AN: I have no idea how good this is. I have been caught up at work more than ever before (I think) and it took me forever to write this.

Please let me know what you think!

Thank you,

Kat

Cora

"Your ladyship, this has been given to me. For you."

"Thank you, Carson." She takes the note from him and recognizes the handwriting at the first glance. Mr. Bricker. She wonders what he wants. She is afraid of opening the note because she has an inkling of what he wants and she isn't sure she won't give in, he has something to offer her after all, something that Robert does not want to or maybe cannot offer to her anymore. And so she opens the note.

My dearest Cora,

First of all let me apologize for coming to your room unannounced. That was wrong. I should have given you more time. But it is as I said, we both know that something happened between us. You cannot deny that. I admire you, I am in love with you and I think that you love me too. Why would you flirt with me otherwise?

I can't offer you a home like Downton Abbey, but I can offer you love. Love that is all encompassing. I would take you with me everywhere, I would never neglect or ignore you. You would be the center of my life. There is nothing I wouldn't do for you.

I have been invited to a gallery opening in New York. I am leaving in a week. Come to London and I'll take you with me. I'll take you home and if you didn't want to, we'd never have to leave again.

Think about it. Please.

Simon

It drives tears into her eyes and she sees herself on a ship to New York, actually living in New York again. Somewhere where she won't be recognized as a stranger the moment she opened her mouth. Somewhere where people would take her seriously. And isn't there a chance that she would be taken much more seriously as the wife of an art dealer who obviously cares about her opinion than the wife of an earl who disregards everything she says and married her for her money only in the first place anyway?

She'd have to get a divorce, of course. Going to New York with Bricker but remaining married to Robert is not an option. She'd have to make a clean cut. And why not? Robert does not talk to her anymore, their marriage is in ruins, she doesn't think that it can ever be fixed. Their children are grown-up. Or dead. They don't need her. Nobody needs her for. She has become superfluous. She was superfluous once before. At the beginning of her marriage to Robert. She had given the family the money they wanted, she was just something unpleasant to be dealt with then. But at least they still needed her to produce an heir. Getting her money meant making her the mother of the heir. Only she was never able to give Robert an heir. The only boy they ever conceived she lost. The other three children were girls. Now she isn't needed for that anymore. She can't produce an heir anymore, she is far too old. And it isn't necessary in any case. There is an heir, Mary's son.

Her money is gone. Lost by her husband years ago. She isn't worth anything anymore for the family. No hope for an heir, the money lost. That used to not be a problem when she was still important to Robert, when he still loved her, when she still loved him. She has no idea how much love there is left between them, but she thinks it's negligible. At least on his part. And probably also on her part. She can't love a man who disregards her the way that Robert does. This thought makes her cry because he used to value her opinion, there was a time, quite a long time, decades in fact, when she had the feeling that there was nothing more important to Robert than her. And she loved him so much for it. But that is all gone. Vanished. And she doesn't know why. She can't help but remember his surprise return from America. Where he had gone to rescue her brother. The way he looked at her when he came back. The way he kissed in front of literally everyone living in the village or on the estate. The way he praised her work to the family. The way he had made love to her that night. None of that is left. It got lost somewhere in the overhaul of the estate. With going against tradition in modernizing the estate, he had returned to tradition in their marriage. She has turned into his accessory. The pretty countess who does not embarrass him. She is nothing more. Just a necessity to make his social live easier. Not the anchor to his world anymore, as she once was.

"I am thinking about going to New York soon," she announces at dinner. Everyone looks at her, everyone except for Robert who keeps staring at his plate.

"Why?" Edith asks very surprised, something that earns her an eye roll from Mary. Apparently her eldest daughter knows what is going on.

"Because I've been invited."

"That was very nice of Grandmama." She looks at her middle daughter, who became her youngest daughter when Sybil died.

"It wasn't your Grandmama who invited me. It wasn't my brother either." Her daughters, Tom, her mother-in-law and Isobel all stare at her expectantly. Robert pretends to not have heard. He ignores her completely and this is what makes her snap.

"In fact, I was invited by Simon Bricker." That gets Robert to react. He bangs his fist on the table, gets up, throws his napkin on his plate and leaves without looking at anyone.

"Really Mama, I always thought I was the most heartless person in this family, but apparently I have to hand over the crown to you now."

She looks at Mary who stares back at her, as if to challenge her to disagree. But she can't. She doesn't know what to say.

"I should go and make sure Robert does not drink himself into a stupor." She is astonished by her mother-in-law's words and watches the woman get up. Mary, Edith and Isobel leave as well, she has no idea where to, but right before she leaves the room, Edith stops, looks at her and says

"It does not happen very often. But I agree with Mary." All she can do is stare after her daughter's retreating back.

She looks at Tom, the only one left in the dining room besides her. Even Carson, Barrow and Moseley have left. She supposes that Carson made them leave because Barrow would have never missed something like this on his own accord.

"Don't you want to leave too?" she snaps at Tom.

Tom gives something between a nod a shrug of his head and then looks at her defiantly.

"Cora," he says. She wants to tell him to call her Lady Grantham, but then remembers that she has told Robert a thousand times that she thought it stupid that they still made Tom call them by their titles. Robert of course did not care about that.

"I wish that Sybil was still here to say what I am going to say now. She could be pretty frank if she wanted to be and I think she would have wanted to be exactly that right now. Mary is right, what you have just done is beyond heartless. I know that Robert has been caught up with the overhaul of the estate and maybe not been as considerate to you as he usually is, but are you really prepared to throw away what you have had for 34 years because of a few weeks? A few weeks that were very difficult for Robert? Think about it very carefully, because you are about to throw something away that no one in this family has besides Robert and you." With that Tom leaves and as he tends to do when he is upset, he bangs the door. Although she wonders whether he did it right now because Sybil would surely have banged the door.

The injustice of it all makes her cry. Robert keeps ignoring her, belittling her, in a way he ridicules her, he more or less called her dumb when they were in London, he does all those things and she does one thing, one single thing that wasn't very kind and the whole family turns against her. In that moment she realizes that she does not really think of them as her family anymore. And of course there is only one thing to do. She finishes her wine, gets up, goes to her room, rings for Baxter and begins to pack her suitcases to go to New York.