AN: We're circling to early 1920 for a little backstory and family-of-origin drama. I wanted to fill in some of Tom's background and address what his extended family might think of his choice of bride.

Just to get us oriented in the timeline: Sybil is in the first trimester of her pregnancy and they have recently announced it to their families.

Early January 1920

They'd both been quiet since they arrived home. It was their habit to talk over the day that had just passed, whether they'd spent it together or apart. But tonight Tom seemed to be out of words, and Sybil could not think of anything she wanted to say either.

She sat at the dressing table, performing her nighttime routine automatically. After a few moments she noticed that Tom had not yet turned a page in his book. Either he was really taking his time to digest a passage, or else he was as preoccupied as she with what had happened earlier.

It had been very upsetting to Sybil, and it still was. She rubbed cream into her face and regarded her husband in the mirror: he was still staring a hole into the page. "Do the rest of your relations really hate me? Your people in Galway?" She asked. That was as good a question to start with as any. Of course she'd known in an abstract way that some of Tom's people took a dim view of his marriage, but she'd not anticipated the fuse would be so short or easily lit.

His body tensed at the sound of her voice, but he met her eyes. "They don't hate you."

She turned on the stool to face him. "It rather seemed as if they do."

The confrontation had occurred at dinner that evening, which they'd had at Mrs. Branson's house in honor of his uncle Eamon, the younger brother of Tom's father. Eamon was in Dublin on unspecified business, which everyone tacitly acknowledged had nothing to do with earning a living. Relatives on both sides of the family were involved with the Volunteers in one capacity or another, but the Galway Bransons were in especially thick.

By now Sybil was used to Tom's relatives and their friends being crusty toward her at first - she recalled a sewing circle she'd attended with Mrs. Branson that had been particularly awkward - but she'd found that she could usually bring them round sooner or later. However, Eamon seemed determined to resist liking her. He'd scowled in obvious disapprobation when Sybil, unable to stomach the smells and raw meat in the kitchen, remained in the parlor while Tom's mother and sisters prepared the meal. When they sat down to dinner he'd watched with eyes like flat black stones as she picked at her food. Kathleen tried to lighten the atmosphere, commenting that she herself had barely been able to swallow a bite until her fifth month, but Eamon was not moved. "No excuse for wasting food," he muttered. "Though I suppose them that's never had to work for it can push it away easily enough." He flicked his gaze at Sybil again. "A shame we've not gotten to see what you can do in the kitchen, Lady Sybil. Or can't you cook?"

The blood rose to Sybil's cheeks, but she smiled at him. "I manage." She nodded across the table at Tom's younger sister. "Orla has been teaching me some of her tricks."

Tom had spoken up then. "Between the two of us we can usually get up a decent enough dinner, Uncle Eamon. We don't go hungry."

"There's a surprise," Eamon quipped, though there was not a trace of a smile on his creased face. "A Brit who doesn't want to starve us all to death." That got a snort out of Michael, Tom's younger brother, though everyone else maintained a tense silence. Michael wasn't particularly political, and his initial shyness of Sybil had given way to puppy love bordering on worship; but at seventeen he would laugh at anything.

Tom, however, was not amused. He glared at his uncle. "Tommy," Eamon said, "you used to have a sense of humor. It was just a bit of a joke." But he glared back, giving as good as he got, and the belligerent set of his mouth gave the lie to his words.

"I don't think it was funny," Tom said stiffly. "You will please apologize to my wife, Uncle Eamon."

"It's fine - " Sybil began, but Eamon had other ideas anyhow.

"Apologize! To a bloody British - "

"I'll thank you not to use that sort of language at my table, Eamon," Mrs. Branson cut in tartly.

"Come now, Martha," Eamon returned. "You know very well what your husband would think of what your son's done."

"It's a good thing he's not here, then. And we've come to a pretty pass when you think you can sit in my house and insult a guest of mine."

Eamon laughed bitterly. "She's a guest, all right. And not a welcome one, either - " Tom's chairlegs scraped across the floorboards; after a moment Kathleen's husband Patrick stood as well, though he moved to lay a calming hand on Tom's shoulder. Michael's gaze moved nervously between the three older men.

Kathleen reached over and squeezed Sybil's hands where they twisted together in her lap. "Sybil's part of the family now, Uncle Eamon."

Eamon leaned back in his chair. "Family, my eye," he said rudely. "Jack Branson's turning in his grave at the thought of his son marrying a - " Tom had started to yell then, and Eamon joined him on his feet, and things got rather confused until Martha slammed her hand against the table hard enough to make the water shiver in the glasses.

"That's enough!" She cried. "I will not have shouting across my dinner table. If the two of you -" she gestured at the red-faced Tom and Eamon - "feel the need to raise your voices, or anything else, you can go outside."

Eamon had subsided then, but not without muttering that the rest of the family felt the same as him even if they were too lily-livered to say so. The remainder of the meal was eaten in strained silence, the clink of cutlery and glassware painfully audible. Soon after they were done Eamon departed, leaving quick kisses on Kathleen and Orla's cheeks and giving Michael a rough hug. He'd taken leave of Tom with a handshake and a "No offense meant, son."

But now that they were home Sybil wondered what Eamon had meant, if not offense. Certainly there could be no purpose in insulting her other than to allow long-suppressed feeling to escape. Tom was too attached, both to her and to his family, to look at the thing objectively. He couldn't make himself believe anyone - least of all an uncle who had been like a father to him - would dislike Sybil based on what she was, rather than who.

What he said next only confirmed it. "They don't know you. No one who knew you could possibly hate you."

"Some of them do, then."

"They don't approve of you," he said. "It's not really the same thing."

She cocked her head. "So which ones don't approve of me?"

He looked at her doubtfully. "Sybil, it won't make you feel any better to know."

"I don't want to feel better. I want to know who they are, so that I can be especially nice when I see them." She put on a smile; it felt awkward, but it actually did lift her spirits.

"Turn the other cheek, eh?" he marveled. "You are a piece of work, my love."

"I want to know that I've done all I can to make myself agreeable. Then if they still don't like me, it's their problem," she said, shrugging.

Tom smiled. "That sounds like the right attitude to take." He patted the coverlet next to him. "Come here."

She obeyed, turning out the light and nestling in close with his arm round her shoulders. She had already decided not to tell him what his mother had said over the washing-up: that Eamon was right, that Tom's father would have disapproved of Sybil. "But the thing is done," Martha had said, casting a significant look at Sybil's thickening abdomen, "and we've all got to make the best of it."

So she was surprised when Tom's voice came out of the dark with words similar to those his mother had said hours before. "Eamon wasn't wrong, you know. Da would have been wroth at me marrying you, for awhile at least." He chuckled. "But then he wouldn't have wanted me to go to England in the first place. He wasn't the most practical man."

Tom had always been shuttered about his father: before tonight Sybil had known only that John Branson had died young, and that he had been out of the picture well before his death. Now she saw an opening to pry a little. "Was he political?"

Tom snorted. "As political as anyone else holding down a barstool. Oh, he had opinions. Like I said, he would've had views on you and your family." He dropped a kiss on Sybil's head. "He'd have softened up quick enough once he got to know you, though. He was easier than Uncle Eamon, that's for sure."

"But they were close."

"Dunno if I'd say that. Eamon was always the steady one. And apparently they got in some knock-down-drag-outs when they were lads."

Sybil considered before speaking again: she didn't want to poke at anything too tender. "Were you close to him?"

"When I was little. He was great fun to be around sometimes. He'd get in moods where he'd be swinging us around and laughing and singing." Sybil tried to imagine her own father singing anything other than a hymn and couldn't. "But then he'd wake up with a sore head and yell at us if we made noise." Tom sighed. "I never told you I had a brother who died, did I?"

"No, you didn't. Goodness, I'm sorry."

"Yeah, Liam. He only lived a few months. After that happened Da lost his grip on himself, more or less. Just couldn't be bothered. Right after Michael was born was when he finally lit out for good, but by then it was almost a blessing."

How awful, Sybil thought. Her heart ached for her mother-in-law, abandoned with a new baby and four other children, and for Tom, whose childhood had been so abruptly cut off. But she also felt sorry for Tom's long-dead father and his grief too deep to climb out of.

"Uncle Eamon stepped up, though," Tom continued. "Fairly saved us all from starving. Got Kieran his apprenticeship. If it weren't for him I would've had to go into service a lot younger."

"You owe him a lot, then."

"Maybe. But that doesn't mean I'll sit by while he insults my wife."

"I don't want to cause trouble between you and your family," Sybil said.

"You're not the one causing it." Tom hugged her closer. "Anyway, you're my family now. You and the baby."

Sybil thought of the life growing within her. Even though she dealt with the human body every day it still seemed miraculous that inside her there was a tiny person, knitting together into skin and bones and organs, the process completely independent of any conscious effort on her part. By the time Sybil had another birthday that person would be out in the world with only the love of its family to protect it. Unconsciously, she shielded her midsection with her arms. "They can think whatever they like about me, but I hope they won't take it out on our child," she said.

"Me too. Even if some of them never come round I don't think he'll have any lack of people to love him, though."

"He? What makes you so sure it's a boy?"

She felt Tom shrug, heard the smile in his voice. "Just a feeling."

"Hmph. You just want naming rights."

"Well, Eamon would be more apt to warm up to a Connor than to a Catherine." He was definitely teasing now. Then he grew serious again. "I mean it, though, Sybil. The two of you are the most important things in the world to me. I'll always be on your side, and I hope you'll be on mine."

"Us against the world, is that how it is?"

"Isn't that how it's always been?"

"So far, I suppose." Eamon's curled lip. Her mother's infrequent letters: Papa sends his love, when she knew it wasn't true. "I hope it won't be like that forever." She reached up to kiss him. "But I will be on your side. Always."