Epilogue

In which Mary and Thomas graduate.

"Ahh, hello there, Mr Carson!"

Robert Grantham shook Mr Carson's hand, both of them in their best suits.

"Tell me; how are things going with Mrs Hughes? Mary told me all about it – apparently you're the gossip of the college?"

"I wouldn't go that far, Mr Grantham," said Mr Carson in his usual growl. "But it's going well, thank you very much."

"Well, I'm very happy for you," smiled Mr Grantham as Cora Grantham joined them from where she was speaking with Mrs Hughes. "We had better go and find our seats before we get cornered by my mother. We'll see you both at the reception, then!"

They said their goodbyes, Cora and Robert making their way into the hall where the graduation ceremony was going to be held.

"Mama! Papa!" Mary came dashing towards them, elegant as always even in her heels, her gown already on and her cap in hand. She was dragging a tall, blond young man behind her, who was shaking his head fondly at Mary's excitement. "Mama, Papa, you made it!"

"Of course we did, we couldn't miss your graduation!" said Cora, hugging her daughter and kissing her on the cheek. "And this must be Matthew!"

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr and Mrs Grantham," Matthew said, giving his best smile and shaking both of their hands.

"The pleasure's all ours," said Cora. "Mary hasn't been able to talk about much else."

"Mama!"

"Well, it's wonderful to meet you at last," said Robert genuinely as he shook Matthew's hand firmly. He lowered his voice, pretending that Cora and Mary weren't hanging on his every word. "You make her very happy; I never thought I'd see the day, but here we are."

"You really do like him, Papa?" Mary asked, suddenly seeming much younger than her twenty-one years.

"Of course he does!"

They all turned to see Violet Grantham making her way towards them determinedly, ploughing her way through the rapidly filling hall.

"God save us all," Robert muttered under his breath.

"Don't worry, Mary," Violet stage-whispered when she reached them all, "I put in a good word for him. But in all seriousness, you've made a much more… conventional… choice than either of your sisters; for that, we must all be grateful! At least one of you has some sense."

"Really, Violet, Tom is a very sweet young man," Cora said, Robert making some vaguely agreeable noises.

"That he may be, but a politician! And a liberal one, at that!" Violet scoffed.

Mary spotted Tom with his brother and Sybil at the other end of the hall, and hastily changed the topic of conversation. "Granny, I assure you, Tom is simply marvellous, and perfect for Sybil. Wasn't Edith supposed to be coming too? Typical of her to be late."

"I'm not late!" Edith's voice came from the door where she was standing hand in hand with –

"Is that – is that Laura? From the rowing team?" Mary hissed to Matthew, who only nodded, amused.

Violet huffed in her characteristic way of saying, 'I told you so'. "See? Very unconventional."

"Really, Mother, we're trying to be very open-minded and supportive of this," said Robert, clearly tired of reciting the same argument. "The last thing we want is for anyone to make Edith feel uncomfortable."

"Oh, dear!" Realisation quickly turned to amusement on Violet's face. "You thought I had issue with the gender of Edith's new partner! No, of course not, who do you take me for? If Edith wants to date a woman then that's fine, really, but a journalist? Really, Robert, do you really want a journalist in the family?"

The ceremony itself was long, dull and predictable, but it was more than made up for by the reception afterwards. Mrs Patmore had outdone herself, with vast amounts of food and drink available wherever you turned. The graduates themselves were outside, taking photographs, while their friends and family milled around indoors, eating canapes and sipping champagne.

"Jimmy!"

Jimmy span around from where he was trying to work out how to eat oysters, his face falling as he saw Edith dashing towards him.

"Oh, er, hi, Edith. You know, I'd love to chat, but I think I have to, um, go, I - "

"Jimmy, relax!" said Edith. "I just – well, I heard about you and Thomas, and I wanted to say congratulations. You two are meant for each other, really."

"I've been hearing that a lot," Jimmy said, unable to stop himself from grinning at the thought of Thomas.

"And, well, you know," Edith shifted from one foot to the other, glancing towards the bar where Laura was ordering drinks. "Laura and I, we, er… well. We're together now, too."

"That's great!" Jimmy exclaimed, the news of Edith's relationship relaxing him. "So, I… I guess we had similar, er, motives, then?"

"I suppose you could say that," Edith smiled awkwardly as she lifted up her champagne glass. "A toast to… to finding love. And to bisexuals everywhere: rainbows, unicorns and lack of media representation."

"I'll drink to that," Jimmy laughed, raising his own glass and drinking.

As Edith joined Laura at the bar, the newly graduated students slowly started to trickle back through, hugging parents and accepting bouquets of flowers. Jimmy spotted Mary kiss Matthew before being swamped by the rest of her family, closely followed by Tom and a few other people he vaguely recognised. He went to step forwards, join in the search for the person he was there to support, but when he saw Mr Barrow do the same thing decided to wait. There would be time; of that he was sure.

"Thomas?" Mr Barrow said when he finally found his son, pulling him into a tight hug. "Congratulations, son! I'm so proud of you."

"Thanks, Dad," Thomas mumbled, embarrassed but pleased. "I – I can't quite believe it, I mean, look! I've got a cap and everything!"

"I think you deserve a bit more than a cap!" His dad joked, stepping back and adjusting Thomas' graduation gown.

"What about a degree?" said Thomas.

A huge smile broke out on Mr Barrow's face. "That's more like it!" He looked over Thomas' shoulder to where Jimmy was waiting patiently at the edge of the room. "You know, I think that there's someone else who wants to congratulate you."

"You were nice to him, weren't you, Dad?" Thomas said quickly, suddenly concerned. "He was really worried about it, because it was a long time that it was just the two of you sitting together."

"Relax, Thomas! It was fine. I – alright, I did give him a bit of a talking to about what would happen if he ever hurt you, you know, that sort of thing, but he's a nice lad. I'm glad you two are seeing each other. I can see how happy he makes you, and that's the most important thing. But remember - "

"I know, Dad," sighed Thomas. "If he ever hurts me, I'll tell you straight away."

"You got it," Mr Barrow said, still beaming with pride. "Now, you go and be with him for a bit. I'll be alright, you'll see."

Thomas gave his dad one more hug before making his way to the corner where Jimmy was lurking.

"Congratulations!" Jimmy smiled as Thomas reached him, passing him a bouquet of flowers. "These – these are for you."

"Thank you," Thomas smiled, taking them and kissing Jimmy softly. "And thank you for coming, too – you didn't have to, but it meant a lot to have you here."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world! But… do I have to call you Thomas Barrow, BA Hons now?" Jimmy added, grinning cheekily as he sipped his champagne.

"If that's what you're into," Thomas said, wiggling his eyebrows, causing Jimmy to choke on his drink. "Besides, give it a few years, you'll have some letters after your name too."

"Yeah." Jimmy's face fell at the reminder, and as much as he tried to hide it Thomas saw straight through him.

"Do you want to go for a walk? Get some air?" Thomas asked, taking Jimmy's hand as he nodded and leading them out into the fields behind the college. The summer weather meant it was still warm and still light even though it was the evening, as they sauntered hand in hand along the river bank.

"I don't want to go to London," Jimmy blurted out. "I mean – of course I do, I want it so much, but not if it means being away from you. It's not like there aren't other music colleges; I could apply next year, see if I could go to the Royal Northern or somewhere. London is far away, Thomas, and I don't want that."

"I'd been thinking something similar," Thomas replied. "You see – I need something to do now, and I was just going to work in my dad's shop, but he doesn't need the help, not really, so I started looking around. There are lots of jobs all over the place for engineering students, but if – like me – you're more interested in antiques, it's a bit more limited. But then I found a shop that needed someone who, while an engineer, was interested in restoring old mechanics. There are loads of old clocks all over the country, see, and they need people to look at them and fix them and keep them running, and sometimes to build new ones that are in the style of the old ones. Other things too, but mostly clocks. It's pretty specialist, but that works out for me. I applied for the job, and… and I got it."

"Really? Thomas, that's brilliant, that's amazing! That sounds perfect for you – really, it does."

"It gets better," Thomas grinned. "Because it's specialist, it's based somewhere central, somewhere people go if they want specialist things done." He looked at Jimmy expectantly, but was met with a blank look. "London! It's in London, Jimmy!"

Jimmy gasped, his eyes widening comically. "You mean – you mean that you're going to be working in London?"

"Yes!" They stopped walking, Thomas wrapping his arms around Jimmy's waist. "What do you say? Can I come to London with you?"

"What do you mean, can you?! Of course you bloody well can!" Jimmy kissed Thomas soundly, his hands on Thomas' shoulders. "We – we're going to London, together! Oh, I can't believe this, Thomas, this is bloody brilliant!"

Thomas laughed at his excitement, kissing him once more. He brought one hand up to cup Jimmy's cheek as he pulled back, saying with complete sincerity, "I love you, Jimmy."

Jimmy froze, still grinning, staring up at Thomas. "I love you too, Thomas. More than I ever thought was possible."

Unable to help themselves they kissed again, enjoying the moment in each other's presence. They continued their walk along the riverbank, excitedly planning everything about their move to London, until the evening chill began to set in and they made their way back to the college, arms around each other.

Thomas gave his father a thumbs up once they returned to the room where the reception was being held, and Jimmy received an approving nod in return.

"Thomas! Jimmy!"

They turned around at their names to an excited Mary, clutching Matthew's hand. "Where have you been? Come on, Mama wants a picture of all four of us."

They let themselves be tugged into Mary's photo, Thomas and Mary in the middle, Jimmy and Matthew either side of them, Cora taking photo after photo until Mary had had enough and let them free. Thomas wasn't able to go far, however, before he was cornered by Robert.

"Thomas? May I have a word?"

Thomas shot a pleading look at Jimmy, who mouthed 'sorry' and went back to talking with Mary and Matthew. "Of – of course, Mr Grantham."

"You really can call me Robert, you know," Mr Grantham chuckled. "Now, I know things have always been a bit… odd between us, after everything that happened, but I – I just want to say that I'm very, very glad that Mary's got a friend like you. Even if things hadn't turned out the way I had initially hoped, I… I think we can both agree that they turned out for the best."

"That we definitely can," Thomas said determinedly, earning another chuckle from Robert.

"I just wanted to check that there were no hard feelings," Robert continued. "Between you and Mary, between you and I…"

"None at all," Thomas assured him. "As you say, things have really turned out for the best. I don't think any of us could hold that against anyone else."

As Robert said goodbye and went back to join his family, Jimmy came up to Thomas, taking his hand.

"You okay? What did Mary's dad want?"

Thomas shrugged, smiling. "Doesn't matter."

Jimmy looked at him, concerned, gently brushing Thomas' hair back to where it was supposed to be. "Are you alright?"

Turning to him, Thomas smiled in satisfaction. "Jimmy? I've never been happier."

Jimmy grinned. "Good. Me neither."

Thank you to everyone who has read this fic, especially to everyone who has reviewed or left kudos! I have lots of love for each and every one of you.

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