A/N: THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU TO ALL THOSE WHO HAVE READ AND REVIEWED! This is my first baby so I'm still quite nervous and the reception I've received has made me feel warm and fuzzy 3. I'm also so, so glad that you love Sybbie and George's moments. Being the first grandchildren and being so close in age, I feel that it's only right that they form such a bond (and it would be a nice contrast to Mary and Edith. hahaha). I'm glad that you see it that way too.

Sorry for making you worry about Sybil. My roommate read my draft of the first chapter and actually asked me, "I thought you were gonna make her live? Did you change your mind?!". No I did not. The dramatic build-up is necessary but rest assured, Sybil will live. I could not write otherwise.

The next two chapters will be flashbacks from the events of the first one and will hopefully give you a better background of the events. This one will be (a little) less dramatic than the first although a tad bit shorter. I hope you enjoy it and don't forget to review! ;D

Disclaimer: If Downton Abbey was mine, Sybil and Matthew will still walk the Yorkshire earth - Meg is mine tho.

La poupée dans la vitrine

A baby sister.

A baby sister with hair as dark as Mamma's as her own was as light as Da's, straight as Da's as her own was as curly as Mamma's, alabaster skin and blue eyes like her own, chubby hands and fingers and legs.

For many years, a baby sister had been Sybbie's greatest wish. Prone to mischief as she and George were, she tried her best to be a perfect angel, especially at Downton where Gran could serve as a barometer ("How well behaved Sybbie is today!" "Sybbie is quite the little lady, is she not?"). She had tried hard to be one of those children that were seen but not heard even as Mamma and Da have repeatedly told her that they don't want her to be anyone else but her sweet, charming, if sometimes mischievous self. All this so that come Christmas time, she could proudly write to Father Christmas that she had been a good girl ("Gran Violet said so herself, Father Christmas!") so would he please give her a sweet baby sister that she can help dress and play with and cuddle and love.

Years passed and no baby came. Not a sister, nor a brother. Only leather-bound books of fairytales, large houses of dolls and dolls of porcelain whose frocks Granny confided were made with dentelle de Bruxelles, ordered himself by Father Christmas from the Belgian capital. But not even the beautiful doll who she named Catherine with her black curls, striking blue eyes and beautiful blue-green jupe-cullotes could take the sting off. Only, every Christmas she would see Mamma and Da exchange a brief sad look twice during the season – once when she would hand them her letter to be posted to Father Christmas in the North Pole and again after she opened her gifts and realized that there was no baby sister once more. The look was so brief that the idea that Sybbie had caught the exchange never entered their minds.

Sybbie, on her part, much more than she wanted a baby sister, wanted much more to remove that sadness from her parents' eyes.

The family moved to London after the Christmas she turned five. Da got a job once more as a journalist with a liberal paper and Mamma resumed the nursing she had undertaken again during the Downton years, this time in a big city hospital.

Tears were exchanged the day they left Yorkshire, especially between Sybbie and George who have always shared the Downton nursery and who have never lived apart. Visits with cookies in the library and hides-and-seeks in the garage were promised and it was off to London for the Bransons.

The town house was by no means Downton Abbey or even Auntie Rosamund's house in Eaton Square, neither was it in an address of great prestige but it was substantially larger than the flat in Ireland, Mamma and Da told her. Instead of a nursery, she was given her own room. In the sitting room, she was pleasantly surprised to find a telephone installed. "So that you can call George and George can call you. What about it, darling?," Da explained.

Mamma and Da settled into their careers and are happier than ever. An elderly woman named Poppy who Da described as "strong as an ox" is employed as their maid-of-all-work and the old woman instantly takes a shine to the little Miss Branson. Between frequent calls with George, Mamma's, Da's and Poppy's doting, and all the amenities that city life brings, Sybbie has come to miss Yorkshire less and less and had come to love the hustle and bustle of London.

Christmas brings the family back to Downton for a visit of mischief, cookies and George. Instead of a baby sister, Sybbie names a new doll Niamh.

The next Christmas is the opposite of the uneventful Noël of the Niamh doll. It appears that Father Christmas may have finally responded to her wish, only the baby sister is delivered to the wrong address. George complains that what he wanted was a new train set, Gran Martha from America would tell Father Christmas which one it is, only he receives instead a squalling baby sister – Margaret Crawley.

Indignant and very much jealous, Sybbie spends the night tending to a new doll, Sophia, ignoring baby-hating George and wishing once more that she could remove the sad look exchanged between her parents.

Little Meg Crawley grows and George warms to the idea of being an older brother. Rather than be weakened by the birth of a real sister, George and Sybbie's bond strengthens. "We've both been only children for so long, you're more a sister to me than a cousin, Syb," George proudly tells her. Meg grows to adore Sybbie, the only person who would willingly sit through her lengthy tea parties and the toddler is soon inducted into the rituals of cookies and hide-and-seek in the library and the garage. Mamma and Da continue to exchange that horrid, sad look during the Christmas season. Sybbie soon stops wishing for a baby sister and it is not long after that she stops believing in Father Christmas.

Sybbie is eleven-years old when her wish finally comes true much belatedly.

To be continued...

Dentelle de Bruxelles - Brussels Lace. There are regions in France and Flanders that are celebrated for their unique weaving of lace of which Brussels is one. Apart from being made into handkerchiefs, table cloths and the like, Dentelle de Bruxelles is also commonly used for the clothes of porcelain dolls that are widely sold in the Belgian capital.