Er...I appear to be writing a long-winded, more romance-driven version of Pinocchio. If it's any consolation, Jimmy turns into a real boy soon...?

The next day dawned in shades of pastel and deepest regret, as Jimmy cracked an eye open and squinted at the peach-coloured wall opposite. His stomach lurched. Slowly, he turned his head and looked down. Long brown hair spread across the pillow. His stomach lurched again.

Just then, the owner of the long brown hair turned over and Ivy opened her eyes and stared straight at him. Jimmy froze. She smiled, a small, soft smile. "Morning," she said, and under the blankets, her foot slid against his leg. Jimmy fought the urge to pull back and worked his face into an answering smile.

"Time's it?" she asked, and stifled a yawn.

"I don't know," Jimmy said, grasping at this straw. "But I'd better get…" he jerked his thumb in the direction of the door, and slid his legs onto the floor.

"Mmm," Ivy agreed, but grabbed his arm, and pulled him down for a kiss. "I'll see you in a while, then," she whispered, before she let him go.

Jimmy took a step back. "Yeah. A while," he said, and began to collect his clothes.

As he pulled Ivy's bedroom door shut behind him, he came face to face with Alfred, just coming out of the bathroom. They both stopped dead, and Alfred stared at him, with wounded eyes.

There was something so – embarrassingly juvenile about it, being caught creeping out of a girl's room while wearing only boxers and an unbuttoned shirt, the rest of his clothes clutched in his arms. But Jimmy straightened his shoulders a bit, and tried to be adult about it. "Alfred," he said, and cleared his throat. "…you alright?" Alfred's lack of movement was making him nervous. He kept looking at Jimmy as if he hadn't even heard the question.

Just then, the door behind him opened, and Ivy appeared. "You forgot this," she informed Jimmy, and dropped one black sock on top of the pile of clothing he held in his arms. She kissed his cheek, then smiled at Alfred. "Are you done with the bathroom yet?" she asked.

This appeared to jolt Alfred out of his slightly worrying fugue state, and he jerked his head in something that almost looked like a nod, before shambling off down the hall, moving like a bear that had a thorn in its paw.

"Keep some breakfast for me," Ivy instructed Jimmy, clasping his face in her hands as she bestowed one last kiss, before picking her way into the bathroom. As the door clicked shut, and the shower started, Jimmy slumped, thumping the back of his head once against the wall.

He had a sinking feeling that he had found himself in a mess of four-letter proportions.

After he had changed and cleaned himself up a little, he braced himself and made his way to the kitchen, where Alfred sat at the table, shoulders rounded. He appeared to be staring down at an empty bowl. The box of cereal was at his elbow, but it looked like he'd forgotten about it.

"Morning," Jimmy said carefully. Alfred didn't reply.

"What time'd you get back last night?" No answer.

"Daisy get home okay?" The continued silence indicated an unflattering lack of concern for Daisy's wellbeing.

Jimmy wandered over to the bread bin, to find only one slice left. He fired it into the toaster anyway, and said, "Look – it's…you don't have to be like this about it. It just happened, it's not – it doesn't change anything."

Alfred finally raised his eyes to Jimmy. "Right. And if I asked Ivy, she'd say the same thing about it?"

Jimmy had to look away.

"Yeah. I didn't think so," Alfred said. He shook the box of cereal so hard over his bowl that several pieces skittered across the table and onto the floor.

The slice of toast popped up, and Jimmy placed it on a plate and warily sat down opposite Alfred. Bits of cereal crunched under his shoes, and he winced.

Just then, Ivy breezed into the kitchen. "Morning," she caroled, walking around the table to the side where Jimmy sat. He pulled his chair in to make room for her, but she bypassed the other seat in favour of perching on Jimmy's lap. One hand wound around his shoulders, while she plucked the slice of toast from his suddenly nerveless fingers with the other.

"Ooh – I know I don't usually, but I am starving this morning," she said, before biting into it. She chewed and swallowed. "Did you have a good night last night, Alfred?" she asked, swinging her leg. She took another bite of toast and her foot brushed against Jimmy's calf as she did so. Jimmy shifted as best he could in his seat.

Alfred did not answer, but instead turned his attention to his bowl, crunching his way through the cereal as if it had been mixed with ground glass.

Jimmy began to suspect that he was knee-deepin mess.

This suspicion was only confirmed when Ivy said, "I'll go in with Jimmy today," to Alfred. She looked at Jimmy and smiled, slipping her hand into his. "Might as well share."

In the car, when Jimmy said, "Look – I just think that maybe we shouldn't say anything about this… not right now…" she simply laughed and said, "Well I'm not going to hide it. Besides, Daisy's probably already told everyone. She's not exactly discreet."

Jimmy mentally revised his opinion and categorized himself as waist-deep in mess. It was too late to extricate himself though, and with a sinking feeling, he pulled in to a parking space. He couldn't help trying though, even if it felt like he was wriggling hopelessly inside a trap. "Still – I think we should try and keep it quiet for now. Until we have a chance to – talk about it, at least."

"Why – are you shy?" Ivy teased. "I'll have to help you get over that, then. 'Cos you've got no reason to be," and she twisted in her seat to kiss him. He kept facing forward, so she only caught the side of his face.

Inside Downton, she grabbed his wrist and asked, "D'you want a cup of tea?" but he said, with relief, "I can't or I'll be late."

As he hurried away from her, shoulders finally uncoiling, through the corridors towards his and Mr Barrow's office, Ivy had one more surprise for him, darting after him, and swinging him around, then launching herself at him with such force that he staggered backwards a step or two. His hands rose up instinctively, but hovered by his sides, carefully not touching her as she grasped his shoulders and kissed him hard.

It was the sound of throat-clearing that tore them apart. Jimmy had never been so grateful in all his life for a stranger's excess of phlegm…until Ivy whirled away from him (though she still clasped his hand) and he saw that his rescuer was Mr Carson, who affixed them with outraged eyebrows and said, "Would you two deem this…acceptable workplace behavior?"

Jimmy's cheeks burned, but Ivy didn't even drop his hand, though it was limp and unresponsive in hers. Rather she smiled and said, "I'm sorry, Mr Carson, but…when you're in love, you just can't help yourself. Surely you know all about that." Mr Carson's expression didn't change, and she ventured, a little more uncertainly, "…or you might have read about it, at least."

There was a ringing in Jimmy's ears. In love, he thought. Fuck, Fuck, FUCK.

Mr Carson hmphed. "If I ever had those sorts of feelings, Ivy, I trust that I had the good manners and common courtesy to keep them to myself. As will you, while on duty."

"Yes Mr Carson," she muttered, chastened – but only until he walked away, every so often casting suspicious glances behind him.

"I'll see you at lunchtime," she said to Jimmy then, squeezing his palm once before letting go. Jimmy bolted.

Mr Barrow's office had never seemed more like a haven, a refuge.

Well, that was until he actually opened the door, and had to face Mr Barrow, who was standing behind his desk looking – looking like he always did, smart and put together. And completely…unaffected, despite Jimmy's best attempts to unsettle him.

He raised an eyebrow and said, "Good morning," with bland politeness.

And it just – it made Jimmy want to walk over there and shove him, put his hands on him and push, until Thomas Barrow was out of breath and his hair was untidy and his collar stuck up and his shirt was rumpled and there was some physical sign that he was as discomposed and shaken as he always made Jimmy feel.

But given that kind of thinking had just landed him with a girlfriend who had the consistency of superglue, it probably wasn't a good idea to indulge it. So he just sat in his chair and put his head down.

"Good night last night?" Mr Barrow asked, with deliberate mildness, and Jimmy forced the words, "All right," out through gritted teeth.

The problem of Ivy kept crossing his mind that morning, as he tapped out letters on his keyboard and made phone calls. He didn't see how he was going to get out of it. It had been a stupid impulse, nothing more – and surely she had to see that, that…

…well, all right, she probably wasn't going to instinctively intuit that he'd slept with her to prove a point to Mr Barrow, but surely…she had to see that it had been sudden, unexpected…

She had to realize that you couldn't just ambush someone with affection and cow them into a relationship. It didn't work like that. Jimmy didn't work like that.

He felt a sudden surge of resentment toward Ivy and Mr Barrow, toward anyone who'd built him up in their minds into something he wasn't, something he'd never pretended to be. In Ivy's case, the feeling was tempered by guilt, which strangely, made the resentment ten times worse.

The exhibition was coming together though, and despite the confusing jumble of Thomas Barrow and Ivy Stuart littering his thoughts, Jimmy focused on that with a determination that was almost radioactive in its zeal. He would not be anything less than perfectly competent and in control while speaking with Mr Barrow. Even if it killed him.

And Mr Barrow solicited his opinion on the whole thing frequently – he could have been just asking, but Jimmy looked at it as a kind of test, and took care with every answer.

"Edna or Alfred?" Mr Barrow asked. "To narrate?"

Most of the Family had been talked into attending the exhibition, and the names of those who remained noncommittal (or downright unpleasant) about it had been given to Matthew Crawley, who would presumably talk them around with his particular brand of winsome blandness, as well as some judicious pulling on family ties.

"Both," Jimmy said, after some consideration. "Get her to talk them through Lily Jones' journey, and Alfred can chime in with Ned's bits."

He was pleased with this idea, and so to, it seemed, was Mr Barrow, because he raised his eyebrows and said, "Not bad."

Jimmy felt pleased, but that was followed by a stab of irritation that Mr Barrow's opinion should mean anything to him still. "I'll ask Alfred later," he said.

Mr Barrow leaned back in his seat. "What about the letters?" he challenged. Bristling with unpleasantness as they were, Alfred's old relative's letters provided a sort of necessary backdrop for both stories.

Without thinking, and because now he heard every poisonous word in a very familiar voice, Jimmy found himself saying, "Oh well, only one person it could be" –

He stopped, but Mr Barrow obviously had the same idea, because his mouth quirked, and he said, a little regretfully, "Don't think she'd do it though. Not if I asked, anyway."

Not for the first time, Jimmy wondered what exactly had happened between Mr Barrow and Miss O' Brien. After all, Jimmy hadn't been the only one she had wronged, and she and Mr Barrow had seemed to be friends.

Unaware of Jimmy's thoughts, Mr Barrow continued, musing, "Maybe if Mr Carson did the asking…"

Jimmy opened his mouth, then jumped at the knock on the door, which was followed, without even a second's pause, by Ivy. Jimmy jumped, as if he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't, and then flushed for having reacted like that, but Ivy didn't seem to notice, looking straight at Mr Barrow and saying, "I'm sorry to interrupt, Mr Barrow, only it's lunchtime and I was hoping I could steal Jimmy for a bit."

"We were working on something," Jimmy pointed out, because this was his job, and Ivy couldn't just barge in like she was rescuing him from Double Maths or a French exam. Irritation sparked under his skin.

"That's all right," Mr Barrow said, and the traces of amusement that had touched the corners of his mouth smoothed into nothingness, and he looked, though he did not move at all, as if he had somehow taken a step back, distanced himself. Jimmy gritted his teeth. "He's all yours – we were almost finished anyway."

Ivy smiled at him, and then turned to Jimmy. "Well come on, then," she said, and pulled him to his feet.

"You can't do that," he said abruptly, as they made their way toward the café. At her inquiring look, he added, "You can't just come in and" –

"Oh, yeah, because you really wanted to be alone with Mr Barrow," she laughed.

And it wasn't that – it wasn't, but what she said made his mouth snap shut all the same, even as some spring coiled tighter and tighter inside of him.

She hung off his shoulder as he stood at the counter and selected from the menu, but when he asked, "What about you?" (a little ungraciously, but still…), she laughed again and said, "Oh, I'm fine. I'm not hungry."

Mrs Patmore watched all this with raised eyebrows, as a small gaggle of girl-guides crowded around the jar of striped straws at the counter. "This is a turn up for the books," she said, and then, "I've told you! One straw each, and that's all!"

Her eyes slid back to Ivy, who was doing a good job of living up to her namesake, body practically welded to Jimmy's side.

Jimmy looked away and didn't answer. He'd asked, hadn't he? And even if Ivy'd said she wasn't going to keep quiet about it, there was a difference between not hiding something, and screaming it from the rooftops. The girl-guides wandered past, a striped straw clutched in each of their hands. One of them elbowed another as they walked past Jimmy and Ivy, and a few steps later, they both broke down in giggles. Jimmy felt like he was back at school.

"I think it's nice," Daisy chirped.

"Well of course you do," Mrs Patmore said dismissively, and Daisy retreated, looking chagrined.

"Jimmy's a bit shy about it, yet," Ivy told her, poking Jimmy in the ribs, "but I'm coaxing that out of him."

"Oh, I can see that," Mrs Patmore said, eyes fixed on Ivy's clinging hands. She shook her head. "Jimmy…shy. Well, I suppose it's true what they say. You learn something new every day." She paused, and as she slid his sandwich across the counter, she added, under her breath, "And there really is one born every minute."

As usual, they ate lunch with Alfred, though today he stiffened as they took their seats opposite him. "Any news?" Ivy asked Alfred breezily, and he stared at her hand where it rested atop Jimmy's on the table. He shook his head. "No."

Jimmy moved his hand away, but Ivy immediately wrapped her hand around his inner elbow instead. Her leg pressed firmly against his, from ankle to thigh. He felt like he was suffocating.

"We should go out tonight," Ivy said, addressing Jimmy. "Make it official, like."

"Now's not such a good time," he said, as civilly as he could. "With the exhibition and all."

"I'm not taking no for an answer," Ivy told him airily.

That was painfully evident, even without words. He forced himself to say nothing. They could talk at home, he told himself.

" – need to do something to celebrate."

"You could have a picnic on the grounds," Daisy said, breaking in on their conversation as she cleared the table behind Alfred. "I've always wanted someone to do that with me," she said, bestowing a longing look on Alfred's unsuspecting ginger head.

"That's a brilliant idea!" Ivy said. "All right – that's what we'll do." She smiled at him and ran a hand through his hair. The girl guides a few tables away giggled again. Jimmy moved his head back.

"D'you mind not doing that?" he said, and took a big bite of his sandwich to prevent himself from saying anything else. He had a feeling the pleasant look he was endeavouring to keep on his face had stretched and sagged like old elastic.

Ivy giggled. "He's ever so shy," she told Daisy. "I'd never have believed it." Jimmy chewed and chewed. He could feel the spring inside of him pulled taut, almost to breaking point.

And then Ivy reached over him and took the second half of his sandwich.

Jimmy swallowed down the mass in his own mouth before he said, "I thought you said you weren't hungry."

"I only want a bite," Ivy said.

He couldn't stop himself – in spite of his best efforts, a little unpleasantness leaked out, like steam from a kettle. "You could have asked first."

"Ooh, someone's possessive," Ivy teased, and that was it – something inside him snapped.

"Could you just stop it?"

"What?" Ivy asked. "What are you talking about?"

The chair legs scraped against the floor as he got to his feet. "What am I -?" he repeated, and raked a hand through his hair, "I'm talking about you. Can't you just leave it?" he said, all in a rush, words tumbling over one another heedlessly, "Why do you have to keep pushing and pushing? I asked – I said not to make a fuss, but you won't stop going on and on, and I know it happened, I'm not saying it didn't – but I never meant it to go this far, and you can't just, just…assume someone into a relationship if that's not what they want."

He was suddenly aware that he was being stared at by a contingent of gape-mouthed girl guides. Ivy got to her feet unsteadily. Her face was pale. She took a small breath in – and it was that soft hitch of sound that brought Jimmy fully back to himself.

"I – Ivy, I'm" – he began, and he took a step toward her, but she immediately stepped backwards, before turning and rushing for the Ladies toilet.

…fuck.

The café was deathly quiet, until the screech of another chair ripped through the silence. "Alfred – look, I didn't mean to upset" –

"You didn't mean to," Alfred repeated, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. "Oh, that's all right then. Because you didn't mean to." He stared at Jimmy, his jaw working furiously. "Well just because it doesn't matter to you, doesn't mean no-one else cares. And you can't – you can't treat people like that! You – you can't treat Ivy like that" –

And without warning, his hands shot out across the table and shoved Jimmy, who staggered backwards, tripping over the leg of the table and knocking his head against the back of his own chair, which promptly joined in the fall, skittering onto its side several yards away. Daisy shrieked. Jimmy sprawled on the floor disoriented, while above him, Alfred loomed like a ginger avenging angel.

"All right! That's it! There'll be no fisticuffs in my café! I won't stand for it!" came a voice from off to the side. Jimmy blinked, and suddenly, Mrs Patmore had a firm grip on Alfred's ear (Alfred was almost folded in two to accommodate this, due to the height difference).

"Oh, don't hurt him, Mrs Patmore!" Daisy cried, while a cheer rose up from the girl-guides. Jimmy, in his prone, winded position, attempted to locate some incredulity – but that had apparently been knocked out of him when he'd hit the floor.

"Now," she said, sounding no less indignant, but slightly calmer, "Daisy, don't just stand there wringing your hands, girl – try and coax Ivy out of the bathroom."

Daisy scurried past, and a small girl-guide sauntered up. She stared at Jimmy and Alfred with cheeky curiosity, before informing Mrs Patmore, "I've got my first-aid badge. D'you want me to assess the casualties?"

"Oh, I don't think there's any need for that," Mrs Patmore said. She stooped down (Alfred yelping as this caused him to contort into even more improbable positions), and grasped Jimmy's arm roughly with her free hand, hauling him to his feet. Grimly, she said, "I don't think we'll be 'assessing the casualties' until after we've paid a visit to Mr Carson."