This is my first Edith/Anthony fanfiction, but after episode 3 I had to write one. Because of reasons. Oh and by the way, I still believe that these two will end up together.
Also, English is not my first language, so please be indulgent ! I hope you'll enjoy this :)

(I obviously don't own Downton Abbey, for otherwise I would be filthy rich and busy making Edith/Anthony shippers happy.)

It was a perfect day.

Even the English weather had, for once, decided to be agreeable and the sun shone on the the little church in the bright morning. Friends and family had already gathered inside, even her sisters no were waiting for her.

Of course, she wished Papa would be more happy about it. But that he was not. In his dark costume, grim-faced and looking rather reluctant to enter the church, Robert Crawley looked like he was attending a funeral instead of his middle daughter's wedding.

Be as it is, thought Edith. In a few years, when he see how happy we've made each other, Anthony and I, he will understand. He will approve, even if he doesn't right now.

Besides today was her day.

She was leaving Downton, she was leaving her family, and she couldn't find it in her to be sad about it. Not that she really tried to. She felt like she had spent her life in the shadows and now was finally getting her place in the light.

Always she had been the plain daughter, the one others mocked behind her back. When bright, wonderful Mary acted horribly, always their parents would forgive her, help her, and then act as if nothing wrong had happened, since they were children. When Mary humiliated her in front of Robert and Cora, they never heard, never bothered.

Even the man she'd chosen wasn't good enough for them, when her future had never mattered to them before. And Anthony was worth any Matthew in the world, and even more, for he was hers and she was his. She was the only one who had ever bothered to learn to know him behind his shy facade, to know the wonderful, kind man that he was. They were so alike, so well-matched in their understanding of the other. How could her father not see that ? Though this shouldn't have come as a surprise. After all, for them, he was "poor, old, dull Strallan".

Well, today she was leaving the obscure little Edith Crawley to be Edith Strallan, a married woman, with a new life ahead. A new, happy life that she would share with the man she loved.

We're going to be so terribly, terribly happy !

She smiled so much that her cheeks hurt when she took her father's arm, but she didn't care. All that she cared about in the world right now was waiting for her at the alter.

When she heard the sound of the organ and they began to walk the aisle, it was as if she was walking in a dream. The faces of friends and family, standing for her, were a slightly indistinct blur seen trough the scintillating haze of the veil, and as they progressed towards the alter, she finally saw Granny – who looked like she'd bitten in a lemon – her hands clenched on her cane, her mother, Mary and Matthew, Sybil and Tom, both couples smiling happily at her.

This is a time for truces, a time for forgiveness.

But her eyes were now focused on the dark shape of the man waiting for her.

He didn't turn to look at her, and she could only see his back, the slight tension of his shoulders. This was a decisive day for him as well, she thought fondly. After all, he had refused so long to admit that he could still be happy, and make her happy as well.

And now, everything was as it should be. Perfect.

She was getting married. Married !

They were now joining his side at the alter. Fighting to control the wave of excitement and elation that went through her, she looked at Anthony. She could barely register how pale he was. He was the most handsome man she'd ever seen, or at least she thought so, he was dashing in his suit, his wounded arm wrapped in a black cloth giving him an elegant touch. She almost laughed then and there, imagining her family's faces had they known her thoughts, but it was true.

Even her father was smiling, if tensely, when he let go of her arm. She turned back to Anthony.

"Good afternoon" she whispered to him, the expression a light joke when this was the most beautiful afternoon of their lives, her heart almost bursting from the joy and adrenaline.

"Good afternoon, my sweet one" she heard him say, and she could hear the tenderness in his voice, and something else, something sounding almost like sadness.

She looked at him, and even through the veil she could see the way he looked at her then, and in his eyes was all his vulnerability, all the unconditional love he held for her, so intense, it looked like he was in pain.

Smiling, her eyes went to Father Travis, waiting for the sound of the organ to die.

The priest's eyes rose from the Bible he held in his hands.

"Dearly beloved..."

Edith faintly heard Anthony take a sharp inspiration, as if he was going to talk. Which was absurd, of course, this was not the moment. And in that instant, everything was perfect, for once in her life.

"We are..."

"Ow !"

The sudden cry silenced the priest and the whole world seemed stunned for a moment.

Edith still kept her eyes fixated on the priest, who was looking at something behind her. Surely this was nothing, surely nothing bad could happen. Not today.

But suddenly she heard Sybil's voice :

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry... I can't... Not now !"

And so she turned back, barely hearing the noise of dozens of people trying to have a better look at what was going on in the front seats.

Sybil, her sister, was standing very pale, her hands clenched so hard on the back of her chair that the joints blanched, her face distorted in pain. Tom Branson was trying to support her, his own eyes widened almost comically with fear.

And then, she saw it. At Sybil's feet, slowly pouring on the aisle's floor, water.

Then Tom's voice :

"The baby is coming, she must get out, now !"

"But it's too soon !" Her mother's voice.

Then everyone was around Sybil, her father himself almost running to her, Edith forgotten.

As always.

She felt someone take her hand, and looked at Anthony. He was not smiling and appeared almost ill, as shaken as she felt.

"Edith, there's something I must tell you, while I still have the chance", he whispered frantically to her.

Even the priest was near Sybil, now. Nobody cared about them. They never really did, after all.

Shaking slightly, her right hand still clenched on the flowers, she followed him outside.