A/N: Thank you, Reader, for your kind review. Yes, Mr Molesley is quite sweet on Miss Baxter! :D

***chapter 23***

After seeing Lady Sybil's daughter Sybbie, Thomas could have burst with happiness at having his surrogate daughter back in his life again. Not that he was prepared to tell anyone he was sentimental enough to think of Sybbie as a surrogate daughter. Even if he were, there was no one to tell.

Oh, Lottie would have listened, but Lottie was no more than a child herself, too young to understand. He smiled fondly as he thought of the youngest residents of Downton Abbey. Timid maid-of-all-work Lottie with her love of chocolate and terror of spiders; chatterbox Miss Sybbie with her tendency, accidental or otherwise, to rock the status quo; Master George with his collection of animal pictures and his habit of introducing topics out of nowhere ("Fireworks are very loud" he suddenly solemnly informed the kitchen staff many months after Bonfire Night when Lady Mary brought him downstairs to see the birthday cake they'd baked); shy little Miss Marigold who would hide behind Lady Edith's skirts whenever she could and clutch her hand as tightly as if she never intended to let go again. Kids were so honest. Whether you were black or white, tall or short, fat or thin, whether you preferred men or women, they simply took you at face value and said what they thought, and if the truth sometimes hurt, well, tough, they had no hidden agenda, they never stopped to think it might, and had forgotten it all and expected you had too by tomorrow.

But they lacked the sophistication of adults. And while no doubt Miss Baxter, the nearest person he could class as a friend despite everything, would listen he was damned if he was going to let her know he could be soft as melted butter. If his blackmail was to succeed, he needed her to fear him. Not that she did, or even ever had, he reflected. His threat to reveal her criminal past if she refused to co-operate was enough to ensure her reluctant compliance, but he would have to be blind not to notice it was tinged with pity. And Thomas didn't need or want pity from Phyllis Baxter. He didn't need or want pity from anyone.

He learned to stand on his own two feet long, long ago when everybody he ever loved left him and the friends he thought would always be there for him let him down. Tears were all done with, too. Washed away in adolescence, his trust torn asunder when someone he regarded as a best mate turned against him in disgust when he revealed he was homosexual. In future, he would only ever cry alone and never allow anyone to see him weak and vulnerable.

No, Thomas called the shots these days. Keep people away with the double armour of a scathing wit and bristling arrogance. It worked. They kept their distance. There were times, though, when he ached with loneliness, when he yearned for someone, anyone, to talk to. Even Sarah O'Brien would have done then. Any human being although it was debatable whether Miss O'Brien was human when her heart was made of stone. As he discovered when her revenge fell on him heavy and swift.

Back in his earlier days at Downton, however, Miss O'Brien had been a companion of sorts. While they never really liked each other, bonding only over their mutual contempt for the other household staff, O'Brien was someone to plot and scheme with, joke and share cigarettes with, but never a friend. They both knew better than to reveal too many secrets, watching like circling sharks for one slip they could use against the other. He knew his own anger with the world was its refusal to accept him, but he never discovered the reason for Sarah O'Brien's bitterness. She was a closed book on her background, slamming it shut whenever he tentatively tried to turn the pages. While he stupidly confided in her, because he needed someone to confide in and there was no one else, his feelings for Jimmy Kent, a confidence she later twisted, driving Thomas to the brink of losing his home and job and breaking his soul in the process.

Which ironically would be the consequence for Miss Baxter if she refused to execute his plan. And if his own heart was made of stone nowadays, what of it? It started out trusting as a child's until life taught him not giving a damn was the wisest insurance against being hurt.

Arms clasped behind his head, and although the night was bitterly cold and his pyjamas not particularly warm, he didn't bother pulling sheet and blankets over himself, but with pillows propped behind, half lay, half sat, gazing idly at the frost-patterned window that showed in the narrow gap between the curtains, mulling over the events of the day.

He had intended to inform Miss Baxter it was back to the drawing board with his original plan to get rid of John Bates. Too many holes in the idea, he would claim, which was true enough, but not the real reason he'd changed his mind. The real reason was, after seeing how much Tom Branson loved Sybbie, he couldn't bring himself to deprive any child of a father. Not even John Bates's as yet unborn child and no matter how great his hate. But it seemed Lady Grantham had thought her ladies' maid looked a bit peaky* and insisted Phyllis Baxter retire to bed. And men were not allowed in the women's sleeping quarters - strict protocol, even for men who were most definitely not interested in women.

Not to worry. Being on early duty, he could catch her in the morning. Morning will always come, no matter how dark the night. Lady Sybil's whisper flew suddenly back to his mind on the wings of a memory.

It was several weeks since Lieutenant Edward Courtenay's suicide, and just as he was coming to terms with his death, when the loss threatened to overwhelm him all over again. Ever perceptive, Nurse Sybil Crawley was the only one who noticed the tears glistening in his eyes as a new influx of war-damaged patients arrived, one of whom had been blinded by mustard gas. She lightly rested her hand on his arm and added in the same gentle whisper, "Stay strong. Be strong." And he would, he could, with the kindness of friends. But they were both dead now. Lieutenant Courtenay and Lady Sybil.

How he yearned for them to be here again, if only for a minute. He had long since ceased writing letters to Edward that he could never send. Too risky to put pen to paper lest someone learn the secrets of his heart and use his innermost emotion, his love for another man, against him. Sarah O'Brien was long gone, years ago, and thousands of miles away in another continent, but Miss O'Brien wasn't his only enemy. He was disliked by many.

But he'd discovered a safer way of writing to Lieutenant Courtenay without pen and paper. And, never quite giving up hope that one night the only man he had ever truly loved – for he and Paul Latham were so very, very young – might return, and never quite knowing if he would be afraid of the unknown or glad to embrace it if he did, Thomas wrote in his head.

My darling Teddy

Wonderful news tonight! Miss Sybbie is back from America! At least, I call her Miss Sybbie. Miss Rebel would probably be a more suitable appellation. You'll be delighted to hear she is very much her mother's daughter and I predict a future for her every bit as unconventional. Just appeared in front of me like a genie out of a lamp, the little rascal did, and started chatting right off, telling me all about America like she'd only been away five minutes. Of course, that idiot Branson was with her. You'll think I'm going soft in my old age, knowing how much I despise the man, but I have to admit, he's a good Dad, thinks the world of her, he does, and she adores him.

There I was, Teddy, sitting outside minding my own business enjoying a smoke - in the bloody freezing cold, I might add, because Mr Carson had a face on him like a smacked bum tonight when I lit up. See, there was this story in the evening paper – some poor bloke dying of a heart attack while downing a pint in his local – not a bad way to go, though, eh, mate? - been a hero in the Great War, awarded the blooming Victoria Cross, no less. Anyroad, turned out he'd been leading a secret life as a homosexual.

"Posing as a respectable greengrocer and pillar of the community, all the while meeting men for abhorrent and unnatural acts", was the way the bleeding paper sanctimoniously put it. And now there's this bloody great outcry about how "perverts" like us shouldn't be allowed to receive medals! Seems you can't be brave AND homosexual. Thing is, Ted, blokes like us, we HAVE to be brave all the time. Trying to hide how we feel, trying not to offend anyone by speaking about it, risking jail, living half lives in the shadows...

It's all most of the staff have been talking about, whether or not he should've got the medal, and Carson's been giving me daggers because, well, you know his opinion about people like you and me – because we ARE people, despite what he thinks – and in the end I had to go outside to smoke before I punched the living daylights out of someone.

That's right, me old mucker**, I'm still smoking like a chimney and, yeah, I would've lost that bet. Remember it? Sixpence stake on which of us could cut down to ten ciggies a day? I still reckon you only challenged me because it wasn't easy for you to smoke on the ward when you couldn't see the damn cigarette, sneaky blighter, so, yeah, okay, I owe you a tanner. Wish you were here to take it…

Dear God, Teddy, how I miss you! I miss the talks we had, the laughs, the smokes together, the way you ran your fingers through your beautiful thick hair when you were thinking about something and the time I ran my fingers through pretending to help you comb it, stifling our laughter when nobody realised what we were doing; that special goodnight kiss you gave me; only a peck on the cheek, all we could chance, even though it was late and hardly anyone around. I wish, Teddy...I just wish...

(Impatient with himself, Thomas wiped a hand over his face)

"You're laughing at me now, aren't you? I know it. I know what you'd say. Tears, Nurse Thomasina? Dear, dear me! Loved to tease, didn't you, you b*****d? Did I ever tell you about the time I offered Daisy a smoke? Just being in a good mood, like, and her sitting outside "to take a breath of air" so she said; I reckon she and Mrs Patmore had had words so she stormed out, Daisy's getting bolder by the minute since she started that studying lark. Well, remember I told you how Mrs Patmore can't abide cigarettes? She's always on at Daisy never to start, stink, she says and bad for you. How the hell does the stupid woman think we got through the Great War? Can you imagine the Sarge announcing, no more ciggies for you, my lads, we're only thinking of your health and we're worried it might make you a bit smelly. Now off you go and have fun trying to get yourselves killed on the Somme, and we'll say nowt about the lice and the BO seeing as you disgusting lot haven't washed for days, and you're enjoying getting shot at and watching your mates get blown up so much you're rolling around in the mud like pigs in muck. Dunno why Daisy doesn't take up smoking just to annoy her, I would. So, anyroad, I offered her a fag and, blimey, you'd have thought I was giving her rat poison! "No, no, no!" she yelled, and took off back inside like a bat out of hell..."

He smiled at the image. There was no one to smile back. And perhaps it was the night growing ever colder, perhaps it was the aching in his heart, but Thomas shivered. He slithered into his bed, pulling the covers over himself, glad he had at least had the foresight this evening to obtain an extra blanket from Mrs Hughes. The warmth brought little comfort. The darkness echoed with loneliness, the ticking of the small alarm clock that woke him every morning all there was to break the heavy silence.

The tears fell then, unchecked, try as he might to deny their presence, until sleep stole him away.

Info for non-British readers:-

*Mucker: British slang for friend

**Peaky: British expression meaning pale or sickly