And I am not alone when my love is near me...

The endless reassurance from her sisters did nothing to temper his feelings, his guilt that she was no longer on this earth because of him. She was dead because of him. Because of the baby he had put inside her. Had she never met him, never married him, never shared those nights together naked skin pressing against naked skin, she would still be alive. Still be breathing. Still brightening the room with her smile.

Instead she was lying on her bed, sheets damp with her sweat and stained with her blood, her skin cold and pallid, eye lids closed shut. The thought, no, the knowledge that he was the reason would not leave him and it had tormented him endlessly through that night, that horrible painful night spent by her bedside, studying her face, desperately wanting to commit every bit of it to memory. He longed to hear her voice say his name, wake from her sleep and wish him a good morning, tell him she loved him. He wished now that he had told her that more, he hadn't said it enough, especially not in recent months. But he doubted he would feel any amount would ever have been enough.

He hears the baby in the next room, her voice can be heard, even if her Mother's can't. He took her hand, not feeling the difference between warm skin and the cool metal of her wedding band any longer; it was all the same now. He brought her hand to his face, just as he had done the night before, he kissed the back of her hand – longing, almost willing the skin to warm beneath his lips, for her eyes to flicker open and her mouth to form the smile he loved so much.

Loved. Already he was thinking of her as something belonging to the past. That thought tore at his chest, rubbing salt into the wound that already split his heart.

He could hear the nurse in the next room, not her words but her voice, calming and soothing and the baby fell silent. He knelt at her bedside, as he had done just a few hours before, as she had slipped away from him, and he sobbed into her hand.

"It ought to be you, my darling. It ought to be you who soothes her, you cared for her and fed her and kept her safe for all those months. It ought to be you here…I'm so sorry, my love." A cry escaped his throat, blocked his words for a while. It hurt him to know that she would never embark on the adventure she had been so excited to begin, the adventure into motherhood, caring for the child which had been so present to her, resting in her belly, even when it was still an abstract thought to him. And now another woman was that baby's lifeline. A woman they didn't know. A woman who hadn't carried her nor wondered whose likeness she would be. Not the woman whose face, the moment he finally felt the baby in her womb, he would never forget – so excited that finally she could share something more of the little being she already knew so intimately with another. "I'm so sorry, to you both. For all the wonderful things you will never know of each other."

The door opened slightly and suddenly Mary was behind him, a hand on his shoulder – he wondered how many times she had reached out to touch him before, had she ever when she wasn't seeking assistance in or out of a car?

"She looks so peaceful now." Her voice was soft, barely audible.

"Like she's sleeping." His voice cracked and Mary nodded.

"Just like she is sleeping."

They stayed like that a while, Sybil's hand pressed to his face and Mary's resting on his shoulder – a reminder that she was there, he was not alone in this, no matter how lonely he felt.

He broke down, tears streaming from his eyes and sobs wracking his chest and shoulders. She moved him so he was sat on the bed; his fingers still entwined with Sybil's, his eyes still on her face.

Had he known this would be the trade in the end, the outcome of his years waiting for her, loving her with no guarantee of a future, would he still have been as bold as he had been in York, in the early days of the war when the world felt as if it was crumbling around them?

"It's all my fault." He gasped it more than he spoke it, his lungs desperate for air. "If she'd never known me…" Mary knelt in front of him, taking his free hand in hers. "If I'd never taken her away from here," he squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed, attempting to clear his throat, needing to say these words to somebody, to profess the guilt that bore into his very core, "If we'd never married…"

For the first time his eyes strayed from Sybil and met Mary's, shining with tears. "She would not have had the year of happiness you gave her. Because she was Tom; you made her so incredibly happy. More than we could ever have done. You gave her such joy even before you were husband and wife. And that baby gave her such joy without it even being here. The letters she wrote, oh Tom, it was palpable, you could feel her happiness coming off the page." She wiped a tear from her face and took a breath. "Not a single ounce of guilt lies with you. With you or that little one. We will never make either of you feel as if it does and you must promise me that you won't either. You won't blame the baby and you won't blame yourself, because between the two of you, you gave her the greatest months of her life. You let her live."

So, eerily I wrote some of this as part of a non-fanfic piece I am working on a good few weeks ago. It doesn't really fit in with that piece but suddenly it does with Downton. I feel a bit less heartbroken after writing it! There may be more, so it is not a one shot for now. I hope you like it, I honestly do.

A still very sad LP. x