DISCLAIMER: I do not own Downton Abbey, and I am not Julian Fellowes. Nor would I wish to be at this present moment!
Cora had taken to wandering the halls of Downton. She had no particular place to be, and nor did she want the company of others in this dark time. She knew that she should be with her daughters; to hold them and tell them that it would become better with time. But she was not so sure of this fact. How could all be right in the world without her baby girl with her? It was like she had been thrown onto hot coals whenever her youngest daughter left the nest; but this pain felt more like a volcano had taken root inside her – it bubbled and burned constantly as her grief continued to stab at her. She knew just one person with whom she could converse.
Tom had never embraced the Crawley's enough to understand them; but Cora had become a confidante and a friend since Sybil's passing. Cora had a son now – no, not the kind that she had given birth to, but a son all the same. She adored Matthew and admired his love for her eldest daughter – but Tom was such a free spirit, and so like Sybil…she almost felt like she was with her whenever she was around Tom.
Cora knocked soundly on the door before she pushed it open. She would have expected the baby to be asleep in the bassinet and for Tom to be by the window as he almost always was – looking over his daughter and often weeping silently. However, she was met with quite a different scene that night.
Father and child were laid out on the bed – the exhaustion had finally caught up with them. His face was the picture of peacefulness as he fell into a deep slumber. The baby rested on the pillow next to him; it had been rearranged so that both parent and baby were on the same level. Tom's hand rested on the pillow and Cora gasped as she watched her granddaughter unconsciously grasp onto his thumb.
They will be just fine, she thought for the first time since Sybil's death. His child would keep him from insanity and he would take care of that baby like his life depended on it. She was worried about her son-in-law and granddaughter – now she was quite positive that they would survive this darkness.