"Nurse? Nurse, can I ask you something?"

She freezes, his chart in her hands, startled by the new patient's accent. It's American. Hope and horror have her chest squeezed tight.

He arrived this morning, transferred from another hospital in London, but this is the first chance she's gotten to examine him herself. She looks at him closely, right in his eyes. The poor man is wrapped from crown to neck in bandages, his face burned away, but they don't cover his mouth or his eyes and it's impossible not to see the hints of tremendous damage underneath. A man without a face. Unrecognizable. But for an American accent.

With shaky hands she looks at his chart, dreading what she'll see there. Could her beautiful American- Might he still be- Her finger traces his name – Maj. Gordon, Patrick. Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

He's Canadian, not American. Part of her is undeniably disappointed. Part of her is terribly relieved.

She wonders what Patrick Gordon looked like before the war. And not for the first time since becoming a nurse, she wonders what's been the bloody purpose of all this carnage. There is no purpose as far as she's concerned. "How are you, Maj. Gordon? I'm Nurse Branson. Have you settled in well, are you comfortable?" she asks, her professional smile fixed in place.

"Yes, I'm very well, thank you. I have a question, though. Do you think you could help me with something, Nurse Branson?"

"I can certainly try. What do you need? A letter written?"

"No, no letter. I was hoping you could perhaps ask my-I was wondering if you could have Lord Grantham come talk to me?"

She works hard to keep her face neutral, not betray her surprise at the request. "Can I ask why? I know Lord Grantham likes to meet the men, but he's very busy, you understand."

"What about Tom? Tom Crawley, that is."

"Do you know him?"

"We used to know each other very well."

"From school?"

"No." Maj. Gordon hesitates, perhaps wondering if and why he needs to explain himself to a nurse. "From here."

"From Downton? Were you a—"

"I grew up here, you see." Well, what does that mean, grew up here? "It's difficult to explain, and a very long story, Nurse Branson, one I need to tell Tom or-or his Lordship. But the short of it is my name isn't really Patrick Gordon. It's Patrick Crawley. I'm Patrick Crawley."

She hesitates before knocking on his office door. In times past, she was in almost the same situation, hesitant to go into his chambers, hesitant to be around him, afraid of him. She's not afraid of him now but still hesitant to be around him. Actually, she'd like to never have to be near him at all. Out of sight, out of mind. For weeks now, she's done all she can toward that aim, avoiding everywhere and anywhere he is, dodging into a room if she sees him coming down the hall, going upstairs via the servants' staircase, whatever it takes.

But now she has to go in there, to him. Fine. She wraps on the door, hard. He calls out, granting entrance. He's sitting at his desk, leaning over a ledger. He looks up, seeing her come in, and just for a moment he looks panicked, like a cornered animal. She can sympathize. He looks back to his ledger even as he speaks to her. "Can I help you, Nurse Branson?"

"I'm not sure, sir. Something's come up and it's rather...well, I'm not sure."

He looks up, wildly unimpressed. No, this is no good, she's dancing around it, she just needs to come right out and say it, be direct. So she does. She closes the door behind her and comes right out with it, everything she knows – which isn't much at all. Patrick Gordon, perhaps Crawley, did tell her a little more, how he was rescued from the icy waters after the Titanic sank. How he woke up in Canada with no memory. How he woke up in a field hospital in France with all his memories intact again. How he arranged to get himself transferred here as soon as he could.

The leather of his chair creaks as Tom sits back, absorbing all her words. He's quiet for a long time, looking directly at her. Looking at her like she's lost her damn mind coming in here to tell him this wild story.

"I never met your brother, sir, I have no frame of reference, but I felt it was my duty to report it to you, someone running around claiming to be the heir to Downton. Is he probably a crackpot? Yes. But should someone who knew Patrick speak to him, just in case his outlandish story is true? If there's even the slightest chance it is? Yes."

He still doesn't say anything. She reaches back for the doorknob, thinking it's time she went. But then he stands, jerking down his waistcoat. "Can you take me to him, please?"

She deposits Tom at Patrick Gordon's bedside and takes her leave. This is none of her business, her duty has been carried out. She has plenty to do elsewhere, and so she attends to those things. But when she returns some time later, she's mildly surprised to see Tom sitting in a chair by Patrick Gordon's bed, the two apparently locked in conversation. It looks intense and serious, but then Tom suddenly laughs, a full and real laugh, the sound echoing down the long room. Very surprising indeed.

She watches as Tom stands and shakes Patrick Gordon's hand before picking up his chair and turning away. Sybil stays where she is at the door as Tom stacks the chair with others by the wall and approaches. He quirks his eyebrows at her as he brushes past and she takes that as a cue to follow him down the hall. Curiosity gets the better of her and she does follow.

"I don't know," he says, suddenly looking a bit lost. "I really don't know. How can I not know my own brother from a-a disfigured stranger?" She doesn't answer because she's not sure how to answer and because she doesn't want to get involved. He doesn't seem to expect an answer anyway, lost in his thoughts. "I have to go talk to my father. Excuse me." He walks away but then pauses, glancing at her as he adds, "And-and thank you for bringing this to me."

"Just doing what anyone would do, sir."

She gets wind of some sort of investigation happening on the Crawleys' side, getting their lawyers involved, even one in New York. Undoubtedly, they're checking on the years between 1912 and today, who Patrick Gordon was during that time, who he might be really. She's not privy to details, and doesn't care to be, but they seem to be taking this man seriously, which is both bad and good, in her opinion.

She keeps finding Tom in the ward, sitting with Patrick. Tom's whole demeanor seems light, she notes. Happy. They spend an awful lot of time together, even walking around the grounds outside. Sybil gets the distinct impression Tom believes the man really is his brother, despite the investigation apparently being anything but over.

She can't help but often run into the ever-faithful and loyal Anna, still in service here, and, alarmingly, not even Anna, who knew Patrick when he was alive before? not dead? not missing a face?, seems to know if he's the real Patrick or not.

Sybil thinks that if the man really is a con, he should probably win some sort of prize for the skill.

She's changing Patrick Gordon/Crawley's bandages one afternoon, just starting to unwrap the old bandage, when she hears Tom's voice ask, "Do you mind if I...?" He stands on the other side of the bed, his question addressed to Patrick.

"No, I don't mind."

She knows what's under the bandages and she wonders if Tom is prepared for it. It's extreme. But maybe Tom knows what he's about – she wonders if he thinks seeing Patrick's face, such as it is, will somehow prove or disprove his identity.

He sits there quietly as Sybil carefully removes the old bandage and the gauze underneath. It's nothing less than shocking, the sight. She hears Tom suck in a breath. Whoever this Patrick is, he has suffered mightily. He will never ever be the same, never be healed, never be himself again. No matter what, Sybil does feel tremendously sad for him. But it's an impossible task for anyone to recognize the man he used to be under all that wrecked flesh. She knew that already. Now Tom knows.

"I'm so sorry, Pat," Tom says quietly. "I don't have adequate words—"

"You have nothing to be sorry for, brother," Patrick answers. Patrick's ruined flesh pulls up in what she assumes must be a reassuring smile. "You didn't do anything."

"That's...that's part of the problem. I wanted to go over, you see. I wanted to..." Tom shakes his head, unable to finish. She catches Tom's eye, just for a moment. She knows what he wanted to do – he wanted to die in battle. He wanted to prove his life had value in death. He admitted it to her, the words forever scratched on her bones. It passes between them in their shared glance, the truth and the memory.

"You've done tremendous things here," Patrick assures him. "You should be very proud of all you've done. And don't ever be sorry for me. I'm alive. I'm here. I'm home. That's enough for me, Tommy."

Almost done rewrapping his head in clean gauze, she comments lightly, "Tommy? I've never heard him called that before." She feels Tom's eyes burning into the side of her head for the inappropriate timing and massive liberty, but she persists, something compelling her tongue, a purpose slowly fomenting in her head. "Is that what you used to call him when you were children?"

"Yes, sometimes."

"He also used to call me Roly-Poly, do you remember that?" Tom interjects. She cringes inside, wishing Tom would shut his mouth, for this is how con men work, isn't it - getting fed the information they need from the marks themselves.

"Roly-Poly. Because you were such a tremendously fat little bugger, weren't you!"

"You used to tease me mercilessly."

She can't keep her own mouth shut, saying, as she wraps clean cotton bandages around the gauze, "Tom told me once how the three of you boys used to run around playing soldiers and beating the stuffing out of each other." She's treading on landmines, dredging up the very worst moments of her shared history with Tom.

"Yes, we certainly did!" Patrick agrees. "But that's what brothers do, isn't it?"

She keeps going, reaching her final destination. "And how Mrs. Hughes was always the one to patch up your war wounds. How she'd sit you boys down in her parlor and put bandages on your cuts and scrapes after all the roughhousing."

"Yes indeed, quite so. Dear old Mrs. Hughes. She had to patch us up quite a lot!"

And there it is.

She calmly finishes her task, not giving anything away.

But the penny has dropped.

He took her down to Mr. Carson's office and closed the door behind them. He made her sit in a chair by the desk so he could bandage her bleeding finger. "Carson always used to bandage up our war wounds here when we were kids," he said warmly, getting the first aid kit from the cupboard behind the door. She recalls how, at the time, she just desperately wanted to kick Tom and run out of Carson's office, get away.

There's a sudden screech as Tom stands abruptly, his chair scraping on the floorboards before tipping over with a clatter. He's staring down at Patrick, his face a black storm cloud, his lips pressed tight together but his face shaking, as though violent words are fighting to escape his mouth.

"Tommy?" Patrick Gordon says.

Tom suddenly turns on his heel, storming away, knocking over a tray of water glasses in a blind haste to get out of the room. Glass explodes, louder than thunder. His steps shake the floor. The rest is silence.

When she reports for duty the next morning, Patrick Gordon is gone. She asks Thomas Barrow if he was transferred. "No, he wasn't. He just took off like a thief in the night. Don't know where he went."

"Thief in the night is right. Trying to steal an Earlship."

"So you think he really was a fraud, then?"

"I think scampering away under the cover of dark is a guarantee he was. He knew he was caught, he knew the game was up."

She doesn't see Tom around at all that day, even when she makes up a thin excuse to go down to his office, even when she goes up the main staircase at the time he usually comes down for dinner. He's seemingly disappeared too. But she won't worry about him. It's nothing to her.

She's called downstairs late that night, after eleven, to deal with an emergency – an officer with shell-shock, locked in a waking nightmare, was trying to choke the life from another officer. It takes Mr. Carson, Mr. Moseley, and Thomas Barrow to pull him off the victim and restrain him, hold him down so she can get the needle in his arm to administer sedation. For the first time in weeks, she would've liked Tom to be there – if only to provide more muscle.

The men go back to bed but she's suddenly very awake, her nerves rattled. She wants tea, going down to the kitchens in her dressing gown to make herself some. She likes the kitchens, the downstairs, late at night when it's quiet and empty and not heaving with activity. She likes the warm rooms and the tile floors smoothed down by constant traffic and the worn tabletop in the servants' hall. The downstairs is a living, breathing entity, and at night it takes a sigh of relief.

She pours the water she's boiled into the teapot, over the leaves, and puts the pot on her small tray with her cup and the sugar bowl. She finds the cream in the icebox, returning to the kitchen with it, almost dropping it on the floor when she sees Tom Crawley standing at the kitchen door. She yelps in surprise, she can't help it. "You scared me, sir."

He stares at her. "Sorry. I thought it was Mrs. Patmore or someone in here." He glances behind him as though contemplating escape. He's wearing his coveralls, covered in filth, some of it streaked across his face. He fiddles with the work gloves clutched in his hand. The cold is still on his cheeks. "I've just come in," he explains awkwardly, unnecessarily.

"I was just making some tea," she answers just as awkwardly and unnecessarily, the steaming teapot right in front of her. She remembers she's still in her dressing gown, her hair falling out of her braid, and grows even more self-conscious. "You-you look like you could use some. Tea."

"I was rebuilding a wall."

"In the dark?"

"No, uh, earlier." So that's where he disappeared. "I've been in the garage tonight. Working on my car."

She nods. "So would you like tea? There's plenty."

"Um. Sure. Thank you."

She finds him a teacup and pours some through the strainer, adding cream and sugar at his request. She holds out the cup and saucer to him, expecting him to take it and leave, alleviate their mutual awkwardness. He doesn't, though, he just takes it and stands there holding it like he's waiting for her. "I was going to have mine in the other room," she explains. He nods, still waiting. And when she finally picks up her tray and carries it into the servants' hall, he surprises her by following along. Sitting down at the table with her, taking Mr. Carson's chair. Waiting until she's poured her own cup to finally sip his. They sit there in silence, sipping tea. She studies the pattern on the teapot like it's the most fascinating design in all of Christendom.

"So he's gone, I gather," Tom finally says, breaking the silence.

"Yes. Left in the middle of the night."

"Yes." He clears his throat, turning the cup in his hands. The chair squeaks as he fidgets a little. "Last night, I tried to convince myself that he just forgot about what you...about Mr. Carson patching us up. He lost his memory, it was to be expected, forgetting details. But... Well, it was an unconvincing argument. He wasn't Patrick, was he?"

"I don't think so, no," she answers quietly.

"I really thought it was him," he admits. "I really... Christ, I'm so stupid. How could I be so goddamn stupid and blind? How could I let myself believe any of it?"

"Because he was a very good con man. Because you wanted it to be him. You wanted your brother back."

He nods, leaning forward, over his tea, staring into it. He shoves his fingers into his hair, pushing back the hair falling over his forehead, smearing a streak of dirt across his skin. "Thank you for what you did."

She allows herself to study him for a moment. The muck on him, his dirty work clothes, the smell of earth and sweat clinging to him like any common workingman. He could be any husband in this country, come home from a long day on a building site or factory job; and she could be any wife, waiting up for him to feed him his dinner and make him some tea. It's a pleasant and painful fiction. Life is that easy and simple and ordinary for some people in this world, and she envies those people. And they probably envy her less humdrum life in return. No one ever seems to have what they want.

"Maj. Gordon was truthful about one thing, Mr. Crawley. You've done marvelous work here, opening the house up as a hospital. You should be very proud." She hesitates, feeling mightily exposed when she adds, "I'm very proud of you. For whatever that's worth."

He looks up sharply, pinning her with his intense gaze, almost like she's insulted him rather than complimented him. He sits back in his chair again, arms folded across his chest, his forehead creased as he puzzles something over. "Why did you come back here? To Downton?"

The question catches her off guard. She casts about for an answer – any answer but the truest one. "Because I heard it'd been converted to a convalescent hospital."

"How did you hear that?"

"From Gwen Dawson." Skirting closer to the truest truth now.

Now she's the one catching him off guard. He rubs a hand over his chin, smearing more dirt. "Gwen Dawson." He says the name like it's the answer to a cosmic joke.

"I ran into her in London, very unexpectedly."

"And how was she doing?"

"Very well. Better than I expected." That seems to confuse him. "I thought... I had assumed she might be in reduced circumstances."

"Why would she be—"

"Because I was wrong," she blurts out, cutting him off. God, she should not do this, but now that she's started, she just has to get it all out, finally. "Because I was horribly wrong and stupid. Because I let myself believe something terrible because it fit into my prejudice, unreasonable view of...of...you."

"Me? What was the terrible thing? Something I did."

"Something you didn't do. And something you did do but I didn't know it." Now she's really got him confused. She forces it out, miserable and ashamed. "I thought you got Gwen Dawson pregnant and sacked her. I didn't know you'd gotten her a secretarial job. I assumed the very worst and that was unforgivable."

"But..." He looks a bit stunned at her admission, like he's trying to process all of it. "But I wrote you a letter, I sent you a letter from London explaining—"

"I never read it," she admits. His face closes up. She's just digging the hole deeper. "I didn't give you a benefit of the doubt, I just... I behaved unforgivably and I'm very sorry for it. I hope you'll believe how very sorry I am."

He doesn't say anything. He doesn't look at her. The hurt radiates off him in waves. He drains his teacup and stands, the chair scraping. He's leaving, she thinks; she's ever ready for him to walk away from her. But he doesn't, again – he paces a little, he looks at the line of call bells bolted to the wall, he jiggles one, makes it chime. Finally he speaks, more calmly than expected.

"I never gave much thought to how all these bells are wired up. All those pulleys and cables running inside the walls, through the whole house. I just pulled the cord and someone would appear to do anything I needed, just like magic. For a long, long time, I never gave any thought to anything going on in this house, how it all works and fits together, how all the moving parts matter. But...but shortly after you left Downton, the bell in my room stopped working. No one came when I needed them. The line inside the wall had snapped and for the first time it mattered how the bells worked. And it was then I realized how right you were about me."

Now she's the confused party. She's about to repeat how wrong she was, but he sees it and holds up a finger, asking her to wait.

"You were right when you said I was making justifications and simplifications for my own bad behavior. I was. To me, Gwen and-and the others were just like the bells – beckon them and they'd do anything I wanted, I didn't care how they worked. So I can understand why you thought those things about me, why you assumed I'd ruined Gwen in that manner. If the shoe fits and all that, right?"

"But it didn't, not really—" she tries.

"It fit well enough. I do believe you're sorry, and I'll accept the apology if you want me to. But I'm sorry too. I'm to blame, too. And do I wish..." He taps one of the bells again, not looking at her. "Do I wish things had worked out differently between us? Yes." His quiet confession makes her breath stop. "But what's done is done, you see. All the apologies in the world can't change what has passed or how things stand now. Things are the way they are."

She's struck by that. "Things are the way they are," she repeats. Not because she believes it but because it sounds like something his father would say. "And things can never change?" she asks.

"No."

"How very intransigent."

"This is, Sybil," he insists, sounding frustrated. "I'm not getting into a philosophical debate with you. I'm going to bed. Thank you for the tea," he says stiffly, walking out, leaving her there alone with her thoughts, which are many.

She knows the past can't change, but he admitted he wished things were different. There's a lot to be read in that. She doesn't believe things can't change going forward, they can, and he used to believe the same thing, she knows he did. Maybe, somehow, she can convince him to believe it again. It doesn't have to be a wish.

TBC.