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She smiled politely to everybody, looking around the hall of the hospital with an empty expression in her eyes, but nobody seemed to feel her discomfort. She shook hands and received compliments for the organization of the party, as if she had been the happy and proud lady of the house and not just a simple nurse, a mourning Chairman of the Board. Everybody was enjoying the small party she had managed to organize in just a few days for the new doctor, and he, to honor the truth, was really trying to win the people's favor.

Doctor Seamus Millar was young, pale and so slim he almost disappeared, surely scared by the Dowager's brisk manners, but he was really trying to be accepted. He knew he was only a substitute, and she had explained him that all the village esteemed the previous doctor and was waiting for him to come back. Thinking about it again, with her untouched glass of punch in her hand - why drinking punch always seemed to bring back happy memories which were not happy anymore?, she had probably been a little too insistent about that fact, specially when she was not even sure if their doctor will ever come back to Downton.

But Millar was dealing very well with everyone and everything, despite his obvious nervousness, and his short speech before had been one of modesty, and they had all appreciated it. He was there temporary, and he knew that, everybody, from the Family to the villagers, knew it. The only one who seemed to doubt it was Isobel herself, the nagging feeling of being abandoned in her stomach too constantly reminding her of it..

"Nice party, Cousin Isobel," Cora gently touched her arm, and she was diverted from her thoughts just before their became too sad for the occasion, "Quite small, but well organized."

"Yes, thank you, Cousin Cora." another polite yet vague smile.

"Are you okay? You seem... I don't know..." Edith said, looking at her concerned. She had always been the neglected daughter, Isobel found herself thinking suddenly, watching her, the middle daughter, intelligent, but not beautiful. Mary had always been the beautiful one, the heiress, the pride of her father;

Sybil was the modern one, and they all missed her, her mother's joy; but young Edith... she was only intelligent, and who wants an intelligent woman at his side? So independent as Edith had became?

"You seem so sad, Cousin Isobel."

"It's alright, I'm just..." she stopped, wondering for some seconds which one of her answer would be the most proper, "Tired. I'm tired."

"You should give up some work at the hospital. You'll still mourning, after all, we all are."

Cora squeezed again her arm before leaving them to reach her husband at the other side of the room, taking his arm and smiling lovely at him, under the scrutinizing glance of the Dowager. Actually, she was scrutinizing almost everything in the room, from the chairs to the food, from the flowers to the people, to her. Isobel blinked quickly and looked away from Cousin Violet, refocusing her attention on the Earl and the Countess in front of her.

They had each another, they had each another, murmured a voice in her head, Mary had her son and Branson had his daughter. Edith had her work at the newspaper and probably also a man, but you, you, who do you have? A wave of grief and regret washing over her, Isobel realised that, after her son's death, she had had the best man in the world at her side, and she had let him go.

"Are you going to work well with Doctor Millar, Cousin Isobel?"

She finally sipped her punch, looking at the young man, "I have to. The hospital must work, no matter if the both of us work well together or not. But he's well prepared and he seemed eager to be useful here."

Edith nodded and went silent, and they both looked around the room, catching in the details. The small buffet, the presents, young Doctor Millar, so young that he had not fought in the war, had not seen its horrors, had not worked at her side to help people, had not worn that light brown uniform that, she realised quite suddenly and with some embarrass, she missed so terribly...

"Do you miss him?"

The words of her young cousin caught her in her thoughts again and she looked at Edith, an apologetic smile on her lips, "I beg your pardon, my dear? I was distracted again, I'm sorry."

Edith's small sad smile made her stomach clench painfully, "Doctor Clarkson. You seemed to get along well with him."

Isobel managed a laughter, a little bit too high and almost hysterical, "Get along well... hardly! We managed to establish a successful working relationship, that's all."

The small voices in her head and conscience returned, they were all screaming that it had been more than a simply working relationship, and Edith looked like she was thinking the very same thing.

"I supposed he was your friend."

Isobel quickly closed and reopened her eyes, her sight blurred for the umpteenth time thinking about that, "I supposed it too."

Something horribly like a sob came strangled out of her lips, and she quickly covered her mouth with her free hand, shutting close her eyes, slightly doubling up. Somehow, she managed to feign an attack of cough and, when she straightened herself, she found Edith looking at her worriedly, her slim body in front of her, shielding her from the other guests.

"Are you okay, Cousin Isobel?"

"Yes!" she shoot her what she hoped was a bright smile, or something like that, and smoothed down her black velvet dress, "But I'm tired, so very tired. Would you excuse me with your mother and grandmother? And with Doctor Millar, of course. I'd prefer to go back home."

"Are you sure? Would you like me to accompany you home? I can stay with you a little."

"No, my dear girl, but thank you. You can come to visit me whenever you want, but now you should enjoy the party," Edith's dramatic eye roll almost made her smile, "I think I'll go to rest a bit. Thank your mother for me, but I don't think I'm going to come up to the Abbey this evening."

Again she found herself sitting alone in her sitting-room, with just a cup of tea and a book with her, something that seemed she was doing awful a lot in the these last months. Looking outside the window, she sighed heavily, her eyes wandering lazily on her garden engulfed in the thick darkness of mid-March. Summer had came and passed, as well as autumn, with its burnt colors, and winter, with its freezing and white vividness. Christmas had passed, and the New Year too, the Servants' Ball and everything, and they were all still mourning. Mary would probably mourn until next summer, while she would probably never leave her black dress. She would never stop mourning her only son.

Sipping absentmindedly her now cold tea, Isobel thought back at the party she had left some hours before.

She had felt so alone in that room full of people, full of her extended family, but nobody seemed to understood that or cared about it. Matthew would had felt it, as well as Richard.

The enormity of the reality finally sinking into her, she took in that, since he had left, she had referred to the the doctor, to her doctor, with his Christian name in her mind, and it seemed so natural and normal she had not realised it in the first place. In the past days, when she had thought about him, about them, about what they were or what they were not, never had been and now probably never will be, she had affectionately called him by his first name, enjoying more than what was proper the sound that it made in her mind, or on her lips for the matter, when she found herself thinking out aloud.

She missed him, she missed his almost daily company, his warm smiles and his, oh, so beautiful, bouquets. She missed his concern for her, she missed his care, she missed her only friend in Downton, a friend that, in the past months, maybe even years, had became something more without her realizing it during the process. She had understood it when it was too late.

It looked like a sad-ending of their relationship, so sad that it was unfair to both of them. She had never been a day-dreaming woman looking for the perfect happy-ending. She had had a life full of joy and pain, with bright and happy days, and horrible and dark ones, a life worthy to be lived, a dear husband died too soon and a darling son who left her too soon to, leaving her alone behind. She wasn't looking for her happy-ending. She was looking for him.

Finally setting her mind, Isobel drank the last sips of tea, her forehead frowned in an expression of conviction, in her best stubborn manner. Coming up with her final decision, something that the rational part of her mind was discouraging her to do, she stood up and pour herself a glass of whisky, making slowly her way to the wide front window, thinking about the details of the plan that was quickly forming in her mind, all the explanations and the small lies she was going to tell the Family up in the Abbey to justify her sudden departure without telling all the truth.

Family business could mean just one thing for him: Scotland.

- My job here is done *wooooooosh* R/R, please! -