This is just a one shot set between 3x5 and 3x6, Sybil was literally my favourite character and I've spent all week mentally writing this until I had to type it up hope its alright. I don't own anything blah blah blah.
"Lets lie back and look at the stars." She had said and her family had looked away there eyes dark with both pain and respect for a dying woman. The delusion a conformation of her insanity, the insanity a conformation of her demise. But they knew nothing of the Sybil Tom knew, running across Irish fields green and violet, her skin white grey in the moonlight. Then falling into the heather the sky and as many possibilities as silver diamonds embedded into its velvet shrug hanging over them. The sky and only the sky; no titles, no class system and no patriarchs standing over them. They were free.
That night she had been conceived he was sure of that- conflicting schedules had kept them apart for the next week and the next time they had enough time in each others company she had looked at him with such shining eyes- but afterwards Sybil had laid across his chest and whispered in his ear "when's all said and done, I want every night to be like tonight even if its just in our minds I always want to be here with you under the stars."
A tear like a pearl rolled down her cheek. After she was gone and a screaming daughter he could barely comprehend was left in her place. The days and the nights merged into each others realms and mixed into one never ending nightmare. At first he simply cried and held his child whispering half reassurances and poetry lines "it'll be alright love." He whispered "Daddy's here." Let's look at the stars. But fatigue could not be held off forever and he was soon led off led off to a nightmare. He woke feeling physically sick and worse so much worse, the knife in the stomach. The grief would never subside or relieve. And at some point hours? Days? Later sleep deprived delusion claimed him and his dreams mixed with reality. Brief flashes, someone was screaming about royalists and the monarchy and someone moaning about harmen trousers and Gretna green. "Tom, Tom? Its ok, it's alright just give her to me she's ok, she's fine." Mathew having to wrestle his daughter off him who he was holding onto much to tight.
For the first dreadful week he slept around the clock sleep was his only solace and it was often kind it took him to her. But morning always came in vengeful cruelty it let him reach for her and his arms close around sheets. Till one morning he woke and there was no torture and no tears. He knew the second he woke she was gone, suddenly it didn't seem to matter she had gone because she had his heart with her. So he'd gone as with her, from now on he'd only be pretending to be alive. A sense of calm washed over him in a eerie fashion. To be alive did not mean he had to live. Tom waited till more grey watery light had seeped through the curtains and then he rose.
A knock at the door announced "Tom it's me, Matthew." "It's not locked" He shoved a foot onto the bed and bend forward to tie a shoelace" Matthew entered, carrying his daughter in the crook of his arm "it's Nanny's half day." Tom nodded and held out his arms, a flush of jealously creeping through him. Mary and Matthew were so natural with his daughter. The wriggly thing in his arms began to wail and he shushed her anxiously rocking her back and forth. "is she ok?" "You should take her downstairs just so you can have breakfast, if you want to stay with her" "Grand" Matthew squeezed Tom's shoulder " Cora wanted to know whether, you'd might like to help interview some of the nurse maids, nanny can't manage on her own, it might give you something to do old chap."
I was meant to really get involved he thought. I was meant to share half the load, changing napkins, cooking dinner, baths not choosing a woman to do it all for us.
No just for me…and I'm not really here. "Yeah well maybe" Matthew made to exist, then changed his mind "when you feel up to it you might want to start planning the christening. Mary mentioned you wanted her to be catholic. I won't lie to you that'll be a hard corner to fight Old boy. But Mary and I will of course back you up." " Oh Lord what's the point!" Matthew froze surprised by the outburst." "Tom?" "Never mind I'll just take her downstairs." He had felt numb after that and the numbness did not surpass he woke every morning with two convictions in mind: One that she was dead, Two that he was as well, it was simple really.
They had let him move her back into his room and her cries stirred him now. He crossed the room to her and kissed her forehead the white tender skin staining pink she gripped his finger with one chubby little hand like she would never let go. It wasn't hope, but it felt like it. Tom whipped the tear away, mornings were always the hardest.
There was a letter waiting by his plate, no one wrote to him about her the aftermath of her death was a bitter parody he was not a member of the household but more of a subject. They wrote to her parents, sister and even Matthew instead, full of things to make them smile and one stark proper condolence crammed in for him at the end. They wrote things they thought they'd like to hear, they didn't know Sybil lets lie back and look at the stars. Not a bit. But it was more of an observance than a grievance dead men did not have feelings,
"Do you want me to read it?" Matthew asked after Tom had stared at the envelope for a few minutes he gave one quick nod and Matthews hand slid across the table and plucked the envelope up, he then busied himself with the letter opener before unravelling the slightly crumpled paper and squinting at an attempt to decipher the spidery hand writing.
"its from your sister Kathleen." He smiled as though he was willing this news to be welcome but Tom did not react. "hm lets see she asks if she could stay with her husband… good grief! Is your brother in law David Rydnall the Labour Mp?" " Sir Henry's youngest son?" Edith cut in, Tom almost laughed " much to my Mother grievance only one of her brood consented to marry a nice Irish girl, but for Kathleen's case a marriage to his Irish sectary did little more than blow away the ashes left of the bridges that once bonded his family and him after his career choice." "well I'm sure it'll be fine." "erm… Oh later today!" Matthew held back the letter shooting in a bemused look "Sorry," Tom interrupted "she's a bit forward; she'll stay in the village, if it's not convenient." But it bloody better be convenient. Robert led off on a slow posh ramble "well I suppose that will be fine." Voices merged into mutters, as much as he loved his little sister, Kathleen was not what he wanted, not in a time of grief he knew this because they were incredibly alike so of course went out there way not to be. He had seen her eyes glaze over as he tried to comfort her after the death of her first child with her husband away fighting in France. He knew she would come in hyper sensitive to his emotions full of remedies to his imagined feelings. She would try to tell him that he would see Sybil again, try to install in him some faith. But one glance into her blue eyes would tell him that she did not truly believe this to be the case. Kathleen never had had the slightest bit of patience for anything; she had as she put it struggled seventeen years for Irish independence before in 1912 at just seventeen she decided she was bored of waiting and hopped on a boat to London with a slightly dramatic "I'll be back when were free as a reply." After a few months even the excitements of female suffrage had got too frusting for her so she joined a typing pool to pass the time determined to beat men at there own game. It had made him angry at the time a working class girl as bright and ambitious as his sister should have more options than a scholarship at a teaching college, while overgrown public school apes got to delight in some of the countries finest universities. But that was not the point; he knew she had no patience for a kingdom in heaven as a teenager she took Freud's interpretation of dreams with her into church and his it behind her bible, or else skipped to beginning of the Old Testament to "where all the sex happened." He suddenly had the urge to smile bitterly, his father-in-law had invited Kathleen presumably because she had married well (despite her husbands socialist opinions) and hadn't to anyone's mind burnt anything down, they had no idea what they were getting into.
They had all come and sat in the morning room and though they busied themselves with other occupations Tom knew both their eyes and ears were sharp for the arrival of his fellow rabid socialist. He himself just cradled his daughter in his arms and tried to neither think or feel, " Mr and Mrs Rydnall" was announced and Robert and Cora rose false bitter smiles of host and hostess plastered across there faces. He glanced up his sister stood in the doorway her pretty face crumpled up in concentration, he raised a hand and she ran to him leaving her husband to deal with uncompleted greetings. She dropped her hat and coat by his chair and shook out her shoulder length strawberry blonde curls and rested her flushed freckled cheek against his trouser leg 'Oh Tommy.' She looked up at him her dark blue almond eyes which he could already see forming in his daughters face swollen with tears. "I'm so so sorry." He didn't say a word, he knew he should do but there was nothing to she squeezed his waist tightly and then suddenly it hit him he would never feel Sybil's embrace again never hold her in his arms while his daughter was alive and breathing but she would never be again.
" I can't" a tear fell onto his daughters face and he wondered for a moment why she was crying so silently when another one followed down his cheek for some reason it felt like the first word he had said in days. "You can." Her voice began steely then melted "of course you can, Tommy you've got to!" "I'm useless; Kath I can't provide a home for her I let my pregnant wife be uprooted I couldn't even help her with the medical stuff I couldn't make any decisions." He glanced down at his daughter " she's better off with them." But his sister was shaking her head looking both angry and desperate at the same time. "That's not true!" "Kath…" "no you listen, you might not be able to shroud her in castles, diamonds and fine silks but there not important! The fact that you and Sybil loved her is important, looking her in the eyes when she's all grown up and being able to tell her that you did your best that you tried is important. Not just saying I can't." Her passion had attracted a audience Tom could feel glance bouncing off the top of his head but she ignored them "Listen," She whispered now " that's the point isn't it the point of socialism, to prove our love is just as important as theirs just as relevant maybe even more so without its finery. You know." She paused and bit her lip " I never told you this but after little Liam died David's ghastly sister in law visited and she agreed very very sad grand. But well its not like you need an heir is it? It's not like you Irish people won't carry on popping them out like rabbits?" "God, Kath is she still alive?" Kathleen raised an eyebrow but did not reply "you see the point, I know Tom I know what grief is like and I know what guilt is like and yes you have to be sad for a while but guilt is like and its just sad and pointless and you have to keep on trying even if it feels like your pretending at first." "I want her to be Catholic." He whispered, he didn't know why it just felt important to say. She leaned over and whispered in his ear "Well you bloody go and tell those bastards ay?" "aye" She kissed his cheek and then kissed his daughter "she's a lamb going to beautiful, if she's lucky to have more of her mother in her than you." "She's got your eyes." Kathleen nodded "well she has good taste." As Kathleen continued to coo over her niece Tom's thoughts drifted as they had done but now there was something in the void with him I'm going to call you Sybil love, He thought and in the sky there and stars shining for both her and you.