The Bygone Days

by phantomwriter05

In the Blitz of 1941 - Two star-crossed couples are reunited 20 years after their tragic deaths. Now, amidst a world afire they must navigate change, remarriages, and dark secrets while a long lost father attempts to help a once heroic son - haunted by his failure during the Spanish Civil War. Yet, in the shadows, a traitor deep within the House of Grantham helps plot its downfall.

17. You Were Mine

She couldn't sleep, not properly, maybe never again.

It was always there now, the memory, the nightmare, right outside her very bedroom window. The cloudless deep blue of the open horizon that seemed to go on for ever and ever in the fresh air of the Yorkshire Countryside. She was fascinated by the moon that was nearly translucent in the daylight sky, barely visible, a phantasmal image, like an imprint from the previous night. She had been at the window, sitting on the sill, all day. She held a novel that she read fifty pages of and did not comprehend a word. She took out her stack of letters, old and yellowing, a timeline, a novel of its own, of her and Tom's first correspondence.

How different the world was back then - a golden time. She read his handwriting, mouthed her own letters that she could recite without reading them. Sometimes she wished to write new ones to that same man - older and wiser, twelve years of marriage later. What would she tell him? That she loved him still? That he would be all she thought of after all these years? That he deserved better? That they would take their unborn child from them? That she wasn't a woman, a true woman, any longer? Could she have told him that it was better if they never married, never met? That someday she would be so terribly lonely, so terribly and utterly without? The days slowly passing in an execrable hell as each minute was like a lifetime, a reminder of everything that had been lost that shall not be nor ever could be their future? That she only feels sadness and grief, anger and hatred, that tears her asunder every night, like the carrion birds that come for Prometheus.

She had written that letter, to the Tom Branson that was sleeping in their bed at their family's villa in the South of France - a time of happiness that was never ending. The girls – Sybbie and Marigold – playing in the water, Robert and Cora yachting, Bertie and Edith dancing in private with abandon to the jazz music. Mary back at Downton with her movie – the only wholesome one she would ever make. And George … George "The Comet" Crawley, a dark rumor, a shadow, of whom she never met, that was storming a cursed and evil castle in the mountains of Wallachia to fight an old demon. The boy was a stranger, a curse, that was far, far, away from them and their life – their happiness. She had everything that she had ever wanted, needed, in that place. She had the love of her life, her mummy, a prim and beautiful young stepdaughter who adored her. There was fun, excitement, and even a bit of mystery all in an exotic place she never dreamed she would ever step foot. Back then, after so long as an outcast, on the periphery of other grand and important lives, she never believed that she, herself, would be living the life that she had. That someday someone would be fetching her a towel after getting back from a luxurious and glamorous adventure.

What she would've given to live in those days forever.

But then, half-way through her letter, perhaps a confession of why she was who she was now to the man she only ever wanted to be good enough for, she was interrupted by the blaring alarm that echoed through the house. Marigold came over the PA speaker system that was in every hall and room in Downton Abbey. General Quarter, all staff and officers to battle stations, all civilian personnel to the wine cellar in the basement. Outside her window, she heard the air-raid siren being sounded to the other RAF personnel on the estate. It was a cacophony of noise that she could still hear in her sleep, in the psychobabble of a bedroom that was too quiet … and when she dreamed. The wailing rolling siren being cranked by one of the female general staff on the front lawn of Downton that joined to the collision alarm blaring through the speakers while Marigold continued to announce that they were in "Condition Red".

Then, there it was, right out her window. There was booming in the distance, the soft wailing and screaming carried on the late summer's wind, getting closer and closer. The acoustics of the gallery through the open windows catching the fireworks display set off in a thunderstorm. She could hear the fifty-caliber cannons matching, dueling, the orchestra of 20-millimeter anti-aircraft German guns - the rapid but thin underbelly of the RAF Browning Machine Guns that came in short and surgical bursts. It was a deafening and terrifying movement, symphony, as each side vied for supremacy. She watched in muted amazement and fantastic terror from her window at the array of contrail and smoke trails in the far distance that was closing by the moment. Her eyes grew wide, transfixed in horror as planes, fighters and heavy bombers, fell out of the sky - little black specks whose alloy bodies shimmered a moment in the sun before disappearing behind the tree screen. Then, the floor would shake gently, and a fire ball would rise above the canopies with ugly black smog of burning gasoline that would mark like a waypoint where Satan and his followers fell from heaven.

But she, instead, hearing the running feet of the general staff outside her room – the clink of their metal 'tin hats' and struggling to put on their yellow flak jackets – simply sat back at the sill and continued the letter, listening as the fighting got closer and closer. On the lawn, she heard the metal rolling of the two anti-aircraft guns on either side of the front lawn path in their ring of sandbag defenses. She wondered only momentarily who would man them. Half the military personnel at Downton had their off day and scattered across Yorkshire, taking the staff jeeps – as it was planned. She thought she heard Edith and Rose's voices, Mr. Barrow instructing them.

Quickly, in shock, she looked out her window by her vanity and saw that she had not been mistaken. There they were, the three of them, Edith and Rose, in their silk sundresses and pearls. Summer bonnets traded for flat brim metal helmets, their fashionable shawls for flak jackets, and their garden party for manning the guns. She watched the butler of Downton Abbey instructing the Countess of Sinderby how to load. Meanwhile, the Marchioness of Hexham - having an honorary colonelcy in the Titan Corps and a veteran now of half-a-dozen engagements from the "Battle of Grantham Hill" to the "Rhun Wars" in North Africa - was checking the gun's firing mechanism. One could never have told by looking at the always glamorous and immaculately dressed Lady Edith Pelham that she could ready and prime such a large weapon of war on her own. But then, like the woman watching her, Edith had learned from tragedy how to be tough. Learned from long exposer to a shadowy figure that darkened all their days, fooling herself into thinking that he was worthy of a great love that she had bestowed upon him dearly.

Guilt, terrible and pronounced, rang the bell deep in her heart as she forced herself to turn away. In her letter to Tom, she spoke about Edith and Bertie, telling him how close they'd become over the years. How Edith was, truly, one of her first and truest friends she ever had in her life. And that someday in his future, when Downton Abbey is sacked and it remains a rotting ruin for many a year, that it was their closeness, their friendship with Edith and Bertie, that would keep their damaged and broken family together till Mary's return from "Royal Obligation". She would grow to see Edith and Mary as her sisters, because of their shared love for Tom. They would take her into their confidence and accept her when the rest of the world, society, never had – the natural daughter of a Great Lady and her husband's Batman. He had to understand that she was doing this for them, for all of them, this thing that perhaps he would never forgive her for. Only when it was done would they know peace, that everything would return to the way it was, in the days of their courtship, the day of their wedding, the premiere of Mary's movie …

Before they all introduced her to him … and her life, their lives, were never the same again.

As they usually did – perhaps Marigold at the Master Switch Board – the PA System was fed into the coms of the Titan Air Corps' "Rogue Squadron". It didn't happen all the time, but when their family knew that the Titans were in combat, someone would purposefully broadcast their coms and battle chatter through the speakers in Downton Abbey. It was then that the entire household would listen in like a radio drama and sports commentary all rolled into one nightmarish chaotic broadcast that no one could bear to hear nor switch off. If something was to happen to the master of the house, the Lord of the House of Grantham, the fools that loved him, who cared for him, would rather face it in real time. Even to her, it would seem a cruel job to make Tom have to tell a distraught Edith and broken Mary that their boy was gone.

The woman wrote in her letter that she was glad that Marigold did it, it was better this way, she didn't want to hurt or torment the man she loved any more than she already had and was. Fore, on that day, she knew what it was to carry that weight, to feel the consequences of that dreadful moment when you knew something awful happened to someone in your family, and you - still the outsider in many ways - were the only one who knew it. It was a pity, a tragedy, that Rose was outside, in the sandbag bunker, standing by while Edith was in the gunner seat and Barrow working the swivel crank. For when the woman heard it, her pen - mid-flourish on a stylized letter in looping cursive - fell from her hands.

She looked up into the hall, opened her door – was this going to be it?

Was it all truly going to happen as it all had been planned?

They had been a squadron of Nazi volunteers, all with a single purpose – to kill "The Comet". They provided no cover for the bombers, they barely cared about the RAF fighters that were giving chase. They were there to kill Titans. Led by the Nazi's best pilot in the entire Reich – The dreaded and deadly "Wolf" Montanovo - anyone but double aces, who fought in Poland and France, need not apply for the top priority mission. A reward of 80,000 Marks and a triple promotion was up for grabs for any man that could kill George "The Comet" Crawley that day. It would be a sum that was rumored to be matched by the British Royal Family once David Windsor was restored to King-Emperor under new peace negotiations with the Reich.

Much resources had been spent – one time use and favors from collaborators and imbedded agents in the British Military and Officialdom collected to pull off such an ambitious operation. They did not have any idea where the Titan airdrome might be, but they knew now where their headquarters, communication hub, and where their production facility was located. And they knew that the Titan's "Rogue Squadron", battle worn and war weary, would be forced to defend it while undermanned and under strength. It was a perfect time and moment, at the climax of the "Battle of Britain", to go after the 'Foederati' while they were vulnerable.

Soon, no matter how corrupt Whitehall might be, no one in their right mind would allow a Nazi 'War Party' – As the Titans called them – to breach so deep into Northern England and bomb with impunity. There would be legions of RAF squadrons converging on them very shortly. But those who took up this mission were the fanatics, the true believers in the Reich and the Aryan way of a superior German people – those willing to die for the cause of purity. To them, the Titan Corps and their Captain, "The Comet", were fundamentally evil. For the Titans – their antagonists since "Rune Wars" – were made up of different races and nationalities, a quilted cloth of cultures and backgrounds whose merit as pilots and fighters were all that mattered – the American way.

And thus, for many of the pilots and crews of the Nazi raiding party that day, of who set out to destroy Downton Abbey and the vital town of Ripon, it was more akin to a Holy Crusade or Fundamentalist Jihad, than a military operation. The death of a Titan, of a Grantham of Downton Abbey that day, that hour, was one less evil in the world. Most of them died, some getting what they wished for, shooting down an American Negro, a Japanese defector, a Polish avenger. But of the main thrust of this desperate and ambitious assault had they not gotten what so many in German High Command and Buckingham Palace alike wanted …

But they had him on the ropes.

Nothing was held back on what they must have known was a one-way trip. She stood at the door, even when the battle was out the window, and listened, staring intently at the speaker just outside her and Tom's bedroom. They were tenacious in their fervor, their zeal fueled by the knowledge that they were already dead from the moment they slipped undetected from the RAF radar stations outside of Leeds. However, "The Comet" always evaded, always escaped, taking them down one, two, at a time. But she could hear it in his voice, in his strain of command with his overrun squadron – their RAF allies dropping like flies. He was digging deep in his bag of tricks, 'losing the zip on his fastball' – to use a baseball reference that only the former Lady's Maid would understand. And for a moment, stopping her letter, she had truly believed that they had him.

This was it.

Marigold was on the com, going back and forth with him, trying to find someone, anyone, to help him. The woman's heart went out to that beautiful and angelic ballerina. She could hear the destress in her sweet and innocent young voice as she tried to find someone not engaged or dead to come to his aid. When it was all over, she would do anything, anything, for her niece. She'd spend the rest of their lives making up to her for what she believed was about to happen – what she wished for. Marigold would get over it, move on, think fondly of this young man, this cousin, that she loved dearly – perhaps too much –maybe even name a child after him. But in time she would see that it was for the best, the best for all of them that he was gone.

Marigold, above anyone, should remember fondly the best of times, the greatest of times, that they had when she was but a little girl, a ward, when all their adventures and happenings as a family where wholesome and filled with hijinks – not blood and danger. In time, the blonde elven creature of such loveliness that it hurt to look upon her, would see that all of this was for her benefit, for all of their benefit.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Atticus broke off his intense dogfight with "The Wolf" to come to his nephew's aid, responding with a paternal imperative at Marigold's despairing distress for someone to help her lifelong champion and hero. The woman felt shame for the way her heart sank when Lord Sinderby - Squadron Leader of "Lion Group" - cleared one of the Nazi aces off his nephew's tail, while the younger "Rogue Leader" made a tight yawing break that completely outturned the trailing German 109. Their joint maneuver that had been fueled by familial chemistry and familiarity was such a success that the Comet's turn had ended up circling behind the German ace so that he found himself on the tail of his own hunter. The former lady's maid's shoulders slumped and the conflict in her heart was accented by the surprise sigh of relief when the Captain confirmed to Atticus and Marigold that the German Ace was 'Finished', watching the smoking fighter crash into the back nine of Yew Tree Farm.

Then, it happened.

From above - forgotten in the desperation to fill a paternal need in family obligation at the height of deadly battle - "The Wolf" Montanovo came from the sun. In revenge for the scrape that Lord Sinderby gave his pristine plane - never touch before - "The Wolf" dove on the distracted Atticus who was sharing a quick snippet of fond banter with his niece and nephew in the victorious moment. 20 Millimeter Anti-Aircraft Guns sawed the Second Lord of Sinderby's Spitfire in twine – chewing through his aluminum plating and rivets like a newly sharpened can opener. She could hear it on the com channel, in the dead of night, in her nightmares.

Marigold was continuously asking what was going on, the voice of "Rogue Leader" drowning her out, isolated on the frequency as he shouted on the radio for Atticus to 'bailout'. She could still hear it, could still see Rose outside, unaware, pushing up the tin hat that was too big for her as she chatted with Edith that sat in the gunner seat, Mr. Barrow looking through binoculars to keep apprised of the situation. She didn't know, she couldn't hear it, this woman, the love of his life … and she didn't suspect a thing.

Lion Leader? Come in, Lion Leader? Uncle Atticus come in! What's happening?! Rogue Leader come in! Rogue - George!?

"Bailout damnit! Atticus, bailout! BAILOUT GOD-DAMNIT! BAIL-OUT! ATTI-CUS!"

"ROOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSSEEEEEEE!"

VVVFFFFFOOOOOMBBBBOOOOMMM

Six months now passed in headlights cutting through the pitch darkness of night that approached from the main driveway of Downton Abbey. The glint of the languid light in the dark room caught the red shot eyes of a woman in tears. Her mind, trapped, eaten, by the waking nightmare that came upon her in sleep and remained in the motionless darkness of the early morning hours that she wasn't sure was a dream or reality. The woman was overcome with emotion upon seeing the headlights. She knew them, whom they belonged to at any time, she could feel it. Her breath came in a shuttered emotional sigh as a light, brighter than the headlights, came over her heart and she knew that it was a sign, a message from somewhere in the ether …

That this was not over yet.

As she watched the motor follow the gravel driveway and start turning around the back, she slowly breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't going to be today … it didn't have to be today. There was still hope, there was still more to do, perhaps a victory could still be found. She looked at the framed black and white picture on her vanity of her wedding day in 1928, of whose anniversary had been closing fast. There she had been with Tom, both smiling, both happy, her veil long and white, her hair in perfect curls as she clutched her bouquet and Tom clutched her.

Once more, she was reminded of why she did any of this, why she was needed at all. And, not for the first time, not for the first night, she questioned with a sniffle what she was doing. How close she came again. Tom, his presence, was a clarity, a sobriety, that she relied upon. It seemed that when she was alone, she was never truly herself. Fore, perhaps, she hadn't found who she had been, truly been, till she met him, till she loved him.

Slowly, soberly, Mrs. Lucy Branson let fall the barrel of the loaded pistol from her temple that had been put there in a rush of anxious guilt and a deep and powerful shame. Her hand trembled still in the falling adrenaline as her arm slid to her side. She looked down at the pages of yellow stationary that had the red ink of her immaculate penmanship. Her letter she wrote six months ago to the Tom Branson that was mere hours from marrying her was wrinkled and half crumbled from all the times since that fateful day that Lucy had clutched in her hand, as she, with tears in her eyes, took her husband's service side-arm and placed it to her temple. For a long time, in the dark of a haunted midnight, she would stand there, staring at the phantasmal gloom of the witching hours that reflected off the glass frame of her wedding picture. But there was always something that kept her from doing it, from admitting defeat just yet. Tonight, it was Tom's unexpected and unlooked for return to Downton, to her.

Sniffling shakily, clearing away her tears with her wrists, she walked over to her nightstand that was graced with a picture of a young Sybbie and her on the balcony of the late Lady Violet's Villa in France. The girl, before her molestation, before she was taken away from them … before him, was a beautiful and sweet princess. Perhaps a bit spoiled, a priss to a high degree, and not very kind to strangers that didn't have a societal rank – all the hallmarks of Lady Mary Talbot's rearing. But she liked Lucy, and she loved the idea of her daddy being happy - no matter who it was with. The two had bonded quickly over fashion, both clothes and hair. Young Sybbie loved the idea of her step-mamma being a Lady's Maid. That way, between Mary and Lucy, she would never leave the house looking rather frumpy again. In the picture, Lucy was holding the darling and enchanting little beauty from behind, resting her chin on her mountain of long elegant raven locks in perfect ringlets that were accented with a white rose behind her ear. It was both Tom and Lucy's favorite picture for many, many years. Even after what happened in Spain, when she asked if she shouldn't put it away, if only to spare his feelings, Tom said no.

'Nothing she does can change how I feel about that perfect little angel.'

She opened the drawer and put away the pistol, as she did most nights. She looked out the window, trying to see his motor. When it was obvious that he had driven round back by now, Lucy gave a once over at the tree line in the distance near the Haunted Woods. Her eyes lingered, waiting, searching. When nothing happened, she turned away … though not before giving a double take in case she missed 'it'. She opened her vanity drawer and folded her well gripped and worn letters before placing them inside. But she did not close it yet, for near her creams and make-up kit there sat a chrome torch and, beside it, a black handbook with gold embroidery that remained unmarked. She took both in her hands quickly, finally realizing what Tom being home, unexpectedly, means.

She thoughtlessly dumped the metallic torch with a rattle into the vanity drawer and shut it. However, not knowing when her husband might arrive, she quickly opened her make-up case. She pulled out the three-tier box that had multi-shaded lipsticks, blushes of every color for every occasion, thick and thin eyeliner, and all the equipment needed to shape hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes. One does not really stop being a lady's maid when it was what you're best at, and Lucy Branson had become essential during the war for the women of Downton on nights when they had to entertain. No matter what they asked for, their beloved sister-in-law seemed to have it. But for now, this treasure trove of Black-Market French cosmetics took a back seat as she pulled out all of the tiers till she had reached the bottom of her box.

She quickly looked over her shoulder as she took the black and gold unmarked book in hand. When she saw her door still closed, she looked back down and pulled aside the crimson velvet lining of her make-up kit to reveal a secret compartment. Inside were documents and snatches of papers, and atop all of them was a folded map of Cornwall. Upon it all the major coastal shires were circled with a black grease pen, with half of them now with big red X's in a certain, unspecified, form of process of elimination. Lucy, deliberately, buried the book under the documents that had "For Your Eyes Only" stamped in red on their corners. Reaching over, she reassembled her make-up kit one tier at a time till no one could have ever known, guessed, what was hidden at the bottom.

Before she closed it, she removed a handkerchief that was already stained in black from cleaning wetted mascara most nights. With a sniff, Lucy looked into the mirror and wiped her eyes, opening some concealer from her kit and giving a dab to hide the puffiness. There was a second wind, a new rise inside her as she thought about the fact that tonight, for a short time, that she would see her husband again. She would feel his arms about her, kiss his lips, take in his aftershave as she nuzzled his cheek. He would remind her of why she did it, why she did any of this, what she was fighting for – a foresight, a conviction, that no one else in their family dared to have. For a time, making sure that nothing was amiss about her that couldn't be explained away with the excuse of sleep, she sat upon their bed and waited.

But as the minutes passed with no approaching footfalls, the familiar stride of his feet on the red plush carpet down the gallery corridor, she had become disturbed. Somewhere in the back of her mind a growing shadow of threat entered her thoughts, a trickled oozing of inky black solution that forms the Rorschach images of the darkest imaginings. There were consequences now, other factors of her life, in this war, that played on her emotions and in her heart. And Downton Abbey was not as highly guarded as it could've been, should've been.

The young Lord of Downton in the last days of 1935 had forced the Royal House of Windsor to sign a capitulating and humiliating treaty. In exchange, he would release the Prince of Wales, his American mistress, and the Royal Court that had been captured when Downton Abbey fell to the Rebels – or was retaken if you ask anyone else in Northern England – during the Grantham Civil War. To mediate the embarrassment of the greatest lords and ladies of the land, along with the future King-Emperor, being held prisoner in Downton Abbey's Wine Cellar, the Duke of York was sent by his dying father to negotiate their release. 'Sign whatever damned thing he puts in front of you before the vulgars read it in the Times!' Now, nearly six years later, there was barely a Military Police presence on the grounds, no airdromes nor airfields, no garrison of any kind, in the whole county.

The 8th Earl of Grantham would not allow any Royal force of the Windsor's on his land nor any of his set. Many of the old Edwardians called him traitorous. That such a man - an Earl! – could be so unpatriotic that past feuds with the Royal Family and their German kin prevented him from joining the cause properly. The entire world was afire, they were fighting for the very survival of their land, their people, and, indeed, their culture. Yet, unarguably, their best fighter, 'the most dangerous man in the Imperium', chose to fight this new world war as the renegade, a masterless Ronin prosecuting this terrible apocalyptic conflict on his own terms – only loyal to the Imperium in the sense that they share a common enemy. If it wasn't for Britain's dire need, for the victories he and his merry men accrued in defense of the beleaguered nation, and the backing of the American Military and their weapons contractors – no one was sure why the King-Emperor put up with such insolence.

Yet, as it stood in Downton Abbey, perhaps it was a blessing in disguise … on many levels. The lack of military presence had fooled the German High Command for much of the war so far into overlooking the rather principality of Grantham County. That the internationally known feud and rivalry between the Royal House and "The Comet" had lulled Nazi Intelligence into believing the ancient gothic castle had no real military significance. This had been why Winston Churchill had suggested to His Majesty – then forcefully advised – that Downton Abbey be used as a communication and operations hub, as vital as Bletchley Park. Too far inland to be vulnerable to German raid, but close enough to the listening ranges and radar stations on the Yorkshire coastlines to 'echo' the information. It would be a perfect cover. The maintained presence of a small Military Police unit and a general staff of male and female officers and technicians would be hiding in plain sight. Just another Great House used by the RAF as a maintenance and refitting depot for damaged Spitfires and Hawker Hurricanes, headquarters for some unremarkable Third Sector bureaucracy office.

But now things had changed. Now, the Germans knew, or suspected greatly, that there was some significance to Downton Abbey. They had assailed it in force, on a suicide run, throwing themselves at the air defenses in order to destroy the house and all in it. Of what they knew, a traitor in the House of Grantham - cleverly hidden in plain sight - had told them … and yet, they had held back all that they could've said. They spoke of a viable military target, something of worth in the Nazi interest. Yet, the traitor had also cloaked many other secrets that they would not tell by playing on the vengeful instinct of the one that had recruited them. The hot-blooded hate of an arch-villain, a monster, that swore to end the line of Lady Elfstone forever, was used as much as a shield as it was a mutual weapon in their ambition. It was the perfect time and place for an all-out attack, justified to Hitler and Goering in the promise of seeing the long-sought end of "The Comet" and the Titan Corps. With "Operation Barbarossa" in the critical planning stages, they hoped for a devastating blow to England's defense and a warning to the American Republic. In the destruction of the Titans - or "Luftpiraten" as Hitler called them - they had hoped it would bring the Imperium back to the negotiation table. They sought a peace agreement, brokered by David Winsor, in order to free up more resources and troops that were committed to fighting the British for the coming invasion of the Soviet Union.

But six months after the abject failure of the costly operation to the Luftwaffe, including the deaths of some of their most decorated and veteran pilots, there would be consequences. They had tried to kill Edith not too long ago. And if Laura Edmonds had not been there and suspected something funny about their waitress, they might have succeeded. Edith's would be assassin was not a hardcore Nazi, a saboteur dropped by a Hinkle Bomber in the night with the Marchioness of Hexham's picture in their pocket. It had been a Great Lady of aristocracy, like herself, a relative of the Royals. And while it seemed a legitimate assassination attempt on one of the Titan Corps chief patrons and founders, it was also a warning to one so deeply embedded in the Grantham family. A message that anyone, at any time, of any class in British society, could be recruited or gotten too – nothing was beyond 'The Beast's' reach. That when they walked out Downton's doors that any one down the street or in a society drawing room could be the assassin that takes out someone they loved. Thus, the next time that they hold back vital information, if they give even the slightest hesitation when called upon to do what was expected of them …

It wouldn't be the traitor's life that they were gambling with.

The Great Hall of Downton Abbey was bathed in the dim light of many candles whose flames flittered and flickered, throwing dancing shadows on stone walls and pillars, while creating entire blind spots of deep impenetrable darkness in the corners and far halls. Above, the glass sunroof was covered every evening by wooded plank plating to mask the lights inside from the air. And, as the night grew into maturity, at the prime of its powers in Mab's hours, one could not help but notice that Downton had, indeed, looked more like the abbey that the Roman's had built in their height in far off Britannia. In these times of the midnight hours of new day's passing there always seemed a solemn silence, an unspoken reverence, in the deep pensiveness of the late night. There ever remained a distant but lasting memory, an oppressive legacy, in the very stones of a time, a way of life, of the once religious brotherhood who had dwelled a millennium in this place. Their phantasmal piety omnipresent in the conscious mind abroad in the darkest of night's hours with unspoken warning of not to disturb the peace of their halls.

And it was in these beliefs or imaginings that there was a hush in the Night Watchman's voice when he asked if he might help when he spotted the lovely figure of Mrs. Branson. A vision in lace dressing gown and long beige satin night slip trailing down the steps of Downton's grand staircase, Lucy only gave that coy and charming grin that had always made men exhale a dreamy sigh in their heart. However, before she could speak, the door to the drawing room opened to the concentrated and clear noise of voices and technology. There a young woman in an up-do of chestnut locks and a blue RAF uniform with matching pencil skirt stepped out with folder in hand that had "For Your Eyes Only" in big red letters.

Behind her they saw a peculiar translucent glass board that was etched with square sectors. In front of the board was another young woman with matching hairdo and uniform that had headphones and a brass cone microphone strapped under her chin. Nodding and affirming what she was hearing, the technician dragged some sort of electrical wand instrument over the etched trenches on the glass board while one of the male officers walked up next to her and observed with his hands behind his back. But their view fell to darkness again when the unaware young female military figure shut the door upon exiting the Downton Abbey drawing room turned command center.

But when the youth looked up, she was momentarily startled by both Watchmen and one of the ladies of the house. Her eyes fell unreadably upon them for a beat before she gave a wordless nod of acknowledgement. Yet, before leaving, her eyes lingered on Lucy Branson - so fine, so beautiful, in satin nightgown and lacy negligee the that the RAF Airwoman's old mum would never wear. The young woman's prying eyes, the hint of impropriety of her nightwear, in male company, caused Lucy to subconsciously close her lacy see through robe over her cleavage – this is how gossip starts, she had thought. She gave a shaky pleasant smile as the Airwoman paced away; the clacking of her high heels echoed in the cavernous quiet of the Great Hall.

When the Airwoman was gone, Lucy turned back to the Watchman – perhaps now more self-conscious of her state of dress. In a hushed voice, under the distant ambience of serious voices and radio chatter in the command center, Lucy explained that she had rather forgotten something in the dining room. She asked if it was alright if she might, perhaps, inquire after Mr. Barrow or Mr. Ellis if they had found it while cleaning after dinner. The MP was congenial, proclaiming to her that it was no problem at all – take all the time she needed. As Lucy left the man tipped his cap to her, his eyes lingering as she slipped by the columns on the other side of the mess tables set up in the Great Hall to get to the servant's access just under the grand staircase.

With the pleasure of watching her go, the MP couldn't help but imagine that he was, perhaps, one of the luckiest blokes in the entire whole of England. When he thought of the disaster of the French Campaign that he missed due to a clerical error a week before Arras and Amiens. About the absolute bloody mess going on in the East with the Japanese rolling up most of the colonies – along with all them poor blighters sent to defend them. And now, all them Aussie and Kiwi boys getting their teeth kicked in out there in Libya and Egypt by that old 'Desert Fox'. Yet, here he was, on guard duty in picturesque and whimsical Downton Abbey, where there was a view, fresh air, and such a treasure trove - a real decadence - of female beauty from the women of the house. No wonder "The Comet" didn't want any of them proper army in his country set … they'd have to beat the lads off with a stick to get this posting in paradise, no mistake. Any moment, he'd reckon that Lady Mary, Leftenant Marigold, and Lady Sybil, would appear to him with a golden apple to ask which of these goddesses among mere mortal women was more beautiful … and blast him if he'd even be able to judge.

Downton Abbey's servant's hall, in the witching hours, was dead.

The bleary-eyed night shift maids gathered about in the kitchens, talking sparingly, a collection of yawns, tired chuckles of some late-night reminiscence of a funny story one of the 'Com Girls' told them over at the pub on their off hours. During the day, the County Grantham was a beautiful and grand countryside setting that was filled with history and atmosphere that was thick as sitting soup. The whimsical Town of Downton – built to replace the long-destroyed village left in ruins – was consciously Austenian in its design and concept that Lady Mary engineered during her reign. It was built to be a tourist destination, a fairy tale recreation of every stereotype and imagining of what one who lived in the cities all their lives, visiting from America or Australia, thought a small town in the heart of the English Shires would be like.

And over the years, such a thing, thought out and executed by Lady Mary Crawley, had been a great success. The charming storefronts, traditional shops, and ideal teashops on the cobbled main street districts seemed always crowded before the war. A bed and breakfast destination, antiquing, and even tours of Downton Abbey itself every Saturday led by Mr. and Mrs. Moseley. They had three restaurants that some had to wait months to get reservations for, that the entire holiday had to be built around. And during Autumn and Christmas seasons the Grantham family threw great festivals that many traveled from all over the British Isle to experience.

But … that was during the day.

For those there at night, the late maids, the third shift staff officers and female techs, they had a different view of Downton. Most of which was boredom. When they took their ten at night breaks, they couldn't see a blasted thing out a window or past the servant's courtyard. Darkness seemed to fall fast out in the Yorkshire Countryside, and no one could go anywhere. Even if they could walk to Downton Town, they weren't allowed a torch. The concentrated and focused light could be seen from a far distance, either by ground level or from the air. Everywhere they went, everyone, household staff, RAF staff, and even the family, had to use gas lanterns. And it didn't matter if they all used them or not, Mrs. Hughes still got after the maids in the least about using torches.

They all swore they didn't. But if that was the case, how is it that Lady Rose had complained of someone playing with a torch out in the Haunted Woods during the dead of night? Flashing it on and off at Lady Rose and Mrs. Branson's bedrooms on the second floor of the West Wing gallery? Now, if they had one more complaint of childish foolishness disturbing the family, she would be forced to inform Lady Hexham of misbehavior … and God forbid she have to inform His Lordship – a wrath that no one, of any status in the house, wanted to contend with.

"Can I help, Mrs. Branson?"

"Oh, no, Mrs. Hughes. I just realized that I drop an earring in the backseat of one of the motors when Lady Hexham, Leftenant Crawley, Lady Victoria, and I ran down to the market in Ripon this morning."

"It's rather late …"

"Of course, but I … well, now that I've thought of it, it'll drive me mad all night if I don't find it."

"I know what you mean, it's the little things when you're a … well, pardon my …"

"When you're a Lady's Maid?"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Branson."

"Oh, no, no, by all means, Mrs. Hughes. You know better than anyone, don't you?"

"I do, I certainly do. No rest for the wicked as Anna says."

"Yes, when Mummy … that is, Lady Bagshaw, would lose a button, I just had to sew a new one back. No matter the hour, no matter if she told me to save it for the morning."

"Aye. All it means is that you're a hard worker, Madam."

"I never heard any complaints."

"I'd expect not …"

"…"

"…"

"Would you like some help?"

"Oh, no, no … I'll just borrow one of the lanterns."

"Are you sure, Madam? I could … or Mr. Barrow is just ending his shift."

"No, please, I'll be back in a Jiffy."

"Very well, but don't hesitate to come back if you're in need, I'll send the girls … I fear idle and midnight has risen the poltergeist of mischief in them."

"I will do, thank you, Mrs. Hughes."

The air of the night had met her in a rush of nature that had quite momentarily overwhelmed her. There was a certain smell, must, to Downton Abbey that one gets used too, especially at night. It clings to your clothes and the cloth of your handkerchief. She wasn't sure how she would describe it, beyond what she imagined something ancient but lived in smelled like – not quite a museum, but certainly somewhere official in institution. And when she stepped out into the courtyard from the main door of the servant's hall, she was assailed with the smells and sounds of the fresh spring night that took her by complete surprise.

There was a thick earthiness that was damp in the nose that tinged with just a hint of dewy foliage. Having grown up in both New York and London, she was still not used to the country, maybe never will be. Lucy was, by no means, a country mouse. Though comfortable in Brampton and Downton Abbey, after so many years in Buckingham and Windsor palaces, she was as of yet accustom to walking out her front door and seeing woods and moors, knowing that there was wildlife and insects that she had never seen before. Mrs. Branson also cared little for getting dirty, her fine clothes getting grime on them … and even just walking the cobbled courtyards of Downton Abbey she misliked the idea of the dirt and soot getting on her slippers, the long train of her elegant satin nightgown.

But her pause then was not for the environment - this wilderland that made her feel like she was living in the middle of Central Park with not the Levinson's nor the Russell's palatial mansions on Fifth Avenue above the tree lines as north stars. It was, indeed, the fact that she found herself alone in the courtyard. Always, at any time of the day, there should've been some sort of presence from the household staff or military personnel. Female techs mingling on their break, General Staff having a smoke, young officers with provincial maids and communication girls talking, flirting, making plans behind Anna and Mrs. Hughes's back for a trip to the cinema or pub. But as she walked out, she found nothing, nothing at all. Not a soul stirred in the dead of the night, the courtyard lanterns doused in Blackout Protocol.

Then, the hair on her body stood up and a breathless anxiety rushed through her as she heard raised voices in the distance near the garage. Somehow, Lucy's mind went backward, and she hesitated, truly, to go near one of Sybbie's violent anxiety attacks. There was something awkward, frightening, to see the girl's near manic black rages as she destroyed her room or the garage. It always made Mrs. Branson ashamed of herself in hindsight, because, she was her step-mamma, because she loved her - surely, she could've done or thought of something to comfort this girl who had been and would ever be the closest thing to a child she'd have. But, instead, she rather fled from Sybbie - tall, elegant, elven fair … and deceptively strong, much stronger than Lucy. In those moments she had left it all to Tom and Mary – Sybbie's parents - taking no side and attempting no responsibility for those strangled cries of madness that came as a rarity but had been long remembered in their ferocity.

But the reminiscence of that poor girl's suffering in the nightmarish abuses she endured and the consequences they bore had come and went like a night train, passing through Lucy and then away like a chill. In the aftermath, remembering that the girl could only be found in England on their cinema screens and glamour magazines, it occurred to Lucy Branson that it must be something else. She stood near the bench and table in the courtyard of stone and brick and listened. She knew the timber, the forceful tones of the dominate voice. It was Tom, it had to be, no one else in the world had the ability to touch her so with just the distant echo of their disembodied noise. But who was he arguing with, talking too, with such passion of the likes he had never, never, spoke to her in before? Had something happened? Was there some crisis that she was unaware of? Or was it something far worse?

In that moment something sat incredibly uneasy in Lucy's belly as she stood in the shades of midnight with the wilderness and its darkness stretching beyond the estate walls and all about her single lantern. The looming threat in her mind now lay thicker than mists and shadows that entangled her in the lonesome gloom of the isolated county surroundings in the midnight hour. And in that purgatory, on the precipice of so many unanswered questions and endless watchful nights that suffocated her, was a constant repetition. It was like endless heartbeats that came again and again in each imagining of what it could possibly be that had made Tom's voice so ardent and languished in the distance. It was the frustration that Downton was not as guarded as it could be …

And the warning in her heart that they could get to anyone at any time.

Her feet of smooth silver slippers padded across the vine and ivy wrapped courtyard. Her lantern swayed unevenly, causing a rocking visibility of shifting amber light that was bright one minute and dimmed the next as it moved back and forth. The disparity grew with the rusted winching that got louder and more pronounced with every step that was quickening in the hearing of raised voices that suddenly fell quiet. A sudden terror gripped the woman's heart as she approached the garage that was darkened, despite the smell of exhaust and heat of a freshly driven motor that lingered in the far area behind Downton Abbey. They had nearly gotten Edith, now Tom was all alone, in the dark, with no guard present in this area of the Estate. If someone had jumped her husband, they would surely have heard Lucy coming as she lifted her skirt and nearly jogged to the entrance of the open doors of the brick and aluminum old industrial building wrapped and hung with encroaching ivy from the woods.

"Hello?"

The gas lantern glowed hazily in a bulbous gleam of light that was swallowed by the darkness of the open night. But as it approached the garage it grew stronger, its amber fingers stretching out toward the open doors forming the silhouette that held it aloft. Her striding claps of soft covered feet approached quicker at the sudden violent rattle of tools and the clatter of metal from inside. Lucy, however, slowed her alarmed pace when she reached the entrance. A slender hand touched one of the painted wooden gates of the open garage as she slowly, cautiously, moved inside. Holding the lantern aloft, nearly above her head, so the light was evenly distributed through the dark and cavernous brick building.

"Hello?"

There, suddenly, she gave a gasp in shocked startle.

"Tom!"

"Yes, uh, Darling, it's me …"

"Oh, thank God, I thought I might have run into someone … doing something they shouldn't."

"Like spying?"

"Oh! Sybil … Cousin Sybil, I'm sorry, I, uh …"

"Didn't see me?"

"Pardon me. I didn't know you where …"

"Alone with Tom?"

"That you were there."

"Of course, not …"

"No, Of course not."

Lucy Branson's hazel green eyes slid over a Lady Sybil Crawley that had been leaning against a worktable, her hand's clutching the wood hard, her chest heaving as if she had been doing something terribly laborious. It might have been some true test of will and character to break herself from whatever she might have been doing before Lucy arrived. When their eyes met, both women felt something rise inside their chests in the sparking flash of their sudden and surprise meeting as their conversation turned terse and heavy with thinly veiled inuendo.

"When I peered outside our window and saw your motor headlights, I thought I must be dreaming." Lucy turned to Tom who had opened the door to his motor.

"A good dream, I hope …" He said from within the cab, his black leather boots and navy trousers with twin gold stripes down the outer seams being the only thing the woman could see of her husband.

All the shame and anxiety thundering through Tom Branson was being hidden in the backseat while he played at looking for something, anything, to escape. He knew Lucy would see right through him had she walked in and saw his face, the anguish and bereavement of letting Sybil go in that moment when they came together and the universe aligned to give back everything that had been taken from him and their daughter. Now, he didn't think he could face her, either of them, in the same room, in the place, this cathedral, where his first and truest of loves was christened and blessed in this hour of the night.

Nobody could live like this. To have a woman he cared about deeply, intruding upon such an elemental and fundamental part of himself. How could he explain who he was, all the aspects of a heart and soul of the man he was, without explaining where Sybil fit in? She was and had been everything to him. Lucy understood that and long accepted it … when that woman had been dead. But now that she was back, alive, and as she had been on the night of her death. Tom Branson didn't know what to do as two paths, two different eras' in his life, met headlong in this place of all places.

"Of course, …" Lucy's normally soft look slid coldly to Sybil, who looked away, crossing her arms about herself uncomfortably, just hiding the cringing glare of the longing in Lucy's voice and the flirtation in Tom's. "Though, I didn't expect you back." She continued in puzzlement.

"Why is that?" Sybil asked, staring at the tire of Tom's motor.

A look of anxiety fell over the woman's face for just a moment. "Well, I thought he'd be in Cornwall." She explained casually.

Tom paused for a moment and Sybil flicked her eyes up in a frown at the woman standing in the mouth of the entrance to the garage. Mrs. Branson felt incredibly cornered, then defensive, and finally angered, to see both share a look between them before they turned to her in unison. She begrudged deeply to see the man she loved in synchronicity with another woman – especially a woman who looked like Cousin Sybil. No one said anything for a moment, as it appeared that Tom had fished out his Titan Corps cap from the backseat. He dusted it off with the back of his hand as he stared at his wife for a long moment.

"What did you say?" Tom asked in sudden disturbance.

Lucy noticed that Sybil had slid off the worktable and took two steps forward toward the woman, her neck craned forward in intense interest.

"Is something wrong?" The woman tried not to take a step back, keeping a calm demeanor.

"How do you know that the Titans are in Cornwall?" Sybil asked in a sudden interrogating tone.

The raven-haired heiress frowned. "What do you mean?" She shook her head.

"Darling …" Tom was suddenly very serious. "How did you know that?" He parroted Sybil's question, though with more understanding … and also much more worry.

"I don't understand." She traded off glancing between Tom and then Sybil as they both slowly approached her from opposite sides of the garage.

"How did you know that I was in Cornwall, Lucy?" Her husband asked poignantly. "Who told you that?" he already began rationalizing, giving her an out.

Today had been the third time in the last month that they had caught a German recon flight trying to search the area for the Titan Corps hidden base. Tom had been instructing on the weapons refitting of Gunner's new Spitfire when they heard George – who was off on one of his solo patrols - report spotting the scouting force over the com. There had been four German 109's prowling the area near Nampara Cove, some five miles from Truro Quay and three from Sawle. Russell wanted to scramble out a wing of "Rogue Group" but George belayed the order. If they sent out the fighters, then the Germans would know they were looking in the right place. Instead, against everyone's better judgement, his nephew took on all four of them on his own.

Luckily the German pilots had been too distracted by trying to pick off some civilians on Nampara Cove when George attacked from the sun. He got all four of them, though something told Tom that it was a closer shave than what the young captain let on when he returned after making sure to clean out anymore 'nosey neighbors' nearby. Just as Tom was leaving, he ran into George on his motorcycle. The two in their vehicles had met at the wooded crossroads at the edge of Trenwith, heading opposite ways. George told his uncle that he was going out to Nampara to confirm kills and make sure that the latest shipment from the smugglers got in. Since then, it had been in the back of Tom's mind, till …

Other circumstances of the night took precedent.

Lucy looked worried and growing more and more frightened. "I didn't know, truly, that the Titans were in Cornwall." Her voice began to betray her fear. "Though, I guess that would make sense … since George is the master of Trenwith and owns Sawle …" She began to rationalize.

"Enough!"

Sybil had suddenly interrupted, reproach in her very voice that caught both Tom and Lucy by surprise. Tom knew that he should've checked her, defended Lucy from Sybil's wrath, but he grew anxious as his wife spoke aloud things that he and Sybil both knew she shouldn't. Especially mentioning Trenwith so openly, not knowing who was lurking and listening in a house full of strangers – a spy on the loose. Of the ancestral home of the Poldark family - before they merged by marriage into the Crawleys of Nampara - was it kept a secret and never referred too out in the open. Fore, since "The Battle of Britain", the forgotten and lost ruined great house and its lawn was the location of the Titans hidden base and airfield. The dense woods and thousands of years of Cornish history wrapped in ivy and vine had made perfect cover from Luftwaffe high altitude reconnaissance flights. Because of so many years, nearly a century, of dereliction, there was no living memory of where Trenwith was located. Also, George had done a fantastically wonderful job of scrubbing its location from libraries and official documents long before the war as a fall back place to hide if ever the need arises. Thus, had the ancestral home of Matthew and George's family remained a secret that very few knew the exact location.

"Lucy …" Tom squeezed his eyes shut and held out a hand in a wordless ask of restraint to Sybil after her outburst. His wife started to glare at the feeling that it was two against one, and the team up wasn't with the woman it should've been. "Why did you think that I was in Cornwall?" He tried to backtrack, rewind, the conversation before suspicion – just or unjustly – fell like a blanket over Lucy.

The woman was quiet a long moment, staring what was quickly forming as daggers at Sybil who looked deeply angry and irritated.

"Lucy …"

"Because of Mary."

"I'm sorry?"

"Mary, I thought you went to go fetch Mary."

"Why Mary?"

"…"

"…"

"Lucy, what's happened to Mary?"

"She went to Nampara."

"She what?!"

"Oh, my giddy aunt …!"

At the admission, Sybil's voice echoed, carrying out of the garage and into the night in shocked outrage. Meanwhile, Tom's reaction was to give a deep and pained sigh, rubbing his forehead in the weighted emotions that came over him at once. There was sorrow that was mingled with a quite a bit of fear. Unlike Sybil and Lucy, Tom knew that George was going there tonight to confirm kills and the shipment arrival. It would mean that if Lucy was correct, mother and son were heading for a collision course. Unlike Crawley House that Mary was allowed to come and go, stay for however long she wanted, everyone in the House of Grantham knew that Lady Mary Josephine Crawley was outright banned from stepping foot on Nampara land … ever.

There were many connotations synonymous of what the meaning of being a 'captive' or 'prisoner' of someone was, and there were just as many people with strong opinions of which such interpretations fit when it came to Mary. Unlike everyone else in the world, Tom knew that George and his mamma's relationship was much more complicated than the general imaginings of the public and, indeed, their own family. When Mary and George were alone it was not constant fireworks of anger and yelling, the throwing of things, and the hairsbreadth of giving into violence, like their family believed. Nor did he imagine that Mary was George's brutalized and ravished sex slave, like some of the more perverse imaginings of the prejudiced – and jealous - aristocracy chose to believe of the "Comet".

Tom knew and fully believed that George and Mary loved each other deeply – sometimes to their own detriment. And that there seclusive days and nights at Crawley House were generally quiet ones. Mr. Ellis disappointingly reporting only a civil luncheon in which 'captive' and her 'master' sat across one another at the kitchen table, talking normally in conversation. The two's evenings were spent laid out on the old leather sofa in his study, Mary snuggled deeply to him, held closely, her head upon his shoulder while he stroked her as they listened to one of his records. All in all, there was more often than not a rather satisfying domestic contentment between them, rather then what people thought – or wished – was the truth. Tom had seen for himself their truer nature in private at Downton - Mary stroking his cheek while his hands gripped her hips, their foreheads touching, their final parting before a daring and dangerous night mission. There was resentment and anger that bubbled to the surface between them that could rather quickly get out of hand, even at the best of times. But to think that was all there was to George and Mary's hopelessly complex relationship of wildfire rage and soul consuming love was foolish.

However, of what madness or stupidity led his best friend in the entire world to go to that place, to even think she could step foot there, was beyond Tom's reckoning. Yet, by breeching something as fundamental as the ban on Nampara, Tom could only feign in nightmares how Mary had wantonly pulled a pin from an old and especially dangerous grenade tonight. And when that thing goes off, he was sure that the entire coast of Cornwall was going to hear the explosion.

"Why?! Why would she do that?!" Sybil stated in rhetorical anger at her eldest sister – a tone, a frustration, that only a sibling could bear another. "She knows she's not allowed there; no one is!" She put her hands on her hips, her eyes wild in indignant anger.

"Matthew has been gone for a week." Lucy replied. "Edith mentioned last night, during dinner, that she believed that he went to Nampara … and now she assumes that Mary overheard her and decided to go there to find him." There was an awkwardness to the Mistress of Brampton, fore she had never been nor even seen Nampara House before - to speak of it so openly and familiarly didn't quite sit right.

Sybil was right in that no one in the family was allowed there. When Lucy began courting Tom it was a place of passing mention at tea or dinner of where his whereabouts had been or was approximated to be. Lady Merton had been the only one that had permission to come and go from the old stone Georgian Homestead as she pleased. After all, it had been Isobel's old House. It had been the place where she made her first home, where she bore and raised her only child, before her husband's work took her to Manchester.

Sybbie often joined him there in those early days of Lucy and Tom's courtship and marriage. And her constant absence while there had caused friction between father and daughter in that Sybbie had been accused by her daddy of snubbing plans and bonding time with her new step-mamma. However, after the Civil War, both Sybbie and the renegade were often there together … alone. What they got up to was anyone's guess, but Robert had never quite liked it – and he liked even less being told by his only heir that it was none of his business what when on there. All Lucy knew of it was only what Sybbie had described it, both as girl and young woman: a bit of paradise. She had loved it much better than even their family's Villa in the French Riviera . If she wanted to go on holiday with Marigold and their friends – Rose and Lucy as chaperones to the giggling and hormonal gaggle of young high born girls and teenage heiresses – than the party was in for fun and shopping in opulent and exotic settings. But if Sybbie needed solitude, an escape from traumas that oppressed her, Nampara by the sea was all she ever needed – Nampara, and him.

"They'll be hell to pay, no doubt about that." Tom sighed.

"Why particularly?" Lucy asked innocently.

"George was heading down there tonight to …" The Chief Engineer of the Titan Corps quickly trailed off, nearly speaking out loud. He didn't know why, but he felt a strange twinge somewhere inside him when he saw his wife spark to life a moment, her eyes widen a touch, as if he had nearly inspired some passing thought by his near misspoken admission.

"Golly." Sybil looked down at Tom's boots, noticing nothing as her countenance fell in worry and shock. "There will be blood in the surf on Hendrawna Beach tonight." She said gravely to no one in particular. She turned back to the motors behind her, and both Mr. and Mrs. Branson wondered if Sybil wasn't thinking about taking one of them and going out there tonight to rescue Mary … or to help her nephew, her boy, burry a body.

"Surely, Matthew will protect …" Lucy let the thought stray when a cold and resentful look by Sybil was turned slowly away from the motors toward Lucy.

It was the second time that Mrs. Branson had called him Matthew. It was not Mr. Crawley, not Cousin Matthew, just Matthew. Sybil had known Matthew for a long time. He had been her friend, then her close friend, for eight years. This woman, this newcomer – married to the man she loved – had known him for six months at best. She knew only of him as George's father, never even seen a picture of him after the boy took them from Mary the night of the ball at Harewood where she had danced with Tom on a veranda. Something deeply angry, ugly, that Sybil was ashamed of, awoke inside her at the familiarity in which Lucy spoke Matthew's name. A part of her, a spoiled, aristocratic, Momma's Girl, wanted to stamp her foot, and scream that Matthew was her friend! Hers! One of her and Tom's best friends in the whole world! That she had no right to say his name like that, like she knows him!

Something had touched a nerve, and perhaps it had nothing to do with the war at all, but, simply, that Lady Sybil could not stand for one more person, one more man, one more friend, one more family member, being overly familiar to Lucy.

There was a spark of tension that crackled and snapped between the two women that had been there since the very first time they met. The time that Lucy Branson watched on as a young and beautiful woman that had been dead for twenty years descended upon her husband - who had fallen to his knees at first sight of her - and kissed him passionately, desperately. Even when things had been explained, when reality crept in, the first sight she had of the sainted Lady Sybil had come when she was kissing her husband of twelve years. And such a thing had not endeared her to the former lady's maid turned heiress of the Brampton fortune ever since.

Their quickly deteriorating relationship was not for a lack of trying. It seemed, on paper, that Sybil and Lucy should've gotten along just fine. They had similar ideals and values, they were both large hearted and empathetic. Yet, while Lucy remained soft spoken and demure, Lady Sybil was forceful and vocal, especially after her return. Their personalities clashed, as did their understanding of how the Crawley family worked. Her husband's ex-wife continuously questioned authority and did not see the logic in the traditions of the House of Grantham and how they were maintained – especially in the Renegade's absence. This got on Lucy's nerves, fore these traditions and their status quo was what had been there when she – properly – join the Crawley family as a member of their Great House.

It was rather like having him living in the house … all the time. The only exception in Lucy's mind was that the Renegade was a man of actions and not words, as Earl – even before when he was a teenager - if he disliked something, he changed it, without counsel and in complete disinterest of the opinion of their family. Sybil was argumentative, drumming on Edith twice a day, and clashing with Mary almost all the time now. In the view of the current Mrs. Branson, her cousin might have been an insider – an original member of the ruling family – but now that was Lucy's position, and Sybil was the outsider. And the Mistress of Brampton Manor did not like how her cousin simply blustered back into their lives and bullied her way in, while Lucy had to earn her place at Cousin Robert's table.

On one hand she knew how that sounded. Any rational person would tell her of the possibly grave stupidity of the very notion – including herself. But she could not help but feel threatened, fore she saw now, tonight, as she had from the first moment that she appeared to Tom six months ago, how they looked at one another. It was a look she had never seen her husband give before, not even to her. It was something primal, innate, a true connection upon a spiritual level that was almost incomprehensible. But at the heart of it, as the months have long passed, Lucy began to understand it, why it was there. There were helping factors, Sybil's beauty, her kindness, being Tom's first love … all of those things she imagined were important. But, no, not really – what Lucy Branson knew was the very deciding factor in this unshakable, perhaps unbreakable, connection was simply this: They shared a child together.

And it remained the one and only thing that Lucy had not and could never provide Tom, not anymore.

Sybil was vibrant, spirited, passionate about her beliefs. She was a rare and courageous person who had proven her womanhood by bringing a child into the world and giving her life to see her safely into the arms of those who would love that baby girl to the very edges of their own sanity. In that way, perhaps Tom had seen Sybil as she was and would always be: A capable and viable partner. As for Lucy Branson, she had not died in that horrible and sterile birthing room in London, holding onto life long enough to make sure her baby, her sweet boy, was safe in this world. For hours Lucy endeared all the child birthing pains and trauma, only to watch a nurse pull from her a lifeless blue corpse.

She had wanted to hold him, to look upon him, but Edith and Mary wouldn't allow her. She cried and begged, but they would not let her see him – not like that. She watched them, her sisters, teary and weakened, as they covered his little body from head to toe with a blanket, the nurse wheeling him out as a sobbing Sybbie held her step-mamma with all the heartbroken love in the world. Unlike his ex-wife, Saint Sybil, Lucy had survived the explosion that brought on her premature labor … but their baby boy hadn't. He had died in her womb and they had to get him out before he killed her as well. And somedays, most days - perhaps every day since - Lucy had wondered if it would not have been better if they had allowed her to join him in the beyond. Fore, from that night forward - the car bomb at the opening of the London Season of 1935 outside the Met where Marigold was performing - Lucy couldn't have any more children.

Now, whenever anyone looked at her, especially her Tom, they saw a poor traumatized woman - quiet, sad, and kind - whom lost her mummy and her unborn child to senseless violence that had very little to do with her or them. All that had stolen so much from her had been because of reprisals against 'him' that she and their family had been caught up within. Chaos, violence, and blood authored by this renegade and his world had come down like a deluge of suffering and hate that washed away the golden and wholesome years of the Crawley family.

Sybil was a symbol and beacon of the glamorous past that had been beautified by the dark years that came to those like Lucy who's shimmering newness was scuffed with a patina of the desolation and its hard memories when all their world came crashing down. How could Lucy contend, live up, to a sainted angel who represented everything missing, who had given the world a beautiful and promising young woman who wins awards on the world stage? How does a sad, socially awkward, up-jumped lady's maid compete with a first and star-crossed love? Even if Lucy got everything that she desired, justice for her lost boy, what would she have to salvage, to live for, when she finally got it?

"He'll tell him." Tom interrupted his wives, his dueling pasts and uncertain futures, from their crackling eye contact.

"George?" Sybil asked turning away from Lucy.

"He'll tell Matthew everything, won't he?" Tom asked rhetorically with a bitter and conflicted sigh.

The auburn-haired beauty didn't answer, she simply shifted uncomfortably.

"Mary will feel cornered, threatened by George's anger, and in her damned pride, she'll open her fool mouth and say something stupid … and when she riles George up enough, Matthew will step in to try and defend her … and that's when the game gets given away." He shook his head.

"George will find out that Matthew doesn't know anything about the last 20 years, about what Mary has done." Sybil took up what her husband laid down, in a joint state of mind.

"He only sees her as she was, the woman he loves, the woman he married – before …" No one seemed to notice the distance, the conflict, that sorrow, in Lucy's voice as she spoke more to herself than to Tom and Sybil.

"Yes …" Tom added, giving a tired sigh. "Except that George doesn't know the Mary that Matthew did, does still. And when he finds out that she failed to tell him what has happened, George will do it for her, and he won't be kind to Mary in the telling." Tom looked out one of the garage windows, as if he could see the fight in Nampara's parlor, as if it had already happened.

"It should've been us." Sybil replied. "We, as his friends, his family, should've told Matthew when George gave him a clean bill of health." She shut her eyes. "I told Mary, and I told her, and I told her!" her voice got louder, angrier, in the repetition as if the memories were a sandbag that she was punching with increasing ferocity. "Both Edith and I told her that she needed to tell Matthew the truth! But she wouldn't listen, she put us off, said that it wasn't our business! God, I could wring her neck, I swear!" She snapped in frustration.

"She didn't want to spoil it …" Lucy cut in. "She wanted things to stay the way they are, were, before …" Her eyes glassed over and as her voice got distant, the emotion came as soft as a whisper in the breeze.

"Before what?"

"Before he ruined it … before he ruined everything."

"What did you say?!"

Tom was suddenly startled by the sudden and fierce snap in Sybil's voice. He knew the inflection, the Robert Crawley opening line that accompanied rageful indignation. No one in the world did a better impression of it than his daughter, of whom was the sole heiress to all of her papa's dark and flashpoint temper. The man trapped between two women he loved didn't quite understand what Lucy had meant. But it seemed that whatever it was, Sybil took a deep, deep - at the very molecular level of her being – resentment to what she assumed Lucy was implying. A dark and perilous look possessed Sybil that caused Tom to glance back at Lucy in confusion but her face and her intention with the comment was hidden, shaded in the amber glow of her lantern.

What was meant by the comment, and what Sybil interpreted correctly from it, was something that the young woman would not tolerate in her presence, not ever. And it was the voicing of the ignorant and offensive accusation that had promulgated in the collected mind of the Grantham family for many years. The very utterance of such posh, revisionist, and irresponsible garbage that came out of their mouths was enough to set Lady Sybil afire. It made her hot, indignant, and so terribly wroth when she heard it. And it was simply this: Life at Downton Abbey, in the House of Grantham, would be a lot happier without George Crawley.

That all of the ills that befell the House of Grantham, the loss of their magical and whimsical world of wholesome adventures of leisurely luxury hijinks was entirely George's fault. That simply his mere presence in their lives had invited danger and darkness that had forever changed the trajectory of their family for the worse. It had been the thoughts of Granny, Papa, and many others – some unspoken but felt strongly in private. There were even some who believed that George had made the world in general a worse place. The villains he fought, the conflicts he engaged in, were all of his own making. That his violent methods and brutal tactics against his foes had only bred eviler deeds in those who were, at the start, milder rapscallions till they had an unfortunate run in with "The Comet". Then, George's savagery, which had brutalized and menaced them so completely, broke these mild cronies' rational minds and sent them down evil paths of violent and cruel psychopathy. These traumatic episodes only served to bring them deeper into an orbit of madness and revenge that fixated on the dark avenger that maimed them both physically and mentally … and his world.

This alone had made many of his loved ones afear or outright claim that they were in the crossfire as his rogues got ever the worse, and their reprisals more and more dangerous. Thus, had it been the popular sentiment that the then young Lord of Downton and now Earl of Grantham had inherently dragged the rest of the Crawley's down into the mires of his dark world by simply being associated with him. It was an accusation, a deeply held belief, that had been pervasive for many long years that had become ingrained in the hearts and minds of their family. And, even now, was it the knee jerk reaction of some to immediately blame any substantial ill that came upon the House of Grantham on George.

It was but the phantasm, the lingering, of the fell poltergeist of the unfair and cruel blame that was rested upon a young child's shoulders for the death of Caroline Talbot. Fore, they still had not understood how their happiness, this new golden and wholesome era of their lives, could've gone away so suddenly and for no reason. Thus, had it always come into their minds, whether it was fair or not, to blame the only one in their ranks who was 'the other', who was not like them.

And after twenty-one years of this, Lady Sybil Crawley had enough.

One cannot understand, fathom, what such thinking, what such wanton irresponsibility, does to the mind, the heart – the very soul – of a child. To shoulder, constantly, that type of unfair blame, always, whenever something goes wrong. She knew what it was, what it does, fore she had been there to see it manifest in him. If they could've seen the many years of tormented nights, the sorrowed distant look of an unnamed and unnoticed wayfarer who sits by an American highway or country road and watches a young boy play with his baby sister. To sit by him as he pondered for the thousandth time if they were all right about him. To carry with him the scar of every could be and should've been from a lost battle and pyrrhic victory that is left on the field with the memories of all those that he could not save. All the years that she wanted to hold him but could only watch from afar as he could not receive the unconditional love that he could not feel, even as she was right next to him .

Then, in rage, in a madness that comes from knowing the torments of one she loved mightily, Sybil wanted to burn it all down. With anger and disgust did she wish to up end a royal visit, take a hammer to moving picture cameras, and set to fire Granny's villa in the South of France. Fore, was it indeed so important? All those gilded memories of tennis and jazz, movie stars, and glamour – the King-Emperor and his Household staying at Downton. Was it worth it in the end? Were such things more important than the happiness, the safety, and the well-being of a child, their only heir, their only son? Did all those memories mean something when Mirada Pelham raped her Sybbie? Did they stop the Prince of Wales African Tour from being ambushed and captured by tribesmen enslaved to the will of an ancient and vile High Priestess of Ancient Egypt? No! It was George who had saved Sybbie! It was their own boy who had rescued Edith and Bertie from enslavement by the cruel Ayesha – She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed!

How many, she wondered. How many lives, worlds, universes, had one young child's regret over a dead baby girl saved over the years? George Crawley had stopped counting long ago … but Lady Sybil still hadn't. How many young girls had been rescued from the horrors that Mary and Sybbie went through in childhood? How many villainous plots, murderous intentions, that threatened thousands, had been foiled by a sharp intellect and discipline of steel developed and tempered by the driving force of terrible accusations lain at a boy's feet by his own kin? James Moriarty, Fu Manchu, Dracula, The Stygian High Sorcerer Kalemdai Rao … and the Necromancer – the worst monsters in the history of the Imperium. And a young boy and the man he became, with nothing but his wits and a sword, had fought them all – this so-called traitor, rebel, renegade, and murderer.

Yet, all of these feats of daring and heroism paled compared to the memories, the expectations, of a whirlwind trip to the French Riviera, to the premiere of a Jack Barber movie called "The Gambler" of which was filmed in Downton Abbey and Mary had dubbed. A visit from the King and Queen, a ball at Harewood – so many simple adventures of pleasure. Their glamour, their luxury, held higher and dearer than those of a real world, an uglier world, than they wished to care of beyond their purview. A shield of wealth, status, and tradition that kept them from seeing the world as it was, and shunning those who dare bring even a spec of it to their stately home.

It was why Sybil fell in love with Tom, why she wanted to get away after the war. This life, these traditions, this belief that the world was one way that it was simply not, was like poison that had the flavor of a favorite dinner wine. The slow death, the insanity derived from the toxin, ruminated on, sloshed about in the mouth, and sampled thoroughly with the accompanied luxurious dinner by its victims. To sip their venomous nostalgic frivols and think, believe – truly - that their world was somehow wholesome and unblemished till the day that George was born, till Caroline died. It was the very definition, the very name, of absurdity.

Did Grandfather not touch Mary and make her watch him do perverse things when she was a teenager? Did Susan Flintshire not try to corner Mary for a carnal kiss on their last visit to Duneagle before the war – swearing the hate her forever for her rebuff? Did Granny's friends not give a squeeze of Mamma's bottom when going through to the drawing room after dinner some nights? Or was not James Crawley, Papa's heir, caught fondling Edith's breasts one evening – mamma's wrath being the reason he and Patrick fled for New York on the Titanic in the first place. Did their grand and unsinkable ship not slide under the waves? Did Kamal Pamuk not die in Mary's bed – causing his spiteful mother to put a price on George's head from the very day he was born? Did her unborn baby brother not die in Mamma's belly? Did the war not happen? Was Matthew not crippled? Did William Mason not die? Lavinia? Did Bates not go to prison? Did Papa not lose Mamma's fortune? Were Tom and she not chased from Ireland back to Downton? Did she not die in childbirth? Did Matthew not die in a car accident? Was all of this only a fever dream?! Did nothing truly bad happen to them and their family till George came into the world?

Now, all the emotions and feelings twenty years ago, during the war and afterward, had been enhanced so wildly that Sybil was no longer a partial judge in these matters. She had been there, through all of it, every gash, bruise, and gunshot wound – the off angled fingers from so many times that they had been broken and set with whatever could be found nearby in the lack of medical facility of any kind. By the valiantry and sacrifice of George "The Comet" Crawley was the Grantham Family's Estate, glamour, luxury … and ignorance, safeguarded from the wicked and dark that linger in the shadows of a world that they claim doesn't exist. Yet, still, even less than a mile from ancient and fell evils that would make their very heart still, they claim it all a fabrication, an invention, of the young Earl of Grantham. Fore, now, as it was then, was it easier to blame George than face the realities of the real world that lay ever beyond their Estate, London House, and French Villa.

And Lady Sybil Cora Crawley would not have any more of this toxic ignorance cloaked in fond revelries.

It had been a long time since Tom had heard such a fierce maternal voice – fighting mad. Cora had always been diplomatic and composed when people came after her girls, showing only a more ruthless side to her protectiveness when it came to George – but then Lady Grantham's steely fangs where always hidden behind a smile and petulance. Edith was more a shield than guard dog for Marigold. She would jump in and take the slings and arrows of the bullies for her special girl, rather than defend her. And Mary … well, Mary was constantly aloof and uncaring for the ills of the children – and in George's case she often was the ringleader of his detractors. So, to see, how sudden and ferocious Sybil became at the drop of a hat was unexpected but not surprising from the woman he married.

In Dublin his wife was known not to adhere to convention. He remembered a James McTavish who had brought his son in after he had slapped the child's ears back for misbehaving in school. A novice nun had come running into the newspaper office to fetch Tom, saying that Sybil was in danger. When he got there in record time, he saw his darling standing in guard of a sobbing young boy as his father trashed the ward in a drunken fit of the cursing swears. Sybil was clutching the boy to her leg, holding the violent man at bay with a pair of surgical scissors. Tom Branson did not believe in personal violence, but when a man threatened the love of his life with what McTavish did … one does not comprehend what the word pacifism means. He thrashed that man up and down that ward till the British Police came and hauled him away.

Later, when asked what happened, Sybil said that she would not allow the man to leave with the child in such a state, that she threatened to cut his balls off if he beat that boy again. When Tom asked what she was going to do if he tested her, Sybil was hesitant before saying unsurely 'Well, I don't know just now, really … but it would hurt … really badly … and he would be sorry!' to which Tom only chuckled breathlessly and put an arm around her as she shook with falling adrenaline, nuzzling tight to him in relief he was there ... but unrepentant of protecting an abused child.

Thus, if Lady Sybil was willing to fight a drunken beast – twice her size – like McTavish for a small child she hardly knew, one could only imagine how she felt about a family member, her blood, when she deemed them unfairly treated. Fore, Tom knew, even before Mary or Edith had children, that Sybil would've been one of those aunts that would see their sisters' children - George, Marigold, and Caroline - as if they were her very own. And Sybil, in particular, would've been worse than a grandmother in terms of interfering and getting underfoot. One could only imagine how she might have driven Mary mad with the level of involvement she would've taken in George's life, or how merciless she would've been about Edith giving Marigold up for adoption. Somehow, Tom saw a universe, in which he would wake up to find Sybil at the kitchen table, feeding Sybbie, with an infant George on her lap proclaiming that the boy was hers now, since Mary can't be bothered. And it would be something that he would just have to live with.

It had been only six months since her return and already she was completely enamored with Marigold. Whenever she walked in a room, she always made sure that she gave the girl a kiss. They went shopping or ran errands together all the time. She showed her dresses and clothes in magazines that she thought might suit her on opening nights of her performances at the Met. He had seen them from time to time walking down the street of the town of Downton arm in arm, always smiling. Indeed, Marigold was such an easy person to love - good natured, soft hearted, and immensely beautiful, inside and out - but there was something special about Sybil's love for her that was felt deeply as an extension, a carried over affection from her elemental love for her sisters.

And if such primal feelings were inherent for Marigold … one could only imagine how Sybil felt about George.

Lucy Branson had stepped on a landmine that she did not know, nor could fathom, was there. Fore Tom's alternative universe about Sybil adopting George in the same manner that Mary had adopted Sybbie had been based in a concrete reality of his knowledge of who Sybil was. And thus, though all of Lucy's life as a member of the House of Grantham, criticism of George was unspokenly sanctioned in the lack of will by anyone to stand up for him, now even the slightest slight earned a blackened eye. One would've thought that it was Sybil alone who had raised him herself in the wilderland. She was defensive and outspoken, tolerating neither slight nor offense placed upon his name.

It made no sense to Mary, Edith, nor Lucy that Sybil may have met her nephew once, maybe twice, in his entire life, and yet somehow, she saw herself as his mother, his guardian. Mary could not give insult, Edith could not even make a joke, and Lucy – obviously – could not speak her feelings of him. Any dissention to the Earl was met with Sybil there to bite their heads off and demand a retraction. The old thinking and feelings of the past fourteen years was purged in the bloody knife fights that the youngest Crawley Girl engaged in with her sisters and replacement. They would learn to put respect on their boy and Lordship's name and break the old habits instilled by Granny and Papa … or Lady Sybil would break them.

Quickly, sensing the temperature rise in the garage, and feeling the clearly hot-blooded lingering of the night's trauma in Sybil's interchanging temper, Tom stepped forward to preverbally separate Lucy and Sybil.

"Look, it's late, and we're all tired … perhaps we should retire, before the night gets the better of us, huh?" Tom once more held his hand up to Sybil, whose sharp snap had set the atmosphere on edge.

"No …" Sybil replied, perhaps resentful of Tom's attempts of peacekeeping – her pride burnt at the idea of someone trying to manage her. "Someone needs to go to Cornwall, in case the worse happens." She turned to the other motor, Edith's white and silver MG.

There was a casualness, in the sisterliest way possible, in the sudden ownership that Sybil felt toward it. They were wives, mothers, women of the modern world with responsibility, and still there was a girlish, ageless, quality of borrowing without asking each other's possessions. Edith used Sybil's lipstick without permission, Sybil stole Edith's shoes, and all three sisters shared their late mamma, granny, and Aunt Rosamund's jewels for nights when they entertained. Amongst sisters, especially the Crawley Girls, all things were a communal principle whether it was make-up, frocks, pearls … or the children. Nothing truly belonged to one sister, especially if they had want or need of it. Thus, it was why Sybbie called Mary Mamma all her life, why Edith was the closest thing to a mother that George ever had, and why both Sybil and Mary proclaimed to everyone that they both had two grown children.

"Not tonight, Sybil …" Tom, with instinct, grabbed his ex-wife by the arm to stop her.

"Mary …!" She began, shrugging out of his grip.

"Has done something incredibly stupid, yes." He finished.

"All hell is going to break loose."

"Probably."

"Then, we should …"

"Not get involved."

"How can you say that?!"

"Because, Lucy is right."

"What?"

"Matthew is there, and even if he wasn't, George is not going to harm Mary."

"…"

"…"

"Well, he's not going to kill her, at any rate."

"Are you so sure? Cause I'm not."

"Matthew needs to learn the truth …"

"I agree, but …"

"And there is no two people in the world that he needs to hear it from more than the two people there with him tonight."

"Is that wise?" Lucy asked. "You know what they're like Mary and … him. If it's any indication by the way Cousin Matthew looks at Mary, it could be a rude awakening to see the way the woman he loves and their child go at one another, especially the way they do when they're at their worst. I don't need to tell you what that looks nor sounds like, Tom. It's a thing of nightmares for just the casual bystander." By the inflection of the green hazel eyed woman's tone one would've thought that she was talking about an especially destructive and violent typhoon.

"I know …" her husband's voice got suddenly softer, ponderous, lost in the quiet as the noises of the night infiltrated the stillness of the garage. "But, if Sybbie ever comes home …" He stopped himself, feeling the name strike at the very heart of Sybil, and even Lucy. "When …" there was an old and battered faith that was unbreakable in his self-correction. "When Sybbie comes home. I couldn't think of anyone else that I want to be with to face it all than the ones I love most." He said softly.

In that moment, everything went quiet and the emotions, taut and heavy, lingered in the air, in the ambiguity that was lost in the shadowy garage. Lucy's eyes widened, her lip trembled slightly, when she caught it – a wife's sharp observation – of the flick of a glance. The betrayal of a split-second when Tom looked to Sybil, locked eyes with her, as if Lucy had not been there at all. The blow was like the strike of a hammer at the last thirteen years of her life. It lasted only a beat, but it was all that it took for the latter Mrs. Branson. Her ears were alive with the cold symphony of a desolate wind that whistles through the ruins of a cathedral in her heart built from the love for Tom and Sybbie – a family.

All her life, she had only Mummy - painfully awkward, anxious in conversations, introverted. She didn't have any friends at school in New York, Boston, nor London, not in the servant's halls of Brampton, nor Windsor and Buckingham Palaces, and certainly not in Balmoral and Sandringham. It seemed that Lucy Smith didn't exist at all till the day, that glorious day, of the Royal Parade, when she met Tom Branson. The moment she locked eyes with the quiet and forlorn widower and saw him spark alight in sight of her, this unexpected beauty in mackintosh and silk oriental dress. It had been thirteen years since then, and they had been through so much together, tragedies and horrors that Saint Sybil couldn't comprehend.

She didn't know how to go back to that life before, not now that she had nothing else. What would she have left to live for? How could she return to Brampton when all of this is over and have nothing, nothing at all, to show for it? Mummy was dead – murdered. Her boy, her joy, also murdered. Even her house, her legacy, was requisitioned by the RAF for lord knows how long, maybe forever. The whole Empire, the whole world, was burning. Where was she to go? Who was she if she couldn't be what fate had made her into? All she knew was that she had Tom, she had their family, had the memories of what it had been like before, when everything was new and exciting. If it all ended now, if this angel fallen back to mortality took Tom from her, Lucy would have nothing at all. Just the knowledge that she could not protect the ones she loved – Mummy and the baby – could not save them from the ugly and dark world that they had been dragged into, his world.

"She'll come home, Tom. And when she does, will be here for her, every step of the way."

Sybil was visibly stricken at the force, the determination, in the way that Lucy came to Tom's side, in his moment of weakness. Taking his hand ardently, it was as if he was somehow slipping away in some invisible undercurrent that only his second wife could see. Sybil had been frozen by the invoking of their little girl's name, the torrent of regrets, hopes, and sorrows, that was all mixed up in a name that echoed with such majestic tragedy in the chambers that made Lady Sybil everything she was and believed herself to be. But she was released from the stranglehold of these languishing longings when Tom's gaze - their shared connection - was broken by a beautiful woman taking his hand and turning his head from Sybil. She watched the gentle, thoughtful, way that her hand reached up and stroked Tom's cheek, comforting him - cushioning the blows he ever felt about his failure of the one person that meant the universe to all of them gathered there that night.

In that instant, Sybil saw the difference, the duality, between herself and Lucy in a simple touch.

Since the moment they met, Lady Sybil Crawley and Tom Branson had been pulling one another by the hand in search of a new and better horizon. They were both hardheaded, stubborn, and ambitious. They strove for the stars, tolerated nothing less than excellence in each other and for themselves. They didn't stop for anything, never compromised for what they believed was right, and smashed barriers headfirst, throwing themselves and one another at them till it yielded. When Tom and Sybil were together, they set the world afire wherever they went, always hand in hand. However, Lucy Branson was nothing like Sybil Branson nor was their marriage to Tom the same.

The Mistress of Brampton did not push and pull Tom, fore she met and loved a man that had settled into a life he wanted, a life he loved. The man she fell in love with had spent too many years mourning his fallen wife, living in the mires of angst she left him in - the uncertainty of who he was now as a single parent stranded from his beloved Ireland forever. Tom Branson had settled for a simple life, a simple happiness, of doing what he loved and raising his little girl to give her the best life possible. Lucy Smith was not striving for excellence or shooting for the stars, young and idealistic. The former lady's maid instead was devoted to the ideal of quiet happiness, of being a wife, of being a mother.

She didn't want to change the status-quo, she wanted to be the woman that brings her husband lunch, who sits on the motor hood beside him eating while he tells her about his day so far. She was lonely, unloved but for a mother that could not openly show it for many long years. She cared about her husband, cherished his friendship, was unafraid of the lazy days or the fear of the concept of a woman's cage. She was a kiss in the morning, a lap to lay a head upon, a warm body to hold at night. Suffrage, justice, class politics, paled compared to the very prospect of being loved, of loving someone who loved her back - the orphan's dream. Lady Sybil Crawley had everything that Lucy Smith did not, a home, a family, a place of her own in the world. Sybil wanted to change the way society saw her … while Lucy would just settle for a hand to hold at Tea.

There was no class divide, no Irish Independence, no star-crossed love of fable. When Lucy touched the man that Sybil swore to cherish before God, there was nothing more to it than a feeling, an overwhelming sensation, of safety and want. Could she have said the same thing about their marriage? Perhaps it was all exciting and break-neck when they were young and in love, when danger added to the romance, the love making, that shook the foundation of the world with passion that was unquenchable. But in all their relationship, Sybil never gave an ounce of that devotion. He was her partner, her equal, but she never stopped to ask him if he was alright, if he was content with the life they wanted to lead. Lady Sybil Branson, since she could remember, was always going her own way, with or without society's approval. And as it seemed to her, it was usually the same way that Tom was going. Yet, now, watching Lucy with him, the gentle care and sweetness to her inner beauty, seeing the way that the man she loved responded to her cousin's touch, Sybil began to wonder about her marriage.

Thirteen years, married for twelve – they had been together longer than Tom and Sybil had even known one another, much less had been in love.

It wasn't shame, but it was a deep feeling of having let herself down that came over Sybil. All she could think of was the many youthful ambitions and causes that she fought for so ardently that came to naught. The feminists and suffragettes that let passion and ambition trump principle till they became eugenicists who hung men for the color of their skin. The socialists that Sybil sympathized with once that had darkened and corrupted her daughter's heart, who destroyed entire cities, lining the streets with dead children in every corner of the Imperium and rounded them into camps in own fell empires. Every cause that she had supported with such fervor had backfired, became something monstrous and horrible in the twenty years since. All that was left now, her legacy, was a star-crossed love with the dearest of men that she admired. Yet, when they were together, married, she never considered, not once, his feelings, his hurts and fears. And it was intolerable now to see another woman, beautiful and soft, giving him everything that she didn't know, didn't think, she should've every day when they were young and in love. It was then, that Sybil wondered if she had been a terrible wife, selfish and blinded by her passions.

If the spoiled and selfish Great Lady was ever capable of giving Tom what Lucy could in a simple touch.

"Perhaps your right." She interrupted their intimate moment. "I'll say good night." She tried to hide the catch of emotion, the flustered anxiety of painful heartbreak to see the man she loved in the arms of another after that bracing and perfect kiss. That when she said goodnight, Sybil knew it was truly meant, that they would not retire to the same bed and feel his arms hold her, to chase away all the fears and disappointment of this hateful night.

"Goodnight, Cousin Sybil."

"Goodnight, Cousin Lucy."

"Sybil …"

"Tom …"

With her Burberry coat over her arm and dirty handbag in lacy gloved hand, Sybil began walking out of the garage, Edith's stolen high heels echoing with sharp clacks in the brick and aluminum structure. She didn't have to look, she knew, felt, Tom give a silent protest of her going. He stepped forward, away from Lucy, to call her back. But he went silent. What was left to say: Not to go? That he was sorry? That he still loved her? Of course, she knew that, their kiss tonight, that moment when the cosmic realigned for just one brief second and all was right again, it said more than any final parting could tell her of where they stood, how they felt. But tonight, Lady Sybil doubted herself, was conflicted of who she was. The past, the things that she clung and knew had a different shade.

She had tried to kill a man, then kissed a married one, and his wife had made her realize how very little she knew of their shared sacred position and what that entailed in an adult relationship. Sybil found herself questioning everything. Was she the reason that Sybbie suffered, something ugly and dangerous that she passed to her little girl? Was she not the wife she could've been, should've been, to Tom when they were together? Indeed, was she the very person, the beautification, that her loved ones made her out to be when she was gone? And worse of all … had her memory, these perceived attributes, sent Sybbie and George down dark roads when the unattainable standards of her angelic phantasm was used like a weapon against them and their faults.

Yet, still, against everything that was screaming inside her, Sybil lingered at the painted doors of the old garage. Her hand reached out and touched the old wood, weather beaten, and the green painted coating chipped down to the varnish since her days. In an instinct that she could no more ignore than to breath and eat, Lady Sybil turned back to look at this place, this sanctuary, that had – once, long ago - gave her everything that her heart had desired. But instead she only saw that man, that ticket to her dreams and needs for a different sort of life, a completion to that missing part of her very soul, in the arms of another woman.

Convinced that Sybil had left, Lucy Branson, relieved to have her husband back after nearly a month gone, with no knowledge of his whereabouts – or at least the approximation of which – wrapped herself about the tired and conflicted man. Tom didn't hesitate, coming to her automatically, bracing the lovely woman in his arms tightly, relieved and enchanted by her familiar sweet musk of faded perfume and fruity smelling lotions. To feel the embrace, the warmth, of a woman again was intoxicating. When he was with Sybil, he had nearly swooned, become heady, in her perfect presence. The all-consuming fire, the unfinished business, the primal passion of love, was ever there with his first wife. But he cherished this as well, the softest sweetness, the feeling of Lucy in his arms, the comfort and safety, the insistent need to hold her, love her, snuggle her. From the moment he saw Lady Bagshaw's maid, Tom had wanted to protect her, to give her meaning, a place called home of which she would be accepted. Thank God for Edith pushing, contriving, knowing his mind better than his regrets and sense of chivalry would allow him. She had found him someone good and kind, sweet and loyal, and Edith had found herself a friend, a good and close companion whom she came to call sister. She was every bit family, a part of the House of Grantham, as anyone.

But even as Tom Branson held the beautiful Mrs. Branson of twelve years in his arms, his eyes looked over her lace covered pale shoulder at the woman lingering at the entrance. His gaze, his heart, ensnared by the torn and tormented look that she gave the clear show of affection, of genuine love, that Lucy received without lent of hindrance. And he wanted to die. Fore he could not choose, could not set aside one to commit to the other without hurting, shattering, another. He knew, in his heart, that he belonged with Sybil, but he could never leave Lucy behind. The woman in his arms was all the contentment and satisfaction of a life realtered into something of worth and plenty. Yet, the yearning for that flash of lightning that strikes him every time Sybil was near, that feeling of first and deepest love, poured through him. She was an angelic and unaltered redo, a divine gift of a second chance for a future stolen from them. It was not a simple question of should and want, but a test from God himself – from the oldest of testaments – he had to choose between the true loss of either his heart or his soul … and he must pick one to keep and one to lose forever.

He squeezed his eyes shut, letting out a shutter, as he lowered his head in defeat, nuzzling his nose into the lovely smelling white neck of Lucy. He buried his face into her desperately, looking for a port in this hurricane that had blown him asunder, yet, finding only momentary calm seas within the very eye of this wrathful, hateful, storm. Sybil watched this, her jaw suddenly tightened, taking a false step to speak some horrid and desperate cruel nonsense that even she couldn't know what. But she halted when she saw, in the reflection of the side mirror of Tom's motor, Lucy watching her intently. The two women, distant cousins, were entrammeled by the other, waiting to see who would make a move. They were like stags who catch the sent of a hunter … but unsure what it wanted - both equally bestilled in the glade and drawing back the nocked bowstring in sight of the query.

But eventually, Lucy only nodded wordlessly, either in show of empathy or in statement of her ownership of this wonderful man that they both loved. Then, she closed her eyes and nestled his cheekbone, squeezing him tighter. Sybil's jaw clenched and her eyes glassed over at the sight of the married couple, the old hands at partnership and mutual respect. Nowhere in sight was the young and daring love that challenged the foundations of their society. It was an old and tested pairing that had withstood assailment of a dark and dangerous world that had taken everything from them and left only each other in the grim grey winters and black cold nights that veiled star and moon. It was nothing like the star-crossed love whose first challenge, test of faith, resulted in a parting death.

As Lady Sybil Crawley turned back to Downton Abbey, the midnight gleam gave a sparkling shimmer to a single tear that fell like her heart.

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"You Were Mine" – Dixie Chicks

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Editorial Notes

The murders of Lady Maude Bagshaw and Lord and Lady Sinderby is told in full in Chapter 11 of "The Wayfaring Stranger"

All events of the movie "Downton Abbey: A New Era" are canon, but for any deaths that contradict with the established lore. Also, any involvement of George Crawley in the film is not canon to this story series.

The character during the opening events of "A New Era" would be entering the tomb of the Stygian Sorcerer Thoth-Amon at the headwaters of the Nile on the Ethiopian Frontier with Captain Allan Quartermain and Ms. Mina Murray in search of the "Serpent Ring of Set". And in the second and third act of the new movie George Crawley would be in the mountains of Wallachia attempting to rescue a kidnapped Mina Murray from Castle Dracula with the rest of "the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen". This major event is how the "Templar's Gauntlet" comes into George's possession.

The character's return to the County Grantham would possibly be at the events of the very tail end of the movie. However, he would return fairly wounded and battered from the adventure and would absolutely have no care – bordering contempt - for whatever happened in his absence to his family of whom, in 1928, he would have a very tense and hostile relationship with.

Though, there is a high likelihood of a confrontation – most likely a violent one - between George and any new character involved in Mary's storyline that would seek him out in curiosity or in the very unwise assumption of him having any connection to Mary.

Translation: No matter how nice a guy or stand-up dude Jack Barber might be, my guy would be spitting out his testicles from how hard George would punch him in the nuts if he darkened Crawley House's door for any reason having to do with Mary.

Call it a crash course in the Status-Quo.

The reference of 'the old demon' is a derogatory nickname given by George Crawley and his unbroken line of future descendants to the vampire Dracula. And any mention of the damned monster in this story and the rest of the series are under the guise of Dracula's alias as American Industrialist "Alexander Grayson" of which he is known in England and to the future heirs of the House of Grantham.