My dear Coberts, this is my contribution to the Cobert Winter Wonderland Exchange. It's a little multi-chapter story, which is set somewhere between the end of series 3 and the "Journey to the Highlands". Although it starts a bit on the sad side, I promise you a hot and happy ending - after all, it's supposed to be a Christmas story. I hope you'll enjoy it and am sorry for any mistakes. Merry Christmas to all of you!

It was very rare that Robert went to bed before her, but today he had excused himself at the first convenient moment without being impolite to their guests.

When she entered her room, an unexpected wave of relief washed over her, because for a little while after her husband had gone up, she feared he might have decided to sleep in his dressing room. But there he was, lying on his side of their bed, where he belonged, already sound asleep.

She knew, the last months, even years, had been tough. They had been for all of them but especially for him. First the to and fro between Mary and Matthew, then this dreadful war, where he had come to feel superfluous and unwanted by almost everyone. Everyone but this maid apparently. But they had overcome that - whatever it was - because she had decided not to talk about what she had sensed and he had become his usual attentive self again. If she was honest, since then, her husband had lavished even more attention on her than he ever had before. Which had never been a sparse amount anyway. He loved her - and only her - she was absolutely sure of that in some strange way, and she loved him. In the very end, it had been that easy.
And there had been happy moments, too. Few and far in between. The war had ended victorious, Matthew had recovered from his wounds and he had proposed to Mary, who had - finally - come to her senses and accepted him happily.

But after that, the dark days had returned and it had gone on and on. One beating after another. Bates' trial, the loss of her fortune, the death of their beloved Sybil and the rift it had caused between them, the fight over the christening of their first grandchild, the modernising of Downton and the growing impatience of Matthew on that account.

At least the annual cricket match had gone in his favour.

She really liked to watch him sleep. It had been so long since she last had had the chance and it worried her greatly that he had developed problems with his sleep, which had taken her quite some time to notice. In the beginning he had woken her one or two times with his tossing around, but then he had just stopped tossing. When he couldn't sleep, he just lay awake, thinking, staring at the ceiling, waiting, sometimes until dawn when he would get up before she awoke and go about his business as if nothing had happened. If he couldn't find sleep for more than three nights in a row, he took a pill which knocked him out cold.

He just looked so peaceful. No frown, no sadness in his eyes, no hand clenched into a silent fist, but the empty glass on his nightstand told her that he had needed help to reach that peace. Again. It was the second time this week. Cora sighed, sat down on the bed next to his sleeping form and took his hand in hers. She knew he wouldn't wake up for he was more than just sound asleep. After she had noticed that Robert was taking some sort of medicine before bed, she had asked Dr Clarkson about it because her husband obviously didn't want to tell her. He had brushed it off as nothing for her to worry about, when she had asked him. The good Doctor though had told her that he had advised Robert not to use this stuff unless he felt it absolutely necessary, otherwise there would be the chance of organ damage, not to mention addiction.

She kissed his hand and threaded her fingers through his. What was he trying to hide from her? He had always been difficult - to say the least - when he was ill. He hated feeling weak and he always tried to conceal it until it was so obvious that he was no longer able to hide it anymore. With her free hand she started to comb tenderly through his hair. There was no sign from him that he acknowledged her presence on any level. The longer they were together the more astonished she was at how much a person could love another person. It wasn't the hot fire, the burning ache or the desperate longing from their first years together anymore. It was so very much more than that now. There still was fire, ache and longing but it was somehow different. It had transformed into an intimacy that you only acquired after years and years of being together. Into a kind of intimacy where you would be able to finish the other ones sentences if you wanted to. Some had called that "security" and "routine" and therefore boring, but in her eyes they were wrong, because this intimacy didn't mean that they wouldn't surprise each other now and then with gifts, ideas or speeches, but it meant that those gifts, ideas or speeches wouldn't threaten their relationship in any way and she wouldn't for the life of her exchange that for the rather shallow feeling of falling in love and for all the uncertainty that comes with it, as exciting as it had been in those days when she had first met Robert. Without knowing he had taught her to love with all that she was and with all her heart and when he was like this - shutting her out and trying to hide his troubles from her - her heart was the very first thing to ache. She knew he did it partly because he loved her in much the same way and wanted to protect her, but in those cases he would actually protect her more if he included her, for her hurting heart always caused her more pain than the troubles of the outside world ever could.
She sighed again and caressed his warm and stubbly cheek for a short moment before she let her hand wander a bit further down to rest on his chest. Slowly she let her head sink down to rest next to it and for a long while she just listened to his even heartbeat and recalled her thoughts at dinner. How he had looked at her and how they had held hands for a moment in the drawing-room. When he had squeezed her hand suddenly with an unexpected intensity she had thought that tonight, maybe, they would make love again. It had been some time now. Over the last two weeks he either had been knocked out by his medication or too exhausted and not in the mood due to lack of sleep. But when he went upstairs shortly after, she knew it wasn't to be.

Cora felt lost.

"Please, my love," she whispered into the unresponsive darkness, "what can I do? I miss you. Talk to me, please? Tell me what to do?"

But there was no answer and Cora soon drifted away into a light slumber.