AN: Thank you all again for the support and reviews. New story ( the sequel a lot of you requested) will be up next Saturday.

A note for this epilogue, I guess this is how I really want series 6 to start, us Cobert shippers have to dream, because well, Fellowes doesn't do much of that for Cobert, so yeah...enjoy. X

February 16th 1925

She wakes cuddled against his chest in the unfamiliar bed. It was strange to think they hadn't frequented it in years. Since before all the girls were born. She had to be honest it had been a beautiful idea, to stay in the summer house for the weekend (her mother-in-law had thrown a small fit at the thought of such an absurd length of time) over their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary.

In truth it had all been Roberts's idea, she'd known nothing of it until he'd guided her, blindfolded, down the paths late after dinner on Friday night. She'd known roughly where she had been for some time, but after making the mistake of telling Robert she was aware of her surroundings he'd taken it upon himself to twirl her round and round until she was quite confused, until he'd lifted her into his arms and quite obviously stepped over a threshold: light seeped through the cloth and heat reached her limbs, quite a contrast from the crisp February air they had been ambling through.

He'd removed the obstruction from her eyes then, but not before teasing her neck with his kisses. They'd made love among the sheets of the big bed, the fire blazing in the corner, into the early hours of the morning before she'd fallen asleep against his chest.

Now, thinking back over the night before Cora couldn't help but realise how far they'd come, how long their journey had been, how full of discovers, good and bad it had been. Not just in the thirty-five years they'd been battling through marriage, but in the very last year, since this day a year before they'd struggled though an awful lot but as ever, they had both made it out the other side, intact and still speaking to the other. They always seemed to.

And somehow if anything, they were better than the year before, Robert was certainly more on the ball as to how to keep her happy, how to surprise her, just as he had done this weekend. It wasn't just the idea of taking her to the summer house, the first place they'd been (and spent a week) after he announced, rather suddenly that he loved her, all of thirty-four years ago. He'd gone to great lengths to keep the secret, to keep the adventure a surprise. And still more than that he'd purchased a gift, and written a card which he'd presented to her carefully wrapped with an accompanying speech which had been full of things she knew he felt but he never expressed, she didn't expect him to, he found his feelings difficult to cope with and always impossible to explain, he always had. With all this before her, she'd inevitably started crying and mumbling about her gift being back at the house. He'd grinned then and raced over to the table where in fact the gift she'd wrapped for Robert was placed; with a merry grin on his face he'd explained how he'd got Miss Baxter on side and she'd given away the hiding place.

All in all it had been a splendid evening, one of the best she could remember and now opening her eyes to the early February sun she couldn't help but be hopeful for what today was to bring. She hears the grumble beside her at the same moment she watches his hand thump the bedside table (items of furniture that sat a little closer to the bed than they did in her room) for the second time since they'd found the bed late the night before, he'd bashed his hand. She giggles in what she thinks is a silent manner, into her pillow, but she soon finds out that in fact he can most certainly hear her.

"Cora," his voice is close to her ear, his nose tickling at her hair, "you had better not be laughing otherwise there will be some trouble." She can't help but splutter again at his failed attempt to scare her, he was after all only teasing. His hands move vigorously at her sides and she squeals, begging him to stop. It was an old game they hadn't played in some years, tickling her used to be his favourite pastime. He does still his hands some time later, his own breath as short as hers. Sometimes it was more noticeable than others that they were older than they once were, and this, this was certainly one of them, not that it seems to deter Robert at all, he just resumes his teasing by kissing her neck, in a slow gentle pattern to her lips. "Good morning my love, I hope you slept well." She rolls back against him, pressing a kiss to his chest, as he stops his attentions and lies flat on his back again.

"I did. But I always do, as long as you're right here by my side."

"I'm always right here Cora. I know we forgot that at points this year. But I am." Some minutes of silence envelope them as they lay curled happily around each other, not a care in the world. "Do you remember the first time we came here?"

"How exactly could I forget the first you said the words 'I love you' in that order, out loud? Of course I remember." He chuckles a little before falling into an expression Cora knows well, one of thought, too much thought.

"I was so slow. Blind. I-"

"Darling, we don't need to have this discussion. Love is blind, isn't that what they've always said?"

"Yes, but I suppose mine wasn't totally blind, I got there in the end. Not like Mama." Cora closes her eyes at that, remembering briefly the third year of their marriage. Edith's birth and Mary's first birthday had been amongst it, but so had Patrick's death and then later in the year Rosamund's confirmation that she couldn't have children, not that one hadn't seen that coming. The woman had always said she'd taken Cora's advice and never allowed anyone to let her hope otherwise.

"Do you think Mama ever realised? Or told him how she felt?"

"No, he died as broken hearted as he had lived." Cora doesn't make a comment to that, she doesn't want to. She's only beyond pleased it isn't her, not that it ever would have been, she'd known long before Robert had said it that he did in fact, love her. She reaches over and kisses his neck, desperate to drag him back out from the past that he has such a habit of trying to relive.

"Darling-"

"It's alright Cora, I haven't forgotten that the past can not be changed, isn't that what you always say?" She only nods as he rolls to face her, pulling her naked body flush against his own. "Which is why, if, Lady Grantham, you will allow me, I would like to examine your fingers." She holds them up for his inspection already guessing that he wants to check the new ring he had given her the night before was still safe on her finger. It was a simple ring, a single, fair sized diamond set in gold, but it was what was on the inside that mattered, their names had been inscribed either side of the letters C and R that are swirled together in an elegant emblem. When he finds it, he kisses it and she smiles lifting her lips to his. "I love you Cora, don't forget that, or for that matter let me forget it."

"I won't. As long as we don't forget that I love you too." He pulls her closer, his lips closing over hers in the perfect way they always had. They had discovered lots together they really had, but Cora had to admit that their love for each other, the perfect way they moulded together, both physically and metaphorically, was the best discovery she'd made. It was the discovery every woman dreamed of having about some man in her life. Cora was only thankful that she'd not only found that, but she'd found it with the man she'd married, her companion in everything. Her Robert, just as she was his Cora.