Timeline: The night of the Garden Party in 1x07

Song: Goodnight and Go - Imogen Heap


Like a little girl, she allowed her feet to dangle off the workbench in the garage. Earlier that day she had remarked to Edith about the garage being "his garage" and just as quickly as she had said it, Edith made her regret her words. "That is Papa's garage, Sybil. He just works in it," Edith commented with a laugh. Sybil did not dare join her for a laugh was an agreement, and she could never see the world her sisters had managed to. She had always been different than them, especially in how she treated the people that worked in their home. It wasn't that her family wasn't thankful for their work, because they were, it just was as if Sybil understood it better, their need and respect for it. She saw all the times Branson was tinkering with that car and if they stopped talking about world politics long enough, she'd often ask him what he was doing, how he did it, if only to watch his face light up as she half-listened to his answer.

Her skirt was pulled up, but she had checked that not too much of her leg was exposed. She couldn't imagine Branson seeing her thigh the way she had seen his forearms when she had first walked in. His hands were dirty then and he was unable to fix the sleeves on his shirt only causing Sybil to bite her lip as she jumped up on his workbench, distracting him from sleeves or car parts as he stared at the way her legs crossed over one another at the ankle. Such a young girl, but a lady, he thought. A lady in a way that Mary and Edith could never be. Branson was sure they were lovely, though he knew he'd most likely never be presented with the opportunity to find out. The girl he wanted was here, on his own workbench, reading. Of course she was reading. Her eyes fluttered across a page she seemed to be hesistant to leave. Branson watched this of course, loving her idiosyncrasies, specifically the way her nose scrunched up as she laughed at something particularly witty or daring.

"I can sit here, right?"

Branson looked up. He had only recently began to tinker with a part in the car. He was finishing when she first walked in but it would have been inappropriate for him to stand by while she read. As he tightened and loosened a bolt on the engine he glanced up, to her legs and then to the cover of her book, doing his best to see what she was reading this week. He had noticed that since the riot she had begun to read more and the books she read were of the political variety. He smiled at the thought but immediately forced himself to stop taking credit. From what he could surmise, Lord Grantham limited what she was allowed to read. For a moment Branson wondered if she had disobeyed his rules again and tiptoed out of her father's library, right past the ledger against the far wall. "I don't know, can you?"

"Edith told me this isn't your garage but it is. You work here." She paused, thinking of someone other than her sister's to talk about. She was sure Branson didn't care about them and while she enjoyed her time out here, she always felt as if maybe he was irritated by the intrusion. She knew how he felt about people like her: girls like her from families like hers. Was she a constant of the main house and the things he hated so much? God, she hoped not. "I can't be in the house anymore."

"You're welcome out here whenever you'd like."

"You live out here?" Sybil spoke quickly, as if she had a list of questions to ask him now that her company was on his own terms.

Branson nodded. "In the cottage on the other side of that wall there behind your head."

He tightened the bolt one last time and wiped his wrench on the cloth in his opposite hand. After, he shut the hood of the Renault and continued to wipe down his wrench. Sybil smiled, noticing how oil stains ceased to exist on his livery. He was careful in the way she would have never expected from a man like Branson. He said things to her that perhaps he shouldn't have and in a flash she thought back to that afternoon, the way he held her hand in his own but how it was her thumb that stroked the outside of his forefinger as she gave permission and held on.

"Is it big?"

"It's just fine for what I need, m'lady."

"Right. Of course."

She read a page of her book, and then four. Sybil looked up again, contemplating her words as she thumbed the page she had just finished. The book wasn't from her father's library. She had ordered it from her grandmother and was only too excited to be halfway through with it. The author, a suffragette from the states was discussing the "inconveniences of vanishing", the act a woman must perform to fit in as the subservient counterpart to the men in her life. Sybil wondered if she had ever performed this figurative act. She hoped not, but as she looked up and caught Branson's eyes, she promised herself that she'd be mindful of keeping it, if it ever had occurred, from happening again.

"You shouldn't have held my hand today, Branson."

Embarrassed by her eyes on his, Branson smiled at her from across the garage. "Okay, m'lady." Immediately, he walked to the tool box on the far side of the room. He placed the wrench away and closed the metal lid. He heard her and wished she would say it again, if only for Branson to confirm that her heart didn't believe even half of what her mouth was saying.

Sybil closed her book and hopped down off the workbench. Undoubtedly she had lost her page, caring nonetheless. "Please call me Sybil…"

"I don't think that's proper…" Branson's words trailed off. He couldn't possibly call her Sybil but he could tell by the way she stepped toward him that she was becoming frustrated with his constant referral to her as a lady. Her sisters were ladies and she was a young girl so lost and confused she couldn't possibly hold such a title. "And I'm sorry for holding your hand."

"That's it? You're sorry."

Branson stiffened. He didn't have time to think about the words he spoke. Before he knew it they were out, hitting the air with silent sparks of electricity.

"What do you want me to say? Do you want me to argue with you?"

"Well don't you want to? I-I just think-"

"You think what?" He cut her off. Sybil's demeanor was tense and agitated. Now as he leant against the trunk of the Renault, Branson realized he couldn't have been more comfortable.

"Did you want to hold my hand Sybil?"

"I don't know what I want!" Was she screaming? She felt as if she had. She wanted to scream, that much she knew.

Branson smiled, stepping into her. "Of course you don't. They have you so locked away in that house that you'll never know. And you'll grow up, as much as a girl like you can, and marry some man that will ensure that you never know what you want."

"You don't know me!" she spat. "Granted, I don't know you either but-"

"It's okay to get mad, Sybil. You don't always have to be so kind. God only knows the world hasn't been kind to you."

"Well hasn't it?"

Their faces were mere inches away now. If she was any other girl, he would have kissed her. If she wasn't so delicate and perfect, he would have pulled her in, placed his hand on her hip and hope that she'd reciprocate and stroke his neck as the two met in such an intimate way.

"Shouldn't I be talking about how the world hasn't been kind to you? Why are you always so quiet? You're insufferably full of yourself sometimes and then so reserved the next. You're just as damaged as I am!"

"Excuse me, but I am not damaged. You," he emphasized with a sudden raise in volume, "are damaged!"

"You take that back!"

"I will not! It's true. What do you want from this world? Do your parents even know that you're out here?"

Sybil stepped back. Suddenly her head ached. She touched a palm to it appearing much like the damsel in distress she hated to be. But she was that girl, wasn't she?

"Of course they don't! What do you think they'd say? We're not supposed to be friends, you and me."

Branson stepped in, closing the gap she had only just created.

"But we are, aren't we? We're friends."

Sybil nodded, looking up at him. He couldn't help but to stare at her pouted lips. Goddamn, they were always so red and full.

"I want to be." A beat and then: "I'm sorry for starting all of this."

"I'm not. I'm merely prepping you for your days in politics," Branson finished with a laugh.

That earned him a light swat at the shoulder. The two laughed together, Sybil covering her mouth in a way that only encouraged Branson's amusement.

"I like politics but I don't want to work in them the way you do," Sybil teased.

Branson looked over at her. A wall had dropped right before them tonight and he had no intention of ever allowing her to build it back up.

"Oh, is that what I want to do?" His brogue was particularly evident when she was mocking him, making this conversation one of her absolute favorites. Sybil made a mental note to remind herself to start banter with him more often.

Branson walked over to the workbench and jumped up on it. Quizzically, Sybil stared at him and then joined him. She did so, of course, in a manner that was much more proper. She didn't jump but instead pulled herself up the way she had an hour earlier. Yes, an hour. The clock on the wall above the barn doors had confirmed that for her.

"You do, don't you? Want to do politics, I mean."

"I want to write about politics, sure."

"You don't want to be a politician?" She hoped he hadn't given up his dream. She worried now that it was something she believed in more than he did.

"No, not particularly. I want to make a difference. I want Ireland to be a free-state. I want families to not have to worry about food and education for their children. But no, I don't want to be a politician."

"I've thought about it all day since Papa made the announcement and I'm going to try to help."

Branson looked over to her. He hadn't noticed and neither did she but he was sitting rather casually, with one of his knees bended toward his body with an arm draped lazily over it. The wall had not only crumbled but the debris had also begun to settle and maybe even disappear completely.

"Have you thought about what you want to do?"

"What do you think?" Sybil asked, clearly ignoring his question and going back to her declaration.

The author of the book she was reading advocated for women to try and live without the constant approval of the men in their lives. Fathers, then husbands, then sons. It was cyclical. But Branson was none of these things. He was just a friend, Sybil thought. A friend that perhaps she shouldn't have and wouldn't be allowed to have should her father find out, but then again in denying her father this information, perhaps she actually was following the advice of the author.

Branson answered her, but only because it was clear she cared. The fact both excited and terrified him. "I think that's very noble and I'm sure you'll do a wonderful job at…"

"Nursing," she confirmed. "I figured they'd need help and I can't possibly work for the vote now. Not with all of the fighting."

Branson sighed. She could fight, but she didn't want to and he was torn between respecting and wanting to challenge that. He decided to respect it. Really, he had no other option. He was forced to remind himself that the two of them were in the garage, her father's garage, sitting on a workbench with their hipbones touching. The proximity of their bodies and the truths they both spoke was enough to have him fired and her denounced. If she was any other girl-he stopped himself. If she was Sybil in Ireland, he thought, he would have challenged her and hoped at the very same time that her answer would likewise challenge him.

"You're brave, Sybil."

She nodded and he joined her, both of them doing their best to decide if he was talking about her chosen profession or the fact that she was still in the garage with him at nearly midnight.

A silence settled over them. Branson took it as an invitation to speak. "I'm sorry I was so contrary before."

"Don't apologize, please. I asked for it. I wanted you to argue with me. I know it's wrong but it is so nice to have someone talk to me like I'm an actual person."

"You're an actual person, Sybil. Please don't let anyone tell you otherwise. You're better than that."

"Yeah, well, I'm better than a lot of this." She jumped down, quickly and yet all too gracefully. Landing on her feet had always been one of her strong suits, even if the world had made it so incredibly difficult.

"Thank you, Branson."

He just nodded, suddenly missing her body heat as a draft wafted in from the stall doors.

She began for the door, slowly and deliberately as if waiting for the question he then asked.

"Can I walk you?"

"Friends," she whispered, shaking her head slowly, reminding herself of so many things she had chosen to forget. He was a chauffeur, she thought. He was also the first boy to have ever held her hand. Boring by the standards of some, but it lit a spark in Sybil she was sure she would miss when she departed for her training program.

She was right. It was too risky for him to walk her back, even more risky than her taking the long road back to the house in the dark alone. When she was gone, he thought about what Mrs. Hughes had said that afternoon and just how awful it had made him feel. This world was enough of a reminder of just how above him she was. He didn't need the people in it to emphasize the lines already drawn. He supposed that she was also right. Mrs. Hughes meant well, shown by the mention of both his heart and his job. Branson was sure though, that even her alliance rested with the same girl he had let walk home alone. He thought back to the Sybil he envisioned in Ireland, her hair in a braid maybe, as they walked the streets the way friends would, stopping in local cafes to discuss elections and jobs and families. He pictured her there more than he pictured her here. But she was here, and he imagined that she'd soon be gone. Not to Ireland, but London perhaps. There were plenty of military hospitals there.


As usual, reviews would be splendid! I also included my tumblr and twitter usernames on my profile for those of you who had asked for them.

x. Elle