AN: This chapter takes place during episode 3x04. I hope you enjoy it!

The moment they were alone in her bedroom, Tom reached for Sybil, his mouth landing roughly against hers. He kissed her urgently, his hands winding in her hair and clutching at her backside to secure her body to his. He wanted to inhale her, to swallow her whole, just so they would never have to be apart again. Her lips moved with his, matching his frantic pace. She whimpered softly as he pulled away, pressing wet kisses to any part of her he could reach: her temple, her nose, her cheeks, her throat.

"I've been so afraid," he admitted, his voice raw. He rested his forehead against hers, not willing to lose contact.

Sybil reached up to stroke his hair, fingers trailing down his cheek. He leaned into her touch, taking comfort from the gesture, though he knew he didn't deserve it. Her eyes were still wet, her dark lashes clumped together from her tears. Tom couldn't stand to see her cry. He couldn't stand knowing he had made her cry.

More than her tears were the dark shadows under her eyes, her rumpled clothing, and the smell of the sea that lingered on her hair. Her protruding belly, squished snuggly between them, was another reminder of what he had risked. Sybil shouldn't have been traveling at all in her condition; she was practically swaying from exhaustion.

Tom felt his eyes fill with tears again, his guilt and shame washing over him like a tidal wave.

"Shh, don't be afraid," Sybil said soothingly, smoothing her hand over his furrowed brow. "We're together now. Everything will be all right."

Tom closed his eyes, unable to look at her, not when she was gazing up at him with such love and devotion.

"Don't you want to know what I did?"

Sybil dropped her hand from his cheek. "Of course I do. I've thought of barely anything else since I left the flat." She turned her face away, untangling herself from him and wandering over to look out the window. Tom felt an immediate sense of loss when her touch was gone, like a cold draft had blown in.

She stood with her back to him, gazing down at the lawn below. "Go on, then. Tell me."

Tom swallowed heavily. "The IRA burnt down Drumgoole Castle last night."

"Was anybody hurt?"

"I don't think so. But I left before the fire brigade went inside to check."

She hesitated, her head bowed, before finally asking, "And the police think you were involved?"

"The other men will have given them my name by now."

Sybil nodded, but didn't move from her spot by the window. Tom could barely breathe through his tightly clenched jaw. He wished he could see her face. He wanted to stride across the room and force her to look at him, just to put him out of his misery. If this was the moment where he lost her love, he wanted to get it over with, like the clean slice of a guillotine.

But Tom couldn't bring himself to go to her. In truth, if this was the end, he would do anything to prolong the moment, just to put off hearing her say those words.

At last Sybil turned around, her grey eyes serious. "Well, I suppose it could have been worse."

Tom blinked. "I'm not sure what you mean."

Sybil smiled ruefully, walking over to his side. "I've been imagining terrible things. Standing by while the IRA burns down a house is really not so bad in comparison."

"You wouldn't be saying so if you had seen the look on Lady Drumgoole's face," Tom said, staring down at her in confusion. "Aren't you angry with me?"

Sybil slowly shook her head. "Maybe I should be…but it wouldn't be very fair, would it? I knew about your politics long before I married you. I can't very well be mad at you for it now."

"You can be mad, and you should be." Tom reached for her hands, squeezing them tightly between his own. "At the very least for leaving without you."

"I told you to go without me, didn't I?" Sybil reminded him gently, her eyes soft. "I can hardly hold that against you."

"But I did a terrible thing!" he exclaimed incredulously.

Sybil bit her lip. "Well," she said slowly. "I can't say I approve of burning down a family's home. But you told me once that hard sacrifices must be made for a future worth having. Even if I don't agree with the IRA's methods…I suppose they have their reasons…"

"Why are you making excuses for me?" Tom demanded.

Sybil frowned. "Don't you want me to make excuses for you?"

Tom couldn't speak, couldn't look at her. He turned his face away, teeth clenched to prevent himself from expressing his frustration. He wanted to shake her by the shoulders, until his Sybil came back. Though Tom wanted her forgiveness more desperately than he wanted his next breath, this easy acceptance felt wrong somehow. He didn't deserve to be defended. Did she really love him so much that she would abandon all her notions of right and wrong? Tom didn't want that for her. He never wanted her to lose her idealism, her innocence, not even for his sake.

Sybil grabbed his chin, forcing him to meet her gaze. "Look at me," she said fiercely. "I'm your wife, Tom. Don't ask me to give up on you now, not after everything we've been through." Her eyes were like steel. "I won't abandon you, no matter what."

His anger faded as he stared down at her beautiful face, as familiar to him as his own. Even if it was wrong, her sheer determination to love him shook him to the core. Tom simply could not do without it; her love had become as necessary as air and water. It was selfish and petty, but he thanked God for her moral lapse, just so he didn't have to.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, caressing her face. "I'm so sorry."

"I know you are," she murmured, tipping her head up to meet his lips in a tender kiss.

xxx

There was nothing to do but wait for Lord Grantham to return. Sybil tried to nap, but she couldn't fall asleep with Tom restlessly pacing the room. She could tell from the way his brow was furrowed low over his stormy eyes that he was anxious, endlessly replaying the conversation with her mother and her sisters over and over in his head. Sybil rolled awkwardly onto her side to watch him, feeling like a beached whale.

He was standing by her dressing table, caught up in his own dark thoughts as he mindlessly ran his fingers over the bottles of perfume and little boxes of jewelry. Sybil wanted to stroke his cheek and erase all the pain, but she knew it was beyond her power to heal. Cora's insistence that they stay at Downton Abbey probably seemed like a similar fate to prison in his eyes.

"Tom," Sybil called out softly. His head snapped up to meet her gaze, anguish etched into the lines of his face. "Come lay down with me."

"I'm not tired," he protested wearily, though he crossed the room to join her on the bed anyway. The mattress sank under his weight as he sat down to remove his shoes, kicking them to the end of the bed where his jacket had been tossed aside.

She wiggled over to his side, where he lay on his back with his arms behind his head. Sybil placed her small hand on his chest, feeling the steady rise and fall of his breathing and the muted thumping of his heart.

"I know you're upset," she said quietly. "But we mustn't lose hope yet. Perhaps Papa can persuade them not to come after us."

Tom frowned, eyes fixed on the ceiling. "I don't want our child to be born here."

Sybil bit her lip, feelings of tenderness and frustration at war within her. She couldn't stand to see Tom hurting. She knew how he felt at Downton: like a circus freak on parade, endlessly ridiculed and scorned by a jeering crowd. It made him bitter and defensive, not at all like the confident and cheerful man he was in Dublin. It hurt Sybil's heart to watch him struggle; though, in her opinion, he was fighting against an opponent that was in his head. Her family might like to poke and prod, but they weren't cruel people. In fact, their acceptance of Tom and Sybil's marriage had far surpassed her expectations.

"Let's just wait and see what Papa has to say," Sybil repeated, moving closer to rub her nose against Tom's cheek.

He ignored her nuzzling. "I mean it, Sybil. I want our child to be Irish."

A sudden flare of anger shot through her. "Then perhaps you never should have gotten involved with the IRA."

There was no need to say anything more. It passed between them unspoken: And then we'd be back in our flat right now, with the wireless on and a fire going in the hearth and one of my terrible cabbage pies in the oven. You'd be reading me the headlines from your paper while I attempt to mend a pair of socks, and we'd laugh at my sloppy needlework. We were so, so happy, until you went and ruined it.

Tom stiffened at her silent accusation, turning his face away from her on their shared pillow.

Sybil immediately regretted her words. She propped herself up on her elbow, looking down at his tired, pale face. He stared up at her, his sadness and hurt heavy in his tired eyes. Sybil pressed her warm hand against his cheek, wishing she could take back the pain she had caused him.

"I'm sorry, Tom."

"Why? It's true, isn't it?" he sighed.

"Still, I am sorry." Sybil bit her lip. "Don't be defeatist yet. We don't know what the home secretary will say. Perhaps we can be on a boat back to Dublin by tomorrow morning."

Tom smirked, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. He pushed her short hair behind her ears, letting his large hands linger on her exposed neck. "That's what I love about you. Always the optimist." He gently pulled her down to lie on his chest, encircling her in his arms. "Go to sleep, darling. When your father returns, he'll have good news for us."

Sybil rested her head on Tom's breastbone, letting herself be reassured, though she knew he didn't believe a word he had said.

xxx

Tom had been right. Lord Grantham had not come bearing good news. In fact, he had come with news of Tom's punishment, a fate only narrowly better than a prison sentence: Tom could never again return to Ireland.

Ireland. His home. The thought that he would never again walk the streets of Dublin, never again lay eyes on the craggy coastline from the ferry deck, never again return to their small, cosy flat above the baker's shop…it was unthinkable, incomprehensible. Tom had waited for so long to return to Ireland, with Sybil at his side. The short time they had spent there had been the happiest of his life. To lose Ireland now was a cruel twist of fate. He simply could not imagine never returning home again. Was he to spend the rest of his life as a foreigner in a foreign land?

Tom ate his dinner in silence, tuning out the conversation around him. A fierce anger raged within him, a poisonous cocktail of bitterness, blame, and resentment. Each terse glance and small gesture from his in-laws only fueled the flame. How could they talk and laugh with such gaiety, when his world had just crumbled around him? How could they go on so easily, when he could never go home again?

Sybil sat quietly across the table, her head lowered as she cut her chicken into small, bite-sized portions. Her expression was blank, the carefully cultivated look that aristocrats used when trying to hide their emotions. Tom hated that look, hated to see it on her face. He had tried to grab her hand when they had left the library for dinner, but she had ducked away, pretending she hadn't noticed him reaching for her. Her rejection had stung him deeply, but now, as she avoided his gaze from across the room, he felt his pain morph into anger. How could she turn away from him now, when he had just lost everything?

Once they were done eating, the ladies left the room for tea in the lounge. Tom watched Sybil leave with a sour taste in his mouth, sullenly accepting the cigar Lord Grantham offered him. The last thing he felt like doing was sitting around smoking with an Earl, the very embodiment of the system that had just stolen his life away. He wanted to be alone, to cry and kick something and let out the stream of ugly words that was perched on the tip of his tongue.

But Tom knew he would regret it tomorrow if he behaved badly towards Lord Grantham. Whether or not Tom liked the man, he was still Sybil's father. Sybil had enough reasons to be angry with him already; his chest ached when he thought of how she had snatched her hand away from his when she had learned the full extent of his crimes. She had looked at him as if he was a stranger. Tom had felt, in that moment, what he had been waiting for: the slight but perceptible shift between them, as Sybil learned of who he really was. He had lost something in her eyes; his flaws had been revealed, and she wasn't sure she liked what she saw.

Tom slouched in his seat, shoulders hunched as he smoked his cigar in silence. That was the problem with loving someone so deeply, he thought bitterly. They can raise you up, but they can also push you down. Before this moment, Sybil had always made him feel larger than life. Now, he felt as small as a bug squished on the motorcar windshield.

xxx

In the lounge, Sybil drank her tea quietly, barely looking up from the cup and saucer balanced on her knee. Her mind was churning as it tried to process the sudden ending of life as she had known it. Their cosy flat, the neighborhood she had grown to love, Tom's job at the paper– it was all gone. They would never again sit by the fireplace in their Dublin home, reading the newspaper and darning socks and waiting as a soggy cabbage pie baked in the oven.

Sybil could live with the loss of their life in Dublin. At least they were still together, still free. She could tolerate the grief and anxiety of losing her home, the terrible aching for her adopted country and the happiness she had known there. The future she had pictured for their family was not to be; a blank emptiness lay before her, a space that she and Tom would need to fill with new hopes and goals and dreams.

What Sybil could not live with was the incomprehensible details of Tom's involvement with organized crime. It was simply too much. How could he? Standing by while the IRA burned down a castle was one thing; however, methodically making plans to destroy a family's home, and endangering women and children in the process, was quite another. He must have a good explanation, Sybil told herself in a weak attempt to calm her nerves.

"Sybil, darling?" Cora's soft voice broke her reverie. Her mother's brow was creased in concern, her small mouth pursed. "You're so quiet. Are you all right?"

"She's just discovered that her husband is a criminal, Mama," Mary drawled, rolling her dark eyes toward the ceiling. "I hardly think that calls for a celebratory mood."

Sybil stared down into her teacup, fixating on the dark leaves stuck to the bottom without really seeing them. Her eyes burned, threatening tears, but she couldn't let herself cry in front of her family. Her pride would not let her. She could never admit to them how upset she truly was about Tom's actions; she didn't want them to think they had been right after all to try and discourage their marriage.

"Why do you always have to be so horrible?" Edith snapped at Mary, shaking her head. "Can't you see she's upset? Sybil, I'm so sorry."

Sybil drew in a deep breath, leaning forward to set her cup down on the coffee table. "No, no, it's quite all right. I am a little shaken, but…once I talk to Tom, I'm sure I'll understand why he did it."

The women stared at Sybil in silence, their expressions carefully blank. Cora shared a glance with the Dowager, loaded with unspoken words, before she quickly busied herself pouring another cup of tea. Edith played with her necklace, twisting it round and round her finger. Finally, Mary raised her eyebrows, a small smile forming on her lips.

"My, my," she murmured. "You really do love him."

"I do," Sybil replied with a frown. "Though I'm not sure what you're implying."

Mary sighed. "Well, darling, you do have a history of overlooking Tom's bad behaviour."

The Dowager let out a small sniff, turning her sharp bird-like eyes onto her eldest granddaughter. "Mary, perhaps you might understand that sometimes we must overlook things for the people we love."

Mary looked away, silenced by her grandmother's pointed remark.

The Dowager stood, using her silver-handled cane to push herself out of her chair. "Now, I must be going. Carson, if you would please have the car brought round."

Sybil rose slowly from the sofa, her hands clasped over her belly. Was Mary right? Thinking back, she supposed there was some credibility to Mary's words. The truth was that Sybil could not stand to stay mad at Tom for very long; being apart from him, emotionally or physically, was simply too uncomfortable, too intolerable. It was easier to make excuses for his behavior and move on.

But if she was honest with herself, this time she could not dismiss the nagging sensation that something was very, very wrong. It was not Tom's involvement with the IRA that was truly upsetting her; it was the bleak truth that lay beneath. It was the fact that Tom, in the pursuit of a free Ireland, had abandoned the moral principles she had believed they shared. It was that Tom had been willing to risk their lives, and the well-being of their unborn child, for his politics. It was that Tom's actions had suddenly forced her to question everything she had been so sure of.

I don't recognize this man, Sybil thought as she climbed the stairs toward their bedroom, her blood suddenly running cold. She had believed that Tom would always put the safety and security of their family above all else. But now that his loyalty had been tested, it was revealed he had other priorities. And that betrayal, Sybil was not sure she could forgive.

AN: I thought very carefully about how Sybil would react to the news of Tom's involvement with the IRA, and this is what I came up with. I think, when reflecting on the dynamic between Sybil and Tom over the course of their relationship, this chapter is a true reflection of the characters in canon with the show. I suspect some of you might take issue with Sybil's reaction – in the vein of "she's a strong, independent woman with a backbone who would never let him get away with it" – but my logic is that, if you review other instances on the show where Tom has behaved in a less than desirable way, she DOES always let him get away with it. And personally, I don't think loving her husband despite his actions makes her any less of a strong, independent woman.

Anyway, feel free to disagree and let me know by leaving a review! I'd love to hear what you think.