A/N: And so at long last we come to the end. I'm thankful for your many wonderful and thoughtful reviews throughout this story. I was a bit discouraged by the last chapter so this may seem a bit jumbled since I originally planned a 3-part epilogue.

Almost three months later

Sybil stood in the disarray that was the Branson sitting room. Boxes and crates were piled everywhere, some filled and taped and ready for shipment while others were still in various stages of being packed with pieces of straw and crumbled newspapers littering the floor. The walls were bare having been stripped of the photographs and paintings that she and Tom had so carefully hung, the furniture was no longer in neat seating arrangements, it was thought Sybil all such a mess. The room was no longer the one that she had so lovingly furnished and decorated.

She took a deep breath and rubbed her hand across the slight swell of her belly. This house had been where she and Tom had started their life together and she had thought it would where they would raise their children. Aah she hummed thinking how life moves in directions you sometimes can't imagine. She edged over to end of the sofa and sat down remembering she had been sitting in this very spot when Tom finally told her his news.

She had returned home from a week appraising the estate of a mansion in the Hudson River Valley. Sitting on a shaded hilltop there had been gorgeous views of the river below and the green hills on the other side of the river but the mansion itself had been creaky and creepy and in great disrepair. The telephone service had been spotty, she'd only managed two short calls to Tom, although they were long enough to know that something was bothering him, something that he didn't want to bring up over the telephone.

Returning home in late afternoon she had stepped into the foyer and had been greeted with the sight of a beautiful bouquet of colorful flowers on the hall table, the enticing aroma of roast chicken in the air and the delightful sounds of Tom's Irish lilt belting out a tune in the kitchen, all of which had brought a smile to her lips. He had tried to hide whatever it was that was bothering him through their dinner as their conversation was relegated to trivialities. It was only after their dinner had been eaten, the dishes washed, and they had retired to the sitting room with fresh cups of tea that Tom had finally told her.

Jonah has decided to expand his magazine and newspaper empire and he's offering me a job of editor of a new European motor car magazine he wants to publish and I can still write for some of his other magazines. It's a job come true for me Sybil and if it was here I'd have accepted right away. But we'd have to leave New York and this house and our lives here and I'm just not sure I want to leave. And I'd be asking you to give up your work and friends.

They had wrestled with their decision, weighing the pros and cons before finally making their decision. This isn't getting any work done Sybil chided herself as she tried to put away the thoughts of that evening. What's done is done and here we are she thought as she looked around the room at the boxes and crates.

The sound of the front door bell provided a welcomed relief from deciding what to tackle next.

Sybil's face lit up at the sight of the tall elegant figure of Carrick McGrann standing on the front porch. The smile he gave her in return was a testament to the deep affection that had developed between the two.

"I was looking for an excuse to take a break" Sybil laughed as she gestured for him to enter the house.

He stopped to give her a quick kiss on the check. "I don't think I've been used as an excuse before" he cheekily replied.

In the foyer, Carrick stopped in the arched doorway to the sitting room as he took in the sight of the boxes and crates, the paintings on the floor leaning against the wall, the books piled on the floor. He was glad Sybil was behind him and couldn't see the sadness suddenly etched across his face as he realized that Sybil and Tom's move which had seemed so distant was now imminent.

"Let me put the kettle on" Sybil said as she breezed past him and made for the kitchen. "A cup of tea and a slice of cake sounds good to me right now."

As Sybil busied herself in the kitchen, Carrick looked around the sitting room and adjoining dining room and saw them not as they looked now but as the scene of so many delightful dinners, of evenings spent sitting in front of a roaring fire debating with Tom some finer point of Irish politics, of those times alone with Sybil quietly discussing investing in real estate. With the money earned from selling the last of the objects d'art she had taken from Downton, Sybil had partnered with Carrick to buy two small apartment buildings. Now with Sybil off to Ireland, Carrick's management company would manage those buildings along with this townhouse and the other townhouse Sybil owned.

"I think we'll have more room at the kitchen table" Sybil called out as she set the mugs, plates, and the remaining half of a pound cake on the table that had been a wedding present from her grandmother.

Returning to the table with the teapot, Sybil noticed Carrick looking at some of the framed photographs now filling almost half of the large mahogany dining table. While she took a seat and began filling their mugs with the steaming tea, Carrick carried one of the photographs to his seat at the kitchen table.

Smiling at the photograph, he said "I think this was the most exciting trip of my life."

"It was wonderful wasn't it" Sybil smiled as she saw the photograph of Tom, Cian and herself with the erupting Old Faithful geyser in the background.

"I still see Cian's face when he saw that first herd of bison" Carrick chuckled. "Not sure which he found most fascinating those bison or the boiling mud pots. Even now he can't understand why none of the mud at our house bubbles up."

While they drank their tea and ate slices of pound cake they talked of that trip last summer that she, Tom, Carrick and Cian had taken out west. Traveling by train they had taken six weeks to travel to San Francisco and back with a side trip to Yellowstone National Park. It had been a wonderful trip thought Sybil not just for the amazing scenery but also the company.

But there had been so many wonderful trips over these last few years she thought; the delayed honeymoon to Niagara Falls, the visit to that beautiful city Quebec, that trip to San Juan. She was so immersed in her reminiscing that it took a moment for her to realize Carrick was talking to her.

"It's something small to remember me by" he said as he pulled a small blue tissue wrapped object from his pocket and handed it to Sybil.

"Oh Carrick I need nothing physical to remember you" Sybil softly replied. "I have so many wonderful memories of our times together." She looked at the photographs lying on the other end of the dining table "and so many photographs." She chuckled "even if you're not in them I know you took so many of them."

"We've had wonderful times Sybil. Not just the trip out west but when you and Tom took me with you to Ireland." He paused as he thought of that trip three years ago, it was the first time he had been in Ireland in over fifteen years and the trip had been filled with nostalgia. "But it's been so much more than just those trips."

"Please" he said as he nodded at the tissue wrapped bundle laying on the table in front of Sybil.

Sybil gently unfolded the tissue paper and found a beautiful delicate gold brooch, about four inches in length, oblong in shape with intricate gold scrollwork filled with small diamonds and emeralds. "It's beautiful!" she exclaimed as she looked at the brooch.

"I gave that to my wife Frances on our first anniversary." Carrick's voice was barely above a whisper.

Blinking back tears Sybil looked at Carrick. "Oh Carrick shouldn't you keep this for Bronagh?"

Smiling Carrick took Sybil's hand in his. "I have a few other pieces of Frances' jewelry that I'll give Bronagh or her daughters. But this one I want you to have." Patting her hand he continued "Until Tom and Bronagh and Cian came into my life I didn't realize how lonely I was. I had my work and I had friends but …" he paused. "You know what makes a home, it's not the furniture we fill it with but the people who grace its rooms, who fill it with laughter and sometimes tears, who are around not only to share the joys but are there to share the sorrows. It's only been these past six years that my house became a home again."

He took a deep breath but when he looked at Sybil his clear blue eyes were twinkling. "And you've been part of that. You've become like a daughter to me just like Bronagh."

"Oh Carrick" Sybil's own eyes were clouded with tears as she looked at the kindly man who had been the source of so much wisdom and advice to her these last few years. "I …"

Sybil had arrived early and it was no surprise that her grandmother wasn't ready yet. Waiting for her grandmother in the drawing room, Sybil stood in front of a long low cabinet filled with framed photographs placed between the two large windows that overlooked the park. A new silver framed photograph of Sybil and Tom with Gran had caught Sybil's eye. Sybil smiled thinking of that recent Sunday when Tom had driven them out to Smithtown Bay on Long Island and they'd stopped at some roadside shanty for lunch. The informal photograph of the three of them sitting at the small table on the shanty's porch, the table covered with a platter of freshly caught seafood and the sparkling water of the Long Island Sound in the background. It had been a fun afternoon filled with laughter as they motored along the scenic north shore of Long Island.

As with so much these days Sybil had a pang of guilt thinking that soon she'd be so far away. Her grandmother had offered her a home when she so needed one and in these past years the two had become close. She would also be grateful for having had the opportunity to get to know her grandmother better.

Sitting the photograph back on the cabinet, Sybil spied a photograph of Martha and Carrick in evening dress sitting at a table with several of Martha's friends. She chuckled thinking how the two had become good friends, nothing romantic but just two older people enjoying each other's company.

The smile on her face was quickly wiped away at the sight of a photograph of her and her mother which unlike the Smithtown Bay photograph did not convey such happy memories. The photograph had been taken almost a year after her marriage when Mama had come to New York for a visit. Sybil had grudgingly acquiesced to Gran's pleas to meet with her mother but despite her mother's excuses and pleas for a new beginning Sybil had no such desires. During the two weeks Cora was in New York their meetings were polite stilted affairs and Cora had left New York brokenhearted.

Seeing the photograph of her mother only reminded Sybil of a conversation she had recently had with Tom.

I think I've decided I don't want to work after the baby is born. I've watched you and Bronagh with Cian and I realize I never had that as a child. As a child I loved my parents but neither of them ever tucked me in at night or read me a bedtime story. I was raised by nannies and I don't want that for our child. I want to be there to see the first time she stands and the first time she walks. Maybe if my parents had been there like that for me they would have known me better. Maybe they wouldn't have been so surprised by my falling in love with you.

As Tom and Bronagh followed Sybil and Roland down the pier, Tom took hold of Bronagh's arm and the two stopped midway down the pier.

"Sometimes I find it so hard to imagine all the things that have happened since that first time we walked down this pier" Tom spoke as other passengers and porters ladened with luggage walked around them. It had been a day much like this one six years ago when he and Bronagh with infant Cian in her arms had arrived in New York.

Bronagh looked at him and smiled that smile that was always so reassuring to him. "To think how scared we both were." She then looked down the pier to where her husband and Sybil had stopped after finally realizing that Tom and Bronagh had fallen behind. Keeping her eyes focused on them, she said "I think things worked out better than either of us ever expected."

"Aye" Tom replied. "As I said the day of your wedding, you got what you wanted. You got that man whose eyes light up when you enter the room."

Bronagh nodded her head slowly, her face glowing with happiness. "I did didn't I."

Then she turned towards Tom, that glow of happiness replaced by a momentary touch of sadness. Their embrace was one of deep affection. Each of them knew that a part of them would always love the other. "I think both of us got very lucky" she whispered in his ear as he held her tightly.

"Sometimes I think I should be a bit jealous" Roland spoke to Sybil as they stood watching Tom and Bronagh. ""But I guess the two of them will always have a special bond."

"I think we should be glad that they had someone to turn to in those dark times" Sybil replied. Sybil hated to think what might have become of Tom if Bronagh hadn't intervened and for that she'd always be grateful to Bronagh.

"Sometimes life has a funny way of working out doesn't it?" Roland turned to look at Sybil. "I always consider your case my greatest failure but I'm so grateful that you walked into my office that day."

It had been at Tom and Sybil's wedding celebration that Roland first spied the beautiful light brown haired beauty across the room. "Who is that?" he had asked his friend Charles. By most accounts Roland was considered a ladies man and he would admit there had been ladies in his life, some had last a year or two while others three or four years and one had even lasted eight years. Yet as he stood in Carrick's townhouse that warm summer day watching Bronagh from across the room as she mingled with the other guests he was drawn to her by that lovely Irish lilt and that beguiling smile. When he finally got the courage to walk up to her and talk to her and she turned those lovely blue eyes towards him, he knew that he had met the one he had waited for years to meet.

"I wouldn't consider it your greatest failure" Sybil smiled at Roland. "It did end right after all." She looked at Tom and Bronagh and back to Roland "For all of us."

From her spot high on the deck of the ship Sybil was amazed how small the people on the pier looked. She and Tom stood at the railing waving to Roland and Bronagh as their ship set sail.

"She won't let him forget you" Sybil quietly spoke into Tom's ear as the huge ship suddenly vibrated and the water surrounding it began churning. At her words his head turned to look at her.

"Cian" she added. For Sybil knew that of all their goodbyes Tom's goodbye to Cian had been the hardest for him.

With their house empty of furniture they had spent their final night in New York at Carrick's where Martha had joined them for dinner. After dinner as they continued to linger around the kitchen table, the tea replaced by good Irish whiskey, Tom had excused himself to tuck Cian into bed. There had been one last bath time and one last bedtime story for Tom and the child he had loved since his birth.

Before Cian settled into his bed he had opened the drawer of his nightstand and pulled out a piece of paper rolled into a scroll and loosely tied with a wide ribbon. "I drew this for you Uncle Tom. Ma says you can hang it in your new house and it will make you think of me every day so you won't forget me."

Tom slipped off the loose ribbon and unfurled the heavy piece of paper revealing a scene of crudely drawn trees, a puddle of blue with a thick brown line on top and two figures sitting on the brown line. In the lower corner there was written a very lopsided CIAN.

"It's me and you at the lake."

Tom tousled Cian's hair. "I think this is the finest drawing anyone has ever given me."

Cian's face lit up with a smile. "I knew you would like it!"

Tom stayed sitting on the edge of Cian's bed long after the child had fallen asleep. How many times have I sat like this watching the gentle rise and fall of his little chest? He thought of the infant Cian sitting on his lap and looking up at him, his face breaking out in a toothless grin. He thought of holding his tiny hands as he took his first steps. He thought of how quickly those steps had become a run. He thought of how much he loved this child and remembered the first time hearing Cian call Roland "Daddy" and felt like a knife had pierced his chest.

Finally Tom leaned over and kissed the top of the sleeping child's head whispering "I'll never forget you lad. You, like your mother, will always be in my heart."

Sybil took Tom's hand and smiled at her husband. "Having watched you with Cian these past years, how patient you were with him, how much you just enjoyed being with him, I know you'll be a wonderful father to our child."

They stood there together long after the pier had faded from sight as the ship sailed down New York Harbor past the island of Manhattan and then turning into the Lower Bay as it made its way out to the Atlantic. Just past the Army post of Fort Tilden on the Rockaway Peninsula jutting out of Long Island, Tom suggested they retire to their cabin but Sybil refused to leave.

With the upper reaches of the Manhattan skyscrapers still visible against the clear blue skies, Sybil wanted to linger a little longer. She didn't know when they'd return to this place that had been their home for over five years, the place where she and Tom had finally become husband and wife.

"This is our past Sybil" he said as he nodded his head towards the fading skyscrapers. Tom grabbed his wife's hand. "Come with me."

He led her to the front of the ship. To their left in the distance they could faintly see tall grasses blowing in the wind while ahead of them and off to the right was nothing but ocean. He stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her shoulder. "We've closed one story of our life" he whispered into her ear. "Here in front of us is a new story just waiting to be written. Whatever it will be, it will be you and me and" his hand rested against her belly "and this one here."

Sybil, looking straight ahead, put her hands on top of his. "I remember the night I accepted your proposal I told you I was ready to travel and you were my ticket." She tilted her head to look up at him. "I'm ready for a new adventure with you."

"I love you Tom" she said as she reached up to kiss him.

"And I you Sybil" he said as his lips met hers.

THE END