This isn't a new story exactly. At least, it's not new if you follow me on tumblr. If you do, you know that while Downton Abbey series 4 was airing in the UK, I wrote a series of drabbles with accompanying manips rewriting certain scenes of the show exploring how they would have played out if Sybil had lived. I've also mentioned on my tumblr blog that I plan to post the drabbles here with a bit more background to tie everything together. So that is what this is. (If you are interested in looking at the manips that went with this series, just go to my tumblr, magfreak dot tumblr dot com, and click on the link at the top called "My Series 4.")
Before I start, a couple of things . . .
1) I wrote a lot of the drabbles on the fly, so there are a few points/details that I am going to be tweaking now that I'm posting the full story here. One is how Sybil gives birth. In one of the last drabbles, Sybil mentions losing consciousness *after* giving birth. I've changed how it all happened (as you'll see below), so when I post that drabble, the line will be slightly different.
2) This is a re-imagining of series 4 that changes nothing about what we've seen on the show except for Sybil's death. Obviously, her very presence will have changed how certain things played out, but everything else that happened in series 3 still happened, up to and including Edith being left at altar and Matthew's death. That was done sort of by necessity. The project began because I wanted to insert Sybil into scenes from the show that I thought the character would have been in and since I started with the first episode of series 4, everything that had happened on the show up to that point had to be true. As much as it pained me to consider writing a universe without Matthew and with Edith so unhappy, both characters I love, I was very interested in exploring how events would have affected Sybil and how they would have affected Tom differently with Sybil there.
Anyway, the first few chapters will be a sort of extended prologue that covers events from Sybbie's birth to Matthew's death in a series of missing scenes. Like the drabbles themselves, most chapters will be short(ish) in length, just a scene or two to establish what happens.
OK, enough with this note, on with the show . . .
It took a few minutes for Sybil to recognize the Downton hospital ceiling. Her vision was fuzzy, as eyes are after a long sleep. There was also the matter of a splitting headache that seemed to grow worse every second she was conscious. She opened her mouth to speak but her tongue felt too heavy and sticky to move let alone form words.
She closed her eyes again and some of it began to come back.
The sharp pains in her back start in the wee hours.
Dr. Clarkson checks her over.
She tells Mary that they've chosen to do a Catholic baptism.
There's a doctor she doesn't recognize. He walks about the room but never speaks to her directly. He doesn't so much as introduce himself.
Edith comes to see her. Her parents. Tom.
"Tom?" Her own voice sounded foreign to her.
He holds her hand, touches her face.
She sees the trace of fear in his eyes. She wants to tell him it's going to be all right, but something in the back of her mind worries her, like a forgotten task.
He wants to go to Liverpool.
She says something about the stars and throws her head back into the memory, holding him tightly on a chilly night atop the roof of their building blanketed by love and Dublin's night sky.
Sybil cleared her throat. "Tom?"
She doesn't remember anything else.
Sybil pulled at her heavy limbs in an effort to sit up and cried out at the sudden and searing pain in her abdomen.
"Tom?" She called again, her racing heart rate now truly waking her from her previous stupor.
"She's awake! Hurry, she's awake!"
It was the voice of Isobel, but Tom's was the face she saw first.
"Praise God!" Tom exclaimed, his voice breaking. "It's all right, my darling. You're going to be all right."
Tom leaned down to place a gentle kiss on her forehead, cognizant of her still fragile state, and brushed her hair from her face and neck with his fingers.
"Tom, the baby!" Sybil squeaked out, blinking away the tears and seeing tears in his eyes and in the eyes of Isobel standing behind him.
"Oh, love, she's beautiful," Tom said, grinning like Sybil had never seen him do. "She's perfect."
Sybil let out a sob. "It's a girl?"
"Yes, love, a beautiful girl and she's been crying for her mam since she was born."
"How long ago was it?" Sybil asked, a trace of desperation in her voice as she wondered how much she had missed.
"Just a day a half," Tom said, squeezing her hands. "She's been fine. You've not missed anything."
Sybil, overcome with relief and joy, pulled on Tom's hand until he was close enough for her to put her arms around him and sobbed into him for several minutes.
"Would you like to meet your daughter?" He said into her neck.
Sybil laughed and pulled away. "Oh, yes."
"I'll go get her."
"She's still here in the hospital?" Sybil asked.
"Of course," he said. "We weren't going to leave here without you. Just wait a moment."
As Tom walked to fetch the baby from her bassinet at the other end of the ward, Isobel approached carefully and offered Sybil a hand so she could sit up.
"What happened?" Sybil asked practically whispering.
Isobel looked into Sybil's eyes and immediately saw the question. It was the nurse in Sybil who was asking. "It was eclampsia, my dear," Isobel said solemnly. "Are you familiar with it?"
Sybil nodded. She looked down at her still swollen torso and gently pressed her hands against her lower abdomen. She winced despite the lightness of her touch. "Is there an infection?"
"Yes, but thankfully a mild one," Isobel answered. "I assisted Dr. Clarkson with the procedure myself. He took exceedingly good care of you. You know that I wouldn't say this lightly, but in this case, I believe it to be true. He saved—"
"My life," Sybil said, finishing the thought for her. "You did, too," she added with a light smile. "I don't remember you at the house."
"I don't want you to worry over this," Isobel said sitting at the edge of the bed and taking Sybil's hand, "but there was some . . . disagreement as to what was happening to you. Matthew called me in the middle of it at Tom's request."
"I'm so glad he did," Sybil said. Her smile warmed Isobel's heart.
It had been a fight unlike any Isobel had witnessed, but sense had won out. Thanks, at least in part, to a well placed punch.
I'll let him tell her that part, Isobel thought with a smile.
Hearing Tom approach, Isobel regarded Sybil for a long moment and looked like she was going to say something else, but instead stood to give Tom room.
Sybil felt a small weight settle gently on her heart as she watched Tom walk toward her with the tiny bundle in his arms. He sat down on the edge of the bed and very gingerly shifted the small child into Sybil's arms. The baby had been asleep when Tom picked her up out of her bassinet, but as she settled into her mother's arms, seemingly recognizing the momentousness of this moment, she opened her eyes and saw her mother looking back at her. Her tiny mouth opened into something like a smile.
"Hello, my lovely girl," Sybil said as more tears fell on her cheeks. Sybil tugged at the swaddle to let the baby's arms free. "Oh, Tom, how did we manage it? She's everything I thought she'd be."
"She's her mother's daughter. There's no denying that."
Sybil looked up at Tom and smiled. "I love her. And you. So much."
Tom laughed and leaned in for a kiss. "Oh, darling, so much love fills my heart now, it might well burst." He sat back and then scratched his head sheepishly. "Though I wonder if you'll be singing a different tune when I tell you what it took to get you to the hospital."
Sybil furrowed her brow. "What it took?"
"Your father was being wholly unreasonable and insisted that Sir Philip Tapsell be listened to over the objections of both Isobel and Dr. Clarkson. Downton is his house, but I wasn't going to let him have the last word when it comes to my family. And honestly, love, I never would have done it if I didn't think the situation absolutely dire. Though I'm afraid I confirmed his worst assumptions of me in the process."
"What are you talking about?"
Tom took a deep breath. "I . . . well, I . . ."
Sybil rolled her eyes with a laugh. "Tom, just say it!"
"I knocked his lights out."