AN: So I was going to have Tom be from Bray, as he is in canon (even though Bray is a seaside resort town and it makes very little sense for a working class Irish republican socialist to have grown up there) but sakurasencha convinced me otherwise. So he's from Dublin, and you can praise/blame her for this particular invocation of my "ish" clause. :)

1 September 1913

Later, what will stick with Sybil is that this is the first time she's ever seen him look angry.

She will wonder if he had truly never been angry in her presence before, or if it was only that he felt more able to give free rein to his emotions in the garage—on his own turf, as it were. From the staff she is accustomed to receiving obliging smiles, solicitous furrowings of brows. Seldom since her escape from the petty tyranny of the nursery has she seen anything resembling spleen in anyone who works at Downton Abbey, and although of course she knows that the servants experience the full spectrum of feeling just as she does, she will still think it rather shocking to have seen Branson's face clouded with disgust and fury; easygoing Branson, whose habitual expression is keen without servility, earnest without naiveté, and carries just the slightest suggestion that he might break into a rakish grin as soon as the right people's backs are turned.

But now, striding down the grassy yard toward the garage, these reflections are well ahead of her. She is untroubled by the headline that shouted in 72-point type from her father's paper this morning, because she did not see it. She was up with the sun visiting Mrs. Collins, whose husband farms the tract just to the west and who has been poorly since the birth—and almost immediate death—of their third child. When Sybil passes through the open door of the garage, her mind is mainly occupied with her plot to get the good farmer's wife, who has an ingrained distrust of medicine, into Dr. Clarkson's surgery. She sees Branson hunched on the bench and notes his lack of a jacket as an unremarkable fact—well he wasn't expecting one of the family to come down after all—but fails to register the tension held in his shoulders.

"Good morn—" is as far as she gets before he whips around, his lip curling in a silent snarl as newsprint crackles in his hands. Almost immediately it's gone and the blank mask of courtesy he seldom wears for her any longer is securely in place, but the raw display of temper has unsettled her; she takes a step back into the sunlight, her heart picking up speed. She opens her mouth to speak her reason for being here and deliver them both from the discomfiture that spreads slowly over his face, but to her chagrin nothing seems to want to come out.

She hasn't a clue what her own face looks like, but whatever is on it makes Branson stand to attention with a contrite bow of his head. "M'lady, I am sorry for my appearance. I was… startled."

Now she can smile and step inside again. "Oh, Branson, please don't apologize. I'm the one who's invaded your domain," she says with brisk friendliness. "Only I wanted to order the motor for this afternoon, and I thought this particular trip might be best requested without an intermediary." Branson's eyebrow goes up. "If you don't mind, of course."

"I'll have to reserve judgement until I hear what the destination is," he returns, "and whether it's something that could get me into trouble with his lordship." But his eyes widen in curiosity and there is a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth and Sybil knows that she has him.

"Oh, it's nothing so bad as that!" she says, laughing. Briefly she outlines her scheme, which is to show up outside the Collinses' cottage with the motor and refuse to leave until Mrs. Collins has agreed to accompany her to the village. By the time she finishes Branson is chuckling and shaking his head.

"Well, nobody's using the car after luncheon, but shouldn't you speak to your father before you go absconding with his tenants' family members?"

Sybil resists the urge to lower her eyes and shuffle her feet. "I don't want to bother him with every little thing," she says, looking Branson straight in the eye. "But I know he won't mind." The truth is that Papa would probably veto the plan, but once it is a fait accompli he'll do little more than roll his eyes and wonder affectionately how he got such a meddlesome daughter.

Branson holds her eye a second longer and then nods, turning to note the trip in the schedule. As he does Sybil catches sight of the headline on the newspaper still held in his hand, and her breath stops in her throat.

"Oh!" Without even realizing it she's stepped forward and plucked the paper from his loose grip, unfolding it so she can read the leading story:

RIOTING IN DUBLIN—HUNDREDS INJURED IN POLICE BATON CHARGES

There's a photograph: a melee of feet blurred in mad dash, arms caught mid-swing, heads just before they hit the ground. That arrests her attention for a few seconds, but soon enough her eyes roam down the closely printed columns. Phrases jump out at her: Officers wielding batons charged into the crowd that had gathered… indiscriminate assault… those beaten included innocent bystanders returning from devotions along with syndicalist agitators… by the time she stops reading she has a queasy feeling in her stomach, as if she's drunk a gallon of water and then gone for a vigorous ride on horseback. She folds the paper into quarters, hiding that terrible image from her sight, creasing it nervously over and over with her fingers. "My God," she murmurs and looks up at Branson, who is regarding her with an expression she can't quite read. Pity, maybe, mixed with mild surprise. "How awful." She's still trying to get her mind around it; the most violence she's seen has been the continuing battle between her elder sisters, and as unpleasant as that might be, it hasn't yet drawn actual blood. Officers wielding batons. Were women beaten? Children? Returning from devotions.

"Lady Sybil, you look like you might like to sit down." Now he is all concern, stepping forward with his hand out. Somehow he manages to propel her to the bench he was just sitting on without actually touching her. He shifts his weight, at a loss for a second, then mutters, "I'll bring you some water."

She raises her hand to stay him. "That won't be necessary, Branson. I'm perfectly fine." He starts to insist. "Or I will be in a moment," she amends with a lopsided smile. "Thank you." She feels a little silly, going whey-faced over something in the papers. "I don't know why that should give me such a turn." She thinks of his incensed face when she first strolled in. "If anyone has the right to be upset, I should think it'd be you. Are you from Dublin?"

"I am." He nods and turns his head to look out the door, but not before she sees the anguish in his eyes.

"Have you family there still?" Another nod, this one silent. She's on the point of offering sympathy and help—I do hope they're all right, Branson, perhaps my father could make some inquiries—it's too little, but she can't just do nothing—when Branson speaks again.

"There's nothing out of place in being shocked by atrocity, no matter who you are." He whirls back toward her, and his gaze is so keen that Sybil drops hers in confusion. "If I'm honest, I hope every person who reads that is as upset by it as you and me."

Sybil looks back up at him. "How could they not be?"

He shakes his head, a bitter smile hardening his mouth and narrowing his eyes. "I'm afraid you give people too much credit, m'lady. Not everyone has your compassion."

"Still, I hardly think the public could read of innocent people being beaten by men meant to protect them and have no reaction whatever."

Branson puffs out a sharp, voiceless laugh. "You'll pardon my saying so, but those policemen were never there to protect ordinary citizens. And certainly not the strikers." Strikers? Her initial reading of the article was cursory at best, so Sybil has only a slight understanding of the root cause of the fracas. She unfolds the paper and begins to read the story again, more closely this time. Branson does not speak while she digests it, but instead of standing motionless he goes and busies himself at the table on the other side of the garage, oiling some small piece of machinery. Metal scrapes and clinks like coins falling into a money box.

"So the constabulary wasn't called out to keep order, then," Sybil says, almost to herself, when she's finished.

"Hardly." The scraping-clinking stops as he turns toward her again, respectful, and cleans his hands on a rag he swipes from the table. "They were there to try and smash the union." His lips pull up in a grudging smile, and admiration gleams in his eyes. "But they've not done it yet."

Sybil laces her fingers together on top of the paper in her lap. "But the strikers had been attacking the trams. Don't you think that makes them just as bad as the policemen who did this?"

Branson lowers his eyes, turning one hand over and scrubbing at his knuckles with the cloth. "I'm not sure I should answer that."

"I wish you would! Don't feel as though you need to censor your thoughts around me, Branson, please." Sybil gives him a smile. "I'm interested."

He studies her for a long moment, then stuffs his hands into his trouser pockets and rises up on the balls of his booted feet. "For a start, the police are only tools of a system that's much worse than any one skirmish." His heels come down. "There are different kinds of violence," he says, eyes widening as he shakes his head slowly back and forth.

Sybil waits for him to elaborate, but he doesn't; just takes his hands out of his pockets and rubs his palms down the sides of his trousers. "Different kinds of violence," she repeats. "And some kinds are justified?" She hasn't done all that reading on the French Revolution for nothing.

Branson answers her question with one of his own. "Have you any idea what life is like for those people?" His tone is far from accusatory, but something inside Sybil shrinks a bit. "The tram workers. Working people in general."

"I should imagine they're quite poor," she answers haltingly.

"Quite poor," Branson repeats, still in that measured voice. "M'lady, with respect, I'm not sure whether you know what that means. Little children packed into cramped, filthy rooms, crying with hunger because their fathers earn slave wages—you wouldn't call that warfare, would you?" He pitches the last more as a statement than inquiry.

Sybil gives him an answer anyway, shaking her head. She suspects that a point is about to be proven. "I've seen poverty before, and I know how terrible it is—"

"But it can't be helped, is that right?" He asks it almost gently. "Some people are just unlucky, or it's God's will that they suffer. It's no one's fault. Is that what you think?"

"Not at all!" Sybil almost leaps to her feet, but manages to restrain herself. "That isn't true in the least. There's plenty that can be done to alleviate suffering, especially when it stems from being poor."

"But this kind of suffering, it is someone's fault," Branson impresses. "The tram company chairman owns a house almost as large as—" he shakes his head and swallows a rueful smile as he glances out the garage door, through which a small part of the house can be seen. "Meanwhile, his workers live like rats in tenements and struggle to put food on their tables. They only want the chance to live as human beings. They want to give their families that chance." His eyes flick down to a point somewhere in front of her feet, then directly into hers, bright with fervor. "Can you really fault them for throwing a few rocks?"

Her instinct is to deplore any kind of violence, for any reason. But she is beginning to see Branson's point of view: what other way is there to respond to the slow brutality of starvation wages, the constant threat of even those being taken away in retaliation for the mere attempt to better one's lot in life? "I don't doubt it's a difficult situation," she says lamely.

"Difficult," Branson says with another one of those voiceless, humorless laughs. "Indeed."

It's time for her to go. "I don't mean to keep you from your work," says Sybil, and rises. "I'll see you this afternoon, then?"

He inclines his head. "I'll bring the car around at three." He looks relieved, as though he's just stepped off dark, crackling ice onto solid ground.

But Sybil thinks she sees a shadow of disappointment in his eyes as well. She stops before stepping outdoors. "Branson?"

He's standing facing the door, waiting for her to be away before he turns his back. "Yes, Lady Sybil."

"I think…" she presses her lips together. "I think we're on the same side in this, even if we may not agree on all the particulars."

His face breaks into the most sincere smile she's seen on his face today. "I think so too, m'lady. I hope so."

She's halfway back to the house before she realizes she's still holding the newspaper. She thinks about turning around, then tells herself she'll give it back this afternoon, after reading it in its entirety. After all, she and Branson will need something to talk about in the car.

AN #2: A little background: the Dublin Lockout began as a transportation union strike on August 26, 1913 and lasted into 1914 after William Murphy, the chairman of the Dublin United Tramway Company, and other employers began firing any workers they suspected of belonging to the union. On August 30 and 31, rallies in support of the strikers (who had quickly been replaced by scabs) devolved into rioting and hundreds of people were injured: many of them bystanders, many as a result of police brutality. The incidents were widely reported in the British press, which stirred up sympathy and material aid for the strikers. There's a ton of information online about the Dublin Lockout and its roots and effects, if you're interested in knowing more about it. I'm planning for Sybil and Tom to come back to topics relating to it.