From her seat in the wingback chair facing his desk Bronagh watched Tom read Sybil's letter to Mrs. Branson. She was surprised that as he read the letter his face remained a blank slate giving no outward signs of his feelings upon reading Sybil's words. Knowing she had been unable to conceal her own emotions upon reading the letter, in fact she had stopped as several points and made comments to Claire Branson, made Bronagh all the more curious of Tom's unexpected reaction or, more accurately she supposed, lack of reaction.

When they were children Tom wore his heart on his sleeve as the old adage went and he had often been teased for it. You always knew when he was excited or hurt or curious or, on those very rare occasions, angry just by looking at him. Never tell Tommy a secret one of his brothers would say for Ma will know just looking at him. Yet the Tom reading this letter, reading words that had dramatically changed his life and could further change his life, gave no indication of his feelings. Maybe it was all those years as a servant having to kowtow to his masters that had taught him to conceal his emotions and opinions thought Bronagh.

Bronagh's mind drifted back to when she had come to stay at the Branson house in Dublin remembering how giddy Tom had been describing Sybil to her. Hearing Tom talk with obvious admiration and love made her happy for him and she hated to admit it but a bit envious for his talk made her realize how dubious her own love affair had been. She had been courted two or three times before but they had been rather sedate affairs of outings to local dances, church suppers, and book readings that had never led to more than a few quick kisses. It was only with Will that she had felt that rush of excitement, that longing when separated, that desire to spend every moment together. While she had been in love, Will had used that love for his own selfish purposes and had thrown her away as soon as it was inconvenient for him.

Tom finished reading the letter and with his hands noticeably trembling laid it flat on his desk. His head remained bowed and with his fingers running up and down the page appeared to read it all again.

"Tom?" She leaned forwarded, her arm stretching so that her hand grazed the top of his.

"Oh Bronagh" he finally spoke. Lifting his head his eyes met hers. "It's all so … so …" he stumbled trying to find the right words. "It's unthinkable what his lordship and her family did."

Bronagh nodded in agreement. What Sybil's father had done was horrible and cruel not only to Tom but also Sybil. She had seen firsthand the damage his lordship's actions had done to Tom and now wondered what damage his actions had done to Sybil.

"But now you have the chance to make things right."

Tom looked at her. "Do I? This letter was written months ago. It's been over a year since we parted."

"Without knowing exactly where you were she came to New York to find you Tom. She's still here."

"But it's been months. What if … if she's …" he turned and stared out the window. "That picture in the paper … she was with …"

Tom turned and looked at Bronagh "I can't go through it all again."

"Tom Branson!" Bronagh rose quickly from her chair. "Even when you thought she had lied to you … it hurt so bad because you loved her. You know that she's never left your heart. Anyone else you will just be settling for. I know that."

Her words cut through Tom like a knife. He looked at her pretty face with its sprinkling of freckles across her rosy complexion and the dark blue eyes that were now blazing. He would have been happy with her … he was happy with her. They had been through this part of the conversation before and despite what he said she had never moved away from the thought that Sybil would always be between them. But now … knowing that Sybil hadn't lied to him, that she had looked for him, he knew Bronagh was right.

"Whatever happens Tom you can deal with it. I'm here. Your mother's here and Oonagh and Uncle Carrick. Don't be so foolish as to throw this opportunity away."


On this fine late afternoon, Sybil, wearing a black smock over her clothes and a white scarf wrapped around her head, sat at the huge roll top desk in the large room that served as both an office and library. Underneath that smock she was unconventionally dressed in trousers for months on this job had taught her that on days like this when she was cleaning out drawers and shuffling through boxes trousers gave her better mobility as well as ensured modesty.

Despite the now curtainless windows being wide open allowing sunlight to flood the room and at times a light breeze to flow in there was still a staleness lingering in the room, a consequence of years of neglect. Like most of the rest of the rooms in the house this one had needed a good cleaning from the dust laden furniture to the fireplace grate overflowing with ashes to the heavy dusty drapes covering the grimy windows. Although the dust and ashes and grime were now gone, neither the fresh air pouring in through the windows nor the newly lemon polished furniture had completely erased the smells of cigars and musty books.

The house belonged to the late Peridine Hercule Pettigrew whom Sybil would charitably call an eccentric. The late Mr. Pettigrew, who had inherited a vast fortune at the age of fifteen, had once been a dashing sailor and explorer according to the many newspaper clippings Sybil had found tucked in a hatbox stored in a long intricately carved wooden chest that took up most of the floor space against one wall of this room. The chest looked like something he had brought back from one of his visits to the Far East. Indeed the whole house was filled with such lovely pieces of furniture as well as lacquered chests and wall panels, silk tapestries, and an enormous amount of vases and figurines and decorative boxes some made of intricate carvings of wood, ivory or jade while others were enameled or delicately hand painted. Not so lovely according to Sybil were the skins and hides of animals found in Asia or South America.

Yet not all of the late Mr. Pettigrew's possessions were of such fine quality. Sybil had found two large drawers crammed with door knobs and dresser pulls. To her amusement another drawer was filled to the brim with buttons. She had pondered long and hard over the discovery of a box containing 35 gold chains with lockets of various sizes all filled with his own photograph. Had these lockets been returned from former loves she wondered or had he bought them for someone or many someones who had rebuffed him?

Of all the objects Sybil had found, the most interesting to her was a collection of old maps she had unfolded and laid flat on the desktop and which she was now poring over. She guessed that a few of them with handwritten notes on them had actually been used by Peridine on his travels.

"Sybil?" Charles called out from the doorway surprised at finding her still her. "I thought you had already left."

Without looking up Sybil loudly and cheerily remarked "Oh Charles I've just found the most interesting collection of old maps!"

Charles silently chuckled to himself at Sybil's exuberance. Most people would look at the items they assessed strictly in terms of its monetary value but Sybil often looked beyond such value and thought of the items' past. Curious not just about the maps but Sybil's obvious interest, Charles walked across the room to stand by the desk and look down at the maps scattered about the desk top. "Some maps can be quite valuable."

"Oh I think most maps are valuable" Sybil replied. "Maybe not monetarily but how they can make you dream about some place."

Charles cocked his head to look at Sybil waiting for her to expand on her comments.

"Once my sisters became teenagers they no longer wanted to play with me so I spent hours alone trying to amuse myself. My father had an old atlas and I'd love looking through it. I'd pick a place and make up stories about getting there" she looked at Charles "you know fighting pirates or bandits or alligators or giant snakes or braving snowstorms or roiling seas or the shifting sands of deserts."

She chuckled before going on. "And then once I got there I think of what I'd search for like treasures or what to explore."

She looked back down at the maps and sighed. "I've only dreamed about such stuff but Mr. Pettigrew actually did those things."

She was silent for a minute or two and then looked up at Charles and grinned. "And then after all that he ended up in this big old house, all alone, collecting door knobs and buttons."


Tom leaned against the stone wall that separated the pavement from Central Park. With his back towards the park he looked across Fifth Avenue at the tall gray apartment building that took up the whole block. He was rather surprised that Sybil's grandmother lived in an apartment rather than one of the grand townhouses that filled the blocks around here. She's there, somewhere up there, behind one of those windows thought Tom.

He wasn't sure why he was standing here staring up at her building. Since he had left her on the Downton railway station platform he had thought and dreamed about meeting her again although most of that time he thought such a meeting would be in the next life not this one. He reached into his jacket pocket and felt her letter to his Ma. Taking a deep breath he waited for a car to pass and then hurried across the street.

The door was opened by a tall man dressed in a uniform of dark gray trimmed with gold braiding and shiny buttons. Walking into the lobby, Tom felt as if he were back at Downton for certainly this room with its vaulted ceiling, ornate cornices, rounded columns, and tons of marble was as grand as any room at Downton.

"May I help you sir?" The voice came from the far end of the room.

Dressed like his counterpart at the door minus the gloves and hat, the man stood next to a marble desk guarding the path to the elevator.

"I'd like to see Lady Sybil Crawley."

"Is she expecting you?" The voice had a slight sneer to it as if Tom's Irish accent automatically prohibited him from entering through the front door.

Tom wanted to reply that she had been expecting him for months but instead settled for a quick shake of his head. "I don't have an appointment with her if that's what you mean but I'm an old friend from England."

"England?" the sneer had now become almost derisive.

Tom glared at the man and his shiny brass buttons on his uniform and suddenly thought of Thomas Barrow. "Yes England. I knew her in England. Now are you going to call her or do I have to sit here and wait for her to walk through the lobby?"

Without a word the man walked to the telephone on his desk and called the Levinson apartment and asked for Lady Sybil Crawley. Hanging up the phone he turned back towards Tom and said "She's-"

"I heard" Tom interrupted. "I'll wait" he looked around at the several seating areas in the lobby "over there."

He walked to one of the smaller seating areas with just two red velvet chairs and a small table between them. One of the round marble columns blocked his view of the man and his desk but he had a good view of the front door although anyone entering the building would have to turn their head to spot him. He had surmised from the man's conversation that Sybil was not home but due any minute. However that any minute turned into fifteen minutes before the lobby door opened but to his regret it was an older couple. However, just a minute or two later that door again opened and that familiar husky voice with its cut glass English accent floated into the room.

She stepped into the cool marble hall looking as beautiful as she did in his dreams.

He watched her walk half way across the room before finally rising from his chair. With her sight focused on the elevator at the far end of the room, she didn't notice him walking towards her.

"Sybil" he called out causing her to stop dead in her tracks yet she didn't immediately turn towards the sound of his voice. It wasn't until he was close enough that he could have reached out and touched her that she finally turned her head towards him. "Sybil" he softly said again.

"Tom?" she said in disbelief.

He smiled as he reached out to touch her arm. His thoughts, hopes, that she would wrap her arms around him and kiss him passionately were quickly doused as she pulled away from him. They stood silently facing each other, he wondering if it was a mistake to come here after all and she wondering why he was here.

He had never been able to read her face for like most of her kind she kept her emotions bottled up. Just like now as she stood there staring at him her face didn't reveal whatever it was she was thinking. That lack of reaction felt as if he had been punched in the gut.

"Maybe I shouldn't have come here" he finally mumbled as he looked towards the door.

He had only moved an inch or two before she grabbed his arm. "What are you doing here?" Although the words sounded like a demand, he saw that her hand trembled and her lower lip quivered.

He looked down at the floor and then towards the door, anywhere to avoid looking at her. "I … I thought …" he stumbled before reaching into his pocket and pulling out her letter to his mother. "I just got this" he said as he held out the envelope to her.

Her eyes widened in surprise as she noted it was the letter she had written to his mother all those months ago. "You just got this?" she looked in astonishment at him and then down at the envelope and then back up to his face.

He nodded. "Today in fact."

"But I posted it-"

"I know but it was delivered to a neighbor's house and it sat there for months while she was away and then" he looked at her. "My mother came here from Ireland to give it to me." He wouldn't tell her that his mother had gone to Bronagh instead of him and that it was Bronagh who insisted the letter be shared with him.

"Oh Tom" she moaned as she seemed on the verge of tears.

"Sybil can we sit down and talk?" His hand gently caressed her cheek.

Closing her eyes she looked down towards the floor and took a deep breath but she didn't bat his hand away instead wrapping one of her gloved hands around his. When she finally looked at him again, her lips quivered and she blinked back tears. "It's too late isn't it? We can't change what's happened Tom."

"What's happened?" he was perplexed by her comments. How could it be too late for them he wondered. Unless … it suddenly dawned on him. "Does this mean you've found someone else Sybil?"

His words snapped her out of her languidness. "Me? It's you that's married" she snapped at him.

Although his legs didn't move, he tilted his upper body away from her, his forehead creasing in puzzlement as he stared at her. "What?" his raised voice surprised her and also caught the attention of the concierge who in great curiosity had been watching the couple and he rose to his feet.

"Please Sybil we need to talk" he pleaded with her once again.

They did need to talk but she didn't want to take him upstairs to the apartment for it wasn't a conversation they needed to have in front of her grandmother.

"Is everything alright Lady Sybil?" the concierge said as he walked towards them. He might have asked her but his hard dark eyes were focused on Tom.

She looked at the concierge and transformed once again into Lady Sybil raising her hand to stop him from coming any closer and giving him a pat smile. "It's fine George."

She looked back at Tom. "How about the park?"

Neither spoke as they made their way across the street and into the park. It was as they walked that Tom finally noticed how Sybil was dressed. From the moment she stepped into the lobby he had been so focused on her face that he had failed to note she wasn't the impeccably dressed Lady Sybil. Carrying a wide brimmed straw hat in her hands, wisps of her dark brown hair had escaped the hair pins holding her hair back into a loose chignon. Her short sleeved flowered blouse was perfect for this warmer weather but it was her dark wide-legged trousers that caused Tom to widen his eyes in disbelief. It wasn't that he disapproved of such an outfit, in fact he thought it seemed to match the independent Sybil he had known, but he did wonder where she had been dressed like that.

Sybil seemed to know where she wanted to go and led him away from the pedestrian walkway to a lone wooden bench set in a grassy area under a wide-branching maple tree. They had barely sat down when Tom spoke.

"Why ever would you think I'm married Sybil?"

"But ... but the detective reported that" Sybil nervously said "and … and then I … I saw you with the baby."

"You saw me with Cian?"

"The detective gave me your address and I" she licked her bottom lip. "I just had to see where you were living and you came out of the house carrying the baby."

"A detective?"

Sybil nodded as she babbled on. "After I got here and there had been no answer from your mother I hired a private detective but he couldn't find any record of your arrival in America or working at a newspaper. So he contacted someone in Dublin to make inquiries there and that man reported back that you had married and with your wife and baby and moved to New York." Her words coming out in a rush.

Sybil paused as she took in some air. "And I thought that was it but then he read the article you wrote and through the magazine found your address and he-"

"The man that came to see me" Tom interrupted her as it became so clear to him. "He claimed he wanted to hire me for a writing job but he seemed to be more interested in my personal life than my writing. He was your detective?"

"Yes that was him. Roland. He gave me your address and I just had to see where you were living and hoping that maybe I'd get a glance at you but then you came out of the house holding the baby and I followed you to here."

Tom leaned against the back of the bench and rubbed his hand across his forehead. "Oh Sybil" he sighed "I think we got this so mixed up."

He then proceeded to tell her about those dark days after the telegram came from her father, about his drinking, about losing the job at the newspaper. Although he talked about how Bronagh got him through those dark days he didn't mention he had asked her to marry him.

Sybil sat quietly listening to Tom talk and when he told of losing his job and the drinking she reached over and clasp his hand in hers.

"Bronagh offered me a new start to come with her to New York and help her run her uncle's stationery shop."

He looked at Sybil and for the first time since he began talking he smiled. "We were shocked when we got here to find her uncle lives in that beautiful townhouse and the stationery shop wasn't some hole in the wall dusty shop but a high end place that caters to your class."

"So you've been here all this time working at the stationery shop and writing magazine articles on the side?"

Tom laughed. "Actually I manage Carrick's printing business but I've been writing more and more. I'm even doing some writing for some local Irish papers."

"Oh Tom" Sybil said softly, his hand still firmly grasped in hers. With her other hand she gently caressed the side of his face "So what happens now?"

"Well" he looked at her with that lop-sided grin of his and she was instantly transported back to the garage at Downton. He thought of saying you could tell me what happened after I left Downton, you could tell me what you've been doing here, you could tell me why you're dressed like that. But he didn't say any of that. There would be plenty of time later for that.

He finally said "You could kiss me. That is if I'm still you're fiancé."

A/N: and so they've finally met. I'm a bit nervous since your reviews on your desires for their reunion set the bar so high.