"Darling, wake up. We will be in New York soon."

"What?"

"We'll land at JFK in 20 minutes."

"I want to go home."

"Robert."

"Hm"

"You've fallen asleep again."

"I was dreaming of you."

"I am sitting next to you."

"In my dream you wore fewer clothes."

"Robert, we are on a plane."

"Sorry."

She shakes her head at her husband. She loves him with all her heart but sometimes he is just incorrigible, although she loves that about him too. She looks at him and he seems to be close to falling asleep again and so she leans closer to him to whisper in his ear. "The sooner you wake up, the sooner we'll get off the plane, the sooner we will be at the hotel. Maybe I'll wear even fewer clothes there than in your dream." Just as she had predicted, he jolts awake.

As soon as they have got their suitcases they walk towards the passport control, but unlike the last time they came to New York, she joins him in the line for non-US citizens. The officer raises his eyebrows at her when he sees her passport and she replies "I just wanted to stay with my husband."

"Married to an English man, huh?"

"Very happily."

Robert squeezes her hand at this and she turns to him and smiles. She looks for a cab and gets one but this time she lets him do the checking in at the hotel. It is the hotel they stayed in the last time as well and she supposes that Robert picked it to make up for something. They go to their room and once they are inside Robert throws himself backwards onto the bed and says "I'm glad we are off that plane. I like to go to different places, but I do not enjoy flying. Not at all."

She smiles at him and joins him on the bed. "We have all of today to ourselves. Let's enjoy that. I'll meet the real estate agent tomorrow while you work. I am sure I will have to meet him more than once and you have to work every day this week and the next."

"I won't have to work Saturday or Sunday. I told them I wouldn't and Matthew backed me up on that. I wanted to have the weekend with you. I won't go to any business parties or dinners either. Not at the weekend and not at night. I want to spend time with you."

"What will you do if they offer to show you around New York? Can you really say no to that?"

"Yes. I'll tell them that I already have a tour guide so to speak because you are from here. They know you are here with me, over the past four months I have almost become famous for never travelling without you. And I'd much rather see your New York than that of some lawyers who all think they need to impress me with an insanely expensive restaurant on the top of a tall building."

"I might want to go to such a restaurant."

"Then I will gladly take you there. But there is a difference between going there with a group of colleagues I hardly know and the love of my life."

She has to swallow at this. After all they have been through, she is still the love of his life. He is the love of her life too, she wouldn't have decided to invest millions of pounds into his estate otherwise. But she can afford it and he loves the estate. She loves it too, if for different reasons and it is a sensible investment. They are saving a piece of history and opening it to the public. But what is more important to her is that it stays in the family and that they are able to spend time there. They have gone to the estate at least two weekends a months over the course of the last four months. Their children came along with them, Matthew even went there alone with Mary several times because it is so quiet and peaceful and he thought it would be good for her to relax. Both she and Robert agreed with Matthew whole-heartedly. By Christmas Mary will have had the baby and they will spend the holidays with their children and grandchildren at Downton Abbey. Robert had insisted on at least one white tie dinner and all the girls and Matthew and Tom had said that two might be nicer. They decided on Christmas Eve and New Year's day, but she knows that their girls are planning a third white tie dinner sometime between those days as well. Robert loves those dinners and as archaic as those dinners are, their girls, Matthew and even Tom love them too. And so does she, because Robert looks rather dashing in his tails and she likes to wear nice dresses.

"Earth to Cora. What are you thinking about?"

"You in your tails. You look rather dashing in them."

"Rather dashing? That is rather English."

"Well, I've been married to an English man for a long time."

"Lucky fellow."

"Very lucky. You should meet him, he is nice. I think he deserve to be lucky."

"Nice."

"Yes. And very sweet."

"Nice and sweet."

"And very good looking, especially in his tails."

"Nice, sweet and good looking in tails."

"He is also intelligent."

"He is a genius."

"Why do you think so?"

"Because he married you. And because he remembers that you said something about wearing fewer clothes than you did in his dream about you. And you only wore your underwear in that dream."

"He can also be pretty demanding in the bedroom."

"Is that a good thing?"

"A very good thing."

She screams with a mixture of surprise and joy when he pushes her on her back and attacks her with kisses.

She excuses herself from their table to go talk to a few acquaintances she saw when they entered the restaurant. They have just ordered and she said that this would be the perfect time for her to 'get talking to those people out of the way'. He watches her while she walks away and keeps staring at her while she talks to those people. They are obviously happy to see her, especially the men at the table. Two of them are openly goggling at her but she ignores them. She is such a wonderful woman and he loves her so much that it sometimes hurts. He still can't believe that he almost let her go because of his own stubbornness and he is thankful to her for not giving up on them. The past few months have been among the happiest of his life. He has never spent so much time with her because she travels with him everywhere and he travels quite a lot. Matthew is an excellent lawyer but really not that good when it comes to talking to important clients, especially those from other countries. He is much better at that and Matthew accepts that and leaves the talking to the clients to him. Cora insisted on only having to attend meetings at the publishing house when she is actually in the country and after a few heated discussions with her superiors and a threat on her part to leave and go freelance all together, she got exactly what she wanted.

In an act that he thinks can only have been motivated by deep love she decided to save his childhood home. She insists that she did for them not only for him, but her reasons all somehow go back to him. He proposed to her in the rose garden at the Abbey, they got married in the village church and held the reception at the Abbey, she told him of all her pregnancy while they stayed there, Sybil who had come four weeks early had even been born in the village hospital and the first days she had spent at 'home' had been spent at the Abbey. They spent their Christmases there when their girls still lived with them and even a few Christmases after that. And a few months ago it had been there that he had realized that he should belief Cora's words that they wouldn't split up again. After she had told him that she considered selling her penthouse in New York and investing the money into his childhood home, they spent the evening together in a manner they hadn't really done in over a year. He took her to one of the village restaurants and they walked home afterwards, where he took her to the 'ball room' of their house. He turned on music for them and then danced with her for some time. They went into the sitting room later on, where they both had a drink and then he took her upstairs where they made love in the truest sense of the words, in a way that speaks more of unconditional deep love than of desire and is incredibly satisfying, physically but even more so emotionally. He had told her how much he loved her afterwards and she had fallen asleep in his arms and he had realized then how close they were, how deeply they loved each other and that there was nothing that could keep them apart.

She now talks to one of the men goggling at her so obviously and he almost has to laugh at that man's fruitless attempts to flirt with her. She shakes her head and then looks over at him as if to indicate that she wasn't alone. That man throws him a dirty look and he shrugs his shoulders at him. Cora then seems to say goodbye to everyone at the table and she turns around and walks back to him. The moment she realizes that he looks at her, her face breaks into a smile, a smile that sends a shiver down his spine.

"That's done, thank goodness. I do not particularly like those people."

"Then why did you talk to them?"

"Because they saw us coming in."

"One of the men tried to flirt with you."

"Yes, that was Andrew. The man who asked all those impertinent questions on the phone."

"Oh, him. I don't like him."

"Neither do I. He wanted me to join them for dinner and when I said you were here too he said that we should both join them, but I told him I'd much rather spend the evening with you alone. He did not take that well." He laughs at this and takes her hand that is lying on the table in his. She smiles at him again and then says "I am glad we came to New York."

"Yes." He knows she is glad about it because they are here now without fighting, they are doing now what she had wanted to months ago and they would have done months ago had he not been so stupid.

"Stop beating yourself over the head with it, Robert."

"You can read my mind, can't you?"

"I can read your face, my love."

"I am trying not to think about it too much." He really tries not to brood too much over his own stupidity. Cora keeps saying that it is not necessary, that they are happy now and that there is no reason to brood about anything. She keeps telling him to be happy about the grandchild they already have and the one they will have very soon and he is overjoyed about being a grandfather and having his children and grandchildren with them for Christmas and New Year's. Even Tom and Sybil who he is sure wouldn't mind attending one of the London parties on New Year's Eve will stay with them the whole time. He hasn't looked forward to Christmas this much for a very long time but he can't stop thinking about what would have happened if he and Cora had split up for good.

"Darling, we won't split. We are done with that."

"I know."

"By the way, the real estate agent has already found several potential buyers, so I'll finally be able to get rid of the penthouse."

"Get rid of it?"

"Robert, you know how I feel about it. I will feel much better once the money is invested in a house I am emotionally attached to, a place I love."

"As long as you are sure."

"Of course I am. It is our house, darling. A house that represents our family, not an apartment that represents two broken marriages to me. And I'd much rather own the place where one of those broken marriages was fixed."

"It was that weekend, wasn't it? When we went to the Abbey to look at the damage. That was when we finally repaired what had been broken."

"Yes."

"Have you been happy since then?"

"Very happy. The last few months certainly are among the happiest of my life. I wouldn't say that I've never been this happy, because we were very happy before, well you know, but I couldn't be any happier than I am now."

He has both her hands in his now and chuckles a little. "We feel the same then." The smile on her face makes his heart skip a beat.

They walk back to their hotel hand in hand later on and before going to their room, they go onto the roof to look at New York.

"Won't you miss it?"

"No. I love New York, it's true, but we can always come back here for a few days. It isn't my home anymore; it hasn't been my home for thirty years. My home is in England. Our house in London and the Abbey."

"You know, when I married you I was afraid that I was taking something from you."

"You didn't take anything that wouldn't have been worth it. And you gave me quite a lot in return. You've made me very happy. You are making me very happy every single day."

He stands behind her now and wraps his arms around her waist.

"You know, when I saw your name in that phonebook, when I realized that you had returned to England, I thought I was dreaming. Because I had dreamed of you returning for a year by that time. My life was miserable without you. I am so thankful for you. I know I don't tell you this often enough but you are making me very happy too. I love you."

She turns around in his arms and looks into his eyes.

"I love you too." He kisses her then, a sweet and tender kiss that turns into so much more, more than he ever thought would have been possible only a few months ago, more than he thinks he deserves. But she gives it to him all the same because she loves him as deeply as he loves her. Before they fall asleep he makes a silent vow to never let her go again, to always take her home again.

AN: This was the final chapter for a fic that has gone totally out of hand. Thanks for sticking with me and all the lovely reviews!

Kat