I honestly cannot believe it's been almost a YEAR since I updated this fic—how do 10 months go by so fast. Oh yeah, life is a bitch. Anyhoo, I have no idea how many of you are still waiting for the end of this one, but it is coming and soon, i.e. there aren't many chapters left.

This update features the last flashback, which takes us from Tom and Sybil's morning after to their return to York (for Sybil) and Downtown (for Tom). The "present" action happens amid the action of episode 2.04, which is the one where Matthew and William go missing and then Matthew turns up to sing with Mary. Reference is made to the concert, though the action of the chapter ends just before. I repurpose some dialogue from that episode and in the case of the conversation between Edith and Mary, crunch the timeline a bit. On the show that convo happens days after Robert has discovered that Matthew and William are missing, but here it happens the same night.

Hope you enjoy!

Sybil wakes before Tom does. She knows that sleeping at his leisure is the rarest of luxuries for him. She considers waking him to make the most of this time alone together, knowing it will be weeks, perhaps more, before it will be like this again. A look at the clock reveals that it's only half past seven, though. They don't need to hurry yet, and she's content to just watch him sleep. The gentle rise and fall of his chest soothes the worries about what will happen when her family finds out that continue to tickle the back recesses of her mind.

Before too long, she puts her hand on his chest and smiles when Tom, still sound asleep as far as she can tell, brings his hand up to cover hers. His body is warm, soft beneath her fingertips. On the back of her hand, though, she can feel the roughness of the callouses on his fingers and palm.

She feels safe. More so than she ever has, and more conscious of her own body as well. Her body is relaxed now, from the hours of rest, but she feels a benign fatigue in her muscles. Making love to Tom was at once entirely what she'd expected and wholly different from what she'd imagined. She doesn't remember any pain during the act, but there is a small measure of soreness between her legs that feels less like actual pain and more like a realization that there are nerves and skin and muscles down there that she'd never thought about before—and all of them, all of her is alive and humming, like she is hungry, but not for food.

Sybil slides her hand from Tom's chest, slowly up his neck, to his face. Her love for Tom was never centered on his looks, but especially now, in this soft morning light, she thinks of how beautiful he is, of how many women's heads he could have turned, of how he chose her despite all the risks. She feels proud, beautiful.

"Tom," she whispers. "Tom."

He clears his throat and rubs his eyes with his hand before turning to her. His eyes are sleepy, but still bright, happy, and to her delight, they reveal the same desire she is feeling.

"I was wondering, husband, if . . ."

Sybil trails off as Tom rolls toward her and, putting his arm around her, pulls her in. She feels all of him against her.

"Yes?" His voice is thick with sleep, but his body is awake.

Hunger.

Sybil can't stop herself from laughing, and Tom does too. After a long moment, she sighs and says, "I didn't think I would enjoy it this much."

Hours later, they part ways on the platform of a train station outside Newcastle, having decided to leave nothing to chance and travel back—Sybil to York, Tom to Downton—on separate trains. Heading north, they did not yet know what marriage felt like, what fountains of joy and love they'd unleash by merely looking one another in the eye and promising to remain partners for life. Now, on the journey back south, they do know, and they will guard that future with everything they have, even if it means sacrificing their last few hours together before what will be a long separation.

After her arrival in York, Sybil heads toward the college's campus on foot. It's early evening, and there's a chill in the air. She remembers to remove her ring just before entering her dormitory.

The following afternoon, in lieu of tea, Caroline and Sybil head to York's commercial district. With Sybil's money in her hand, Caroline walks into a woman's shop by herself to buy a simple gold chain. She turns down all of the shopgirl's attempts to convince her to buy a pendant to go with it.

"It's not for me," Caroline says, as the shopgirl wraps the simple chain up for her. "It's for a friend, and she has something to put on it."

March 1918

"You're quiet today."

Sybil turned her gaze from the window and the passing scenery, so familiar now, from outside the hospital en route back to the house. She smiled as she looked at Tom's back, him having turned his attention back toward the road. "I'm fine," she said. "It was a long shift."

"It was a long day at the house too," Tom replied. "William's not been heard from, it seems. Daisy is certain something's wrong."

"But what about Captain Crawley? William serves with him."

"They're on leave," Tom said. "There's no word on where Captain Crawley might have gone, but with Mrs. Crawley in France . . . "

"He might have stayed," Sybil finished for him.

"William was meant to come here, so Daisy says."

"Does my father know? He might look into it."

"He'll likely be told soon, if he hasn't been already."

Having arrived at the house, Tom turned toward the garage, Sybil having long left behind the custom of being dropped off at the front door. Once the car was in the garage and parked, he turned to her in his seat with a smile, which she returned. She thought for a moment, then said, "Mary might know where Matthew is. She wrote to him to tell him of his engagement."

"He replied?" Tom asked.

"I don't know."

Tom bit his lip, pausing momentarily to wonder whether he should say what he was about to say. Finally, he spoke, "Speaking of Mary . . . "

Sybil looked away. She'd been expecting it since Mary had caught them in the garage. "She doesn't suspect."

"Sybil—"

"She doesn't."

Tom turned back around, not bothering to hide his frustration. "She doesn't suspect were married because the idea is so far afield from possibility in her mind, but she suspects something."

Sybil took a deep breath. "She won't tell anyone."

"Are you sure?"

Sybil nodded. "Fairly. She would confront me about it first, and she more or less did that in the moment."

Tom turned back to look Sybil in the eye. "It's not just Mary."

"What do you mean?"

"More than once I've read the question from home about what I'm still doing here."

Sybil's brow furrowed. "You're working. Why would they question that?"

"A lot's going on Ireland . . . it's a war. It may not look or feel to you like the one on the continent, but it's a war just the same."

"Tom, I understand how you feel about Ireland."

"No, I don't think you do, Sybil."

"But Tom—"

"And how could you when this house is the only place you've ever been!"

"That's not fair!"

Tom sighed. "I know it's not. But . . . I lost a cousin in the Easter Rising last year. I've told you that."

Sybil looked down at her hands. "You have."

"Irish independence means something to me, and to my family, and now that it's taken one of our own, they wonder what I'm still doing serving the class that would just as soon we'd all starved to death."

Knowing there was nothing she could say, Sybil scooted up in the back seat so she could rest her hand on Tom's shoulder.

Tom set his hand on Sybil's and turned to face her again. He continued, quietly, "This ridiculous war . . . the way it's dragging on. We can't let it drag us down. When we said we'd wait until it was over, we didn't consider it could go on indefinitely, but it's starting to feel like it will have no end, and go on and on until there are no poor young men to send to fight. Doesn't it feel that way to you?"

Sybil closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Yes."

She opened her eyes again, as Tom finally got out of the motor. She watched him as he walked over to her side, opened the door and extended his hand for her to take.

"I'm not saying we should tell them now," he said. "Let's just start thinking about how we're going to do it. So that we have a plan, if we decide to do it."

Sybil nodded, taking Tom's hand. "When."

"When what?"

"When we tell them," she said. "There's no 'if'."

Tom smiled in response. She turned to see if there was anyone in the yard, and seeing no one, stepped up to give him a gentle peck on the lips.

"I'll try to come down tonight," she said, and with those words was gone.

—

Dinner went on quietly, with the conversation centered mostly around the upcoming concert. There was no talk of Matthew or William, but Sybil could see a number of things were weighing on her father. She glanced over at Mary several times, but each time Mary was already looking at Sybil, and not in a way with which Sybil felt entirely comfortable. So each time, Sybil shifted her gaze.

Sybil knew that if anyone in the family could guess, perhaps not the whole truth, but the fact that something had happened between her and Tom, no doubt it would be Mary. As she picked around the food on her plate, Sybil tried to go over in her mind anything she might have done or failed to do in the last days and weeks that might have given the game away. It was more than a year on now, and for better and worse, her clandestine marriage had become so routine, so normal to her that only when she stopped to think about it did she realize the effort it took to keep the secret.

Now, however, Sybil wondered if the edges were starting to fray. If the ruse had played itself out and all that would be left was the truth.

Sybil was so deep in thought about it all that it took Violet speaking several times before Sybil realized the implications of what was on the surface an innocuous question: "So, Sybil, what are you up to, dear?"

"Nothing much," Sybil answered. "Working. I don't have time to get up to anything else."

"Only, Mary and I were talking about you, you know, the other day."

Sybil felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, but she didn't visibly react. After taking a bite and swallowing, she finally looked up to see Mary once again already looking at her. Mary had heard Violet, it seemed, because she was shaking her head apologetically and mouthing, I didn't say anything.

"Oh?" Sybil said, addressing both her sister and grandmother.

Violet responded. "Yes, you see, sometimes in war, one can make friendships that aren't quite . . . appropriate. And can be awkward, you know, later on. I mean, we've all done it. I just want you to be on your guard."

"Awkward for whom?" Sybil replied, now clearly annoyed.

"Well, don't jump down my throat, dear. I'm only offering friendly advice."

Sybil turned to look at Violet, whose eyes had that "Who me?" look about them that Sybil hated so much. Violet knew exactly what she was talking about, but she would never speak of it outright and never suggest she was giving Sybil a warning. There were so many things Sybil hated about the life her family led and few irritated her as much as the unwillingness to speak plainly and from the heart. It was as if they found it gauche to talk openly about crossing social boundaries, because they understood such boundaries to be reprehensible, so they only spoke of them with innuendo and suggestion, raising their noses not in distaste but in an effort to willfully pretend they didn't exist.

Friendly advice, indeed, Sybil thought. Friendships that aren't quite appropriate.

"Mere friendship is the least of your worries, granny," was what Sybil really wanted to say. But she stayed silent.

In fact, Sybil and Violet didn't say much more to each other for the remainder of the meal, and Sybil specifically avoided Mary's eyes. After it was all done, Sybil was in no mood for useless patter, so when it was time to walk through she peeled off to the library with the intention of heading to her room afterward and, after everyone was asleep, to the cottage.

Mary was on her heels, of course, but Sybil didn't bother looking back or acknowledging her.

Perhaps the anger she was now feeling toward her sister was irrational, but Sybil kept going back to the moment of Mary's interruption in the garage. She had seen nothing. Nothing! Merely what could be easily interpreted as two friends having a conversation. That such an innocuous interaction was enough to send Mary to Violet and Violet back to Sybil raised Sybil's ire more than she had expected. It was a result only of having kept in the back of her mind the idea that her family would understand her, accept her for who she was and accept Tom as her choice of husband.

But if she couldn't even talk to him in their presence without it setting off alarms in everyone's head, then the fight would be harder and longer than she had hoped.

"Sybil!" Mary called out.

Sybil entered the library without acknowledging her.

"Sybil! I never said anything to Granny, honestly."

Sybil stopped in front of a shelf and crossed her arms, looking down, as Mary finally caught up to her. "Then why did she suddenly start talking about inappropriate friendships out of nowhere?"

"She thinks you must have a beau, and if we don't know about him, then you have to be keeping him secret. It's just Granny being Granny. Don't make such a thing of it."

Sybil sighed. She believed Mary, but for Violet's guess to be so close to the mark, she wondered again if she and Tom had left some evidence, let their guard down just long enough for a seed to have planted itself in her grandmother's mind and rooted to the point that she felt compelled to bring Mary into it. And again, she felt frustration and disappointment.

Why do they have to think Tom so objectionable? she thought. "I don't deserve to be told off," she said to Mary. "Not by her or by you." Sybil paused, feeling the weight of the truth heavily on her shoulders, not merely a secret anymore but a burden. "I've done nothing that a reasonable, moral mind would think intolerable."

Sybil's answer concerned Mary. It was true that Sybil had always befriended the people who served the family, and it wasn't as if Mary herself wouldn't go to great lengths to help Anna or as if Robert was insincere in his wish for Bates to return or in his willingness to get to the bottom of what had driven him away. Still, this wasn't like Sybil helping a housemaid find a job, not if it involved a man . . .

Tentatively, Mary asked, "We are talking about . . .?"

Sybil swallowed a lump in her throat. She'd told herself over and over again that she wasn't lying to her family, only skirting the truth. But to answer this question in any other way would be to do just that. "Branson," she said quietly. "Yes."

Mary's heart sank. "The chauffeur? Branson?"

Sybil, having opened the door to the truth could not help but be honest now, saying, "Oh, how disappointing of you!"

"I'm just trying to get it straight in my head. You and the chauffeur."

Sybil rolled her eyes at her sister's poorly veiled snobbery. "Oh, no, you know I don't care about all of that."

"Oh, darling, darling, don't be such a baby. This isn't fairyland. What did you think? You'd marry the chauffeur and we'd all come to tea?"

Sybil turned to fully face Mary and said, "You're telling me that my expectation that my family would treat an honorable, kind person with respect regardless of birth was too high, and I'm being childish!"

Mary's face softened. "Sybil, I'm not trying to upset you. It's only that if something's happened I want to know. I want to help."

"Help who?" Sybil turned to the door and called back over her shoulder. "Help granny rebuild the walls the war has torn asunder so that everyone goes back their proper place in the pecking order?"

Mary rolled her eyes, having reached her limit of Sybil's relentless self-righteousness. She ran to catch Sybil by the arm. "Why should it matter so much to you? What might've happened?"

Sybil shook her arm loose and stared her sister—her primary confidant the whole of her life—and spoke the truth. "I married him. I ran away to Scotland last year and eloped without anyone knowing, and we've been keeping it secret ever since. So granny's right. Are you happy now?"

Mary blinked several times in shock. Then, after peering at Sybil through narrowed eyes for a long moment, she smirked and let out a long breath. As she did so her shoulders sank, expressing clear relief. She wouldn't joke about him if it were serious, Mary thought.

Sybil read her expression easily. She thinks I'm making a joke. Sybil shook her head and laughed sadly. "Goodnight, Mary."

Mary stood watching Sybil until she'd gone from her sight. The sorry state of their relationship worried Mary, but upon reflection, it didn't surprise her. She'd been wrapped up in what she would do about Richard Carlisle and her concern for Matthew fighting abroad. The letter she'd recently sent to the latter announcing her engagement to the former was harder to write than she'd anticipated. Mary was not the sentimental sort, and although she'd regretted deeply how she and Matthew had ended things at the onset of the war, she did not like to dwell on it, and certainly wouldn't now that he'd moved on to Miss Swire. Even so, setting her future down on paper, to him of all people, made it real in a way that Mary's heart still wasn't entirely sure of. Sybil, meanwhile, had dived headlong into her nursing, and her disinterest in life at Downton was all the more obvious for it.

Mary had always believed that she and Sybil—in many ways opposite sides of the same coin—kept one another in balance. Life, the war, and diverging priorities had pulled them in different directions, away from one another, and the distance was showing. With a deep breath and resolve to make things right, Mary set off for the drawing room, wondering how long Sybil had felt this ill-at-ease in her own home, to not be able to merely laugh off their grandmother's fussing.

But the longer she sat as others conversed around her, the more Sybil's words repeated over and over in Mary's head.

I married him. I ran away to Scotland last year and eloped without anyone knowing, and we've been keeping it secret ever since.

I married him. I ran away to Scotland last year and eloped without anyone knowing, and we've been keeping it secret ever since.

I married him. I ran away to Scotland last year and eloped without anyone knowing, and we've been keeping it secret ever since.

As the night wore on a strange feeling came over Mary.

What if she was telling me the truth?

As implausible as the idea that Sybil could have managed to do such a thing was, Mary couldn't shake the thought away. Sybil had been gone from the house for weeks during her training and could have done any number of things without her parents' knowledge, but so far as Mary knew, Branson hadn't left the house since he'd arrived, not for a significant amount of time anyway—certainly not long enough to arrange marriage to a woman without her family's permission.

It was an exhausting line of thinking, and eventually, Mary excused herself to go upstairs. She didn't notice that Edith followed her until they were both at the top of the stairs and Edith spoke up.

"There's something you ought to know," Edith said nervously. "Papa said not to tell you, but I don't think he's right."

Mary's already frayed nerves were set on edge again. "Go on."

"Matthew's missing. He was on patrol and he's just sort of . . . vanished. Papa hasn't told anyone. Not even Mama. I only know because I was there when he found out. He took a call tonight, just after dinner. It didn't seem right to keep you in the dark."

Mary felt dizzy. Unable to form words, she merely nodded.

"I'm not trying to upset you, truly," Edith said with sincerity in her voice that Mary wasn't used to hearing.

"For once in my life, I believe you."

Having nothing else to say and knowing there wasn't anything she could do that Mary would accept to help her, Edith walked back downstairs.

Mary continued to her room until she turned a corner, and finally overcome by fear for Matthew and the feeling of being pulled in all directions, she started to cry, leaning her hand against the wall to keep herself from collapsing.

"You've heard, then."

Mary turned to see Anna standing behind her.

"Do they all know downstairs?

Anna nodded. "Most do, given the news is fresh, but Daisy has been worried for days now. William's missing, too. I think everyone knows except Her Ladyship."

"I wish Edith had left it 'til the morning. I could've faced it all with one more night of sleep."

Without another word, Anna took Mary's arm and led her to her room. Seeing that all Mary wanted was to be left alone, Anna did the work of undressing her and turning down the bed quickly and without a word.

Mary was sitting on the side of her bed, staring sadly into the empty space in front of her when Anna asked if she needed anything else.

Mary shook her head, but just before Anna closed the door Mary remembered herself and called out, "Anna, wait."

"Yes, milady?"

"I know this is an odd thing to ask, but has Branson ever taken leave or asked to go somewhere for a long time?"

Anna thought for a moment. "I don't think so. Has he asked to do so now?"

"No, I was just trying to remember something."

"Would you like me to ask him or Mr. Carson?"

"No, please don't. There's no need. Forget I said anything."

Anna, puzzled, turned to go, but then turned right back around to face Mary. "Actually, milady, now that I think about it. Mr. Brandon's brother was ill last year, so he went to pay him a visit, but he was only gone two days, maybe three."

"When was that?" Mary asked.

"January, I believe."

"Just months ago, then?"

"No, January of last year," Anna said, "more than a year ago."

"That would have been when Sybil was training in York," Mary said quietly, to herself.

"That's right. I don't think he's left for any longer than that since he's been here."

Mary looked at Anna. "It's a long time to be away from one's family."

Anna nodded.

"Thank you, Anna," Mary said.

Anna lingered for a moment. "Have faith, milady," she said. "He'll turn up."

Mary felt her eyes water again and looked away, which was Anna's cue to leave.

"Have faith," Mary repeated to herself once she was alone. "Have faith. He's fine. He's safe."

Mary finally moved to lay down in her bed. As she stared at her ceiling, she tried to keep herself focused on those same words, like a mantra.

Have faith. He's fine. He's safe.

Tears kept spilling out of the sides of her eyes, but Mary paid them no mind. She cried for Matthew and for the feeling of powerlessness she felt in the face of an unforgiving world. She knew the war was going to change things. Change had been all anyone ever talked about back when it had begun. She'd believed herself be ready to embrace it, but now, years on, all she felt was left behind.

—

"I've told Mary."

Tom sat up from where he'd been lying next to Sybil in his bed in the cottage, where she'd managed to escape to once again just after one o'clock in the morning.

"You what?!"

Sybil sat up next to him. "No need to worry. She didn't believe me."

"What do you mean?"

"I said it in the heat of an argument. I think she believes I was exaggerating for effect."

"And she didn't react?"

Sybil shook her head and laid back down.

Tom laid back down too and pulled Sybil into him. "You almost seem disappointed."

"I am disappointed. I told her as much. I told her the truth and she found it so seemingly outlandish she thought I was joking."

"What do you think will happen next?"

Sybil sighed and turned so her head was in the crook of Tom's neck. She laid her hand on his chest and he covered it with his. "I don't know," she said. "Maybe she'll come to her senses, tell papa and I'll be banished forever."

Tom could felt the wetness of her silent tears against his chest. "It'll be all right, darling. We'll be together no matter what happens. And that's all that matters, isn't it?"

Sybil nodded. "I don't regret what we've done. I just wish the price to pay weren't so high. The saddest part is that Mary wants to help me. She believes herself to be on my side, and while I don't doubt her sincerity, I can't help but think that she's wrong and just doesn't see it, that the walls will go back up after the war, like granny says, and my parents and my sisters and I will be on different sides and they won't understand why and hate me for it."

"I don't think they'll hate you love. I agree that there will be anger and disapproval, but surely you don't think your sisters are so unforgiving."

"I don't, but . . . "

"But what?"

Sybil pushed herself up on her elbow so she could look Tom in the face as she spoke. "You've said or hinted that I don't really want to tell them, and that I keep using the war as an excuse to keep hiding—"

"Sybil, I—"

"No, it's all right. You're right. It's true. I didn't realize it until now, but it's true. At first, hiding was a necessity, but now . . . now, it's the only way I get to keep them close and still be with you. I complain aloud all the time about how much I want to get away from this house, and this life, but the truth is I'm scared of losing them. They are why I've stood it for so long."

Tom lifted his hand to push her hair out of her face. "So imagine of how much they'd be willing to bear for you."

Sybil smiled through her tears and laid back down. She loved her family, but she was done loving them only on their terms.