"Telephone call for you, Lady Edith," Daphne called through the open office door.

Edith lifted her reading glasses and blinked owlishly up at her assistant, dragging herself up to the here-and-now out of a haze of photographs and fashion reporting - Ellen's latest 'make do and mend' article. "Thank you, Daphne." She lifted the receiver as she spoke. "This is Edith Crawley, editor-in-chief, good morning."

"Edith?"

"Anthony? How nice!" Edith could feel her face splitting into a wide smile. "What - ?"

He exhaled shakily, crackling down the line and cutting her off. "I - I didn't know who else to telephone. James's plane came down last night. He's… he's been wounded."

"Oh, God." The bottom dropped out of Edith's stomach. "Is he - "

"No. But we're not sure how - how bad it is." Anthony's voice rose as he continued, "Archie's buried in meetings - I can't get hold of him for love nor money - and James is - is asking for Marigold - Edith, I - "

"All right. My dear, where are you?"

Rap-rap-rap.

"Come in!" Cynthia replied immediately, but she sounded distracted, and when Edith entered the office, her sub-editor didn't look up from her work. Abandoned teacups and plates littered the desk she shared with Geoffrey - who was unfortunately not present.

"Cyn?" Edith asked tightly, "is Geoffrey in?"

"No," Cynthia replied, a long drawn-out sound, "he was annoying me, so instead of murdering him with a blunt pencil, I sent him off to the corner shop for cigarettes. Character growth, don't you know?" Cynthia looked up from her typewriter and then frowned at the set, white expression on Edith's face. "I say, darling - problem?"

"I need to borrow a car - urgently. Marigold's chap's been in an accident."

Cynthia leaned over, hooked open Geoffrey's desk drawer with one elegantly manicured hand, and tossed Edith the keys. "Cyn - "

"Just go. I'll deal with his high-and-mightiness." Cynthia tapped out a brisk sentence on her typewriter without looking once at the keys. "If he objects to lending you his car in the middle of an emergency, then - " (Cynthia flushed faintly) " - well, then he isn't the man I thought he was, and I'll never speak to him again."

Edith exhaled. "Thank you."

Marigold closed her eyes against the queasy blur of green fields outside the car window, as her mother accelerated, double de-clutching with all the finesse of a racing-driver. The one good thing about her mother's driving was that it was helping to distract her from what might be waiting for them when they arrived at the hospital, some Godforsaken little place out in the wilds of Hampshire, a couple of miles from where James's plane had gone down.

Nonetheless: "Are you sure you should be driving this quickly?!" she wondered faintly over the roar of the MG T-Type's engine.

"Yes!" Edith called back. "Now, be a dear and do sit quietly, Marigold. Mother needs to concentrate."

"Cigarettes." Geoffrey slapped the pack down on Cyn's desk. "I'm sure the blighter who owns that shop's a bloody profiteer."

Cynthia reached for her purse, rolling her eyes at this typically Geoffrey-ish complaint. "Thank you, gallant sir. How much do I owe you?"

Geoffrey waved a hand in dismissal. "If you go out for the buns at teatime, we'll call it quits, eh?"

"Very sporting of you." Hand retracted rapidly from inside her bag, Cynthia added, off-handedly, "Oh, and Edith's borrowed your car. I said you wouldn't mind."

"My car?" Geoffrey eased himself down into his plush leather desk-chair and set his stick aside, stretching the recovering leg out in front of him. As Cynthia showed no signs of continuing, he prompted, "Well, where the devil's she taken it?"

"She didn't mention." At the widening of Geoffrey's eyes, Cynthia protested, "It was an emergency, she said!"

"And what if she isn't back by clocking-off time?" Geoffrey wondered.

"Then you'll have to slum it like the rest of us, ducky, and catch the bus. Not everyone's lucky enough to have a smart two-seater, you know." Cynthia tapped her cigarette briskly against the packet and raised a quelling eyebrow. "Now, make yourself useful and pass me the matches."

Instead of doing so, Geoffrey reached into his pocket, clicked open his lighter and lit the cigarette that she was holding. "There."

"Th-thank you." Cyn shook herself like a swan resettling her feathers. "Now. What line d'you want to take on this trekkers thing? 'Unpatriotic cowards' or 'Ordinary Brits try to survive terror of the Blitz'?"*

Geoffrey shrugged. "What do you think?"

Cyn looked at him severely over her reading glasses. "Oh, no. Don't think you'll get me that way, Geoffrey Horatio Tremaine. I told you - I'll come along and take photographs, and copy-edit afterwards, not write the whole bally piece for you."

"Not asking you to. What I was offering, my dear Miss Gilchrist, was a collaboration." He frowned. "And how do you know my middle name?"

Cynthia gave him a smile that was only slightly frosty. "The Times' information desk is a font of all sorts of useful knowledge…"

In the hospital waiting room, Anthony sat slumped in a chair against the wall, head bowed, uninjured arm braced on his knee, hat discarded and tie askew. Edith's heart dropped forcefully into her stomach as soon as she saw him. Marigold's hand clenched briefly over her mother's wrist, hard enough that Edith felt the bones grate together. "A-Anthony?"

He lifted his head, and Edith could see the tightness around his mouth and eyes. For a moment, he stared unseeingly at them and then his face seemed to flood with relief and he exhaled, "Thank God you're here." Rising, he gestured along the corridor, "Marigold, my dear, he's - "

Marigold swept past without even saying 'hello' or 'thank you', her face set and determined.

Edith squeezed Anthony's hand, tight. "Tell me absolutely everything," she said simply and let him lead her to a seat.

"My name's Marigold Crawley," Marigold announced to the first nurse she came across, just exiting a private room along the corridor. "I'm Flight Lieutenant Chetwood's fiancée and I want to be taken to him immediately."

"Marigold?" came a croaking voice from behind the half-shut door.

Marigold launched herself immediately forwards, hurtling through the door with a complete absence of composure. "James? Oh, darling, thank God…"

"You must have driven like…" Anthony couldn't seem to find the words to produce complete sentences just now.

"Like the devil," Edith finished for him honestly. "One of my sub-editors has an MG T-Type. Eighty miles an hour, if you know how to treat her properly."

Anthony turned quite pale, and Edith felt his hand tighten on her coat sleeve. "It was absolutely the one and only thing to be done, my dear, so don't waste breath in scolding me," she added crisply. "And quite frankly, looking at the state you're in, I'm only sorry I couldn't manage ninety. Any word from Archie?"

"On his way. Thank you."

"Not at all. What happened?"

Anthony rubbed a hand over his tired eyes. "Dogfight over the Channel - he managed to limp back to shore, thank God, and downed himself in a field, on fire. But he couldn't get the cockpit open. Luckily some farmhands managed to drag him free before the bloody contraption exploded."

Edith's eyes widened. "My God. And what are they saying about his injuries?"

"Some bad burns - face and hands, mainly. And a knock to the head, but he's awake and talking. Minor, they said, in the grand scheme of things." He let out a hollow chuckle. "'Minor' - can you believe it?"

Edith watched helplessly. "Anthony, you look done in. Shall I see if I can track you down a cup of tea? Something to eat?" As she spoke, she began to rise.

"Yes. No. I don't know."

Edith sank down again, and took his hand in both of hers. "My dear, he's alive and conscious, which is a miracle in and of itself. Anything more is a bonus - and starving yourself won't do him a solitary ounce of good. I promise."

"No." But there was no trace of the usual faint smile around his eyes or mouth. "You know, I keep… veering between wishing Diana were here, and being so awfully relieved that she isn't."

"Perfectly natural." Edith's thumb traced soothing circles across his knuckles. "When I heard about Michael's accident, I telephoned his father. He was a lovely old boy - my absolute Rock of Gibraltar afterwards. But it was the most difficult thing I've ever done, telling him that his son was dead."

"And at least I won't have to do that," Anthony agreed quietly.

"No. Thank God, no." Edith rose, letting her hand linger on his shoulder. "I'm going to see about that tea, darling man."

James looked, by any reasonable standards, a mess: two heavily bandaged hands; a surgical pad held over his left eye with more white gauze; cuts and bruises and shiny burns patchworking the rest of his face. "Hello."

Ignoring the bedside chair completely, Marigold sank down onto the edge of the bed and - looking unsuccessfully for a somewhat unharmed part of his face to kiss - made do with leaning forwards and pressing her lips briefly to his hairline, above the uninjured eye. "Your uncle telephoned Mother as soon as he heard and your father's on his way."

James nodded slowly. "Thank you."

"Are you… How are you…?" Marigold stopped. "Oh, darling, you've had such a time of it, haven't you? Thank God you're all right."

"Yes, well…" James cleared his throat and pressed on, with the air of a man about to do something rather unpleasant, "I'm v-very grateful to you for coming - but I think it's best if - if you don't, again."

She drew back, brown eyes startled. "Wh-what?"

James straightened his shoulders, and looked straight past her. "After this… I won't be able to fly again." He lifted his bandaged hands as if for inspection. "They aren't even sure I'll be able to write again."

"What does that matter?" Marigold's voice was sharp. "I'm not planning on letting you out of my sight, let alone far enough away that we'll need letters - "

"Marigold." His voice was weary and raw. "Please. Listen to what I'm saying. You're nineteen years old. A child." His voice hardened. "I - I don't need a wife who can't even look after herself."

"James…"

"Please. Just go. Just go."

Slowly, Marigold removed herself from the bed and walked to the window, staring unseeingly down at the gardens below. There was a heavy, aching silence. "I - I see." Her voice was cool. "Well, then. If that's the way you feel, then… then there's nothing more to be said. W-would you - " She stopped and turned, fiddling with the thin gold chain at her neck until she had fished it out and unhooked the ring that hung at the end of it. "W-would you like this back?"

"I - "

"You probably sh-should take it, you know." Marigold's voice was too bright, too forced, even as the tears overspilled her eyes. "As a matter of fact, I'm not sure whether rings really suit me - childish as I am." She stumbled forwards, dumped the thing with a clatter of metal on the bedside table and pushed on bravely for the door. "G-goodbye, Flight Lieutenant." Her salute shook, like her chin, but she steadied them both. At the threshold, however, her steely resolve cracked; she choked out, "All the l-luck in the world", and fled.

Flight Lieutenant Chetwood closed his uninjured eye and settled back on his pillows, quite hollow and empty.

Marigold's mother and Sir Anthony were talking quietly in the corridor when Marigold appeared. They were holding hands.

"Mother?" Even to her own ears, Marigold knew her voice sounded sharp, accusing even.

Edith looked up at once. "Darling, how - "

"I'd like to go home now p-please," she managed.

Edith began to rise to her feet. "Marigold, sweetheart - ?"

"Honestly." Marigold forced a smile. "J-James… James would p-prefer it."

Edith's face seemed to freeze for a moment, and her eyes flicked briefly to Anthony. "I see. Of course. Darling, I'll be out in a moment - go and wait in the car."

"Mother - "

"Go on." Edith nodded reassuringly. "I just… need five minutes' conversation with Sir Anthony." She rummaged in her pocket and threw Marigold the car keys. "Go and get the car started for me, hmm?"

As the door swung shut behind Marigold, Edith bit out, "Swear to me."

"I'm sorry?" Anthony blinked.

"Swear to me that you didn't put him up to this."

"Absolutely not. I would never - " He stopped at Edith's look of disbelief. He lowered his voice, leaning closer as if by doing so he could convince her of the truth of his words. "If you only knew how much I have regretted that day, Edith, then you would not ask me that question. I would never have advised James to…" He shook his head. "I don't expect you to believe me, but there it is." He sounded utterly defeated.

Edith hesitated and then: "I do believe you," she murmured. "Anthony, I - " She leaned up on her tiptoes and pressed a brief kiss to his cheek. "I'm sorry. I - I have to go."

"Of course."

"I'll telephone," Edith promised. "As soon as I get back to Town."

As soon as Edith slid into the car, Marigold turned and threw her arms around her. "Oh, Mother…"

"Dearest…"

Marigold curled into her mother's arms with a soft whimper. "Please don't," she begged. "I know you didn't approve, but please d-don't s-say 'I t-told you s-so' or…" She couldn't finish.

"Absolutely not," Edith whispered into her hair. "And I won't say any idiotic nonsense about being tested, or needing to stay strong either. You're going to have a bloody good cry, my sweet one, and the largest glass of gin we can find once we get home, and then you're going to go straight to bed and not get up until at least noon tomorrow."

"I don't think we have any gin," Marigold almost wailed into her mother's bosom.

"Darling," Edith reassured her, "we always have gin."

Marigold laughed and hiccuped together. "W-where?"

"In the shoebox under my bed, silly." Edith drew back, smirking a little, and used her thumb to wipe away a trail of tears and mascara from underneath Marigold's eyes. "There is a reason they call it 'mother's ruin', you know."

"Your uncle, Flight Lieutenant."

James cracked open his uninjured eye as Anthony entered and sank down in the bedside chair.

"Oh, Jim. What in God's name have you done?"

AN: *Trekkers was a term used to describe people who drove away from their homes in cities to rural areas to avoid bombing raids. As I understand it, public opinion on them was somewhat divided...