The idea of this jumped into my head today whilst I was watching Northanger Abbey, as I started to think of the similarities between Persuasion, another Jane Austen story, and the story of Sybil and Branson. So this is (obviously) AU, and each character is based on a character from Persuasion. But first...the prologue!

Jo x

Her heart felt like it was going to explode due to so much joy. Leaning against the worktop in the garage and leaning into his embrace, it felt like they had all the time in the world. She imagined that when push came to shove she would feel frightfully nervous; passing the time until tomorrow when she would escape this life. Escape this life with him. Now she was here, she couldn't feel more at ease, and she looked forward to the day when she could come home from work at the local hospital, find him waiting for her (maybe cooking their dinner) and then cuddle up on the sofa or in a chair and just past the time by chatting, or reading a book together. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

Her eyes caught sight of the clock before letting out a deep sigh. "I'd better get back before they send out a search party."

"You don't need to go now!" He teased, pulling her back into his arms as she tried to make her escape.

"I'm sorry Tom my love, but I really do! I need all the sleep I can get for tomorrow after all!" She gave him a flirtatious wink as she began to walk away again, this time without a pair of muscular arms pulling her back in.

"I guess so. Remember, eight o'clock in the evening, outside in the yard!" He smiled to her as she reached the heavy garage doors.

"How could I forget?" Her smile pasted on her face as she began to walk back up to the house. She wasn't looking ahead of her, rather looking at the garage behind her as she crashed into another human body.

"Sybil!" Her mother's voice echoed round the yard as the daughter's gaze snapped up to the person in front of her.

"Mama!" Her voice began to shake, "I was, I mean_"

"You were in the garage weren't you?" She really needn't have an answer.

"Mama it's not what you think!"

"You were in there visiting the chauffeur!" Cora looked a full 360° around her. "We had better finish this conversation in your room, quickly."

Cora slammed the door shut behind her as Sybil immediately sat on her bed. Memories of the numerous times here parents came up to her room and told her to sit on her bed when she had committed a horrible crime of the house and family, came flooding back to her. Memories from as early as the age of five, when she had stuck her finger up her nose at the dinner table, and the vivid memory of the night she had been injured at the counting of the votes. She had fought Branson then, and she hopes that she can do him justice now. Her mother closed her eyes before calmly speaking,

"Do I really need an excuse as to why you were down there visiting Branson at this time of night? Or am I right to assume the reason?" Her eyes shot open to give her daughter a look of sheer disappointment.

"Please understand, I love him and I'm going to marry him!"

"What?"

"We're going to Gretna Green tomorrow evening." Sybil fixed her gaze on her shaking hands in her lap; trying to calm them down.

"Darling I cannot let this happen! You're ruining your life! I mean, how…why…how did this even happen anyway?"

"Oh mama, you know we've been friends since he first arrive here! He proposed to me when he took me to York_"

"In York?"

"_and he's waited long enough for my answer, and my answer is yes."

"I can't take this in!"

"It's simple really!"

"Sybil, are you out of your mind? Marrying the chauffeur?"

"You know I don't care about all that!"

"Yes, but what were you going to do after you were married at Gretna? Where were you going to go? How were you going to live?"

"Please don't ask about our plans as if they were in the past tense!"

"Well then tell me your plans!" Cora yelled. Sybil paused for a moment. She'd never heard her mother scream like that before.

"We were going to go to Dublin after that. We'll find a house, and find jobs for us both. I'll get a job at a hospital and he'll get a job somewhere in the city."

"As what exactly?"

"I don't know, possibly a journalist, or a clerk to someone in Sinn Fein. It's what I want mama, please understand!"

"No it's not my dear!" Her mother came and sat down beside her. "Do you really want a life in poverty? Because that's what it will be like! There is still a war raging on over there and you'll have to face unimaginable horrors whilst being face with the real threat of danger every day. He might not find any work at all and before you know it, you're living on the streets, penniless and hungry with children to feed as well as you both."

"Oh mama, you always exaggerate things!"

"You may never be able to see any of your family or speak to your family ever again! How do you think your father is going to take this? It would kill him and you know that!" Sybil's looked at her with the vaguest look of fear as she took in what her mother was saying. "How are you so sure his family will accept you? You're the daughter of an English earl! How could they ever accept someone from our kind of background in the middle of a war, whilst they're fighting against others from our kind of background?"

"I love him." She pleaded again to her mother. "I don't want this life anymore."

"You think you love him, and you'll get use to the pace of things around here again. It may take a while to adjust but you will. Then you'll be glad you didn't do something as crazy as run away with the chauffeur! You'll find someone perfect for you. Someone who understands you just as well, if not better than Branson, and it won't be possible to live in poverty or in danger with him." To this, Sybil gave a short, slow nod. "Do you understand my dear? It may feel like the right decision now, but it will all work out fine in the end as long as you don't do anything silly."

"Yes mama."

"Promise me you'll call off this whole ridiculous plan?"

"Yes." Sybil sighed, before walking over to her window, drawing back the curtain with her finger slightly, and gazing out into the night.

"You know I love you." Cora walked over and gave a quick kiss on the head, before turning round and walking out the door.

Sybil spent the rest of the night, trying to convince herself that it was the right decision. She'll fit in again, she'll find another, someone who can bring her happiness and the glamorous lifestyle she had grown up in. It still hurt thought. She could still imagine the hurt she would find on his face the next day, the pain that would go on once he was gone, because goodness knows when she tells him no, he won't be able to stay. She quickly broke down in tears, and those tears would follow her to her sleep that night.

The following evening, she met him at eight o'clock, in the yard, with nothing in her hands and a skimpy cardigan wrapped around her. She could easily see the pain shooting up and around his body in his eyes, as it crossed his mind why she was standing so far away from him (in reality a metre, but now it seemed like a thousand) and why she carried no luggage. A lump formed in his throat.

"You've got nothing with you?"

"No." She spoke in a hushed tone.

"I see." He whispered, before closing his eyes, almost in pain. He began to turn around and head back towards his cottage, but was stopped by Sybil's pleading voice.

"Tom! Please come back Tom, please at least listen to me!" To which he complied.

"You said this is what you wanted." His pain was all too evident in his voice.

"I know I know. But please understand me when I say that I can't. I can't go with you."

An awkward silence ensued, as the tears began to build in both of their eyes. He shifted his eyes from her face and neither could look at the other directly, for fear of making the situation far more difficult than it had already become.

"I thought I could have this life with you…but now, I just don't think I can."

"Has…"

"Has what?"

"Has someone changed your mind?"

"Tom please don't make this more difficult!"

"Who talked you out of it? Was it Lady Mary?"

"No. Mama, saw me walking away from the garage last night, and she didn't talk me out of it. It was my own decision in the end." He gave a reluctant nod, before turning away again. "Please don't be angry with me! I-I couldn't bare it!"

"Angry with you?" A half-hearted laugh escaped his lips as he looked into her flooded eyes. "How could I ever be angry with you? It's completely my fault for being too idealistic in the first place; believing anything between us could work. Believing that maybe you could leave all this for me." He sighed again before saying, "Goodbye, Sybil Crawley. I hope you find someone worthy of your affections. Someone who will treat you as well as I would've. Someone who could give you the world." And with that, he headed out into the darkness and back to his cottage, leaving Sybil standing alone in the cold, with only a skimpy cardigan for company.

He handed in his letter of resignation the next morning, and before anyone had a chance to say goodbye and wish him well, he was walking down the drive with his suitcase in hand, heading off for a new life.

She watched him go from her room with tears in her eyes. She did not know then, that he would constantly be in her thoughts for nearly seven years after.

So what do you think? Please review!