1.

"I will have the baby at the hospital," Sybil said firmly, her eyes fastened to her plate. If she looked up she knew she would see her father's astonished face and then she wouldn't be able to control her temper. "The logistics aren't impossible, we will simply drive down there when…"

"Good gracious, do we talk of this at the table now?" The Dowager Duchess broke in in an undertone directed at Matthew at her side. Wisely he didn't reply.

"It's a baby, granny, not the black death," Sybil replied, still as firm. Looking up, she directed her gaze at her mother, ignoring her father's indeed shocked face. "I've worked there, I feel safe with Doctor Clarkson and the other nurses. They all know me and if anything goes wrong they will help."

"Sybil, nothing will go wrong, women have babies every day," Edith supplied, then fell silent under their mother's admonishing eye.

"Darling, it's not quite done you know. You're still a lady, and you'll be more comfortable in your own home," Mama supplied in her turn.

Tom didn't say anything, but Sybil saw him stiffen, when her family yet again casually forgot that Downton Abbey was in fact not her home anymore. Instead of replying to her mother, she held his gaze for a moment and slowly the hard angles of his face smoothed into a slight smile.

In the end it was both easier and harder than she would have guessed, to slip away once the contractions began. Doctor Clarkson had gently suggested that she could come stay at the hospital when the time grew near, but Sybil felt that would be cheating, when she was very intent on fighting her corner. Nothing wrong with rising from bed and simply taking the car down to the hospital. Nevertheless, when she was awoken one summer night with the sudden realisation that it was happening, their baby was finally arriving; she went about things in the sneaky manner she preferred when it came to dealing with her family. They were prepared: a light bag had been packed and a few well-placed pinches woke her husband.

"Tom…TOM! Do you want to meet your firstborn child or not?"

"Whaa…? Sybil?! Do you mean?!" His sleepy face went from confused to overjoyed in an instant and then he flung himself to the bed.

"Well, then help me get dressed, my feet are so swollen you'll have to help me with the shoes."

With his fumbling and her lack of helpfulness (he looked so adorable after all, his hair all rumpled and his shirt unbuttoned, she couldn't help but want to prolong the moment) it took them almost half an hour to get some clothes on. By the time they were sneaking through the corridor, Sybil was giggling like a little girl, and her husband was torn between doing the same and scolding her.

"Sybil, we're about to become parents, this is serious business." He said the words sternly, but another breathy giggle from her made him grin and swiftly kiss her cheek as he ushered her forward.

"I'm just so happy, to finally meet our baby. To become a real family, the three of us." She was adorable. He stopped to kiss her more firmly and then wait with her as another contraction hit.

Outside of Mary's room there was a floorboard that creaked and Sybil didn't have the presence of mind to warn Tom in time. A heartbeat, and then the door slid open slowly. Mary, in her dressing gown, peeked outside, looking suspiciously bright-eyed for someone who should've been asleep.

"Sybil! Tom!" She asked, her astonishment morphing into excitement as she took them in, the bag and Tom's unbuttoned shirt. "Is it time?"
"It is! We're going to the hospital!" Tom confirmed, his voice strained as he again realised exactly what was happening.

"Don't wake our parents just yet, Mary. These things take time I hear."
Mary's smooth brow furrowed as her little sister giggled again, and then she smiled. "I'll send Matthew down in a bit, he can keep Tom company."
With a warm smile for the both of them, she blinked and shut the door.

Company was indeed needed. Sybil's glee wore off quickly as she was confined to a private room and her husband sent to Doctor Clarkson's office. Sybil begged for him to stay, but there was only so much that her former superior would take and her firmly sent Tom away. She had been somewhat prepared for it, but at the same time it irked her, that he who has her strength wasn't allowed to stay. Having helped quite a lot to put the baby in there to begin with, it seemed silly to keep him locked out as he didn't know how things worked. No, Sybil wasn't at all pleased, but as dawn arrived and Mary and Matthew with it, at least she had company.

"I never realised it took so much time to bring a baby into the world," she said with a sigh. The sun was making it's daily walk over the sky, but Sybil Branson was confined to bed, despite her longing to take a walk of her own. Preferably one to see Tom.

"I know, darling. You wouldn't remember of course, but when you were born, it felt like I had to wait for weeks before I could see you."

A nurse entered, smiling and checking on Sybil's process and taking her blood pressure. Mary waited until she had gone, and then continued.

"I'm sure mama felt the same, and yet as we met you the first time we forgot all about the tedious waiting."

"Easy for you to say, you didn't do any of the work," Sybil pointed out somewhat acidly. "I wonder how she felt about the waiting."

Mary was about to reply, when the nurse entered again, this time with doctor Clarkson in tow.

"Mrs Branson," he began, a title that made Sybil beam at him and Mary frown. "Nurse Wilson told me your blood pressure is still quite high. That, along with your swollen ankles makes me concerned that you might have…pre-eclampsia."

While Mary did not know the term, and furthermore didn't think that the doctor ought to talk like that to her sister, Sybil tried to sit up straighter in bed. She could feel her face had gone pale, and she had to swallow to compose herself.

"I…I read about that once…" She began, and then fell silent, a hand on her stomach, blinking a few times. "You'll have to run some more tests to be certain?"

"Indeed. But while it might be nothing, if it is pre-ecclampsia the baby will have to be delivered through a caesarean."

Sybil nodded slowly, not saying anything more, only patting her stomach as if to comfort the baby inside it. The nurse sent Mary outside and as she was closing the door behind her, she heard Sybil's voice.

"Mary…please send Tom to me."

The nurse and the doctor left, to prepare for the procedure and Sybil was left alone, stroking her belly and thinking of all the times she had been the assisting nurse, not the one under the knife. She knew a little of caesareans, enough to not be scared witless, but also because the threat of eclampsia scared her more. If it got worse, doctor Clarkson had explained, it might kill both her and her baby. Just when she so fiercely wanted to live and to meet that precious child she had made with Tom.

He burst through the door just as she thought of him, white-faced and wild-eyed.

"Sybil! What is pre-eclampsia?" So, nurse Branson explained to her husband, as he tightly held her hand, exactly the fate which might befall them.

"And if…I die…I'm not saying it will happen, I believe the doctor caught it in time, but if I do, you must take baby and go to London or Liverpool, until you can go back to Dublin. Move forward, Tom, no going back. I don't want my baby to be raised at Downton, I want him or her to be free, to live the life we fought so hard for."

Hot tears fell on her neck, as he held her, his whole body trembling.

"Don't die, Sybil, don't you dare to die."

"I won't." She promised firmly, wiping away his tears and deciding that for him she could be strong, for him and because of him she was going to cling to life with every inch of her being if it came to that. "You've waited long enough for me, I won't make you wait any longer."

Mary and Matthew and Tom sat huddled in doctor Clarkson's office. The medical diplomas on the wall did little to comfort them now, because he was operating on Sybil, someone they each loved fiercely in their own way.

Matthew remembered the girl he had found at the Count when she wasn't supposed to be there, the girl with the fire in her eyes and arrogant conviction in her voice. She burned bright as fire, and he admired her like few others – she if anyone, had shown them all the way forward, into modernity. She had forged her own way, always making her own decision and sticking to them. Sedating her, taking away her chance to fight it out seemed almost unfair, but he had understood how dire the situation was. At least she had agreed to it herself.

Mary held onto Matthew's hand and watched her brother-in-law pace. It had been better when Sybil was awake, when she had been able to pass messages from her sister to Tom; now she had no comforting words to give him anymore. His face was twisted in anguish and his eyes were round and haunted. Since his marriage to Sybil, Mary had looked at Tom often – really looked – trying to spot that which made him different, that which had caught her sister and fixed her future to a man that no one else saw anything different in at all. For the first time it occurred to her that perhaps that which was different about the man, wasn't his political views or his unfortunate forthright ways. Perhaps this was it, the depth of feeling and passion that he currently expressed through walking back and forth. Once she had doubted that his love would last, but as Mary watched the former chauffeur's face, that doubt was forgotten. This was a man in anguish, a man fearing to loose everything in the world. Her little Sybil was everything to Tom Branson and for the first time Mary Crawley saw that. She rose, cocked her head to one side and stepped into his path. It was not her way to express emotion very clearly, but she gazed at his stricken face and then reached out and put her hand on his shoulder.
"She won't leave you, Tom. From the moment she settled on you, she has never left you."

Tom Branson had thought himself soon to be a father. It had been a strangely vague concept, as he did not have the same physical connection with the baby as Sybil did. The little one would kick at his hand, or wake him in the middle of the night if Sybil was snuggled close to him, but he could not imagine it. He had looked forward to meeting this little person though, feeling a love deep inside him that was waiting to burst into full bloom. He loved his son or daughter without knowing him or her, and now that he feared to soon find himself a widower, he grieved for that love. If Sybil died and the baby lived, how could he love that little life? How could he go on if he lost Sybil. Despite her assurances, Tom found there had always been a little seed of fear left inside him. She was the daughter of an earl, he was the former chauffeur. Perhaps she had always been destined to leave him, one way or another. Mary's words soothed the panic for a moment, but he could not stay still, so he only nodded and kept walking. Back and forth. The chess table under the window, and then the table opposite the room, where a tray of now cold tea had been set up for them. Back and forth. Chess table. Tea tray. She means everything, he thought to himself. Without her, there is nothing left. Chess table. Tea tray. That's why I waited for her to begin with. Because she was worth waiting for. Waiting, waiting, waiting.
Just as he was now.

When Sybil Branson woke up, she was very disoriented at first. It felt a bit like being drunk, but she couldn't be because she didn't drink because of the baby. Had she been to a rally and hit her head? Her eyes moved, taking in a whitewashed roof. Slowly she found her whole head could move, so she did move it, very slowly to make certain it wouldn't fall off. Baby, her brain supplied helpfully. Your baby was on the way. Oh. The caesarean. Experimentally moving her toes, Sybil found she didn't feel very much pain, but that there were decidedly twinges. Her hand twitched, then moved atop the comforter to her belly, realising that she still looked very much pregnant. A flick of panic hit her – had they been unable to get the baby out? Had everything gone horribly wrong somehow?

A sound next to her made her turn her head. She moved too quickly, the world spun for a moment and when it stopped, there was paradise sitting in a chair next to her bed. It was Tom, his jacket discarded, his hair rumpled, his tie loosened and his eyes fixed on a bundle in his arms. Perhaps she was a little slow, but for several breaths she just drank him in, overjoyed to be alive and to see such splendid joy on his face. It hit her then, the reason for his happiness and as she slowly moved her eyes again, Sybil saw her child. All in white, it was impossible to say if she was the mother of a boy or a girl, but at that moment it didn't matter. She was a mother, and her wonderful, wonderful husband was sitting there, the perfect happiness in his face showing exactly how he found it to be a father.

Sybil must have made a sound then, because he looked up and finding her awake he rose from the chair to sit on her bed instead. With one arm he cradled the baby reverently, as if it was the most precious thing in the whole world – and rightly so – and his other hand he placed at her cheek.

"My love," he began, his voice suddenly thick with emotion. Sybil sniffed herself, realising she was crying as well. His palm against her cheek again enforced the realisation that she was alive, everything had gone well.

"I love you," she croaked at him. "I love both of you so much."

"I was so scared, Sybil. I thought I was going to loose you, and it scared me more than anything I have ever felt. You are everything to me, my darling, everything that means something."

Suddenly laughing through her tears, Sybil placed her hand over his on her cheek, not finding any words to express the emotions inside her. Reverently she turned her eyes to the baby, not as familiar with it as he was, having after all been asleep through it's birth.

"This is our daughter," her husband said, handling the baby quite competently, making Sybil wonder how long she had been asleep. The baby was asleep too, as she received her into her arms. The most beautiful little face was hidden beneath the blankets, her tiny mouth closed firmly and her little nose twitching. As Sybil watched, her arms trembling from the sensation of holding her daughter for the first time, the baby opened her eyes and glared at her mother.

A laugh slipped from Sybil, and then she was crying again and Tom was crying and laughing with her as he moved to sit next to her, supporting her weight. They had made this little life, together. Through their love they had made a change in the world, because a new little person had been born into it, a perfect mix of her mother and father.

"This is your mam," Tom told the baby. Sybil sobbed, then giggled again as a tiny fist was waved in her face. "Don't be angry with her, she's finally awake now."

It felt just like the moment when she had woken up, so many hours before, knowing the baby was on her way and that soon life would be even more wonderful. It was wonderful now, with Tom's arm around her and a fussy baby in her arms and with a scar on her stomach that would forever remind her of how close she might have come to not having this moment.

It was a perfect moment, in an imperfect world.