This story combines two very similar anon prompts:

• I don't know how this would work, but it would be great to see Tom's mam visit from Ireland when Sybil has a baby, and Cora gets a little jealous at how well her and Sybil get along. I think watching someone else "mother" her daughter would make her want that relationship with them.

• I noticed you were taking prompts so I hope you do not mind me messaging you with mine.I would really like to read a story where Tom's mam and younger sister visit Downton just after Sybbie is born. His mam is embarrassed about the way Tom left Sybil behind (I see her giving him a clip round the ear.) Tom's sister is in awe of everything at Downton, and her mam made sure she packed her Sunday best, so she had something nice to wear at dinner. I'd also like to see Robert & Cora realizing that Tom's family are actually nice people and that they may be poor, but they have more in common than they think.

This is canon through 3x05, which is when it takes place. Tom's mom (Aileen) and his youngest sister (Caitlin) have arrived at Downton the morning that Sybil goes into labor (so after Dr. Clarkson was called in the middle of the night). Aileen has experience delivering babies, which is the reason that Tom and Sybil invited her to come be with Sybil close to the birth, but obviously we know Robert had other ideas. There won't be eclampsia/toxemia in this story, but there will be complications of another sort. I am not a midwife or a birthing expert by any stretch, so I apologize if there is anything obviously and glaringly wrong with how I've described things. This comes from fairly basic internet research and personal experience, and as always, it's meant all in good fun.

I started writing this as a one-shot, but since it's going to be long, I've decided to break it up and post it in smaller chunks in quick succession, so you'll see several updates (likely no more than 4-5) throughout this week.

Thanks and enjoy!

Matthew couldn't help but smirk as he watched Tom pace back and forth across the train station platform.

"You seem more nervous now than you did this morning when Dr. Clarkson was called," Matthew said, with a chuckle.

Tom stopped short. "What?"

Matthew laughed in earnest. "I'm wondering if it's impending fatherhood or your mother coming to visit that has you is such a state."

"Both," Tom said with a sigh.

"Well, it'll be nice that she's here to share in the joy of the birth," Matthew said.

Tom couldn't help but laugh to himself. "Not sure how Lord Grantham will feel about that."

Matthew's brow furrowed. "I know how Robert can be, but even he's not so unreasonable as to snub your mother on such an occasion."

Tom scratched his head. "Oh, I don't mean that he'll turn her out . . . she . . . well, she'll want to help with the birth. That's why we've asked her to come now, actually . . . to help see Sybil through it."

Matthew's eyebrows shot up. "Really?"

Tom nodded. "Only, Sybil thought it would be another week yet when we made the invitation. So we assumed she'd be here long enough for us to broach the topic with Robert and Cora and get them used to the idea of how we wanted it all to happen. But now Robert's gone and declared Dr. Clarkson unfit for the job and invited whomever it is from London, what do you suppose he's going to say of a working class Irishwoman with no title or medical degree?"

In the distance, the coming train began to make itself heard, its loud whistle declaring its arrival to everyone at the station—and a mile or two beyond.

"Well," Matthew said, raising his voice to be heard over the commotion, "no time like the present to find out."

The brothers-in-law waited for several minutes as train pulled in and the handful of passengers getting off at Downton Station began filing out. Tom did his best to look over the heads of the people on the platform, even while knowing it to be a futile effort until they had dispersed a bit. Aileen Branson was not five feet tall, and though her strong character could easily fill up a room, she was difficult to spot in a crowd. In fact, it wasn't Aileen whom Tom saw first. To his surprise, Caitlin, his youngest sister, made herself visible to him by bobbing up and down over the heads of those around her and, after spotting Tom, bounded up and threw her arms around her brother.

"What are you doing here?" Tom asked, looking around for his mother, who still hadn't appeared.

Grinning, Caitlin stepped back and began to look around. At sixteen years of age, she was Aileen and the late Michael Branson's youngest child by seven years, coming along well after they'd stopped believing themselves capable of bearing any more children. Babied by her parents as well as her four older siblings, she'd been protected from the some of the hardest difficulties of working class life and as a result was buoyantly optimistic and disinclined to hold back her curiosity or opinions, which were, on the whole, mostly positive anyway. She'd loved Sybil from the moment they met.

Having never been out of Ireland before, as she spoke now, she barely looked at Tom, instead turning this way and that in an effort to take everything in. "Well, you sent enough for mam to pay for passage in first-class, which is ridiculous since you know she'd never consider such an indulgence. And, believe it or not, the old girl isn't too proud to admit she can use my help. So it was actually rather easy to convince her to use the money for us to both travel in third." Having apparently had her fill her current surroundings, Caitlin finally turned back to her brother and noticed for the first time that he was not alone. "Oh. Hello."

With a sigh, Tom made the introduction. "Matthew, this is my sister, Miss Caitlin Branson. Caitlin, Mr. Crawley is married to Sybil's sister Mary and is heir to Lord Grantham."

Caitlin shook Matthew's hand eagerly. "So pleased to meet you. How funny that my brother used to drive you about and now here we are all good friends."

"Caitlin—" Tom said exasperated lady with a roll.

"Tom never drove me, to be honest, not really," Matthew replied easily. "He was Lord Grantham's chauffeur, not mine."

"So cheeky of him to have gone off and married Sybil, though," Caitlin said with a shrug. "And he likes to call me impertinent."

Matthew couldn't help but smile, already looking forward to how the rest of the Crawleys would react to the apparently rather candid young woman.

"So where have you left her?" Tom asked, still looking around for their mother.

"Arguing with the steward, of course," Caitlin said, "and refusing anyone's help with the luggage."

Tom turned to look toward the door where his sister had stepped out of, and sure enough, there was his mother pulling along the suitcase with an annoyed looking train officer behind her.

He ran over to take the suitcase from her. "Mam, why didn't you take the steward's help?"

"Hello, to you too," she said, setting down the case and pulling her son into a hug. "You know perfectly well those men expect to be compensated for their help, and why bother when I can do it myself."

Tom smiled at his mother's relentless thrift and returned the embrace. "Well, you're here now, so while in the house at least, you'll have to make the best of other people being paid to help you "

Aileen pursed her lips as if to answer how likely that was to happen. She turned after Tom spoke and saw Caitlin approaching behind Tom. Behind her was Matthew, whom Aileen recognized from the photographs that Sybil had brought with her from Downton and left behind in her and Tom's abandoned flat in Dublin.

"Mr. Crawley, I presume?" She said approaching him with a smile.

"It's an honor, Mrs. Branson," Matthew said, bowing slightly before taking her hand. "Welcome to Downton. I hope your journey was not too trying."

Tom smiled and felt grateful to have brought Matthew along. Matthew had settled into life as an aristocrat fairly easily, but such was his easy-going nature that he remained at home among just about everyone. Isobel had a thoughtful heart and was steadfast in her determination to rid the world of its injustices, but like Tom and Sybil, Isobel did not always suffer the niceties of good company all that well. That was Matthew's gift.

"You're very kind to see to our arrival, Mr. Crawley," Aileen said. "And it's so nice to finally meet you. Tom and Sybil both had lovely things to say about you."

"The motor is just this way," Matthew said, signaling to Pratt, who was waiting at the end of the platform, the car a few feet away from him just off the street.

Aileen and Caitlin followed Matthew, and Tom came last with their suitcase. Matthew stepped to the side as Pratt had opened the door for the women to come in first, but instead of climbing in, Aileen stopped to address him directly.

"Are you Mr. Pratt?" She asked. "Tom said so much about how very nice you were to work with. I'm his mother. It's lovely to meet the people who were around him in all the years he was gone from us."

Not used to being spoken to in such a manner by someone who was, for all intents and purposes, family of his employers, a bewildered Pratt looked to Matthew for a second before answering. "Th-thank you, mum."

"I know he likely never paid you such a compliment, and I doubt very much he apologized for leaving you high and dry as he did, but I do appreciate your patience with him," Aileen said with a sigh before stepping into the motor.

Tom rolled his eyes as he set the suitcase in the back, where, once the women and Matthew were in and seated, Pratt joined him to tie it down.

"I'm sorry, old chap," Tom said quietly so that no one else would hear.

"We all do what we have to do, Mr. Branson," Pratt replied, not bothering to look up from his task, but Tom could see something of a smirk on the older man's face that let him know there truly were no hard feelings.

"We really should get a move on," Tom said, as he climbed in. "I'm afraid the baby has already made clear it'll be arriving sooner rather than later. We had to call the village doctor this morning."

Aileen gasped. "Already! Heavens! Well, let's not dally."

And in another minute, they were on their way.

Matthew and Tom were sitting on the bench directly behind Pratt, facing the Aileen and Caitlin, who took the seats looking forward at Matthew's urging to afford them the best view of the house as they approached it. In their travels around the Irish countryside, both Aileen and Caitlin had gotten a distant peek or two at grand country homes, so they weren't expecting to be overawed or intimidated by what they might see. For Aileen in particular, grandiosity on that scale was distasteful and something to be embarrassed by, if the owners had any true Christian sense.

God never grants His blessings so you may show them off.

Those were the words she'd grown up with on her parents small farm, and those were the words she'd inculcated in each of her five children.

But as the motor came through the gates and the house rose up before them (and as Caitlin exclaimed, "Jesus, Mary and Joseph! It's a right castle!") Aileen felt something she wasn't quite expecting to feel: pride. In her son for having made it to such a place on his wits and determination, and in her daughter-in-law for the humility and grace with which she'd left it behind.