A birthday one-shot for the lovely piperholmes, who requested a scenario in which Sybil and Tom aren't forced to leave Ireland, and Cora comes to visit them just after Sybil has given birth. In this AU, Violet didn't send Sybil the money to come to Mary's wedding (or Edith's), so it's been over a year since Cora Crawley has seen her youngest daughter.

"You don't have to do this you know," Robert said with a sigh. "They will bring the baby round eventually."

Without looking up from the suitcases into which she and her maid, Sarah O'Brien, were placing her clothing, Cora Crawley responded to her husband. "This is my first grandchild, Robert, and we know from Tom's letter that it was a complicated labor, so they're not going to risk travel for a while. Can it be possible after 20 some years that you still don't understand what kind of parent I am?"

Robert scratched his forehead with a smidgen of impatience. "All I'm saying is, you don't have to put yourself through the trouble if you're only doing it because you think I won't welcome them here. I've already said they can come when they are ready."

Cora finally looked up. "I won't deny that I'm glad you've changed your mind about letting Tom visit, but I won't change my mind about seeing my granddaughter. I missed the wedding. I am not going to miss this."

Robert could see from the look on Cora's face and her determined stance that this was an argument he was not going to win. His wife was going to be traveling to Dublin alone, and there was nothing he could do about it.

O'Brien kept her mouth shut for the most part as Cora and Robert argued, but she occasionally lifted her eyes from her task to look back and forth between the two. She wondered whether the tension that had built since the day of Sybil's wedding, now more than a year past, was going to finally bubble over. She knew better than anyone else in the house the heartbreak that Cora had felt knowing that the first of her daughters had gotten married and she had not been there to see it. Heartbreak that was compounded when Mary and Edith married without their youngest sister present.

To be sure, there had been no love lost between O'Brien and Branson when he had been an employee of the house. And certainly, marrying him was only one in a long series of headaches that Sybil had caused her mother. But O'Brien knew Cora's forgiving heart well, and at least on her lady's behalf, she was glad that Cora stood up to her husband for once and pushed at least this much for herself. The two weeks that Edith and Mary had been gone to Ireland to see Sybil get married to a man her family did not approve of were, so far as O'Brien could see, among the saddest of her charge's life.

"How are we coming along, O'Brien?" Cora asked, pulling her maid out of her reverie.

"Just about finished, milady."

"Good. We need to be down to the train station in about an hour if we are going to make the 10 o'clock train."

Initially, Cora had planned to have Pratt drive them the entire way from Downton to Liverpool. But this morning she'd had a change of heart. What she hadn't told O'Brien, was that it was her plan not to travel first class. She wanted, in all the ways that were available to her, to travel to Dublin in the manner in which her daughter had done, with the hope that the journey would somehow bring her closer to the state of mind Sybil had been in on the day that she left her childhood home and everything that she had known in the name of love.

When Sybil had revealed to the family her intention to marry Tom Branson, Cora had been shocked just like all the rest of them, but upon reflection in the weeks and months that followed, Cora belatedly came to recognize the very many signs that had pointed to it, not just from the time Sybil's work as a nurse began to alter her worldview, or even from the time of Branson's arrival, but from Sybil's earliest days as a headstrong child.

But even Cora had to admit herself that if she had seen the signs for what they were, there was still little she could've done. Whenever Cora read Sybil's letters, which she kept in a box on her night table, she could feel Sybil's happiness bursting forth from the paper. Cora had, in fact, come around to the idea that where Sybil was now, she was happier than she had ever been at Downton. At first, that was a hard truth to bear, feeling a bit like a poor reflection on their family and the life Cora had given her daughters. It was only after Mary's wedding that Cora understood how wrong it was to think that way. Happily wed to Matthew, Mary herself had told her mother that she was happier than she had ever been before—something that comforted Cora to hear.

So if Mary could feel that way, why couldn't Sybil?

Once everything was packed, and the suitcases and trunks were loaded onto the motor, a teary Cora said goodbye to her daughters and her husband.

"I don't see why you're crying," Mary said to her mother with a teasing smile. "You're coming back, aren't you?"

"I guess I wish we were all going together."

Mary and Edith looked at one another and thought about how they felt when they had gone to see Sybil for her wedding without their parents. They had not cried at their departure, but what their mother was feeling right now was something they could both relate to.

"I wish you wouldn't think me a monster," Robert said quietly, as he hugged and kissed his wife goodbye. "These are the choices that she left us with when she ran off with him."

"I don't think you're a monster Robert, and I still love you very much. I just wish you were a kinder father—at least, a more understanding one."

With that Cora turned toward the motor, and after looking at her family one more time, stepped onto it and headed off.

XXX

Standing on the side of the ferry feeling the wind on her face, Cora closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She opened them again, sensing O'Brien's presence. Looking at her maid from the side of her eyes, Cora smiled and said, "Go ahead and ask, O'Brien. I know you're dying to."

She saw O'Brien crack a slight smile, but O'Brien composed herself almost immediately. "What would I have to ask, milady?"

"Why we are on the main deck instead of first class? Why we're going to Dublin at all?"

"You don't need to explain why you want to see your grandchild. And with the ferry ride only a few hours long, everyone just stands around anyway. Is there really a difference between there and here?"

Cora sighed. "There's always a difference between there and here. A world of difference."

O'Brien hesitated, wondering whether what was on the tip of her tongue was too impertinent, but she spoke anyway, "Not to everyone, not to Lady Sybil."

Cora laughed softly. "You're right about that."

Having taken the evening ferry, Cora and O'Brien watched the sun set over the Irish sea. It comforted Cora to know that this might've been the sight that welcomed Sybil into her new home. Cora was never one so selfish to assume that the most beautiful things in this world were reserved only for those who had the money to pay for them. Here was nature giving everyone on this boat something wondrous to behold, something that belonged to no man, not rich, not poor.

XXX

Because Sybil was still on bed rest three weeks after her labor, it was Tom who greeted Cora and O'Brien when the ferryboat finally arrived in Dublin near 8 o'clock.

He spotted Cora easily, but even as he walked toward them it took her several takes before she recognized him. The only other time she had ever seen him out of livery was that fateful night when he walked into the drawing room to announce to the family his intention to marry Sybil and bring her here to Dublin.

This was a finer suit than that one, although one that spoke to his lower middle-class status, certainly nothing of the quality that Robert would ever wear. Still, he looked handsome. Being forced to see him as something other than a servant, Cora could concede that Tom Branson was very nice looking. Indeed, more so than most of the men who had had the privilege of dancing with Sybil during her first and only June in London.

Cora knew her daughter well enough to know that she would never risk everything that she had risked merely over a physical attraction. She understood that Tom and Sybil's relationship went far, far deeper than that. But seeing his handsome face and confident demeanor now, Cora could imagine her young 16-year-old daughter seeing the chauffeur for the first time and without thought to propriety, immediately resolving to getting to know him better.

Tom approached Cora and O'Brien awkwardly, lifting his hat without a word and immediately taking their suitcases. He pointed them in the direction of the car he had reserved on Cora's behalf, with money she had sent ahead of time. For a very brief moment it was as it had always been—Branson, the chauffeur, escorting the countess and her maid to the motor.

"How is the baby?" Cora finally said, breaking the silence.

At the mention of his daughter, Tom's reserved stance changed completely, and a becoming smile took over his face.

"She's so beautiful," he said. "I know that as her father I may be biased, but I truly think she's the most wonderful baby I've ever laid eyes on."

Cora smiled warmly. "I believe I will be inclined to agree with you once I meet her."

Once they were settled, and Tom had secured Cora's trunk from one of the ferry's stewards, they set off toward her hotel.

"I must say, Tom," Cora said from her spot on the back seat, "there was some disagreement as to the pronunciation of the baby's name at first, but O'Brien knows some Irish, so she set us straight."

A hint of a smile came over Tom's lips as he looked over at O'Brien next to him, whose stern and suspicious expression suggested exactly what she thought of "Saoirse" and what she haughtily (though incorrectly) presumed was a deliberate choice intended to further alienate the Crawleys.

"I apologize for the confusion," Tom said, angling his neck so he could keep his eyes on the road, but so Cora could still hear him. "I should have written it out phonetically in my letter. It was my grandmother's name."

"It's lovely," Cora said, and though he could not see her as she spoke, Tom got the distinct feeling that she meant it. "Does it have a special meaning?"

"Freedom."

Cora laughed. "I hope you appreciate the irony of calling her that when she reaches her adolescence and she insists that is precisely what you are not giving her."

Tom laughed too. "That's what my mam said."

XXX

Once at the hotel, Cora went to check in while O'Brien saw to the suitcases and trunk. Tom lingered in the lobby, wanting to wait until they were settled before heading home.

After a few minutes, Cora walked over to him again. "Shall we, then?"

"Excuse me?"

"You don't think that I'll be able to sleep knowing that my daughter and granddaughter are in the same city as I am and I've not gone to see them? I've told O'Brien not to bother waiting up."

"Oh," Tom said, furrowing his brow. "It's just . . . we'll the bell boy has already sent someone to park the car. I was just going to take the tram home. But I suppose we can ask them to call for a taxi."

"I'd be happy to take the tram with you, but I suppose a taxi will be faster."

"Are you sure?" Tom asked, a bit incredulous.

Cora smiled. "Really, Tom. I'm much more adventurous than you give me credit for."

Tom smiled, and the two headed toward the door.

XXX

When they reached the small walk-up, Cora was surprised. Pleasantly so. She knew that Sybil and Tom would not be living in a one-room apartment in a rundown tenement, but that was what she tried to picture in her mind, in order to prepare herself for the worst. So the four-story walkup where the taxi let them out was not nearly as bad as she was expecting. It wasn't the nicest building on the block, but it also wasn't the worst. It looked to her to be in good, solid condition and reminded her a bit of the working class Irish and Italian neighborhoods in New York, around which many of her father's workers lived. She supposed now that those neighborhoods had been modeled after the ones that had been left behind.

"How did you find this place?" Cora asked.

"The landlady, Mrs. Murphy, is an old family friend. She's been a big help to Sybil with Saoirse while I'm gone to work."

Cora smiled. "Please introduce me while I'm here, so I may thank her."

Tom stopped at the top step as if he wanted to say something, but thought better of it and continued to the door.

"What is it?" Cora asked, not moving from her spot when he opened the door and motioned for her to go in.

Tom took a deep breath. "I'm glad you're here, Lady Grantham, I really am. Sybil really wanted to see you—"

"But?"

"But . . . It's just . . . people here, my family—well, they're a bit of a suspicious lot. They haven't given Sybil too hard a time, but they don't take to English very easily. They are not unkind, but they may seem unwelcoming to you. I know you mean well, but . . . . I guess all I'm saying is . . . just don't take it personally if nobody behaves as if they want to be your friend. The enmity between the Irish in the English goes back far longer than you and I, and it'll likely continue long after."

Cora smiled. "Well, it's a good thing that I'm not English, then."

She walked up the rest of the steps and through the door. As she passed him, she said. "And I'd prefer it if you called me Cora."

"His lordship would not take kindly to that."

"And he'd be right if we were at Downton. But this is your home, Tom. You should be allowed to live on your terms here, if nowhere else. That's why you chose to come back here, isn't it?"

Tom smiled. "Yes, thank you."

Tom guided her up the stairs and toward their door. Once unlocked, he opened and stood aside, eager to watch her reaction as she walked in and inspected their home.

The small entryway gave way to a sitting room of decent size. It was sparsely decorated, but Cora could see her daughter's touches here and there, and even recognized a trinket or two that Sybil must have smuggled from the house. At the other end of the room was a hallway that led to the kitchen, which was furnished with a table for four, on the left and to the bedrooms straight ahead, of which there were two.

Tom was in the process of taking Cora's coat and hat when a loud, determined wail pierced the silence. Cora brought her hand to her mouth and when she turned, Tom could see tears welling in her eyes.

Without a word, they walked through the hall to the master bedroom, where Sybil was sitting up in bed, calming the baby after she'd been fed. When they entered the room, Sybil looked up, expecting only to see her husband.

"Mama! You're here!"

Cora walked quickly to her daughter's side, sat down and pulled Sybil, baby and all, into her arms. "Oh, my dearest darling!"

They didn't speak for several minutes—too heavy were the tears. In an effort to give them some privacy for the reunion that Tom knew Sybil had been looking forward to since Cora had written to announce her visit, he left the room and proceeded to the kitchen to prepare some tea. The flat was small enough that even there, he could hear their sobs.

In the bedroom, Cora pulled away and wiped the tears from Sybil's eyes. "I am so sorry, my love."

"For what, mama?" Sybil said, still trying to calm the onset of emotion that had come over her when she saw her mother.

"For not being here for you."

Sybil smiled with watery eyes. "You're here now. Meet your granddaughter, Miss Saoirse Sybil Branson"

Cora carefully took the baby, now calm but wide awake, from Sybil's arms.

"Tom likes to call her Sybbie," Sybil said with a laugh, wiping the rest of her tears now that her arms were free. "But everyone else calls her by her first name."

"Saoirse," Cora said looking at the tiny pair of blue eyes. "You are as beautiful as your father said." Looking back to her daughter, Cora asked. "And how are you, my dear?"

"Better," Sybil said with a sigh. "It wasn't easy. I asked Tom not to mention this in the letter, but, um . . . I had to deliver by cesarean."

"What?"

"The doctors realized, early in labor that I was showing symptoms of eclampsia and the only way to relieve that is to have the baby and as soon as possible."

Sybil gently lifted her nightgown to show a thin red scar across the base of her pelvis.

"And you and the baby were fine?"

Sybil nodded. "Going in I knew there were risks, but I felt safe at the hospital. After the baby was out, I was medicated as a precaution so I was mostly asleep and unable to nurse her for a couple of days. Given the delay, it took some time for my milk to come, but it's all fine now. And I should be on my feet in another week."

"Your milk?" Cora exclaimed, a bit aghast.

Sybil smiled, knowing this would be her reaction.

"Yes, I know it's not the way Mary or Edith will do things, but I couldn't imagine hiring a wet nurse when I have it within me to nourish my own child."

Cora sighed and looked back down at the baby. "Well, I'll leave that detail out when I write to your grandfather, little one. He doesn't like to know too much about anything."

Sybil laughed. "How is papa?"

"Oh, he's fine. But, Sybil, darling, what about future children?"

"There's no reason I couldn't have them. The doctor said to wait to let myself heal fully, but my ability to carry another hasn't been affected. It's all quite safe, mama. There's always a risk of infection with any kind of surgery, but I came out of it fine."

"I'm almost glad I wasn't here. I would have been hysterical."

"I certainly was."

Cora turned to see Tom come in with a tray, which he set on a small table near the bed. "It was quite possibly the worst night of my life."

"But it turned out to be the best," Sybil said with a smile, taking the tea cup he was offering her.

"It did," he said, bending over to kiss her on the top of her head.

Cora smiled watching them. Whatever the circumstances they lived in, there was no doubting their love.

Once they'd all had a cup of tea, Cora settled against the headboard next to her daughter so they could catch each other up on the year and three months that they'd been apart.

Eventually, both fell asleep that way, the next in a long line of tenderhearted but stubborn and strong-willed women nestled in between them.

Tom had never been happier to have been relegated to the sofa.