Author's Notes: Moving on to Part 2! Life goes on. Save when it doesn't. Story touches on events in Series 2, Episode 1.

General Warnings: Because this story is set during the early part of the 20th century, be prepared to occasionally run into period typical ableism, racism, sexism, lack of good mental health care or the concept thereof, common childcare concepts we find appalling, classism, and victim blaming. Not to mention different concepts of things like consent. I will try and post specific warnings per chapter!

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and plot in this work belongs to the BBC, Julian Fellows, the wonderful actors and actresses who brought Downton Abbey to life, and a number of other people. This work is produced for entertainment only and no profit is made.

Warnings Ch. 1: Mentions of past sexual assault. Mentions of extensive child abuse and neglect in 19th century Indian Schools in Canada. Period typical racism and sexism. The horrors of warfare. GREVIOUS BODILY HARM featured as war injuries. Minor character death.

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"Your mother really doesn't like me, does she?"

"Midori, Mama doesn't know what to make of my having a secretary. Or that you are an employee and not a servant. You just don't… quite fit into the world she was trained to live in." Edith tried to explain. "It's not personal."

"It feels personal. Lady Grantham gives me the oddest looks sometimes." The younger girl fretted in the passenger's seat.

"Mama gives me the oddest looks sometimes. I think she's just trying to work out how my life turned out the way it has and how I'm content with it. Can you imagine O'Brian teasing my mother?"

"Torturing small animals, yes, teasing, no."

"Are you sure you don't want to stay for the concert? I know your mother loves music."

"Ama loves music, but she's not fond of crowds." Midori's nervous fingers stilled, and she smiled at that. "Did I ever tell you that my older brother played the piano?"

"I know you play the flute." Edith smiled at the mental image of Midori seated on the floor of the library the day before, broad wooden flute pressed to her lips, playing a song while Pip sat and clapped. "Which brother?"

"The second, Ken. My parents first child, my oldest brother, died in the cradle. Then there was Ken, then me."

Edith shuddered at even the thought of losing a child but didn't comment. Both Midori and her mother spoke openly about their family history. Something Edith came to understand was not normal in any of the cultures that had gone into the creation of the Chen family, but rather an expression of the people who made that family up. Edith rather thought that Mrs. Chen was open like Mongolia was open: you could see everything, but that didn't necessarily mean you would realize that it was danger you were looking at.

"Ken made it until shortly before we moved here. Malaria, you understand."

"This was when you were living in South Africa?"

"After the Rebellion, yes. We left China in oh-one – did I mention this before?"

"Perhaps, but remind me?" Edith smiled and her friend nodded in return and willingly offered herself up as the distraction again, as she'd done frequently for the last few days.

"We left China in January of oh-one, lived in Johannesburg for five years, and then moved to the West End. Baba had saved enough to buy a decent sized place and to start an office there. Could you speak to Mrs. Crawley for me?"

Edith blinked at the abrupt change in subject. She'd hoped to just… talk for a while. Anthony hadn't written her in weeks. This had happened before, of course. He'd made sure she knew that it could happen, and she mustn't think the worst. His position in Intelligence made communication difficult at best. He even tried to make it sound as if it was routine, the darling, and as if they still had him in an office.

Edith Strallan was not a foolish woman. If her husband was to have stayed in an office, safe, they would never have left London. Every time there was a break of more than two or three days in their emphatic correspondence her heart crawled into her throat and sat there, shivering.

The concert would be a good distraction. Pip was happily ensconced in his nursery with plenty of supervision and attention. Midori, who viewed helping Edith dress less as a duty and more of a chance to play dress up, was happy to come along and help Edith prepare for a more formal dinner at Downton. If she'd just had her husband with her it might have been perfect.

"What do you want me to speak to Cousin Isobel about?"

"Her visits with my mother." Midori's voice was sheepish enough that Edith didn't have to look at her as she navigated down the twisting road to Downton to know she looked uncomfortable. "Mrs. Crawley's interest in Chinese medicine isn't a bad thing, Edith. My grandfather died in the rebellion and it broke Ama's heart, and father didn't support her continuing to practice. Ama's had a lovely time having someone her own age drop by and want to talk about Tui Na and herbal medicine with. Don't mistake me, I don't want to interfere with their friendship. I certainly don't mean anything… I do like Mrs. Crawley. I just worry."

"About what?" Edith pulled into the long drive and slowed further, surprised at the direction that the discussion had taken.

"They want to speak to Dr. Clarkson about it, and I already know how this ends." One long, slender finger was tapping irritably on an elegantly turned-out knee beneath a wine colored skirt. "Dr. Clarkson is an Englishman-."

"Ooh, no, nono, he's Scottish, we've talked about this."

"If no-one here can grasp that my father was Japanese and my mother was Chinese and, having spent my entire life in Britain and its colonies, I am British, I fail to see why I should have to be specific about which part of this island people are from. You all look alike, you know."

Edith huffed out a laugh at the dig.

"Besides, I've heard this song before, Edith. Mrs. Crawley is an enthusiast. She wants to learn about everything medical and is determined to be open-minded and that's a good thing. It's also something that professional, educated men, don't do. Dr. Clarkson shall listen as politely as he can, then utterly dismiss my mother, our culture, and the written history of our medicine." Midori was genuinely distressed.

"Cousin Isobel will be here today, so I'll see if I can't tactfully bring up how Western Medicine treats Eastern Medicine."

"Thank you." Midori reached for the umbrella. "Let me see you to the door, Lady Strallan, and then I will attend to your toilette for the evening when summoned."

Edith cracked a smile at the false servility the other young woman offered her and spared a moment to thank Matthew's failed chivalric tendencies, her husband's odd hiring practices, and fate for offering up the first friend she could actually call her own.

"Thank you, Midori. Getting me into my dresses isn't actually your job."

"My lady," Midori's smile was pert in the extreme and Edith snickered as her words followed them up the steps, "as long as you aren't attempting to get me out of mine, then you are doing so much better than my last boss."

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

"John Monture." Sir Anthony spoke quietly, shoulder to shoulder on the short bench. "I'm afraid that's not familiar at all?"

"No, nothing. I-." Stewart forced himself to swallow. "I was… I was young. There were so many schools. I don't recall. I have no memory of it."

"I had wondered if that had improved in the years since."

"No… it… no."

Lowering his head into his hands and balancing his elbows on his knees, Nicholas Stewart breathed. A deep breath in, then hold it, then let it out slowly. Once, twice, three times. Anchoring him in place like the only piece of reality in some twisted fairyland, Sir Anthony's broad hand on his shoulder held him in place.

"Schools?"

Anthony closed his eyes and resisted the urge to glare at the man sitting across from them. The wiry doctor was short and wiry. Perhaps a few years Anthony's junior he seemed far too young to have the authority he did, but it remained that this was the man who could best help them. He was also the only one who'd proven remotely useful.

"Indian Schools."

Anthony winced as Stewart croaked the words out. The proper public-school accent they'd crafted for his valet so carefully as they both recovered from wounds in South Africa was more shattered than cut glass at this point, but no hint of the rough Quebecois accent Stewart had once had bled through. Instead, the unimaginable shock he was now experiencing was showing itself in the slow precision with which his batman was speaking.

"Ah." The doctor blinked and cleared his throat. Just like his patient, the man was Canadian. "Well, yes, I can see how twins could be separated, though I'm surprised you don't at least know – well, that's immaterial. You're undeniably related."

Anthony bit back an acid response. The exhausted surgeon sitting on a broken stool across from them was not the enemy. He'd taken time to speak to them. He'd been genuinely concerned for Stewart when Anthony had been forced to catch him beneath the armpits after he'd reeled back from the poor broken soul in the bed.

A week ago, John Monture had looked exactly like his valet. Not as an expression. Not said in exaggeration. The Canadian private sported cropped-short hair far less neat than his valet. He was a shade thinner, and his teeth had not developed as well or as straight. However, these niggling details aside, the man was the precise mirror image of Nicholas Stewart.

Or he would be, were he not short both legs, his genitalia, and his right arm.

Swathed in bandages and covered in a blanket, John Monture had hovered between life and death for days, soundlessly blinking up at the ceiling of the once-ballroom, he'd occasionally let out a strangled whimper or hiss. He kept breathing, however, and despite nearly everyone shying away from the wreck of a twenty-nine-year-old man… he wasn't yet technically dead.

The only time he'd moved at all since he'd been brought in and cobbled together in surgery was to pluck at Stewart's trousers. Now? Now they were sitting by his bedside, Stewart staring down into the horrific image of what might become of any of them, while Anthony wondered if there was any possible way to help someone in a situation like this.

"Where's he from?" Stewart finally asked, reaching out with shaking hands and taking John Monture's one remaining limb.

The staring eyes didn't even twitch.

"Canada, specifically…" Dr. Frazier checked the papers clipped to the end of the bed. "It says Montreal here, but that was probably his last address, not where he was originally from. Not if you were sent off for rehabilitation."

Anthony reached out and gripped Stewart's shoulder, hard, as he watched the smaller man's hackles rise at the casual use of that word in relation to what he'd endured in those places.

"There's not going to be anything in his paperwork about his past, but we've got his effects. Let me get them for you." The doctor rose, his voice distant and his face pale and strange as he looked down at the patient whose every breath filled him with visible regret. "It won't be long now."

Frazier was wrong. It was four interminable hours before John Monture ceased breathing. He never woke up. He said not a word. After that initial exertion, whatever it had taken to grab onto Stewart's trousers, it had been too much for him. Since that point, the coffee brown eyes had stared sightlessly upwards, and the equally dark brown hair had stayed pressed to the pillow. Slowly, what little color had been held in the man's buckskin complexion faded into gray and his chest ceased to rise and fall.

"Stewart, did you want to stay?"

"No."

"He'll be buried."

"We all are sir, one way or another."

Anthony swallowed hard and Stewart shook his head, visibly trying to regain his usual iron control as he clutched at the rough canvas bag that Frazier had handed him oh-so-gently earlier. Everything left of John Monture's life was tucked into that bag. Needless to say, it wasn't much.

"Not… I don't mean to give up, sir." Stewart rallied enough to finally look at Anthony and not through him. "I didn't know the man. Don't know him."

"And yet, he was you, wasn't he?"

It was far from silent on the train bearing them back towards Jolly Old England (not that anything was remotely Jolly) as they steamed every further from hell and closer to heaven in Anthony's mind. They were packed into a car with about a third more people than it really needed to contain, all of them soldiers in various stages of filth, health, and exhaustion. Their gear bags were stuffed beside their feet, but Stewart held tight to the small bag perched on his lap.

"Makes me more grateful for the Boer disposition than I thought I'd be, Sir Anthony. If not for that, there but for the Grace…" The younger man rubbed a hand over his face. "Christ. I didn't even have my birthday right."

"No. Correct year, wrong month." Stewart had been certain he'd been born in January, as he dimly recalled he was considered a year older in the winter. John Monture's paperwork had revealed he was born on November twentieth. "However, Stewart, look at it this way. You now get two birthdays this year."

Stewart managed a strangled huff of something that might have been vaguely related to laughter.

"That's another half-day, undisputed on my end of course."

"True, but the Kaiser may have other ideas."

"Never liked the man, no matter what Maud said." Anthony, whose mind cast back to one place when he had to think of something good amidst the horror, veered into territory he knew was a touch dangerous. "Perhaps if you ask nicely Miss Midori might make ramen for the occasion."

Stewart was normally more stone-faced than Anthony could ever hope to manage, British stiff-upper lip, and the expectations of his rank and upbringing aside. It was a mark of how absolutely unhinged the bloody horror of it had had left him that he swiveled his head to look at Anthony like a deer caught sideways by an elephant gun. Anthony patted him on the shoulder.

"I haven't made it that obvious, have I?"

"No." Anthony was quick to reassure him. "And a good thing. The lady in question is justifiably skittish on that front."

A drawn-out mutter in obscene Canadian gutter French followed. Anthony dutifully overlooked it. Normally he would have considered some censure outside the trenches, but what was normal about warfare, let alone the hell that was Stewart's childhood? Obscenity was the proper way to describe it.

"I don't believe she's entirely opposed. It's merely a matter of her very justified and natural suspicion of our end of things, so to speak." Anthony went on, gently. "Besides, her mother loves you. Excellent start, that!"

Stewart managed a weak shadow of a smile and Anthony silently wondered how the Kind and Loving God he'd been raised to believe in could have written a world like this into his Book of Fate.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Edith that's exquisite, where did you get it?"

"I've had it, Mama, we just… did a bit with it."

Edith felt herself flush darkly at the unexpected and unprecedented compliment from her mother. Then she smoothed her gloved hands nervously over her dress. Beside her, Sybil let out a little squeal and Mary looked at her in a blank shock that was more rewarding than all the compliments in the world.

"Ooh, the embroidery! Did Midori do it?"

"She did, Sybil." Edith smiled to herself. "You should see what she'll be wearing tonight. Or her mother. Mrs. Chen's embroidery is even better than her daughter's."

"Actually, did… did you have a gown remade?" Mary frowned, turning and leaving Anna standing as her dark hair fell about her shoulders. "Isn't that the apricot frock I picked out for you?"

Edith felt her lips pinch tight at the memory. A few months before her elopement her turn for a new gown had come up. Mary had insisted on coming along, of course, and Mama had insisted she should. Shortly thereafter, Mary had inveigled her way into the entire process – like she often did – teasing and cajoling and acting sisterly in the falsest manner possible. Mama, of course, had beamed and been so happy her girls had been getting along that she'd fussed at and overruled Edith until the pale blue dress she'd wanted had become an apricot-colored dress with far too much lace for her figure. Mary had smirked and waited until the first time Edith wore it to supper to agree wholeheartedly with Granny that the color looked horrible with Edith's complexion.

"It was." Edith agreed more smartly than she'd intended. "Given that we've got a war on, I thought making things over might be a better gesture than shopping."

Mary flushed slightly and turned back to her mirror. She'd done "some shopping" in London. Edith reflected it wasn't exactly taking the high road to make a dig at her over it and reminded herself to be good. She and Mary were in a room together. They could be civil. They had been, hadn't they?

"I love what you've done with it, Miss Chen." Lady Grantham saved them all with grace and dignity, her tone surprised. "You've got a wonderful talent for embroidery."

"My mother's family was originally from Suzhou, Lady Grantham. There is no place in the world to go for finer embroidery."

Midori's voice was the usual soft purr she put into effect around people she didn't trust or like. Edith wished she wouldn't do it. Sometimes it could be hilarious, but it wasn't exactly useful around her mother. Edith couldn't blame her; she'd come to understand what a burden Midori's beauty could be to her, and that her friend had been forced to be on her guard since she was around twelve, of all the horrid things. That said, her campaign to convince her mother that Midori wasn't something of a scarlet woman wasn't going well with Midori's stubbornness behind it.

"How fascinating, and your mother embroiders as well?"

Then again, Edith couldn't underestimate her mother's interest in fashion. Or her fondness for embroidery. The Countess was a fine artist on matters of the needle herself, but Edith knew all too well how beautiful the things that Midori viewed as something to keep her hands busy turned out.

"My mother is far more skilled than I can hope to be in anything less than thirty years more, Lady Grantham." Midori murmured, distracted. "Edith, tilt your head."

Edith tilted her head and avoided the looks her family gave as her secretary forgot to use her title. She didn't blame Midori. They'd already dampened Edith's hair with a comb, now Midori was working with a hot electric curling iron. The contraption made Edith just a tad nervous – she'd always preferred to put her hair in rags the night before – but Midori's persistence had won out and they'd started using it. Now, she fell into silence as she sat with Midori twisting her hair about, then setting aside the torture device, and returning with a mouthful of pins and a plan. Edith was not privy to this plan, she just had to trust it. Cooperation was the price of having your secretary make you up for the evening.

"Glad to be back?"* Sybil, already mostly ready, changed the subject and turned to where Anna was working on Mary with silent efficiency.

Edith, whose hair had consented to go up into the soft folds of curls that Midori wanted, concentrated on holding still as the younger woman went over the basket of her evening's doom. Edith liked how the results of Midori's particular brand of magic turned out. She truly did. The process just made her nervous.

Midori had already dressed Edith and now she wrapped a thin white muslin sheet around her neck and pinned it in place. Inside a cylindrical box of polished bamboo were a selection of brushes. Inside a drawstring pouch were three different enameled compacts, four different small lacquer boxes, and three miniscule round tins. Now, without adieu, Midori attacked her face with the three different shades of powder within the compacts and several brushes of different sizes.

Momentarily distracted, the other women turned to look at this rather different application of makeup. Anna watched, her eyes alight with interest. The conversation was momentarily derailed.

"What are you doing, Midori?" Sybil asked, curious as could be.

"Liquid makeup does not sit well on Lady Strallan." Midori explained, and between her concentration and her fondness for Sybil, her tone came out normal to Edith's relief. "You can't put makeup on everyone the same way. She has strong features, so you must emphasize what makes her beautiful as herself. You can't try and make someone look like someone else."

Midori finished the brushing and reached for one of the little tins.

"You don't want too much makeup, not here, but a little rouge on the cheeks and eyes…" Edith closed her eyes and felt Midori's fingers quickly rubbing along her cheekbones and making a single delicate little sweep over her eyelids. She didn't open them; she knew to expect the brush next and a little bit of some other color of powder. "Something to emphasize her eyes. Do you want cat eyes?"

"The barest touch. Maybe only on the top."

"Mmn." Edith heard the tiny jar being unscrewed and felt the tiny brush wing delicately along her upper lids lashes. "Mascara?"

The other tin opened and the little bristle-brush came out.

"Of course." Edith popped her eyes open in time to see one of the tins open to reveal a pot of lip rouge almost exactly the same shade her lips normally were. She puckered and waited while Midori smoothed it in place with another brush, examined the effect, then handed her a clean-if-marked handkerchief from her kit to blot with.

"Goodness!" Sybil enthused. "I know you're wearing makeup, and I can tell, but I can't really see it at the same time."

"It doesn't look cheap at all." Mary agreed and Edith shot her a dry look before stopping at the perplexing look her mother had on her face.

"Mama?"

"You look lovely Edith." Lady Grantham smiled and cut her eyes towards Midori. "Miss Chen, are you sure you're not a lady's maid?"

"Thank you, Lady Grantham." Midori, apparently not trusting herself to answer in greater detail, offered a little bow in response. "Lady Strallan, if you don't need anything else…"

"Of course and thank you." Edith dismissed her and then turned to find all eyes in the room on her. Standing quickly, she smoothed her skirt as Midori tidied up the makeup things, packed it all away, and made her escape. Flustered, she leapt backwards for another conversational topic. "You never answered Sybil's question. Are you happy to be back in Downton, Mary?"

Her sister turned back to the mirror and Anna back to her duties, answering in an airy and slightly put-upon tone.

"I'm never sure. When I'm in London, I long for Yorkshire, and when I'm here, I ache to hear my heels clicking on the pavement. I'd forgotten about this nightmare concert. Why didn't you warn me? I'd have come back tomorrow."*

"Well, that would be a pity." Lady Grantham offered carefully. "We're having a rather large family dinner tonight. Cousin Isobel is going to be there… and Matthew."

Feeling out of place in makeup such as she hadn't worn since the last time she and Anthony had hosted someone at Strallan House, before he was torn away from her, and in a frock that had literally been resurrected out of something Mary had done to torment her, Edith spoke without thinking even as Mary froze on her vanity stool.

"Yes, he's bringing Lavinia with him, isn't he? He asked me to have them over at Loxley tomorrow." Edith's mind was firmly back at Strallan House, when she and her husband had invited Isobel up to surprise Matthew, and instead he'd surprised them by bringing a young lady over to dinner, forcing early introductions all around. Her memories lingered on how her own husband's kindness had saved the evening, and she suddenly missed him so fiercely she didn't stop to think. "Claudia said they were engaged when we had tea last Tuesday."

Everything stopped and Lady Grantham sighed. Mary wheeled around, her expression a mask of surprise and hurt.

"What?"

"Edith, I don't know how helpful you-."

"You didn't know?" Edith was genuinely surprised, but worse, she felt herself flush as she realized just how heartless that must have sounded even as the words slipped out of her mouth and Mary rounded on her, dark eyes flashing.

"And how was I supposed to know?"

"On the train in April, you said that you wanted Matthew to be happy. I assumed you meant with his courtship… I mean, there's…"

Edith floundered and, to her surprise, Edith watched as her older sister swallowed visibly and turned away. While she watched, Mary Crawley… controlled herself.

"Well, I do. Want him to be happy, I mean." Mary cleared her throat and raised an eyebrow. "So how long have you known?"

"Well, Matthew met her a little more than a year ago. I think." Edith stumbled. "I'm not sure precisely when they met, but in August of last year Matthew was in town and Anthony and I thought it would be nice for Isobel to see him. So we raced Cousin Isobel up and invited him over for supper at the last minute as a surprise. It – I didn't think of it at the time, but I bent his arm a little, and he ended up asking if he could come with a guest as he had dinner plans."

"And his guest was this Lavinia?"

"Lavinia Swire." Edith heard the demand in her mother's tone and sheepishly complied. Without Anthony present, it was easy to fall into old habits. "Her father started out in law, but he's come up quite a bit in business. Specifically, investment. He's a close friend of the Gervas' so he's in our dining circle in town. She's – she's a very nice girl."

"Well, marvelous."*

"You're don't mind?"* Sybil turned to Mary in surprise as her sister continued to primp in the mirror.

"Why should I? We're not going to marry, but I don't want him to spend the rest of his life in a cave."* Mary turned in her seat to give Edith a challenging look. "I meant what I said. I… wish both of them nothing but the best."

"That's a wonderful way to look at it, darling." Cora's approval all but shone out of her, though her eyes were worried, and Edith winced at the look her mother shot her. Yes, she was definitely going to be "brought up on charges" for not sharing information, wasn't she?

"Anyway, there's someone I want you all to meet. Have you ever come across Richard Carlisle?"*

Edith started at the mention of the name. Then again, given the verbal consequences of her reticence and assumptions regarding Matthew's going on, perhaps transparency was the best answer.

"I've met him in London." Edith confirmed and at Mary's arch look, shrugged uncomfortably. "He's rather blunt and Anthony doesn't think much of his journalistic ethics, but I can't say much else about him. It was just one dinner party, and he spent a great deal of it smoking on the terrace with an MP from the south coast."

"He didn't ask you to dance?"

Mary's tone was wry and sharp and Edith rallied against the sinking feeling dinner at Downton sometimes gave her.

"I was eight months gone with Phillip at the time." The Sahara amused itself by shooting heat shimmers off Edith's tongue. "At that point the only person willing to risk a dance was the midwife."

Sybil tittered appreciatively and Mary, whose dark eyes were brittle and sharp, assayed a small smile. Her mother visibly thawed. Edith tried to think of a tactful way to go on, but Mary took the issue out of her hands by going on to mention that she was sad that they couldn't invite him up to shoot. A few more words and Edith found herself chivied out the door along with Sybil and her mother and felt an unfamiliar well of sympathy for Mary.

She couldn't find it in her heart right not to wish anyone separated from those they loved.