A/N: Just a warning, this chapter might be triggering for some: there's reference to past abuse, as well as the 7/7 Bombings in London.


Against his better judgment, Charles continued to hover in the doorway. He wanted to go to her, then. Sit in the rocker across from her, listen intently to whatever she was so desperate to unburden— but he couldn't seem to lift his feet from the floor. She looked so frightened, so incredibly vulnerable in that moment. He was afraid if he moved too quickly, he'd only spook her.

"You've had a very trying day, Dr. Hughes." he said evenly. "No doubt your fatigue has betrayed your heart. If you would prefer it, I will just head home and we can pretend this never happened."

She smiled. Even from across the room he could see the dampness of her cheek. A few tears had been shed; indeed, a few too many as far as she was concerned.

"Thank you for that, Dr. Carson." she said, "I've gone this many years without anyone catching on and it would be a shame to break the record now."

He nodded. "I just want to go on record as saying — that—" he cleared his throat, "That I would not tell anyone and — I suppose what I'm trying to say is — if you wanted to tell me. Or, if you didn't want me to forget what you've already told me. Or if there's more you'd like to say — you could rest assured that it would be safely kept with me. I don't want you to feel as though you must lie to me—"

"I don't lie, Dr. Carson. But there are things that I don't say." she said quietly. "Even still, I don't deserve your kindness."

"Dr. Hughes you've carried this burden for a very long time. I have nothing but kindness for you."

She sighed, "My sister — Becky — she's in a facility in Lytham Saint Annes."

There it is, he thought, an invitation to come back in. Cautiously, he stepped into the nursery again, hovering above the rocking chair he'd only moments ago vacated before lowering himself back into it. She didn't flinch.

"She's — ah — well, she was born a bit . . .unsteady. Mentally, I mean. When my mother died, I had a semester left of medical school and — well. . ."

"Becky's care fell to you."

"Yes."

"And you would have had to give up everything to care for her."

"I couldn't have been her caretaker and worked — and I had to work. My family had no money. I was the first in my family to go to university and I suppose — I'd come so far. I was going to be a doctor in a few short months and — well, I knew I could never look after her properly working a doctor's shifts. Especially as an intern. I couldn't have been there for her. I couldn't be the person she needed me to be so — so I paid someone else to."

"That must cost you a fortune."

"It has. I knew all too well that sending her to a state-funded facility wouldn't have been good for her. I've paid dearly for her to have private care. And in Lytham Saint Annes, so she can be close to the sea. They take very good care of her but —" she shook her head sadly, "I'll never be able to stop working, Dr. Carson. I don't know what will happen if I can no longer work."

"Surely you've saved, made some investments? Or at least your retirement?"

She swallowed hard, "Unfortunately, no. I was going along quite well for a while but — well, a few years ago the costs went up. More than the NHS would provide and — well, I had to dip into my retirement. There's not much left and I've no time to build it up again."

"I see."

Liddy began to stir in Elsie's arms and she hushed her, rocking her gently. Charles felt his heart clench and his hand began to pump into a fist with nervous tension as he realized the truth.

"You never had a choice."

She looked up at him, petting Liddy's head gently. " I don't know what you mean."

"You devoted your life to Becky's care when you were still a young woman. You put her needs and wants ahead of your own. You were tasked with raising her — you couldn't have had your own children, even if you wanted them desperately—"

"I will detest it if you pity me, Dr. Carson—" she warned, locking eyes with him.

"I don't, Dr. Hughes. I assure you I don't. I'm only trying to understand. We've been colleagues all these years and I realize now — I don't really know you."

"There isn't much to know." she said curtly.

"It must have been difficult to do all of that on your own. I've always known you to possess true grit, Elsie Hughes, but I never knew just how deeply it ran."

The way he said her name — a low, sweet rumble — it was almost as though, as she looked at him then, he did not look quite himself. Or, at least, not the man she'd known all these years, saved lives alongside of, shared coffee with.

"I knew when I was twenty-four years old that I would never marry or have any bairns of my own, Dr. Carson. I've devoted my life to Becky, and to these children." She ran a finger along Liddy's cheek, "Whether or not the choice was mine, I never would have brought anyone else into it. I never would have burdened anyone else."

I wish you'd told me back then, at least let me be a confidant, he thought. Just as he plucked up some midnight courage and opened his mouth to speak, Elsie jolted in the chair across from him; the only abrupt movement that had been made in hours.

"She's seizing." she said, standing up and taking Liddy to one of the tables in the far corner of the room. He stood and raced to her side, opening up one of the cabinets and scanning for a syringe.

"You're alright, love." Elsie cooed, preparing a neonatal cannula to help the baby breath. She looked up at him helplessly and saw him moving toward her. He reached for Liddy's IV shunt and Elsie stopped him. "Phenobarbital?"

He nodded, "15 mg pediatric loading dose," he steadied the syringe, "Am I right?"

"Yes," she breathed, her eyes wide.

"I've learned a thing or two from you over the years," he said, gently depressing the syringe.

"She must be encephalitic." Elsie said, turning back to Liddy.

"From the virus?"

"I can't say for certain."

Liddy's movements began to calm, and Charles exhaled deeply. "Should I prepare another 5mg?"

The baby settled into painful exhaustion, beginning to whimper. "No — not yet." Elsie carefully re-swaddled her and gently attempted to place the cannula against the baby's tiny nose.

"Are you alright?" he said, "Your hand is shaking..." He reached over without thinking, steadying her fingers and helping to guide the tiny tubes into the baby's nose. She pulled her hand back sharply, taking a step away from him.

"Her mother is in the south on-call room, on a spare cot. Would you go wake her, please?"

"Yes," he said, suddenly quite flustered. He looked at her a moment; her face red and blotchy, eyes heavy and seeking sleep. Her lips were dry and cracked, and she had pulled the bottom one under her front teeth, her tongue darting out to sooth a bleeding split.

He wanted desperately to take her into his arms, to encircle her and bring his lips to hers.

Instead, he turned on his heels and left her there; one hand stroking the head of a baby that wasn't hers and the other reaching up to touch her bloodied, tender lip.


Laying his head against Cora's bare chest, Robert laughed through his ragged breath.

"You know — I think I have noticed something different—" he said, trying to catch his breath. He reached a hand up and cupped her breast gently, "These."

Cora laughed, pressing her hand against the back of his head. "Robert!"

"I didn't notice it until you pointed it out but —" he reached a hand down to rest against her middle, which was warm, still rising and falling from their romp "You do have a bit of a tum, don't you?"

"How reassuring to know that if I was just chubby you wouldn't have noticed or cared."

"Not in the least!" he said, picking his head up to kiss her resolutely. She laughed, licking the sweat from her top lip. He settled his head against her, a bit lower down, and wrapped his arms underneath her, hugging her tight. They sighed contentedly.

After a moment, he was startled by laughter rattling away in her chest.

"What?" he said, giving her a sleepy grin.

"How are we going to tell the girls?"

"Oh. Oh." he said sitting up, running his fingers through his hair. "They won't believe it."

"Maybe we ought to wait."

"Until —?"

"I have an ultrasound appointment on Friday, before Sybil gets home. Shouldn't we wait to tell anyone until we've seen it? Heard the heartbeat?"

"I suppose." he scooted up next to her in the bed, leaning his head on her shoulder, his back against the headboard, "What are we going to tell my mother?"

Cora let her head loll to the side, resting atop his. "Do you remember what she said when we told her I was pregnant with Mary?"

"Cora, dear." Robert said, his impression of his mother unsettling in its accuracy, "Crawley women aren't "pregnant" they're expecting."

"Well, we can hardly say that this time." Cora laughed, "We certainly weren't expecting this!"


Anna hadn't realized how many consecutive nights she'd slept in an on-call room until she finally staggered home to her flat and saw the mess of dishes and clothes she'd left behind. Too exhausted from her shift, she told herself she'd deal with it tomorrow — which happened to be her first day off in a fortnight. Other than sleeping and laundry, she didn't have much in mind. She always felt a bit out of place anywhere except Downton. She understood that world, understood the order of things — understood the people. Left alone, in the deafening silence of her bedroom, she had a tendency to think too much. To feel too much.

She didn't mind being alone, except at night. Something about the darkness, the quiet, lent itself to brushing the dirt off memories she'd thought she'd buried. Nightmares of hands coming at her face fast and hard, pressing her body against a wall, shielding her face with her arms. The bruises, the cigarette burns — the scars she wore and those that wore her out.

Stripping off her scrubs and leaving them to wrinkle, she climbed into bed, the cool sheets against her skin chilling her. She hugged her pillow against herself and tried to push the memories from her mind, thinking instead of the very long day she'd had. She often liked to take stock of her actions from the previous day as she fell asleep at night. Assigning herself a social grade according to how well she'd functioned, what she'd managed to achieve. Perhaps she'd made a sick child laugh, forgetting their illness for a moment. Maybe she'd comforted a parent — or colleague.

Today — or rather, as she looked at the clock as the reading changed to 12:35 pm, yesterday, she had managed to do quite a few of those things. Her heart was heavy in her chest, beating slowly as the rest of her contemplated sleep. She'd be far too afraid to admit it aloud, or even fully accept it within herself, but she had always looked to Dr. Hughes as a bit of a maternal figure. Seeing her upended and emotionally wrought gave her an unsettled feeling. Generally speaking, if Dr. Hughes was rattled, it could be assumed everyone else ought to be as well. Nothing ever managed to shake her and for many, not just Anna, she was a totem.

Whatever had upset her, she had politely put up a barrier to Anna's empathy. Though she'd expected as much, it was difficult to be rejected (no matter how nicely) when she'd only wanted to help. Dr. Hughes calmed everyone — nurses, patients, parents — exceptionally well, but in all the years Anna had worked alongside her she'd never seen anyone comfort her.

She rolled over, sighing into her pillow, thinking then of John. She wished she'd just stayed at the hospital, slept in an on-call room with him again. She hadn't dared after being caught out by Phyllis. They'd been lucky it'd been her; the kindly nurse would be far too humiliated to ever mention it to anyone, but clearly the pair had become lazy. Too comfortable in their little . . .well, whatever it was. She hadn't quite dared call it a relationship but it certainly was more than a friendship now. As it had been for several weeks now, his was the last face she saw before she finally, blissfully, drifted off to sleep.


Rosamund Painswick kept all her secrets stowed neatly away in a tattered shoebox on the top shelf of her closet. She had lay awake in her bed for hours, hearing it calling out to her. No rest would come until she went to it, lifted the lid and let out the ghosts.

Padding barefoot across her bedroom in the dark, pulling her robe tightly round her middle, she fumbled for the chain of the overhead light in her small closet. As it flickered on, she narrowed her gaze, the burst of yellow making her eyes ache. She pretended, for a moment, that she didn't know precisely where the box was hiding, beneath spare sheets and pillowcases, behind the iron and a pair of mules she'd never worn. She wanted to believe that maybe she wouldn't find it. Have no choice but to go back to bed without feeling the familiar, flaky cardboard.

But it was there. Right where she knew it would be.

She sighed, reaching up to lift it from the spot where it lived and tucked it under her arm as she crossed the room back to her bed. Sitting down, she set it atop her comforter and carefully opened it, her fingers coated with gray dust.

His face looked back at her in a faded photograph the color of late autumn, a water stain at the edge and one torn-off corner. She picked it up, bringing it to her face, examining him in the low light from her closet. His eyes had always been so deeply kind, especially when he looked at her. He was a good man, a fine husband. He would have been a wonderful father.

The next photo in the box was the last one taken of them together. The annual hospital gala, which was always the Friday before Christmas. It had been a miserably cold night and her stockings did little to keep her legs warm. He'd made her laugh, furiously rubbing his hands up and down her calves, trying to warm them, as they sped through London in the back of a town car. She'd pressed against him to shield herself from the cold wind as they climbed the front steps of the hospital's academic center; the most beautiful, and oldest, building on campus.

In the photograph, their cheeks were red from the cold and he had his arms wrapped tightly round her waist, pulling her close. Her head was thrown back in laughter, and his wide smile to the camera gave him crow's feet. She couldn't remember who had taken it — but she'd have liked to shake their hand. If only it could have stopped with that night; if that moment could have been their last, if it must have been. Why, why, why did the weeks that followed have to exist at all?

The folded newspaper clipping felt gritty against her fingertips as she unfolded it.

Al-Qa'eda Brings Terror to The Heart of London

Then, behind it, the single strand of newsprint topped with his name:

Marmaduke Painswick, 45, was one of the fifty-two civilians killed in the bombings of central London. Mr. Painswick was crossing Tavistock Square, as he did each morning on his way to work, according to his wife of twenty years, Rosamund.

"He was a litigator at Painswick and Cross. He handled mostly malpractice suits." she told The Guardian, "He was on his way to the office of the British Medical Association, which is on Upper Woburn Place."

For those on the bus where the fourth bomb of 7/7 detonated, as well as those who happened to step into its path, the location of the BMA was of vital importance. Doctors and nurses inside the offices who heard or saw the blast were able to provide immediate medical care to many victims. Thirteen perished in Tavistock Square that day. Marmaduke Painswick died trying to save them.

"Witnesses told investigators that he had just crossed the road and — and heard the blast. He turned round and ran back to the bus and started trying to pull people from the wreck. I don't know how many he saved. I know there was a child who remembered him being there. When the back-end of the bus collapsed, he was under it. I don't know if he died instantly. I suppose I hope he did." his wife says, "I know it's terrible to think it but . . .part of me wishes he hadn't tried to help. If he'd not gone back, he'd still be here. But that was the kind of man he was. He couldn't have just stood there and watched helplessly."

She reached up to wipe the tears from her eyes, pressing the clippings to her chest and letting her head lower. When she dropped them back into the box, along with the photographs, she dug through a few more clippings until she found an envelope. Lifting it out, her fingers twitching against the thick card stock, she pulled the letter from its papery casing.

R,

We could leave London; I could take you to my summer home in Genoa. Or anywhere in the world. We could start again. You can divorce Marmaduke, or just leave him — just please, come with me. Consider it at least. You could leave London, leave Downton — Ros, you could have a life all your own, a practice of your own if that's what you want. You don't have to settle for what Downton is giving you — we both know you can give more, that you deserve more.

Promise me you'll think about it.

Yours always,

J

She threw the letter back into the box, pressing the cover tightly back onto it, depressing the flimsy cardboard, and stared at it only a moment before she picked the whole mess up and cast it hard across the room, the sound of her shame hitting the wall, the leafing of papers scattering down to the floor, masked by the sound of her anguished scream against her hands.