother understands the gravity of the situation. Although she wishes she would because she wants her parents to be happy. They've been through so much. But she fears that her mother does not see what is happening to her marriage.

* * *

_Cora_

She, like everyone else, gets up when the music begins to play and like everyone else she watches Matthew walk Isobel down the aisle. They are both smiling and Isobel looks so happy. She rarely ever does, Isobel looks indignant or purposeful or content but seldom does she look happy. But she is about to enter a marriage based on love and if there is one reason to be happy then it is certainly that.

She can't help but remember her own wedding, a day that had not been very happy for her, because she had thought, if unjustly so, that Robert did not love her. She knows better now, of course and she wishes Robert had not been stubborn and just told her. Although the problem wasn't his reluctance to tell her but his reluctance to admit to loving her. She closes her eyes and feels transported back all those years.

It is her walking down the aisle now, in a ridiculously expensive wedding dress. She feels as if she was put in a show in a theater. Her father, a self-made American millionaire is walking her down the aisle of the Downton village church. Her, a girl who has lived in New York City since she was 14. She knows hardly any of the guests, only her parents and brother are there, the rest are all guests of Robert's family and she doesn't know many of them.

He is waiting for her, in front of the altar and he has not turned around to look at her, not yet anyway. It does not surprise her, he does not love her and it should not bother her, but it does because she loves him. Their marriage isn't supposed to be about love and for him it isn't. And she hoped so much for it to be about love for Robert too. He is always so kind and gentle and sweet to her that she was sure that he would fall for her. But he didn't. Or at least he hasn't so far. She wills him to turn around, to do her the favor of looking at her and maybe give her an encouraging smile. But he doesn't. Until the very last moment. Then he does turn and gives her the most breathtaking smile he has ever given her and for a moment she thinks that there is something akin to love in his eyes. During the ceremony he looks at her at all the appropriate moments, he plays his role well, the future Earl of Grantham, and she does her best to play her own role well. She has no idea how successful she is, she almost cries when he places the wedding band on her finger and she thinks that she sees him swallow, but it might have been a trick of the light, her vision is clouded anyway.

He leads her out of the church and into their new life, a life she isn't sure she wants, but she knows she wants Robert, so she has to accept everything that comes with him, including the pain of being in love unhappily. But she has more than most people have because Robert likes her, she is sure of that.

She feels weird for the rest of the day. She knows she should be happy, she married whom and what she wanted to marry after all, but the person she married does not reciprocate the love she feels.

"Cora, are you alright?" She hadn't noticed the tears running down her face and she sees the worry edged on her husband's face. They are in the middle of wedding ceremony and she has closed her eyes and cried.

"Yes darling. I am," she says and smiles at the man who has loved her for the past 28 years. He takes her hand then and she squeezes it. "I love you."

They leave the church together, followed by their daughters, but get into a separate car. She gets into the car after Robert and without any further ado, she sits down right next to him and puts her head on his shoulder.

"Cora, are you sure that you are fine?" He is so concerned about her and maybe Mary is right. Maybe she does not spend enough time with him.

"I am sorry, Robert. For not being there for you as much as you needed and wanted me to be there for you. But I'll change that. I promise." He puts his arm around her shoulder and holds her tight to him.

"Thank you, love." He hardly ever calls her that, only if he gets very emotional. "I have accepted the position at the training camp in York."

"Good. They need someone like you." She thinks it really is good for him, he won't have the feeling of being useless then and that seems to be very hard for both Robert and her to deal with as the past few years have shown.

"I won't be able to come home every day. I'll come back on the weekends if that is what you want, and I'll try to come back once or twice during the week, but it won't always work out." She knew that of course, but this is so much better than Robert going to France again. And she wants him home at the weekends. For their children, their family and for her. She wants to be held by him exactly the way he is holding her now. Close to him and protectively. Because sometimes she needs his protection. Not because she couldn't defend herself or deal with the world by herself, she thinks she is better at that than he is, but because the way Robert protects her, has protected for almost three decades now, makes her feel loved so very much. Robert wants her happy and without worries and he wants that because he loves her.

"I would like you to come home at the weekends very much. And please come home during the week as often as you can. And on those nights that you can't come home, telephone me, please?"

"I could send scandalous love letters to you."

"You could do both."

"I'll telephone you. And I might send those letters to you." He kisses her now and she kisses him back and if they weren't about to arrive at the Abbey in less than three minutes, they'd probably do quite a bit more than just kissing. But there will be time for it. After the wedding reception. On the weekends and evenings that Robert will come home to her. And after the war, almost every day.


	27. November 1917

AN: Sorry for updating a few hours later than usual. I am sick (nothing serious, so don't worry) and I just needed to sleep.

Thank you all so much for the many reviews and for the people telling me that on Sundays and Thursdays they keep refreshing FF just to see the update of my story as soon as possible. That really is incredible! And I feel very honored by it.

Please let me know what you think about this one!

Kat

* * *

_Nicholas_

He has to be careful now. He does not want Nanny to see him run away. But he needs to run away because he wants to find his presents. It is his birthday tomorrow and Mama said he would get presents. He wants a dog. He is not allowed to play with Papa's dog. Not alone. Papa says that Isis is too big. So he wants his own dog. There are little dogs. Or a cat. Granny has a cat and he is allowed to play with it. But he is hardly ever allowed to visit Granny. Only if Mama or Papa or Mary or Edith or Sybil are with him.

Nanny isn't watching now, so he walks the other way.

"Hello little man," a soldier says to him. He knows it is a soldier because of the uniform. Papa is a soldier too, but he looks different. And he is not scared of Papa. But he is scared of the soldiers. They tell him stories. Stories that give him bad dreams. So bad that he has to sleep in Mama's room sometimes. So he runs away, straight into the small library. Only family is allowed in there and that means the people he loves. Maybe Mama is in there. Maybe he can sit on her lap.

He turns around when he hears someone cry.

"Mary," he says. Mary looks at him.

"Oh hello Nicholas. Have you run away from Nanny?" He nods. Maybe Mary will scold him but he won't lie.

"Well, you are getting better at it."

"Why are you crying?" Mary looks at him. She looks so sad and that scares him. When people look sad, he usually gets sad too.

"You are too young." People always say that. But he will be three tomorrow. He is not a baby like Josephine. Or the baby in Mary's belly. It can move. He sometimes feels it. He walks towards the sofa and climbs onto it. He almost falls down but Mary catches him. His sisters always catch him and they almost never scold him. He loves them. He now stands on the sofa and puts his arms around Mary. That's what Mama and Papa do when he is sad. And it helps him.

"Oh Nicholas. Matthew has been hurt. Badly. He is coming here. Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow is my birthday." Mary chuckles at this.

"It is little brother. I wouldn't forget the day you were born."

"You get to wish for presents for your birthday."

"Yes. But I won't tell you what you get."

"I don't care. I wish for Matthew to be well." This makes Mary cry and that is not what he wanted. But she also hugs him now, so maybe what he said wasn't only bad.

"I love you little brother." Mary gives him a kiss on the cheek and then says "But we better return you to Nanny now. Or bring you to Mama."

"Mama, please." Nanny will scold him a lot less if it is his Mama who returns him to her.

* * *

_Robert_

This was supposed to be a cheerful visit. The first time that he would be home for his son's birthday. Cora was so happy when he told her that he would come home for it and he knows that his little boy will be happy about it too. He even talked Cora into getting a cat for Nicholas. Cats are much easier to handle than dogs, they don't need to be taken on walks and they don't poop into the house. At least not very often.

And now this. Matthew has been hurt. Badly. He is coming home, thankfully, but he might be injured for the rest of his life and that would be such a disaster. Or he might die. They don't know whether he is out of danger, his injuries could be life threatening.

"My Lord?" Bates has opened the door without knocking. "I am sorry. I knocked but I think your lordship did not hear me."

"No, Bates, I didn't. I was lost in my thoughts."

Bates does not say anything and begins to do his job.

"How is Victoria?"

"Very well, your lordship. Thank you."

"Good, good."

Bates again remains silent and he lets the man do his work. For a while.

"I can't bear to think about it."

"Mr. Crawley?" The good thing about employing a friend is that a friend usually knows what you are talking about.

"Yes. If he died," he has to swallow and can't go on.

"It would be horrible for Lady Mary and Master George."

"Yes. It would hit them the hardest. But it would be horrible for me too. I can't lose one of my sons. I just can't."

"Let's hope that you won't." Bates then leaves and he knows that the valet is aware of the fact that he needs a few minutes to himself. So he sits down on his bed and just stares into space. Images of Matthew dead fill his mind and he can't stop those images from forming. And what is worse, those images of Matthew dead are intercepted by images of Nicholas dead. So far the boy has never been seriously ill, but Robert is horribly afraid of it now. He can't lose one of his sons, he just can't and the image that has just crept into his mind, the image of two tombstones next to each other, one for Matthew and one for Nicholas, one for each of his sons, drives him mad. The bed shifts and he feels a very gentle hand placed on his shoulder.

"I love you," she says to him and he turns to her. She isn't smiling, but her face is full of kindness and understanding.

"Cora, I," but he can't get the words out. If he says only one more word he will start to cry.

"It's alright darling. I am terribly afraid for him too." She then puts an arm around his waist and her head on his shoulder and they stay like that for a while.

"We have to go down for dinner." He gets up and holds out his hand to his wife. She takes it and to him it feels like a promise. She will be there for him, regardless of what happens.

* * *

_Matthew_

He feels as if he was waking up from the dead. He has a dull pain in his head and he knows that he can't really grasp what is around him. He thinks that he hears Mary speak to him, but he can't be sure. He isn't even sure that Mary would speak to him, because their marriage, their children might just be something that he made up while he was in the trenches. Something he made up to stay sane and it might have actually driven him crazy.

He feels someone poke his back and he can only answer "hm" for 'yes' and nothing for 'no'. Eventually he is turned again, he doesn't seem to be able to do this himself and opens his eyes a little. Dr. Clarkson is there and somehow that rings a bell. Somehow the doctor has a connection to his mother. He feels like a little boy, but he wants his mother to be there. He can't be sure that Mary is real, or at least he can't be sure that his Mary is real, but his mother is real, he is sure of that. Although he wishes that his Mary was real too because he loves her so much. He falls into a fitful sleep in which two children and a pregnant Mary play the starring roles, and he doesn't want to wake up from it. In fact he wants to die. He is in so much pain. And only the upper part of his body is in pain. The rest of his body seems to have vanished.

"Matthew? Matthew?"

He slowly opens his eyes and it is Robert who is sitting next to his bed.

"Matthew?"

"Yes?"

"How are you?"

"I don't know. Where is Mary?"

"At home. She'll come here in a few minutes. She wanted to bring George and Josephine to bed first." This relieves him to no end.

"They are real then."

"What?"

"George and Josephine. They are real. Mary and I really are married and we do have two children." Robert looks at him slightly perplexed but then nods.

"Yes. You did not make that up. Mary and you have two wonderful children."

"Good." He still can't feel his legs.

"What is it Matthew? Are you in pain?"

"I don't seem to be able to feel my legs." Robert looks as if he wanted to be anywhere but here right now.

"Robert please. I want to know."

"I am not the person to tell you."

"Robert."

"No."

"Papa, please, I need to know." Robert now looks at him the exact way he looks at Nicholas and swallows once.

"Matthew, I am sorry. There is no easy way to tell you this. You have been paralyzed from the waist down."

"So I will never walk again."

"Probably not."

"What else will I not be able to do?" If he has been paralyzed from the waist down Mary and he will never be able to spend a night together again. Not the way that married people do. It would break them. Their intimacy is such an important part of their marriage. They have spent most of their marriage apart from one another but the few weeks they have had together have shown him that making love is what keeps them going. Despite the little time that they have spent together, they created three children.

"You and Mary won't be able to" Robert's voice falters.

"I see."

"Matthew I know that sort of thing is important but it doesn't mean the end of your marriage."

"How do you know?" How does he know? As far as he knows Robert is still fully functioning. It is not a secret why he and Cora are late for breakfast at least once a week and why they sometimes go to bed rather early or look sleep deprived from time to time.

"Marriage is more than that."

"So your marriage is not built on that? You could do without it and still be as close to Cora as you are now?"

"I think so. Although I admit that it would be difficult sometimes. But you and Mary will find a way." Robert squeezes his hand now, something that is totally inappropriate and he is still very thankful for. He needs a father right now, more than ever he thinks, and Robert is more than willing to play that role.

"If I can't you know, does that mean that I will be incontinent too?"

"Yes." Robert says it plainly and without beating around the bush and he is thankful for it. He knows how uncomfortable this must make Robert feel, but still he doesn't run.

"Does Mary know this?"

"All of it. Your mother and Richard talked to her about it. And she's accepted it. She is glad you are home, that you survived the war."

"Richard? You mean Dr. Clarkson?"

"Yes. Your mother brings him for dinner at least three times a week and they are married so Cora and I decided that it would be ridiculous to keep calling him Dr. Clarkson. I thought you were calling him Richard too."

"Yes. I just forgot. There are so many things in my head right now."

"I understand." He knows that Robert really does understand. Robert never really talked about his time as a prisoner of war, admittedly they haven't really seen each other since then, they haven't really spent any time together since then, but he knows that Robert understands.

"Thank you for being here. For talking to me. I know you hate being around sick people. You don't do illness well." Robert smiles a faint smile at this.

"No, I don't. And yet I have spent more hours than I could count sitting next to my children's beds when they were sick. Sometimes you just have to go against your instincts."

He nods but doesn't say anything.

"I know you are tired. Go back to sleep son and dream of a better world." It drives tears to his eyes because he knows that is what Robert says to Nicholas it is what he says to George and Josephine on the very rare occasions that he gets to put them to bed. Although he supposes that might change. Or not. Because he has no idea how to get up to the nursery.

When he wakes up again, it is his pregnant wife who is sitting next to him. He can only look at her and doesn't know what to say and as in slow motion he watches her getting up from her chair and sitting down on his bed. She gives him a kiss on the lips then, looks at him and says "I love you my darling. Never doubt it. Don't ever doubt that I love you and that I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

"Did your father tell you what we talked about?"

"A little. But my darling, I know you well enough to know what you are thinking. But please don't entertain any thoughts of setting me free or doing some other supposedly noble thing. Because I want to be with you. No matter what."

"But Mary. I can't ask you to do this. I will be in nappies for the rest of my life. I won't be able to take you to bed anymore. Never again. I am setting you free. Our marriage was one entered into in a wave of sentimental haste anyway." Mary laughs out loud at this.

"Oh Matthew. You are so stubborn. And I even love that part of you. Sentimental haste or not, I love you. I'll always love you and you are stuck with me and our three children." She then takes his hand and puts it on her abdomen.

"This is our third child kicking. It is saying hello to you." He smiles at this, he can't help it. He felt Josephine kick because he came home a few days before her birth, but this is different. He will actually be there for part of the pregnancy. But his children have a crippled father.

"I am a cripple."

"No. You are Matthew Crawley and my version of you is not a cripple, but a wonderful husband and father. And that is quite independent of your ability to walk."

As if in either confirmation or protest, the baby kicks against his hand and it makes him smile.

"See? That child that hasn't even been born yet makes you laugh. You already love him or her quite a lot. And that is one of the many reasons why I love you. Matthew, I am not saying this won't be hard. It will be very hard. For all of us. But we will be able to deal with it. And we will be very happy despite all of it. You survived the war. You will see our children grow up. I will get to talk to you about their antics. We will worry about them together and be proud of them together. We will see their faces light up on their birthday and they will come running into our room on Christmas mornings at half past five and tell us that it was high time we got up. And you will tell them that they need to sleep a little more and then they will all lie down in our bed. And we'll watch them fall asleep. And then we'll wake them and their faces will light up when they see the tree and the presents. We will deal with their fights together, we will scold them if they don't pay attention in their lessons but most of all we will love them. Together. A complete set of parents. A complete family."

"You've painted a very nice picture my darling. But I am not complete. I can't give you what you deserve." He feels guilty about this. He does not want to take physical love from Mary. It is so important and he knows how much she enjoys it. He enjoys it, or rather enjoyed too. And his inability

"Matthew, stop thinking that you won't be able to," she looks around herself now, leans closer to him and whispers in his ear "satisfy me anymore. We both know very well that there is more than one way." This makes him laugh. He hasn't accepted his fate yet and he knows that it will take quite a while for him to do so, maybe he will never be able to accept it, but Mary's insistence on his fate not ruining their marriage has made his very heavy burden just a little lighter.

"I love you Mary."

"Good. You are my husband. You have to love me." This makes him laugh even more. He doesn't know how she does it, but she makes his world a brighter place.

* * *

_Edith_

She has to sit down. This man is supposed to be Patrick Crawley? The Patrick Crawley she was so in love with? The Patrick Crawley she thought she could have made fall in love with her if Mary had kept being so reluctant about the engagement?

"Edith? Are you alright?" He is concerned about her. He is actually concerned about her. Oh what a wonderful feeling. But she has to be careful.

"Forgive me. But this is rather ... overwhelming. We thought Patrick Crawley was dead. That he died on the Titanic." The man opposite her nods in reply and then begins to tell her a plausible story about having lost his memory but having been saved and then his memory returning after some traumatic experience in the war. She wants to believe it, she thinks it is a very believable story, but there is a small voice inside her head, one that ironically sounds like Mary, that says "be careful with your heart."

"Well," she says. "We have a lot to catch up on then." They talk about her, their family, for what feels like hours and she becomes more convinced of Patrick actually being Patrick by the minute. He remembers things about their childhood, remembers Christmases spent at Downton, remembers parties at the pond and her pony. Her lovely pony who died when she was fourteen. The thought almost makes her cry. He even remembers their governess 'Fräulein Kelder'. He can't remember the name, but he remembers her nastiness and how they used to hide from her. When she looks at the clock on the mantelpiece she realizes that they have talked for more than three hours. Never has any man spent that much time talking to her. Except for Anthony. She forgot all about Anthony for a few hours. But Anthony does not want to marry her. He is still stalling although both her father and Matthew have returned safely, her father even soundly. She eventually has to leave, she is responsible for the well-being of so many other patients and when she makes to leave, Patrick takes her hand and says

"I know you remember me. And I know that it was you who loved me and not Mary. And I would have made you the future Countess of Grantham. And I am still unmarried." Countess of Grantham. Her. Only that Patrick could not make her the future Countess of Grantham anymore. That will be the woman that Nicholas will eventually marry.

"I wish," but she can't finish the sentence. Because she does not wish to be her mother's successor anymore, Nicholas is the heir now and she loves her little brother to pieces and she is already looking forward to meeting his future wife. In about twenty years in the future. And she does not mention this to Patrick. She doesn't know why, but somehow she does not dare to tell him that her parents have a son now.

She keeps on working and eventually she can't avoid seeing Anthony anymore. She does not know what to do, she loves Anthony but she loved Patrick first and if Patrick really was genuine then she would probably chose him. Because he wants to marry her.

"Edith? What are you thinking about?" She can't lie to Anthony, she does not have the heart to do it, so she tells him about Patrick. All of it. How jealous she was of Mary, how much she hoped that Patrick would realize that Mary did not love him but that she did, that she would have been the right woman for him, no matter how much their fathers wanted Mary and Patrick to marry. How she was sure that in the end at least her parents wouldn't have minded had it been her who saved the estate, how she had been sure that they would have recognized her for what she is then, how sad she was when her father told her that Patrick was dead, how for once she had been the child closest to her father because he loved Patrick too and how much she hated Mary because of all of it.

"I don't hate Mary anymore. I don't think so. But there you have it, that's the story."

"And now he is here?"

"Yes. Or at least this man claims to be him."

"What did he say when you told him about your brother?" She then tells Anthony that she did not mention Nicholas, that she doesn't know why but that it would have felt wrong.

"Suppose he really was Patrick Crawley. Do you still love him?"

She has to be honest now, she won't string Anthony along the way Mary strung Patrick along.

"I don't know, but I think so."

"Then if he turns out to be genuine, marry him. Be happy, Edith. It is better for you in any case to marry someone young." This drives tears into her eyes and lets a cold shiver run down her back. And it confuses her. Anthony's willingness to give her up, the sacrifice of his own happiness for her makes her love him more. Or maybe it is just the gallant and easy way out for him. He does not want to marry after all, she knows that well enough.


	28. November 1917 II

_Robert_

Patrick Crawley still alive. He can't believe it. They have thought him dead for five and a half years. He mourned the boy and his father, he was mad at and disappointed in Mary for not really caring about Patrick's death. And he felt so sorry for Edith. And now this. Alleged memory loss and return of the memory caused by a traumatic experience. He asked Richard about it and Richard said that while it was unlikely, it wasn't unheard of. But why did Patrick not contact them any earlier? Mary said she found it rather 'fishy' that a man with a face burned beyond recognition now claims to be Patrick Crawley and he can't help but agree with his eldest daughter. Eldest child. According to Edith, this Patrick does not know anything about Nicholas yet and he has decided that it will stay that way for some time. He made Edith swear to him not to mention Nicholas. He is scared for his daughter too. She gives her heart away too easily and Anthony is stalling and now she thinks that she found her first love again, a man who had only ever been interested in her older sister, whom she had loved regardless and who now has apparently already hinted at wanting to marry her.

He sits down next to the man's bed after all the other patients have left the room.

"Major Gordon," he can't call him Patrick, he just can't.

"Robert." The man says his name a bit like Cora does, but not exactly the same way. But then he has lived in Canada and not in New York. But why would he speak with a North American accent in any case? Cora has been living in England for almost three decades now, more than half her life, and she still sounds distinctly American. She sometimes say 'bloody hell', but it sounds American when she says it and he loves it when she says very English things in that American accent of hers. But this is not about the many lovely qualities of his darling wife, but about a man who claims to be his cousin.

"Lord Grantham, please. Or Major Crawley. Until we know more."

He talks to Major Gordon for a while and although the man does seem a little familiar, he can't believe him to be Patrick. Mary, Cora and his mother have all told him that they believe that this Major Gordon saw the silver lining in the horror that he's been put through, is still going through, and that that silver lining was a major inheritance. A huge estate and a title. And he knows that Patrick had a friend named Peter Gordon, Murray has told him as much. A friend who emigrated to Canada. A friend who might have made use of his ability to speak in a North American accent to hide the fact that he does not speak like Patrick Crawley. And the man talks about the estate and being the heir quite a lot. Too much for his liking. Far too much for his liking. This does not sit right with him.

So he says goodbye to Major Gordon who claims to be Patrick Crawley and goes in search of Matthew, because he needs help with this. Murray is a good, probably even an excellent lawyer and he trusts him with quite a lot, but he trusts Matthew with more than that.

He finds his son-in-law, a man he thinks of as his son, a sentiment he has never felt towards Patrick, outside on the terrace at the far side of the house, despite the cold. He sits down on a chair next to him.

"Matthew," he says and Matthew looks at him, thoroughly defeated, so defeated that he can't help but put a hand on the boy's shoulder and squeeze it.

"Robert," Matthew says and the tone the boy uses shows him that Mathew must be plagued by insecurities.

"Mary never loved Patrick."

"I know, she told me."

"Good. Matthew, I would like your help. Even if he wouldn't be the heir anymore, we still need to find out if this man really is who he claims to be."

"Because of the succession should Nicholas never have son."

"Yes."

"I can't help you with that." Matthew now looks like a small child, in fact he pouts the way that Nicholas pouts when he is told that he has to go to bed although he wants to stay up. Matthew and Nicholas do not look alike, not at all, but there are some similarities and they usually make him laugh. But not now.

"Matthew, of course you can. You are a very good lawyer and I'd trust you with my life and I trust you with the estate."

"I am no use to anyone."

"That is the dumbest thing you have ever said in your life. And quite unlike anything a son of mine would ever say." Matthew looks into his eyes now and there is a mixture of jealousy and relief in them.

"Was Patrick Crawley ever a son of yours?"

"No. I was fond of him, maybe I even loved him, but not the way that I love you." He realizes what he said only afterwards, when he sees Matthew nod but he does not regret saying it.

"Thank you."

"So will you help me, please?"

"I'll try. But I can't concentrate very well yet. But I'll do my best."

"Good. That is all I can ask. And I am very proud of you for doing it. This can't be easy for you." He realizes that he has never told Matthew that he is proud of him before. But he is very proud of him. Matthew has made quite a transition without losing himself. And he is such a good husband and father. The boy now smiles a faint smile at him and says

"No, it isn't easy. But thank you."

He decides that now is as good a time as ever to talk to Matthew about something else.

"Matthew, I would like you to take over the legal and parts of the financial control over the estate. Once you are healthy again of course. Take your time to get well again."

"What? Robert, no. Murray,"

"I want you to replace Murray. I trust him, he has done his job well, but you'd do it better. You know this estate, you don't treat me like a child, you say it outright if you think that I am making a mistake. And we work together very well."

"If Major Gordon turned out to be Patrick Crawley and he married Edith, what role would he play in the running of the estate?"

"None whatsoever."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I am." With that he gets up, gives Matthew a pat on the shoulder and leaves.

He is absolutely sure about Patrick not playing any role when it comes to managing the estate. They may eventually need a new land agent but he has already decided to offer that job to the chauffeur who according to Cora will become their son-in-law sooner or later. He usually has Branson drive him to York, which is completely unnecessary because he could just drive himself, but he wants to get to know the man who stole his daughter's heart and to his own surprise, he has come to the conclusion that Tom Branson is a very good man who only has Sybil's best interests at heart and who used to live and work on a farm and who seems to be interested in farming and knows rather a lot about it. And he can't let his daughter marry a chauffeur. But he could let her marry the land agent of his estate. And Tom, like Matthew and unlike Jarvis and Murray, does not treat him like a child. He is so lost in his thoughts that he actually walks into the man he has just been thinking about.

"Oh hello Tom. I am sorry, I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking."

* * *

_Tom_

Tom. The Earl of Grantham just called him Tom. His very first thought is that the Earl wants to belittle him, to make fun of him, to treat him like a footman. But he dismisses that thought. He drives the Earl to York at least twice a week, although the Earl could just drive himself and he knows why. The Earl knows about him and Sybil. And Sybil's father has asked him quite a lot of questions and he answered them and they have actually had some real conversations.

When he tells Sybil about her father calling him Tom, her face lights up like a Christmas tree.

"Mama must have told him. And if he keeps talking to you, that must mean that he is not completely against it."

"And why should he be against it?" He knows it was a stupid questions but this whole social system with its focus on classes is stupid too.

"Because it is not what he wants for his daughter. We might have a daughter eventually and you'll only want what you think is best for her. My Papa loves me very much." The way she said it, referring to her father as 'my Papa' almost makes him cry. He knows that is even more stupid than the question he just asked her, but the way Sybil said it makes him realize that she is right. He would only want what he deems best for his own daughter. For their daughter. And the earl does make an effort, probably for Sybil's sake. And her father is a nice man. Not condescending, at least not anymore.

"I think the war and his captivity changed my father. Being stuck in that prison cell for almost six months has let him to think class less important. But it is still very present in his world." He supposes Sybil is right. Should Sybil and he really marry and should he ever be on friendly terms with Sybil's father, he will ask him about his time in prison. The man probably won't say anything, but he will ask.

"Sybil, darling, I think we should make our engagement official."

"Yes. Mama and Mary know anyway and it seems as if my mother has told my father, which really is not a surprise, and my granny has a suspicion. So we might as well just make an announcement."

"That is a good idea. Tom, come before dinner. You can have something to eat then." He looks up and directly into the face of Sybil's father who must have walked into the garage at some point. But Sybil and he were so engrossed by one another that they did not notice the earl.

"What?"

"Come before dinner. Please. Make your announcement then and then can stay for dinner."

"To eat with you?" He cannot believe this. While he had been sure that the earl liked him and did not think him a horrible person, he would not have expected to be invited to dinner.

"Yes."

"I don't have a dinner jacket."

"Wear one of Matthew's. Go upstairs and I'll send Bates and Moseley. They'll be able to sort it out between them."

"I am the chauffeur."

"Not anymore. That is why I am here."

"You are giving me my notice."

"In a manner of speaking. I can't let my daughter marry the chauffeur. I just can't. But I do have an offer for you." Sybil's father looks like a boy on Christmas morning now and he wonders what the man is up to.

"I am all ears." He could kick himself, he should not talk like this to the Earl of Grantham or his future father-in-law, but for some reason the earl laughs about this.

"I have asked Matthew to take over the legal and some of the financial control of the estate. I just don't have the time to do it all and I trust Matthew more than Murray anyway. But Matthew knows next to nothing about farming, even less than me. And Jarvis won't be willing to really help. He is my father's man, he won't help Matthew. So I'd like to ask you to help Matthew. First as his assistant and then later on help us both as the land agent. Because I am going to let Jarvis go. But not before the end of the war." He is stunned and speechless. And scared.

"I am not able to do this."

"You are. Matthew and you, you will do well together."

"What if I don't want to do this?" He knows he sounds like an insolent child, but Sybil's father has just assumed that they would want to stay at Downton. What if that is not what they want? What if he wants to go back to Dublin?

"Why would you not want to do this?"

"Because I'd be working for a system I don't believe in."

"That's what you do now."

"Yes, but now I am a servant. If I accepted your offer, I'd agree with the system, wouldn't I?" The Earl looks flabbergasted now, as if he had never thought about this way. Which he probably hasn't.

"Think about it Tom. And talk to Sybil about what she wants."

He looks at Sybil who only gives a non-committal shrug. He is afraid that this is exactly what Sybil wants. She loves her family and ever since her brother has been born, she has had a lot more freedom than she used to have and she might want to stay. She might see this as a real opportunity for them. And he doesn't know whether he sees this the same way. He wants to rebel, he is a socialist, but he loves Sybil above everything. Maybe he should talk to Matthew.

"So I'll see you in the drawing room before dinner?"

"Yes, Papa," Sybil says, apparently for both of them.

* * *

_Violet_

"Robert!" She has shouted her son's name and she knows it. But she is mad at him. She cannot believe what happened before dinner. Sybil engaged to the chauffeur and Robert inviting him to stay for dinner. And allowing him to have dinner in a dinner jacket. What has the world come to? Dinner is just over and by just throwing him a dirty look, she made Matthew say he'd leave the dining room with the ladies and for some reason the chauffer bolted after him and asked him for a game of billiards. Matthew protested that he could not play billiard, seeing as he couldn't even stand up, but Branson said that Matthew should just give it a shot. She is sure that the chauffeur and the lawyer have some private, hideous matter to discuss. But is does not matter to her, as long as she has got her son for herself for a few minutes. He won't be willing to talk to her for a very long time. Except for about two weeks a while back, all that business with Robert having been a prisoner of war have made Cora and him rather clingy to each other. Which is the reason why the boy sometimes leaves York at 9 pm only to leave Downton again and 5:30 am to be back in York on time.

"Mama, don't say it. I have made my decision. I will accept Tom. He is a nice young man, I have plans for him, plans that Matthew has agreed with and is willing to talk to him about."

"I suppose those plans include Sybil and that chauffeur staying here."

"Yes. And don't talk about him so condescendingly. You like him, you told me once."

"I also told Sybil to fall out of love with him."

"How is she supposed to do that? You can't fall out of love with someone on purpose."

"I wouldn't know. I married the right person."

"You loved him too." Robert now smirks at her and looks exactly like his father. She misses Patrick so very much. She wishes he was here. She wonders what he would say about Sybil marrying the chauffeur, about Robert agreeing to this. But she can't say any of this to Robert.

"Well." That is as far as she will go.

"So you understand the power of love." It breaks her heart. Patrick would have said the exact same thing. Isobel once told her that it sometimes made her sad that Matthew was so little like his father but in moments like this, she envies her cousin.

"But the chauffeur? Think of the scandal." She has to fight with him or he'll see that he has brought her close to tears.

"It won't be any worse than the scandal of me marrying an American."

"Oh it will be much worse. She at least had money. People could understand the reason."

"And you don't think that during a time of war they will understand love as a reason for getting married?"

"They'll be glad to have something to talk about besides the war."

"Then we should be happy that we have brought some happiness into those gloomy days." She doesn't know what to say. It doesn't happen often, and when it does it usually happens when she is alone with Robert, but sometimes he is so much like his father that she has to pinch herself, that she has to tell herself that it is Robert in front of her, that she hasn't gone back in time 27 years and that it is Patrick who is talking to her. Patrick who married her although most of society and especially his parents deemed her unsuitable for him, Patrick who told her to accept Cora.

"Maybe you are right. Maybe we have to let him in. If we never let any outsider into our family, we wouldn't have either Matthew or Cora and that would be a very great loss."

"Thank you Mama. Let's go through." She is thankful that he does not want to say anything else. If there is one thing that Robert has actually gotten from her, then it is his inability to talk about or express his feelings.

* * *

_Edith_

Her father has talked to Patrick several times now and she is sure that Patrick knows everything now. About her father's close relationship to Matthew, about a chauffeur joining the family and about Nicholas. And if not a single of these aspects have made him leave, then she must be the reason he stays. He talks to her every day, he follows her around, they take long walks together, they take the path that her parents often take, that Mary and Matthew take, that Sybil and Tom take. They are taking the path to marriage. She knows that her parents like this particular path so much because her father took her mother along it before he proposed. Her parents are quite the romantics. And finally, finally, she will have that kind of happiness as well. She hasn't talked to Anthony since he told her to accept Patrick. She decided she needed a clean cut. She wrote a letter to him and asked Sybil to deliver it and her darling sister did just that, of course. Anthony told Sybil to wish her good luck. Her chest still constricts when she thinks about him, but Patrick seems so much more willing to actually commit himself to her and she is sure that he will propose now. And so she is not to surprised when he stops her eventually and says

"Edith, there is something I wanted to ask you," and then gets down onto one knee.

"Will you marry me?" He doesn't have a ring, but she says 'yes' nonetheless. Patrick has proposed to her. Not to Mary, but to her.

Patrick now takes her by the hand and gives her a tentative kiss on the lips. Oh if Mary could only see this. Then she realizes that Mary won't care, her sister is happily married after all, that Mary has in fact warned her several times, but what does her sister know about being in love with Patrick Crawley? Nothing.

She takes him along to family tea, the chauffeur, Tom she reminds herself, she likes him and he loves Sybil, so she should do him the curtsey of calling him by his first name, is there every day as well, after all. He is always cooped up with Matthew anyway, the two have become as thick as thieves, they are doing something for her father, something about the estate and she hopes that her father will include Patrick in this as well. Her father is home today, it is Saturday after all and he comes home on most weekends. So Patrick and she can officially announce their engagement.

"Let's announce it after tea," Patrick says to her. She nods. He surely wants to do it after tea so that Nicholas, George and Josephine will all be there as well. They are part of their family after all.

Her father raises his eyebrows when she brings Patrick with her, but doesn't say anything. He still calls him Major Gordon, as do the rest of the family, but she is sure that once the engagement has been announced that will change. She sits down next to Patrick and nods at Patrick when the children are brought it. It is about time, once the children have settled down a little. Only a matter of minutes now.

Nicholas runs pell-mell towards their father, waving some sort of toy and screaming "Papa, look," at the top of his voice. Their ever indulgent father catches his youngest child and puts him on his lap.

"Nicholas," he says slightly exasperatedly, but in fact also rather proudly. Their mother is laughing about Nicholas' antics and she herself looks at Patrick to grin at him, to tell him 'that is coming our way' but what she sees is Patrick leaving the room without looking at anyone.


	29. December 1917

AN: As always, thank you for all the lovely reviews! They make my day!

Let me know what you think about this chapter, please.

Kat

* * *

_Tom_

"I think we are done for today."

"Yes." Matthew looks as relieved as he feels. They work well together, but Matthew still has problems to concentrate, which is not a surprise and to him it is all still a bit a much. A few weeks ago he was the chauffeur, now he is responsible for what feels like the whole estate. But he is thankful to Sybil's father for giving him this opportunity. He knows the man did this because he wants Sybil to stay at Downton and Tom still doesn't know whether he wants this, he thinks he doesn't, but it is what Sybil wants right now and he'd do just about everything for her. He was more than a little surprised when Sybil told him to take her father up on his offer.

"But I thought you wanted to leave all of this behind?"

"I do, I think. But not as long as there is a war going on."

"But your father and Matthew returned safely."

"Yes. But the war isn't over and I am still needed here. So I'd like to stay. Please Tom, try to understand." She looked at him with such loving eyes then that he couldn't resist. And he does understand. He wants to go it Ireland to help, she wants to be at Downton to help. One of them had to give in to the other. But she promised they'd go to Ireland after the war so he gave in to her for the time being.

"And Tom, if you help Papa now, you'll be in his good books. And that is what I want. I don't want to rip the family apart. I want our children to know my parents." That he understood too. There was a time when this would have been a deal breaker for him, but he saw Sybil suffer when she had no idea where her father was and it broke his heart to see her suffer so much. That was when he realized that Sybil really does not want to break with her family, that she wants the family to accept her choice. And if he is honest with himself, then he knows that he wants his mother to accept Sybil just as much as she wants her parents to accept him. And while this is not the ideal way to go in his opinion, it is a very good way to go. And he genuinely likes Matthew, who has turned into a friend and he is helping Matthew cope with his fate. Mary told him so a few days ago. She took him aside and said "Thank you Tom, so much, for helping Matthew. He doesn't feel useless anymore and he has finally found friend his age. He couldn't do what he does without your help and if there is ever anything I could do for you, then please let me know." He smiled at Mary then and realized that at least Matthew and Mary have both accepted him for what he is.

..

"I'll ring for Bates then, I have to rest, I think."

"All right. Should I tell Lady Mary?"

"Mary. Yes. Do tell her when you see her." So he goes in search of Lady Mary, Mary. He has to get used to calling her Mary. Both Edith and Mary insist on him calling them by their first names only, just as Matthew does. Sybil's parents haven't said anything on that matter so far and Sybil told him to just call them Lord and Lady Grantham. It feels strange to him to not call them your ladyship and your lordship anymore, but as Lord Grantham has said repeatedly, he is not their servant anymore.

"Mr. Branson."

"Major Gordon." He is slightly wary of the man, they can't really be sure who he is after all. Especially not after his performance in the library.

"Would you care to walk with me?" He doesn't know why not, so he asks a passing maid to tell Mary about Matthew and then joins Major Gordon. The man talks about trifles and how much he enjoyed growing up at Downton.

"Would you mind if I asked you something?"

"No, of course not."

"The children, whose are they?" He is a little surprised by the question because he'd have thought that Edith would have told him all about her brother, nephew and niece.

"George and Josephine are the children of Lady Mary and Mr. Crawley, Lord Downton is of course" Major Gordon stops in his tracks.

"So that boy really is Robert's son?" What sort of question is that? Nicholas, he just can't think of that sweet little boy as Lord Downton, ran towards Lord Grantham yelling "Papa" at the top of his voice. Nothing could have been more obvious.

"Of course he is."

"Who is the child's mother?" Maybe there is something that could have been more obvious than Nicholas being Lord Grantham's son. Knowing that Nicholas is Lord Grantham's son, who else but Lady Grantham should be the mother?

"Considering how well you claim to know the family, you seem to know very little about them."

"I've been away for years."

"Lady Grantham is Lord Downton's mother. Who else should the mother be?"

"And everyone is sure that Robert is the father?" Now he is the one to stop in his tracks.

"Of course he is the father. They would never cheat on one another." They wouldn't. He knows that and not just because he has heard others, in particular Sybil, talk about the great love between the Earl and Countess. He used to drive them around, sometimes after parties, late at night when they feel quite unobserved. They tend to cuddle up in the back seat of the car and talk about rather private matters and more often than not, those talks are interrupted by kisses. They have never done anything indecent in the back of the car, but the love between them has always been obvious to him.

"Thank you." Major Gordon turns around and leaves.

* * *

_Anthony Strallan_

He hears a woman cry and he knows that it is her, so he walks into the family library. And there she is, slumped down on one of the sofas, her head in her hands, violent sobs shaking through her body. And his heart breaks for her. He should have fought for her. Seeing her fall for Major Gordon who claimed to be Patrick Crawley almost drove him mad, he tried to talk Dr. Clarkson into letting him go home, but the doctor wouldn't budge. And now here she is crying and here he is watching her. He sits down on her right so that he can put his good arm around her shoulder.

"Edith," he says and she looks up at him. She just stares at him but doesn't say a thing. So he pulls her closer to him and lets her cry for what feels like hours.

Her closeness to him is driving him mad, he wants to kiss her and do other things with her but of course that is out of the question. He could not even support his own weight. Although he is sure that there are other … positions … but in his first marriage. He stops himself from thinking about his first wife. He did love Maude, maybe not always in the way that one is supposed to love a wife, he loved her like a good friend, but his love for Edith is different. She stirs desires in him he thought he'd never feel. But of course he can't have her. He is too old for her, that hasn't changed and she did accept another man's proposal, although he thinks that he was the one who pushed he to do so. In fact he is the one who caused her to be so miserable.

He should never have come back after that fateful dinner in 1914. He got what he wanted, at least more or less. The Countess of Grantham who had been the object of his not really affection but interest, had talked to him for a quite a while and that was all he was ever going to get, that was all he ever wanted. Robert is his friend and Cora in love with Robert and that was all there was to it. But somehow Edith had entered his mind and heart and not left and he couldn't stop thinking about her. He went to war to stop it. His motives weren't as honorable as Robert's or Matthew's, he just wanted to get away from Edith, from that huge mistake that was looming over him. Although deep down in his heart he knows that this is not completely true, he wanted to defend his country too. But wanting to forget about Edith was on the forefront of his mind. And that did not work. Not at all.

Edith has calmed herself to hiccups now and he begins to stroke her back. He feels so sorry for her and he wishes there was anything he could do.

"He didn't want me, you know? He ran off as soon as he knew that Nicholas was the heir and not him. That's what Tom said. And why would Tom lie about something like that?"

"I don't think Tom lied. Was he really Patrick Crawley though?"

"We don't know. We'll never know. But whoever he was, he only wanted me as long as he thought that he was the heir." He thinks that that means that it was not Patrick Crawley, that this Major Gordon wanted to use Edith to be accepted by the family, but he does not have the heart to tell the love his life that.

"I shouldn't have pushed you towards him. It is my fault."

"What?"

"If I hadn't pushed you, you would not be so unhappy now. I could have spared you that pain."

"Oh don't worry Anthony, I am used to falling for men who don't love me." This hurts him quite a lot. Because it means that she has been in love with other men. Of course he knew that. He knew about Patrick and he also knows that Edith at least had a crush on Matthew. But more than that, it hurts him because she apparently thinks that he never loved her.

"Edith, I do love you."

"Then marry me."

"No."

"Why?" He hates that she always starts the old argument again.

"You know why. I am too old and I am a cripple."

"Matthew will never walk again, Mary and he will never be lovers again. And yet Mary is devoted to him, stands by his side, will never leave him. Although Matthew offered a divorce, for all the wrong reasons of course." He feels a pang of sadness for Matthew, that nice young man. He should have a realized what Matthew injury means, how ghastly the consequences of Matthew's injury are and what that must mean for Lady Mary. And still she stands by him, has never wavered in her devotion to her husband. And if aloof Lady Mary can do that, shouldn't he trust her much more warm-hearted sister to do the same? He knows he could trust Edith, but it does not solve the problem of him being too old for her.

"Matthew and Mary are more or less the same age. I am older than your father." Edith now screws up her face.

"Anthony, you are right. You are the reason for my misery. I have been telling you that I love you and that I don't care about any of your stupid reasons for not wanting to marry me. If you weren't so stubborn and stupid, I would have been happy years ago." She gets up and starts to leave, but he gets up too and pulls at her hand, pulls her close to him and kisses her. She kisses him back without question. He doesn't know why he is doing this, but he needs this and he knows that she needs it too.

"Edith, I,"

"Let's get married. Please."

"Yes." He should not have said that but he couldn't stop himself and when he feels her kiss him again, he knows deep in his heart that it was the right decision.

* * *

_Tom_

He gets up when the music begins and briefly looks at Matthew who smiles a reassuring smile at him. He has never felt so uncomfortable in his life. Sybil and Matthew talked him into wearing a morning coat and he wishes he hadn't listened to them. But Sybil wanted him to do so and Matthew told him it would make things easier and so he did what they asked. He then turns around and watches Sybil being walked down the aisle by her father. He focuses on her and forgets all about being uncomfortable in his morning coat. She smiles a brilliant smile at him and it calms him down. The ceremony washes over him, he doesn't take any of it in and that suddenly makes it very easy for him to accept that this is not a catholic ceremony. He knows he said 'I do' at the right moment because eventually Sybil and he are pronounced husband and wife. They leave the church together and he sees Sybil's mother smile at them and Carson looking somehow disgruntled. Apparently this marriage is easier to accept for the family than for the servants, but he couldn't care less about it, not right now.

He helps Sybil to get into the car that will take them back to Downton Abbey.

"Are you happy?" she asks him and he wonders if she is serious.

"Of course I am happy."

"Good. I know this is not the wedding you wanted."

"It is the wedding you wanted and we are at war, so I can accept this. And making you happy is what is most important to me." It is. Making Sybil happy has become more important to him than to rebel against the systems. He still does not approve of the aristocracy, he still wants them to live a much, much simpler live but that is not what is most important to him anymore. Sybil gives him a kiss for his answer, and that is all the thanks he will ever need.

The reception is very simple, held in the ballroom of the Abbey, attended by family, staff and soldiers but Tom does not take in much of the reception either. At the end of it, Dr. Clarkson, whom he supposes he should call Richard now and Matthew's mother announce that they will sleep at the Abbey and leave Crawley House to Sybil and him for the night. He briefly wonders why it is still called Crawley House and thinks about asking Isobel about it but as if she could read his mind, Sybil shakes her head.

Once they are in the guest room at Crawley House and have both changed out of their wedding clothes, he pulls Sybil, his wife, close to him and kisses her very gently. She molds herself into his body rather eagerly and he thinks that quite possibly, Sybil will take the lead in many things in their marriage. And that's what he loves about her.

"Are you sure you are ready?" he asks her and looks into her stunningly blue eyes.

"Tom, of course I am ready for this. It was you who wanted to wait until tonight, not me." He can't help but chuckle. Sybil has been trying to get him to sleep with her for three weeks but he refused her. She had a string of arguments, most of them involving the words 'test run' and he is sure that Mary was not blameless in this. But he is a catholic and there apparently are a few things that he is more conservative about than Sybil.

They return to the Abbey late afternoon the next day and Matthew grins at him and asks him how much of an eye opener the wedding night was. He bursts into loud laughter and so does Matthew and he thinks that this might very well be the first time since his injury that Matthew laughed like that. Mary's reaction to this certainly indicates that.

But when he dresses for dinner in his black trousers and dinner jacket, the nagging feeling of having married the right woman but into the wrong family returns. This feeling intensifies when he enters the small library, where the family now gathers before dinner due to the fact that they don't have a drawing room anymore. He watches Sybil talk to her sisters and Matthew talk to Sybil's father and he realizes that he does not belong to this family, he does not belong to that kind of life.

"You feel as if you didn't belong." He looks to his right and sees that his mother-in-law is standing next to him.

"No. Please don't be offended but," he doesn't know how to go on.

"I am not offended Tom. I know how you feel. I thought I had come to a different planet when I married into this family." She may have felt like that, but it was still different for her. She was a member of the right social sphere and she wanted this kind of life.

"Maybe," he says because he does not want to fight with the Countess of Grantham right now.

"I thought I was not made for this kind of life. In a way I sometimes still think that. But I let Robert help me adjust and he turned this life, our life, into a fairytale for me. Most parts of it in any case. Not the war or our fights, but most other things."

"Maybe" he says again because they are not in the same situation and this will never be a fairytale for him. This is a living nightmare. He is against the aristocracy, he wants to abolish it, he has thought about destroying private property, but yet he is about to have dinner with exactly those people.

"Let Sybil guide you. Trust her. And give us a chance. Please."

"I want to go to Ireland. That is where I belong."

"I know. And you will go there. Sybil has her mind set on that, regardless of how much Robert tries to ignore that. But don't push her until the war is over." He doesn't know what to say and so he just stares at his mother-in-law, who is then called by her husband.

"Keep in mind what I said," she says to him, squeezes his arm very lightly the same way she does with Matthew, and then walks over to her husband who gives her a kiss on the cheek for no apparent reason.

* * *

_Robert_

"Hm." That is all he has got say. Edith has just told him that she will get married to Anthony Strallan and that they won't wait until the end of the war. He does not agree with this, not at all. He wasn't thrilled about Sybil's choice of husband, but at least Tom has a fully functioning body and is only seven years older than Sybil. But Anthony Strallan is not fully functioning and older than, he does not even want to think about.

"Aren't you happy for me Papa?"

"I am happy if you are happy. But are you sure that Anthony is the right man for you?" Edith' face turns read and he is painfully reminded of the little girl he falsely accused of having drawn on the tapestry in his bedroom.

"Why can Sybil marry the chauffeur and plan a move to Dublin without you fighting it for a second but if I want to marry a gentleman from this county you huff and puff?" He doesn't know how to explain this. He wishes Cora was there, she would be able to deal with this much better.

"Anthony is too old for you. Don't think that I don't like him, he is a good man, but,"

"But what Papa?"

"He can't use his right arm anymore."

"Matthew can't use his body from the waist down anymore. Are you going to make Mary divorce him just because he is injured?"

"You'll be nursemaid for the rest of Anthony's life."

"I will be much less of a nursemaid than Mary." That of course is true. But still. He can't in all good conscience give Edith his blessing.

"Edith, you want to marry a disabled man. A man older than your own father. I don't really feel old, but I am not young anymore. I don't think I am too old to take care of Nicholas, but it was a very close call. And your mother and I won't have any more children, we can be sure of that. But you will be able to have children for 15 or more likely 20 years to come. Imagine you had a child in 10 years' time." He knows Edith is about to explode but he has to make her understand the consequences of what she is doing.

"That would be great. But we will have children before that and,"

"Anthony has never taken care of a baby. It is hard enough doing it for the first time when you are young."

"But I am young."

"Yes, my darling child, you are. But he is not."

"I don't care." Edith voice has gone shrill and he is afraid that they can be heard in the other part of the library.

"Edith, child, calm down. And listen to me. That is all I ask. Just listen to me."

"Whatever you have to say, it won't make me change my mind."

"If that is truly the case then so be it. But listen. Anthony is a very nice man, I don't doubt it. And you are a wonderful young woman. And if Anthony was more or less your age, I'd be thrilled about you marrying him. But he is older than you, much older than you. He is too old, or almost too old, to become the father of a baby. He can't use his right arm. And Edith, I know this sounds harsh, but he will die decades before you do. He will turn you into a widow far too early."

"But before that happens we will have decades of a happy marriage. Just like Mama and you."

"Edith"

"You are happy, aren't you?"

"Very happy. But your mother and I have been together for a long time and if you age together than that is different and," Edith shake her head vehemently and there are tears running down her face.

"Papa," she chokes out and he feels so sorry for her that he puts his arms around her and pets her head like he used to do when she was still small. "Please Papa, I won't change my mind. But I don't want to fight with you. Because I love you." He has to swallow hard once and then takes his daughter's face between his hands.

"I'll give you my blessings. If you are that steadfast then that is the only thing that remains for me to do."

"And you will walk me down the aisle?"

"Of course."

"Thank you." His daughter kisses him on the cheek and then leaves. He hopes he has made the right decision, but he is sure that he would not have been able to change her mind. And neither would Cora have been.


End file.

Downton Abbey, Family, Hurt-Comfort