Author's note -

This M-rated S/T one shot (set in a 3.08 AU) began as a drabble, but I had too many shipper feels after rewatching episode 1.04 and it just kept on growing!

I was motivated to write it by two posts on Tumblr - magfreak's headcanon of why Sybil got her hair cut and a lovely picset from yankeecountess of Sybil and Tom at the dinner table in s3. Thank you both for the inspiration!

As always, I would love to know what you think - I appreciate feedback from you so very much. :)

Where love lives

September 1920, Downton Abbey

Jimmy was serving Sybil the fish course when Lady Grantham fired an unexpected question at her -

"Darling, I do wish you'd let your hair grow again, now that you're living back here with us - it's so lovely when it's long. Why did you ever get it cut in the first place - to follow some silly fashion?"

Sybil looked down at her plate, hiding a smile, and felt Tom's hand touching hers under the table. Mmm, I don't think I'd better tell her the real reason I had it cut…

November 1919, Dublin

The bedsprings were creaking loudly as Tom drove into her, harder each time, bracing himself against the head of the bed. Sybil was gasping, eyes screwed shut, legs around his waist, fingernails digging into his back -

"Tom, oh God, darling, yes!"

She felt her whole body shudder and contract violently as she came. She had never imagined, in all her secret dreams of him late at night in her girlhood bedroom, that being with him, really being with him as husband and wife, could be like this…

He collapsed on top of her, his mouth blindly reaching for hers, his arms coming around her. Their breathing slowed and after a few minutes she reluctantly broke their kiss, starting to move out of his arms and get out of bed.

"Sybil, ah not yet - stay with me for a little longer, darling."

The look on his face almost made her weaken but she knew she had to be strong.

"I can't be back late from lunch again this week - Matron saw me on Tuesday, sneaking back in, I'm sure of it…"

She put on her underwear then sat on a low stool in front of the mirror and reached for her brushes, trying to restore her waist-length hair to some sort of order. He got out of bed and knelt behind her, the muscles of his chest and stomach pressed against her back, his hands sliding under her camisole to caress her breasts, his face buried in her neck...

"Tom, you must stop that, please love - you know I would stay here forever with you if I could, but we have to go back to work!" She swatted his arm, her hand lingering longer than it needed to on his bicep, and gently pushed him away.

"Can I help you with your hair, since I was the one who messed it up?"

She smiled at him - "Tom, you and I both know that you are much better at taking my hair down than putting it back up again."

Sybil had learned how to do a simple bun quite successfully during her nursing training a few years ago, and within 15 minutes she had her hair fit to be seen at the hospital, and had put on her dress and shoes. Tom was already dressed and waiting for her, so she walked over to him, putting her arms around his neck and giving him a quick kiss -

"Love, there could be a way to make our lives easier. A lot of the girls at work have cut their hair short now, and I was thinking I might do the same. How would you feel about that?"

His face fell a little - "Sybil, you know how much I love your hair - brushing it for you, getting tangled up in it…"

"Think of it this way, Tom - if I had bobbed hair, we could spend an extra quarter of an hour in bed when we come home like this during the day…"

"Want me to make the appointment for you?"

Sybil felt a little nervous as she opened the door of their flat at lunchtime a few days later -

"Hello, are you here?"

Tom emerged from the bedroom and a smile broke out on his face -

"Sybil - you look beautiful, I love your hair like that …"

He crossed the room in three strides, his arms going around her waist as he nuzzled the back of her neck, kissing his way up from the top of her dress to the edge of her new short haircut, each touch of his lips on her spine making her shiver with delight. She took his offered hand and they walked together into their bedroom, undressing each other quickly as the eternal, mutual hunger between them rose up again…

Afterwards, she lay in his arms in a position they both loved, her facing away from him with his hands tracing a lazy path over her body, from her hips, to her stomach, to her breasts. She wondered if now was the right time to tell him…

"Tom?"

He mumbled something, unwilling to lift his mouth from the back of her neck, now bare.

"I think, well I am pretty sure I might be - well, how would you feel if it wasn't just us?"

"Darling, do you mean it? I'm so happy, Sybil - having a child with you is a dream come true!"

She rolled over onto her back, looking up at him as he leaned up on one elbow. He moved down towards her, their lips meeting in their first kiss as expectant parents, and she felt tears come to her eyes as she imagined what it would be like, having a child with him, seeing him holding their baby for the first time...

Sybil was surprised to feel her heart start racing again as she looked into the blue depths of Tom's eyes and found herself longing to feel his hand resume its gentle, insistent caressing of her body. She was still surprised by how quickly she could move from desire sated to desire renewed with him…

He kissed her again, then leaned back above her, seeing her change in mood. His other hand rested on her shoulder, sliding down slowly to stroke her breasts. He looked down her body, then up at her face again, his eyes locking onto hers. His words were barely a murmur in the silence of their room - somehow his voice sounded deeper, rougher than before …

"I had wondered if you might be pregnant, my love - I've noticed you are a little more sensitive here, when I touch you…" His fingers tweaked and rolled her nipples, feeling them rise up. "And here, too…" His hand brushed over her stomach, running his fingers from hipbone to hipbone, circling her navel and feeling her tremble at his touch.

His lips moved down to follow his hand, finding her breasts as his fingers had done a few moments before. A shaft of longing, so strong it was almost painful, shot through her and her hands came around the back of his head, pushing him into her.

He moved lower, leaving a burning trail of kisses along her ribcage and down her stomach, towards her core. Moving down between her thighs, he lifted up her knees so her feet were flat on the bed, then grasped her arse firmly. He put his mouth on her, hearing her gasp as his tongue found her swollen clit and started to tease it, circling and flicking, finding the spot he knew she loved him to touch, building up the friction he knew sent her into a frenzy…

Her hands tangled themselves in his hair, and she knew she was only moments away from breaking apart again, so she let herself go, not holding back anything. A cry escaped her lips as her climax overwhelmed her, waves of sensation flowing from her core to every part of her body. He stayed with her through it all, keeping his mouth on her, stroking her gently with his tongue, tasting her, letting her come back to herself.

Finally, when Sybil was ready, Tom moved back up her body and resumed his position behind her. I made the right call getting my hair cut - I think we have time for one more before we go, she thought, pushing herself back against him. She smiled to herself as she heard him moan and felt his arousal hard against her back. Who would have thought Lady Sybil Crawley would be such a wanton woman? I can never, never get enough of him…

September 1920, Downton Abbey

Sybil shook her head to clear it of her vivid memories, and lifted her eyes to find Tom looking intently at her, knowing he was reliving those same memories.

Thoughts like these had been plaguing them both for several weeks, in fact. They hadn't made love for nearly three months, from the time Sybil had been diagnosed with pre-eclampsia a few weeks before she gave birth, an experience which had been so difficult and dangerous for her that she needed a lot of time to recover. Doing without the deep, sexual intimacy they had become used to had been very hard for both of them, and they had been missing each other badly.

He had wondered whether something had happened when she visited Dr Clarkson earlier that day, before the cricket match. He had been very aware of her watching him under her eyelashes as he bent to pick up a ball and throw it back, or when he slung his bat over his shoulders, fringe falling in his face, and he hoped he knew what her looks meant... Could it be - are we able to...?

"It's very practical, Mama - I am a working mother and I just don't have time to be fiddling around with my hair in the morning."

Tom's hand found hers again under the table, and she couldn't look away from him until she heard Mary clearing her throat -

"You two! You're not newlyweds any more, you know."

Her sister was smiling when she said it, and Sybil blushed deeply to be caught out ogling her handsome husband at the dinner table, and not for the first time...

After they had put Aislín to sleep, he held her the same way he had that day nearly a year before - both naked, skin on skin, resting behind her in their bed with his arms around her. Her body was riper now that she had given birth to their daughter, which made him love touching her even more - breasts fuller, hips softer, stomach gently rounded, skin soft as velvet. His fingers moved slowly, gently across the curves and planes of her body, worshipping her with his touch.

"Tom?"

"Yes, my darling?"

"You know how I went to see Dr Clarkson this morning before the match? He told me, well, he told me… we don't have to wait any more to be together."

He turned her so they were face to face, and kissed her.

"Sweetheart, I told you once I'd wait forever for you - that still holds true. I can't wait to be with you again, but only when you are sure you are ready."

"Tom, I am ready - I've been aching for you for weeks, you know that. It was such a hard birth, Dr Clarkson wanted to be very sure it was safe and I understand that, but now - all I want is for you to love me, I need you so much."

"Sybil, I do know that, and I've been feeling the same way - I've missed being with you so much, darling, you know that too. We both knew that you needed time to recover and as your husband I wanted to be there for you, completely, for as long as that took - that was all that mattered. But - now that Dr Clarkson says it is all right..."

Tom didn't finish his sentence - Sybil's arms came around his neck and she pulled him down to her, their lips meeting in a kiss that quickly deepened as the longing they had both had to suppress these last weeks surged through both of them like a river bursting its banks. Their kisses became increasingly more desperate, their hands travelling all over each other's bodies, breath ragged, heartbeats pounding in their ears.

She rolled over on top of him and sat upright astride his hips, running her fingers up and down his erect shaft and feeling it straining towards her. She rose up, finding the right position before pushing herself down onto him, adoring the way he filled her completely. She let out a shaky sigh, looking down at him as she started to move.

He held her hip loosely to steady her, while his other hand slid between them to the place they were joined, finding her clit and stroking it. She felt herself light up like a candle at his touch - her senses had not been dead these last weeks since she gave birth, just sleeping, and now that he was inside her at last they burst into life, filling her entire body with a burning flame.

She closed her eyes, grinding herself onto him, and lifted her arms above her head, glorying in the feeling of his eyes on her body. It didn't take long until she knew she was heading towards an orgasm so intense, she felt as if she would faint…

"Tom, oh Tom!"

As she fell on his chest, she heard him shout aloud and felt his hips bucking off the bed as he found his own release. Her body was shaking uncontrollably and immediately his hands were on her, soothing her as they recovered together. She cuddled into him, finding that place she loved where his arm joined his chest. Looking up at him, she could feel his fingers stroking her cheek -

"You make me so happy, Tom, happier than I ever dreamed I could be."

"Oh, my love…" he murmured. I made you a promise in York, and I intend to keep it...

She settled herself on his chest and fell asleep quickly. He looked at her for a while, stroking her hair off her face and pressing a soft kiss on the top of her head. He loved her so much, she was as essential to him as breathing, and he hardly dared to believe, even now, that she felt the same way - in love with him, married to him, the mother of his child. As strongly as he desired her, those feelings paled into insignificance when he put them next to his passionate, profound love for her. A love that had begun that day in Ripon when he saw her lying injured on the cobblestones at the Count, and which had grown stronger every day since then to become the prop and mainstay of his life.

He reflected on the journey they had taken together since the day she had come home with her hair cut short and told him he was to be a father. The terror of their flight from Ireland, the joy of Aislín's birth, and then coming so close to tragedy straight after. The memory of that day still filled Tom with an awful dread and his arms tightened around Sybil as he reassured himself that she was still with him, that he hadn't lost her. While he was determined that, one day, they would take back the life that had been torn away from them in Ireland, he also knew that, as long as he had his precious family, he was at home, wherever they were. The rest, as he had told his beloved wife years ago, really was detail.

A/N -

The story title comes from a song I love from the 90s by Alison Limerick - have a listen on youtube.