Title: Transatlantic
Fandom: Downton Abbey
Word Count: 3042 words
Characters/Pairings: Sybil Crawley; Tom Branson; Sybil/Branson
Summary: Modern AU. Sybil Crawley, Tom Branson, and a summer in New York.
Disclaimers: The usual.
This is a remix of my S/B fic Transatlantic which was originally written in August 2011. No major spoilers for S2.
one.
After Mary attends Cambridge and Edith chooses Oxford, Sybil knows she will study at neither. There's a difference, she's realized, between being someone's younger sister and having her name said first, and self-centered as it may be, she's rather fond of the latter. So when the time comes, she goes through the motions of doing all that is expected but keeps her preferences - her choice - a secret until the moment is just right.
They're halfway through the salmon when she finally clears her throat. "I've decided - and you can't stop me, because I've already sent the deposit - to study in America."
Silverware clatters and conversation ceases until Matthew remembers how to speak. "Well, Sybil, that's a pleasant surprise."
Mary joins in next, reaches for her hand across the table. "Of course it is. Isn't that right, Papa?"
Her father nods slowly, just once, as if unsure as to how to proceed. "Will you be attending your mother's alma mater then?"
"No," she replies, and here she will smile as if she needs leniency, "I've chosen Yale."
"Really, Sybil," Granny begins, "I understand that studying abroad might appear exciting, but why couldn't you at least have tried for Harvard?" Her grandmother mutters something else about a liberal arts education that she doesn't quite catch (but to which Cousin Isobel naturally and vehemently disagrees), and the rest is lost in the flurry of discussion that follows.
It is Edith that settles the argument at last. "I don't understand what the fuss is all about. After a certain point all the universities begin to look the same, wouldn't you agree?"
Her mother is unexpectedly quiet; it does not go unnoticed.
Over the next several days, Sybil is engaged in extensive negotiation over the conditions of her educational plans. She is to return every holiday on the first flight home, no excuses. There will be regular contact: phone calls and emails and impromptu visits from her relatives, maternal and paternal. It's all rather reasonable, Papa maintains, given the unexpected circumstances. She is the baby of the family. After a healthy dose of protest, Sybil finally agrees to all the terms.
She had always intended to, really, once she realized the prize was already in her hands.
Mary takes her out shopping, asks whether she's really ready to spend the next four years across the ocean.
"Of course," she replies, nearly indignant, "Why wouldn't I be?" After all, it still seems like everything Sybil has ever wanted is within her reach.
She receives a smile instead of a sigh. "We're Crawleys, Sybil. We tend to be more hesitant about change. That, or we find inevitably find ways to muck things up in our course to start it."
Sybil is prepared for the weather, the chaos of orientation, the constant handshakes and introductions. It's the culture shock that comes after, when her parents have flown home, that strikes her in a way she doesn't expect. She's been in the States enough times to consider herself more than a naive tourist, and her mother's American, but things start to feel different on campus once things start moving and she finds herself missing Downton, her friends, and her family most of all.
She reassures them all that there's no need to worry, that her classes are interesting and her roommates are nice and she's adjusting just fine, thank you very much for (repeatedly) asking. She never ends these conversations first, wonders if anyone realizes it. Homesickness may be a word she's never had much use for, but it's one she's beginning to live.
She'd been set on embarking on something new and exciting, but finds herself enrolling in a course entitled "Major English Poets" simply because it seems as though it will offer some familiarity, some security. She hates it more than she thinks she should, but pushes through Chaucer and Spenser and Shakespeare with as much confidence as she can muster; she's never been one to give in easily, and it doesn't seem like now would be the time to start.
But for once, Sybil feels so very young.
Her mother sends her a package during midterm exams, a book safely cushioned between the layers of cardigan sweaters and knitted hats and soft leather gloves. It's a battered copy of The Norton Reader, scribbles upon scribbles filling up the margins.
She opens the envelope tucked inside. "I'm sorry I didn't send it earlier," her mother writes, "but it took me a long time to find it. I want you to know, Sybil, that I am so very proud of you." She opens to the front again, sees Cora Levinson written neatly inside the cover. Thanksgiving, Sybil decides, can not come early enough.
Edith's there to pick her up from the airport, arms extended before she even exits the gate.
"Here's some advice, Sybil, if you want to take it," she says, as they pull out of the lot. "Don't look at your grades until after you get back to school - you should enjoy your time home with us, doing what you can instead of worrying about what you can't."
"Did Mary tell you to do that when you first started?"
"Mary may be first in many things, but she doesn't have a monopoly on good ideas, you know. Frankly, she's had some rather bad ones. No, I thought of it myself."
"Edith, I'm very glad you did. And that you told me - that too."
"It's nothing, really. Oh, and Sybil?"
"Yes?"
"It's hard enough figuring out what you don't want, so I think you've already won half the battle."
She hugs Edith again, when they get out of the car, just for good measure.
When she's at Matthew and Mary's Christmas party, her grandmother pulls her aside, asks if she might drive her home. "I hope you don't mind, my dear," Granny confesses, "but I will admit this was partially an excuse to get away from those dreadful carolers. I'm not sure where Isobel found them, but I have a mind to send them all back."
They have tea the next day, just the two of them, and she hears all about great-aunt Roberta. "Now, there's a line my sister always used to say..."
Sybil repeats it on her flight back, after she hugs her family as many times as she can and promises to be more open with sharing her troubles and joys and everything in between: Where's the fun if it all comes easily?
On the first day of her second semester, she walks into the wrong classroom by mistake, feels too polite to get up and leave once the instructor launches into the material. She starts to talk about women's history and Sybil finds herself staying, rooted in her seat in the small auditorium.
It's not long before she looks forward to the lectures, the readings, the discussions with her professor and teaching fellows both during and after class. By spring, Sybil sits underneath the shade of the towers and feels settled at last.
two.
Sybil keeps all her promises and the visits home run like clockwork, but when she's waiting in her adviser's office in the winter of her third year, everything begins to change. Her professor asks about her summer plans and she answers "I haven't any" before she can stop herself.
"There's an opportunity," her professor continues, "that I thought would be perfect for you as you begin your senior thesis. My colleague from Harvard is looking for a research assistant while he writes a book on the Seneca Falls Convention. Would you be interested? I would be happy to write a recommendation letter on your behalf."
"Yes, I'd greatly appreciate it." (To be perfectly honest, there's a small part of her that thinks Granny would too.)
Everything moves quickly, and before Sybil knows it, she's secured the position, housing, and a considerable grant to fund it all. But the dreaded moment comes at last when she picks up the phone and tells Mama that there will be a deviation from the norm: it's time she spent the summer in New York.
"That would be perfect, Sybil! You could stay with your cousins in the city and join us in the Hamptons for the garden party in August. Matthew's never been, you know, and Mary would-"
"Mama, I won't be staying in Manhattan."
"But you just said that you would be in New York."
"I'll be upstate."
"Oh," her mother says, "it's fine, I suppose, for a brief visit, but what could you possibly find all the way over there? For an entire summer at that?"
Sybil glances at her desk, sees the library books, the pages of copious notes, the assignments returned with high marks of praise. "Adventure, Mama."
"I just want you to be well taken care of, that's all, which is something I can ensure when you're here, with us."
"I know, Mama, but you've trusted me before and I only ask that you do the same again."
Downton is special, there's no denying that, but it's been a while since she really considered it home. The physical space doesn't matter so much, she supposes, after she's had her taste of independence and knows, in the end, that she belongs where she belongs. Sybil believes it's just a matter of time until her parents can be persuaded to feel the same. Sending them her confirmed itinerary is just the first step.
The professor, Sybil learns, will spend the summer with his wife in a quiet cabin, while she will live at a local university not too far away. ("A much better library for your needs, with consistent internet access and a kitchenette," he had quietly assured her, when they first discussed arrangements.) She finally meets him at the airport, is caught off-guard when she finds the professor not only injured, but joined by an unexpected guest.
"This is my nephew Tom," he says, noting her surprise, "on loan to us for the summer. He has graciously offered to be our driver, seeing as I have unfortunately broken my leg at the most inopportune moment and my wife never did get her license. Now, Tom will be staying in the residence hall with you. He has his own research to do, which I am sure you can chat about, and rest assured that I can manage well enough with my dear Constance by my side."
"Please," the young man says, extending his hand, "call me Branson."
He is, she learns, only a little bit older, an aspiring politician that defines his interests as history and politics. (She'll hide her laugh when she hears it, considers him terribly serious at first, because really, who but a scholar would say something like that?) She wonders what he's doing so far away from Ireland, is told he's taking a break from campaigns and legislation and government because he's won a fellowship. (It's foolish, he explains, to turn down the opportunity to pick up a master's degree when someone's paying him to learn.)
When she asks where he'll be come September, he only answers New England and so she, in turn, replies the same.
Branson claims he's an early riser (likes to read the morning papers, he says), but Sybil knows better. She's the one that has to walk to his room bright and early each morning and knock loudly on his door, yelling that they'll be late and his uncle has a deadline, in case he forgot.
It takes him about a week to fall into her regimented schedule, and she gains a nickname in the meantime. Still, she can't help but find milady a term of endearment, even when Branson says it with utter exasperation. (The professor, of course, notices and compliments her on their improved punctuality.)
She grows to like him a little more when they fall into a routine of cooking dinner together on their off-days, which they spend, for the most part, holed up in the study rooms of the library, a barrier of books stacked high between them.
"What are you working on?" he asks, chopping the vegetables.
"My senior thesis. I'm doing a comparative study on how class structure influenced the women's suffrage movement in America and England. And you?"
"Beginning a literature review on some aspects of socialism," he says.
"That's awfully general," she replies.
"Now Miss Crawley, I can't have you running away with my ideas, can I? Who knows what you might do with them?"
She doesn't have an answer, not really, since she's never given it much thought, but replies that she'll get back to him eventually. He grins, tells her not to dwell too long on it, that she might have other things to worry about because it smells like she's whatever she's left in the oven might not make it out.
She reaches for the mitts but it's too late; another one of Mrs. Patmore's tried and true recipes ruined. He tosses her an apple - a more agreeable replacement for that dessert she'd been praising to the heavens, he says - and she resists the urge to throw it right back. It is, she admits, a perfectly good apple.
They talk - debate - of other things as well, current events and family and lofty aspirations. She's done more things with other boys (charmed and flirted and kissed), but somehow all this conversation feels entirely more intimate. She thinks she rather likes it.
They're driving to the house one day, discussing the merits of some secondary sources when she suddenly remembers she's to join her family in August, and wonders, for whatever reason, about him. "Tell me Branson, what are your plans before you go off to school?"
"I'm shocked, milady, that you would ask."
"And why is that?"
"With the way you've been ordering me about for the last month and a half, I was convinced you thought I'd stay a chauffeur forever. But don't worry, I'll make something of myself, you can count on that." He keeps his eyes on the road but smiles at her in the mirror; she can't help but return it.
(Only later, when she's sorting through footnotes and citations, does she realize he never really answered the question.)
It is July and Sybil is running errands in town when she receives a call from Mary.
"Mama thinks there's a boy."
"Why would she ever think that?"
"You're practically in the mountains and you hardly write or call. Don't tell me that there's a riveting secret you're hiding, you know how Granny would react."
"I'm just engrossed in my work, that's all. My professors think it's very promising and I could possibly co-author a-"
"Alright, Sybil. Be sure not to worry yourself too much. In the end it's only a piece of paper. A very nice one, but still."
Mary, Sybil decides, doesn't get it all, not really, but at least there is someone here that does.
He almost kisses her once (or, to be more accurate, she nearly kisses him), when they're walking back from the grocer's and he helps her with her bags and leans in her doorway, just so. She thinks she's the one who stepped back first, can't really remember when her heart's still pounding and she knows that now is not the time to get distracted, not when she's worked so hard to get this far and he has done the same. Sybil thinks she knows what she wants but shouldn't take, at least not yet, and questions if recognizing that is just another part of growing up. (Edith never really shared what to do in that case.)
It's awkward for a while between them, too many accidental brushes and subsequent apologies, but they fall back into place soon after, bonding over safer topics like politics.
"Friends?" he asks, after conceding defeat.
"Friends," she says.
They share a slice a cake after and she dares to think that maybe later it might be different.
"You'll write?"
"I promise."
"Good luck, then."
"The same to you."
Their correspondence is brief, cordial even, and by the time the garden party rolls around, excuses are already being made. "Sorry it's taken so long to respond - I've been busy unpacking" and "It's maddening, really, all these wedding preparations for my sister," and other things that feel flimsy even as they write them.
"Oh," Edith chides, "don't look so glum, Sybil. You should have thought to invite a guest if you knew we would bore you. Didn't Mary remind you?" But when she sees the look on her face, Edith sighs. "There, there, now. I didn't mean it like that."
Mary, though, Mary hugs her. "Summer romances are meant to be just that, Sybil. There will be others lining up before you know it. Even Edith and I would certainly agree on that."
"It wasn't a fling," Sybil argues, perhaps a bit dramatically, "but a friendship on the cusp of becoming so much more." But poetic words won't change the distance that divides them, and so she spends the evening holding the attention of as many handsome boys as she can. (It all feels false, and this, she realizes, is what Edith meant all along.)
three.
Sybil doesn't know it yet, but in two weeks time she will be late for the graduate-level seminar her adviser has encouraged her to take. She will pray it doesn't make for a bad first impression, dart into the room, hoping for a place at the crowded table. She will make her apologies, accept the syllabus from the student seated next to her. She will look up, ready to mouth thank you, when she catches familiar eyes.
"New England?" she will ask, as they pack up their things.
"New England," he will answer.
He will inquire as to her availability that evening, her interest in possibly joining him for coffee or tea. There will be a dinner invitation for Saturday, but that will come later, when they walk towards the library and he reaches for her hand.
This time, she doesn't let go.