Sybil sleeps on and off for most of the next day, and by Friday, she's starting to get restless. "I'm going to go crazy in this room," she pouts, sitting up in bed in a pair of too-big pyjamas with fluffy white clouds all over them.

"I'll be gone for twenty minutes max," he promises. "And then I'll come back and entertain you like the trained monkey I am."

"I'm beginning to forget what it's like to be outside."

He snorts. "Calm down, drama queen." He leans over and kisses her cheek, laughing as she scowls. "Twenty minutes. Do not go anywhere. I've got my phone if you need me."

He buttons up his coat and grabs his wallet and keys as he heads out. The air outside is crisp after yesterday's rains. He shoves his hands into his coat pockets as he strolls over to the newsagent nearest his building and surveys the papers. They're not on any of the front pages, he realises with relief. The photo of Sybil that ran on several tabloids the day before, accompanied by headlines decrying the actions of the paparazzi, was truly disgusting. The photographers were such cretins, the press had sniffed, but they'd been more than happy to pay for and print the picture anyway.

"I'll have a Guardian and a Telegraph," he says, watching as the man behind the counter folds up his copies. "And…" He surveys the sweets – surely there's something Sybil can have a bit of. "Is that bonfire toffee?"

He nods. "Just about the last of it."

"Some of that, too, then." He waits for his change and then heads back, newspapers folded under his arm.

She's curled up in the duvet, scrolling through messages on her mobile, when he returns. "Here, heads up," he says, tossing the bag of toffee in her direction.

She fumbles it and frowns as she moves her head too quickly. "Good lord, Tom, concussion, remember?" But she perks up when she sees what's been tossed at her. "Oh, I used to love this stuff!"

He sits on the edge of the bed and kicks off his shoes. "'Used to,' as in, 'I once loved this, but now I find it utterly revolting'?"

"No, as in I loved it when I was a child but I haven't had it in ages." She rips into the bag and unwraps one, popping it in her mouth. "Surely they don't do Guy Fawkes in Belfast," she says around the sweet.

"Uh, no," he says, sitting back and unfolding the Guardian. He doesn't usually punish himself with the Telegraph unless he needs to see how the other side is reacting to something MacLeod's done or said. "Didn't experience that till university. But they love it at work. Parliament doesn't get many festive occasions." He glances over and touches her bruise carefully. "This is turning a lovely shade of pea green."

"Your fingers are nice and cool," she says, sighing as she sucks on the sweet. "So you really don't have to go in again today?"

"No, I'm all yours once again. I've got some reading to do for a speech scheduled for later this month, but nothing else unless Corin rings." He smiles and runs his fingers through her hair.

"That's good," she says, ducking under the newspaper so she can rest her cheek against his chest. He looks down at her, smiling quietly to himself, and rests his chin on the top of her head as he flips through the paper.

"We're not in it today," he says.

"That's also good." She yawns. "I don't know why I'm tired."

"Probably because of the head trauma."

"Mm." She lets her injured wrist rest on his abdomen, and the touch is enough to make him suck in a quiet breath, closing his eyes against the sudden tightening in his groin. Thank God for the newspaper. "Let's order in a pizza tonight."

"Sounds nice."

"My treat. I feel a bit like a … like a freeloader or something."

He quirks an eyebrow and looks down at her. "Seriously, the toffee was all of two pounds."

She lifts up on one elbow. "I don't mean that – I mean all of this."

"You want me to charge you rent?"

"No," she replies, frustrated. "I don't know. I just don't want you to think I'm taking advantage of you."

He drops the newspaper. "Sybil, seriously. You're having my baby … I think I can buy you a pizza or some sweets now and again."

"I just want to make sure we're on equal footing." She gets up slowly, bracing herself on the bedside table, and heads slowly out into the kitchen.

The dowager's warning about Sybil's money meanders through his brain, and he puts aside the paper and follows her into the living room. She's filling a glass of water at the kitchen tap. He crosses his arms over his chest and regards her. "We are on equal footing, aren't we?"

"Yes, yes, I just …" She sips. "Have I moved in with you?"

His brow furrows. "What?"

She gestures toward the bags in the corner of the living room; Edith brought two more the previous day, and it seems like now most of Sybil's clothing is in his flat. "All of my things are here now."

"You said Edith should bring some things."

"That looks like everything." She clutches her glass.

He scratches his face – he needs to shave. "Should I take all of it back? I thought – I thought this was what you wanted. I thought it was safer here, since there aren't any photographers so far."

"No, that's true. I just don't – what about when I overstay my welcome? What then?"

"I hadn't thought you would." He swallows. "You don't like being here?"

"No, no – I like being here very much." She smiles shyly at him. "You're wonderful, Tom. I just don't want us to be … beholden to each other, I suppose."

He doesn't know what to say. That's what commitment is, isn't it? Being beholden to each other? He wonders again precisely what her ex-boyfriend did to her. "I want you to stay. I don't think you're beholden to me." He pauses, sitting on the arm of the sofa. "I should tell you something."

The fear that crosses her face unnerves him – whatever it was that Simon had done, she'd clearly been absolutely crushed by it. She sits down slowly in one of the dining chairs and draws her knees up to her chest.

"It's nothing bad, I promise. I just – I had tea with your grandmother on Wednesday afternoon."

Her eyebrows shoot up. "With Granny?"

"Yes."

"Tea with my granny? You do mean the dowager?"

"No, I stopped over in America after work for a few hours." Sybil rolls her eyes in exasperation at his words. "One of your gran's staff rang my office and asked me what time the car should pick me up. I didn't think I was allowed to say no."

She shrugs. "I don't think anyone says that to her on a regular basis."

"So we had tea."

Her mouth falls open slightly. "What did she say to you?"

"She wanted me to know … she wanted to know that I was committed to you. She's worried about you. She told me that – that you weren't disposable. That you were important."

She looks down, and he thinks he sees a blush creeping up on her cheeks. "Well."

He clears his throat. "And the reason I even said anything about it … she told me I wasn't to touch your money."

Sybil raises her head, her expression going a bit blank. "Did she?"

"Did something happen, Sybil? I mean – I know it's none of my business. I've got no idea how much money you have or even if you have any at all. But I told your grandmother that, and she seemed sceptical." He tilts his head. "She made it sound like someone had taken advantage of you before."

She shakes her head. "I don't want to talk about it. It's in the past."

"It worried me."

"Why?" Her eyes are glassy.

Because he loves her. "Because I don't like that someone's hurt you."

She swallows a bit, and the vulnerability in her gaze is simultaneously thrilling and troubling. "Simon took money from me."

It's what he feared, but it still makes his stomach turn. "What happened?"

"I – his family is rich enough, and he got a job in the City after graduation, but he was…" She pauses and shakes her head. "I found out later that he'd been gambling a lot – internet poker, I think, mostly. He'd gone through his own savings, and when he couldn't come up with his own money anymore, he started taking money from me, got my PIN somehow."

"Oh, Sybil."

Her expression shifts in a split second – the softness goes hard. "I've had more than enough pity for my stupidity, thank you very much."

"I didn't mean that. I mean – what a bastard. How could someone hurt you like that?"

She shudders. "I thought that he loved me. And I know that he was sick – it's an addiction. And I…" She sucks in a deep breath. "I found out, and I let him stay. He apologised, and he started going to a treatment group, one of those where you talk about your issues, and I thought things were better." She sighs. "And then six months later he left me. And I found out that he'd been taking small sums, just a little bit at a time, the entire time."

"How long ago?"

"Hm?"

"How long ago did things end for good with him?"

"Oh." She shifts in her chair. "A year ago last month." There's a long silence. "I have a lot of money, Tom."

"That doesn't matter. I've got plenty of my own."

"No, I think you should know. I'm sure Granny alluded to it. My grandfather set up trust funds for me and for Edith after he died – he didn't have any other grandchildren, and he knew that Mary would inherit the estate. It's a lot of money. It's mine, and I appreciate what Granddad did for me, but sometimes I wish that I'd earned it. I know that's a stupid thing to say when plenty of people don't have anything, but I feel … I don't know. I feel too lucky sometimes. Like everything's been handed to me, and I'm no more deserving of that than anyone else."

He nods slowly. "Did you get back the money that he took from you?"

She nods. "Matthew helped. Simon's family stepped in to avoid a legal fight. I was too embarrassed to keep it, so I gave it to Oxfam."

He stands, walks over to the table, and pulls her up into his arms, kissing the side of her head gently. "You're a good person. You're going to be a really good mother, Sybil."

She bursts into tears, hugging him tightly. "Thanks," she sniffs, letting him hold her for a long while.

By the next morning, the entire world knows that she's going to be a mother, good or not.

A columnist for one of the Saturday papers includes a small, almost discreet item in his weekly piece revealing that their "unconventional" relationship has endured because of their impending arrival. He knows that someone from inside St Thomas' has leaked the story. He'd like to wring the neck of the nurse who blabbed, but of course, the papers have been careful only to cite "close sources." Right.

By that afternoon, the web versions of all of the major papers have the story; the Mail in particular goes all out, bringing in an obstetrician who analyses previous photos and determines the age of the foetus with alarming accuracy. The Telegraph notes that the last British PM to become a grandparent while in office was Thatcher. ("Fabulous," Sybil groans.) The two of them have a speakerphone pow-wow with Matthew, who gives them the number of the lawyer who handles the PCC complaints for the royal family. ("It's not a big deal," Sybil says patiently. "Besides, I went to school with one of the princesses anyway. It's not like they're from another planet or something.")

And then he gets to call his mother, to break the news that she, like the prime minister, will also soon be a grandparent. It goes precisely as well as he expected it would. He decides to post her one of the images from the scan – maybe long-distance passive-aggression via post will soothe her fury.

Worst of all, though, just when she'd been ready to step outside again – bruise be damned – the leaked story about the baby manages to kill Sybil's confidence. She's worried, and he thinks probably rightly so, that she'll be accosted again in public. Neither of them is commenting on the story, and Lord Grantham's press office has made it clear that he does not speak about the private lives of his daughters, so at least the story is so far stuck in the "reportedly" stage. The biggest blessing so far is that there are still no paparazzi in the vicinity of his flat – he isn't sure if the press just haven't managed to figure out where he lives yet (he doubts this), or if they're simply holding back for fear of reprisal after Sybil's injury.

Even so, he's got plans for Saturday night – plans for the foreseeable future, really. It's clearer and clearer to him that Sybil's too tentative after her last miserable relationship to be really open with him, baby or no baby. So he's going to have to show her that he's a good guy, that she can trust him. Telling her that he loves her would send her running, he's pretty sure. So, he decides, he's simply going to have to show her instead.

Step number one: introducing her to his friends. He spends a good deal of the afternoon coaxing Sybil into agreeing to accompany him to a small party that evening. "You won't have to walk around on the street, and you won't be around anyone who will take your picture," he says, hands on hips.

She's sitting cross-legged in the middle of his bed, picking at the sleeves of her hoodie. "I might be sick, though. What if I get dizzy?" She shakes her head. "Or what if someone tries to touch my stomach or something?"

He cringes. "Do people do that?"

"Apparently people do that all the time," she says, eyes wide.

"That's brutal. If people try to do any of those things, I will tell them quite kindly to piss the fuck off."

She rolls her eyes, laughing a little. "Tom."

"Sybil."

She sighs heavily. "We won't be out for hours and hours."

"No."

"And if anything is awful you'll bring me straight back here."

"Promise."

She sighs. "I don't have to get too dressed up?"

"I'm wearing jeans and trainers, if that tells you anything."

She nods slowly. "Okay." He grins, and she gives him a slightly exasperated look. "It'll take me a while to get ready."

"We've got a couple hours, we don't need to leave until after six."

"Okay," she says softly, nodding to herself.

She showers, promising to be careful of her stitches, with the loo door open, so that he can hear her if she starts to get dizzy or feels like she's going to fall. He sprawls on his stomach on the bed, nominally reading a book, but really just watching her while she sits on the floor and dries her hair. When she's halfway through, she peers over her shoulder and asks, "Curly or straight?"

"Hm?"

"Should I wear my hair curly or straight?"

"Curly," he says, without even a moment's hesitation. She starts to turn on the hairdryer again, but he adds, "That's the very first thing I noticed about you."

"My hair?"

"Uh-huh. Like a lion's mane or something, all wild and everywhere."

"It gets in my face. I can't do anything with it."

He shrugs. "I like it," he says, smiling as she quirks an eyebrow at him and then goes back to her task.

He warms up a couple of slices of the leftover pizza from the night before while she tries in vain to cover up the bruise with makeup. "Oh, forget it," she says as she walks into the kitchen. "There's nothing to be done, it's just there."

"War wound. Wear it with pride," he says, handing her a plate. "Cab should be here in ten minutes."

The streets of London are relatively quiet, even for Bonfire Night, as the cab makes its way to Chelsea. "Dave's my flatmate from Leeds," he explains. "He works for a tech firm now. Embarrassingly smarter than me."

"Good to know. I'll save all of my big words for him, then."

He gasps in mock outrage as they pull up in front of a house only a block or so from the river. "He's got a roof terrace, we do this every year," he says. "You'll like them, I promise."

Not only does she like them, it turns out that she actually already knows a couple of his friends through mutual connections. He should have realised – as foreign as Sybil's life seems sometimes, they're really not that far removed from each other. "Tommy," Dave calls out, long and low, when he seems him coming across the living room. "A celebrity in our midst."

"Ah, get away," he says, slapping his friend on the back. "Dave, this is Sybil Crawley."

"Lovely to meet you," he says, blinking a bit too slowly – clearly the celebrations started a bit early for Dave. "Shame about everything. You look gorgeous."

Sybil looks up at him for guidance, and he just shakes his head indulgently at his friend. "You're a gentleman as always, you fecking fool."

Dave bows clumsily. "Anyway. Black stuff's in the fridge, most everyone else is already upstairs, explosions in twenty."

He grabs a Guinness for himself and a Coke for Sybil, but by the time he finds her again, she's already deep in conversation with the girlfriend of one of Dave's mates from school. He just passes the can to her and raises his eyebrows as he heads upstairs, finding a whole group of his university friends contemplating whether or not to light various things on fire. He chats a little, but mostly he's content to lean against the railing and watch the ridiculousness until the firework display from Battersea Park starts to light up the sky.

He remembers the first time he saw fireworks in England – when he'd first started at Leeds, Dave had tried a bit too hard to be sensitive to his background, and he'd actually pretended like they should go see a film on Bonfire Night instead. "Why?" he'd asked. "Don't you want to go see the show?" Dave had assumed that fireworks would be some sort of trigger. They weren't, though – the booming of fireworks and the booming of a pipe bomb were two very different things.

He doesn't know how long he stands slightly apart on the terrace, looking up at the sky, but eventually he registers fingertips dancing across his back. "Hi," Sybil says softly, sidling up next to him. "This is a great view."

He nods, and when he looks down, he can tell that she's shivering. "C'mere," he murmurs, pulling her close and folding her into his coat.

She jumps a bit when one of the biggest bursts crackles across the sky. "That was a good one," she exclaims.

He laughs a little, resting his chin on the top of her head. "It was," he agrees.