A/N: Ok, that episode SLAYED me. I actually knew it was coming, but that didn't stop me from sobbing the whole time! I was particularly touched by all the characters' reactions. Here's my best tribute to dear Lady Sybil.
(title from Romeo and Juliet) (all recognizable things are not mine)
Cora
It isn't supposed to be Sybil. Sybil is your darling, your baby, and you remember when she was a child, how she would run so far, her hair tumbling out of its ribbons, her laugh lofting back to you on the breeze. Sybil has always run along her own way, but she always comes back to you.
Sybil is supposed to come back to you.
Carson
It isn't supposed to be Sybil.
Dear Lady Sybil—the sweetest child, a pretty girl, a beautiful woman. She could be…bold, in her words and in her life, but you loved her with the fierce devotion you gladly give to all this family.
And how can she be—
You have no value for modernity, but what use is any of it, really, if doctors cannot save such a precious life?
Lady Sybil is supposed to be the one to coax you through these unpredictable tomorrows.
Edith
It isn't supposed to be Sybil. You loved her—it was so much easier to love her than to love Mary, who has always been so beautiful, so distant, so cold. Sybil was warmth and spirit and fun, and you were very different, but you were sisters.
She never let you forget that, never forgot it herself.
Sybil is supposed to be here to comfort you.
Robert
It isn't supposed to be Sybil. You've been a blind, arrogant fool, and you will never forgive yourself. Nor, it is likely, will anyone else.
Sybil was yours, much more than Mary and Edith ever were. There was always so much of a child about Sybil—willful, even headstrong, but so very dear. So gentle, bytimes, and you were always softer to her even than you meant to be.
All those little flaws and missteps, she would have ironed out.
Sybil is supposed to have a future.
Mary
It isn't supposed to be Sybil. Sybil is—was—so very good…kind and sweet and pure, everything you could never really be, even when you tried. Sybil never gave up on you.
You know there are many who love you, many more than you deserve. But no one loves you like Sybil did, with the innocent admiration of a little sister.
No one will ever love you like that again.
Sybil is supposed to whisper that you are being silly, and that it will all be alright.
Thomas
It isn't supposed to be Sybil. Not Lady Sybil, who looked on you almost as an equal, in her simple nurse's cap and apron, who did not scorn you, warn you, make you feel that you were less.
You've never had much use for her kind, for all that you simper and flatter, but Lady Sybil was set apart.
She made you feel as though things could be different—for you, for the world.
Lady Sybil is supposed to have a part in that new world.
Violet
It isn't supposed to be Sybil. Sybil was young and beautiful and good. You are old and very set in your ways—you do not apologize for it, but you feel the ache of the years and of the times.
Sybil was light-hearted and full of laughter, and she was better than every one of the high-tempered, high-blooded fools who are your family, who please and vex you by terms.
Sybil always made you smile.
Sybil is supposed to outlive you.
Tom
It isn't supposed to be Sybil. Oh, God—how can it be, when she was all you had, your happiness and hope? Your life together, your success against odds as formidable as Downton's walls—how can this be?
Sybil is supposed—but you cannot finish the thought, because Sybil owed you nothing, and you owed her everything.
Sybil was supposed to be your everything.