A/N: Surprise! These scenes were written for the last chapter but I obviously decided to cut them. However, something the guest reviewer wrote made me reconsider that decision.

Tom's revelations about the health clinic he had visited weighed heavily on Bronagh especially when she looked at her son who was so robust and healthy. The lack of fresh fruit and vegetables would never be an issue in his childhood. She had grown up poor but living on the farm there had always been food on the table whether from the family's small vegetable patch, the abundance of berries, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, that grew wild, or fruit from the apple, pear, and cherry trees that dotted their land.

Nor had sanitation been an issue in her childhood. Her family home might have been small with the furniture well-worn but it was clean and warm in the winter with a peat fire and there was always clean water from the well. Her clothes were usually hand-me-downs and sometimes threadbare, her toys were things that her Pa could make from wood or from bits and bobs of this and that but she had fields to run in and trees to climb and a few precious books to read. When she thought of her childhood she thought it was a happy one.

Her son might not be living on a farm where he could spend the too rare glorious Irish sunny afternoons tromping around the fields or gorging on wild blackberries before filling a bucket with them knowing Ma would make a pie or tarts or even jam but he would have the whole of that marvelous Central Park full of grassy knolls and meadows and lakes to explore. Bronagh thought of how she'd buy him a bicycle when he was older. She was sure Tom would be able to teach him how to ride.

Sitting on the streetcar Bronagh was struck by the changing environment of the city as the streetcar wound its way down Broadway. The grand apartment buildings and elegant townhouses of her neighborhood gave way to the tall skyscrapers that housed commercial enterprises. She fascinated by how tall the buildings and remembered when Tom had taken her to Jonah Harwick's 35th floor office. She was a bit leery of the elevator ride but determined it was worth it after seeing the views from the office. It had been so clear that day they were able to see across Brooklyn and to the Atlantic Ocean beyond. She glimpsed that strange triangular building called the Flatiron Building as the streetcar skirted the lovely Madison Square. Further south the area became less prosperous looking with smaller buildings densely packed together.

Just off Broadway on a narrower side street, the health clinic occupied a wide two story brick building which looked as if it had once been a pleasant single family home. It was sandwiched between two taller and narrower buildings with stone facades that advertised a variety of business on each of their five floors. The ground floor of the clinic had two wide arched windows on either side of a brightly painted blue front door. On a small brass plague next to the door was etched St. Margaret's Health Clinic.

The front door opened into what had once been the large square entrance foyer with a stairway leading to the second floor, a black and white tiled hallway leading further into the house and a large aged oak desk occupying the space just to the right of the door. Beside the desk the wall opened into a wide arched doorway and what Bronagh surmised had once been a front parlor and was now the waiting room with a mass of mismatched wooden chairs that looked as if they would have once been used around dining tables. The air smelled faintly of rubbing alcohol and camphor.

Sitting at the desk was a young girl in her late teens or maybe even twenty with a pleasant face who motioned for Bronagh to take a seat in one of the two chairs in the foyer while she continued talking to a woman holding a little redheaded girl that didn't look much older than Cian with another little girl of maybe two holding onto her mother's skirt. Both little girls had red sores across their pale faces and arms which Bronagh wasn't sure were rashes or bite marks. While the receptionist had a faint Irish lilt, the woman sounded as if she had just come from Tralee.

While Bronagh waited for the receptionist to deal with the woman and her children a woman dressed in a gray nursing uniform came down the hallway. She stopped next to the desk, offered a cheery smile to the woman, and patted the top of the baby's head.

Bronagh stared at the nurse knowing she had seen her before but couldn't quite place where. The dullness of the gray uniform couldn't hide that she was very pretty with bright blue eyes, pale pink full lips, smooth clear skin, and wisps of dark brown hair escaping from her white headdress.

"Nurse Crawley"

Crawley! Bronagh's eyes widened as she realized the woman standing not three feet from her was Tom's Sybil for she was the same woman in the framed photograph that Tom had placed on his nightstand in his tiny bedroom in the Branson Dublin house, the same photograph he had so lovingly cradled as he cried over her death.

At the sound of her name, she turned and looked up the stairwell to a woman similarly dressed standing about half-way down the stairs.

"Could you help with some suturing?"

"Of course I can" Nurse Crawley replied in a surprising husky voice that, despite the English accent, was both soothing and comforting and reminding Bronagh of warm honey. Nurse Crawley smiled at Bronagh as she passed her on her way to the stairwell.

Bronagh continued staring up the stairwell long after Nurse Crawley had disappeared from sight. It wasn't until the third or fourth time the girl at the desk said "Ma'am" that Bronagh realized she was talking to her.

"I'm sorry" Bronagh said as she stood up. "That nurse that just went up the stairs is her first name Sybil?"

"Yes" the girl nodded. "She's nurse Sybil Crawley. Do you know her?"

"I think I do. I'm just …" Bronagh stumbled "I'm just surprised to see her here. Has she worked here long?"

"She's been volunteering her for" the girl scrunched her face as if trying to recall "maybe six months now."

"Volunteering?"

"Unfortunately the clinic can't afford all the nursing help we need. We're quite lucky that someone like Sybil volunteers here. She worked as a nurse during the Great War so we're lucky to have some like her here."

Bronagh looked back up the stairwell as if willing Sybil to once again materialize.

"Are you also a nurse? Is that how you know Sybil?" Now the girl was curious as to why Bronagh was here since she didn't appear to be ill.

"No … I … I came here to …" Bronagh looked down at the floor and shuffled her feet nervously. "I'm sorry I didn't realize the time … I'll have to come back."

Fleeing out the front door Bronagh left behind a rather bewildered receptionist. She walked quickly to the front of the next building and leaned against its stone façade. Taking deep breaths she closed her eyes.

It had become their nightly ritual. Sybil and her grandmother would meet in the formal parlor an hour or so before dinner. Even on nights when one or the other had some engagement later in the evening they'd still meet here.

Martha, seated in her favorite lounge chair, raised her cocktail glass as Sybil entered the grand parlor. "Just freshly made" she announced as she took a sip of the Manhattan her current favorite drink.

Sybil sat down on the sofa and picked up the cocktail glass sitting in front of her on the coffee table and took a sip. "It's hard to know that prohibition is actually in effect."

"Seems like most people were quite sensible and stocked up while they could" Martha returned. "Although" she turned to look across the room at her new rosewood drinks bar cabinet "that's the last bottle of vermouth so we'll soon have to find another drink."

Martha set the magazine she had been reading on the coffee table drawing Sybil's attention to the mail that was laying there. Martha watched as Sybil noting the return address on the letter addressed to her left it lying there untouched. This, like all the previous letters, would sit there unopened and unread until Martha picked them up and put them in a box with all the other letters that had come for Sybil from Downton. She saved them hoping that one day Sybil would want to read them.

Although Sybil had been reticent on what had led to her estrangement from her family, the letters Martha received from Cora had been a bit more forthcoming although Martha still did not have the full picture. Instead of focusing on what had happened, Cora wrote of wanting to know what Sybil was doing, whether she was happy, had she made friends. There had also been the curious questions as to why Sybil had chosen to flee to New York.

"I also received a letter from Downton today." Martha plunged into the topic she thought Sybil needed to hear. "Mary is getting married."

Martha detected the slightest flicker of Sybil's shoulders and a tremor of her hand as she set her cocktail glass onto the coffee table but her face remained an impenetrable mask. Then surprising Martha Sybil stood up and walked to one of the windows looking out at Central Park.

"The groom is one-"

"Sir Richard Carlisle" Sybil interrupted her grandmother although she remained staring out the window.

"No" Martha bellowed "it's a … Matthew Crawley."

"Matthew!" Sybil whipped around to face her grandmother. "Matthew" she repeated again as if trying to make sense of it. "Mary is marrying Matthew?"

Martha noted the tears that had suddenly welled up in Sybil's eyes just before Sybil shook her head and turned away once more.

"Rather peculiar his name is also Crawley" Martha remarked. "But I take it you know this fellow."

Sybil took a deep breath before walking over to one of the large wingback chairs and leaned against it as if needing support to remain standing. "He's a distant cousin and Papa's heir."

Then in a voice so soft that Martha wasn't sure she heard right, Sybil mumbled "He's much better than Mary deserves."

"The wedding is next month. Haven't been over there since before the war so I think I'll go."

Keeping her head tilted downward as if suddenly finding the carpet so interesting Sybil made no reaction to Martha's announcement.

"You might consider coming with me Sybil. A wedding's a good time to make amends."

Sybil's head snapped up, the hint of tears replaced by eyes hardened into a cold deep blue, her beautiful face no longer an emotionless mask but etched with unmistakable anger. "Make amends!" she roared.

Her clenched fist slapped against the back of the chair. "You expect ME to make amends" Sybil thundered stunning Martha by her ferocity.

"After she cost me the man I love … she finally gets the man she's … she's …" As if her raised voice had drained her of all her energy, Sybil suddenly stopped talking. Then just as suddenly she ran out of the parlor and down the hall to her bedroom, slamming the bedroom door hard enough that Martha could hear it rattle from her seat in the parlor.

Martha was not one to shrink from confrontation. She waited ten minutes, long enough she thought for Sybil to settle down. She stood outside the closed bedroom door listening for sobs or even things being tossed around but there were no sounds coming from the other side of the door.

After three light raps on the door, Martha slowly opened it to find Sybil on the far side of the room huddled in a floral cushioned chair by the window. With her feet flat against the seat cushion, her arms wrapped around her bent knees, and her head lightly resting on her knees, Sybil sat staring out the window.

"Sybil darling" Martha called in a most uncharacteristic soft tone.

Sybil made no movement, no acknowledgement of her grandmother's presence. Undeterred Martha walked further into the spacious bedroom. She had decorated this room in soft yellows and greens with hints of deep red and thought the result had been a pretty and restful bedroom.

Martha slowly walked across the room. She reached out her arm and soothingly rubbed her hand up and down Sybil's back. Surprisingly Sybil didn't swat away Martha's hand. "I think you need to tell me the whole story."

Sybil rose from the chair and went to the tall chest. Opening the second drawer she carefully pulled out the envelope containing Tom's letter to Mrs. Hughes. Looking down at the creased envelope in her hands she began speaking softly as her index finger glided gently over the envelope. "His name is Tom. Of course they weren't happy because he was the chauffeur but he had gotten a job as a journalist in Ireland. But the morning we were to leave for Ireland I decided I had to stay behind until Mama recovered from the Spanish Flu."

Carefully taking the letter out of the envelope Sybil handed it to Martha.

Despite the early evening chill, Bronagh was outside on the terrace sitting in one of the two wooden Adirondack chairs that seemed out of place among the wrought iron chairs. Facing the back neighbor's house, the terrace offered no magnificent views. There wasn't even a view of the sun setting since it disappeared among the taller buildings in the distance.

But Bronagh hadn't come out here for the view rather she had come here to sit and think. As he often did after supper, Uncle Carrick was in the study playing with Cian while Tom had, she supposed, gone to his office on the third floor or maybe he was with Uncle Carrick and Cian.

Seeing Sybil had left her unsettled.

"Thought you might like a cuppa" Tom said as he handed her a steaming mug of tea. "Mind if I join you or would I be disturbing those deep thoughts of yours?"

She raised her brow as she looked at him.

"You seemed rather deep in thought there." He gave her one of those grins of his that always reminded her of a mischievous little boy.

But that image of a mischievous little boy was quickly replaced by one of Tom that afternoon he had found Sybil's photograph in the newspaper, the afternoon he found out she was alive, the afternoon he concluded she had lied to him. Bronagh looked over at Tom who had sat down beside her in the other Adirondack chair. He was gazing up at the sky as if searching for stars. But Bronagh saw not the Tom here beside her but the Tom that afternoon and that was an image of heartbreaking anguish.

He sensed she was looking at him. "So are you going to tell me what you're so deep in thought about?" he asked although his face was still tilted back looking at the sky. Several times during dinner he had caught her staring at him and she had then immediately averted her eyes. He knew something was troubling her.

What good will it do if I tell him? Maybe some things are better left as they are. "I was thinking about your Ma and Oonagh arriving Friday and all the things I want to show them."

He took a sip of his tea. Although he hardly thought Bronagh had been sitting here thinking about his mother and sister he wouldn't challenge her. "I'm glad they're coming but I can't figure out why Ma was so insistent about coming now."