A/N: I haven't updated lately, I know and I'm so, so, so incredibly sorry. The last few weeks have been an emotional, physical, and mental roller coaster and I've barely had the time to stop and breathe and I'm glad of finally finding the time to post this.

I wanted to join the S/T Valentine's Fic Exchange tbh, but I kept putting off signing up as an incentive to finish x number of school work until, next thing I know, the deadline had passed and life has taken over (again) but I do want to contribute something to the fandom this Valentine's even if it is a little late and fortunately, I found this among my drafts which seemed apt enough for the occassion even if I cannot promise you that this will be a fluffy read. Still, I really hope you enjoy it.

Lastly, to whoever nominated me for the Highclere Awards, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! I'm so new to writing fanfiction and I'm still feeling my way through so I was not expecting that nomination at all and I really don't know what to say except that I am so, so thankful, really and I hope this chapter will prove worthy of the honor. Please don't forget to review! =D

P.S. Who has seen Winter's Tale already? Dragged the bestfriend (who has yet to watch Downton Abbey) the day before Valentine's and I need DA people to fangirl over it with ;D. My bestfriend was a good sport though and I had someone to dissect the movie over with even if we missed the first few minutes.

Disclaimer: If DA were mine, Sybil and Matthew would still walk the Yorkshire earth. Lady Stockbridge is also the name of Geraldine Sommerville (Lily Potter) in Gosford Park and that is where I got this name. They are not the same people tho.

1933

She felt pain.

Her head pounded, her abdomen constricted, her back ached, her feet swelled, her whole being had been engulfed so completely by it that she was pain and pain was her.

She saw black.

Only black.

The blackness stretched out for miles and miles and found its end only in eternity.

Voices swam around her, unseen and imploring. They were voices that wept, that bespoke of hearts in the process of breaking – cracked, helpless, pleading. They were voices she knew and voices she loved, chorused in a requiem more tragic than any Mozart could have composed. There were two that had stood out – one was of ebony curls and blue eyes similar to her own; this voice evoked the memory of warm, cradling arms and lullabies, of tingling laughs in the nursery and proud smiles in a Mayfair ballroom. The second was of straight blond locks and Irish blue eyes; its brogue recalled lips that tasted of love and passion, and a broad chest upon which her cheek rested on and slumbered. Even now she felt the caresses of blackened fingers, once by the oil of a motor, more recently by the print of newspapers.

She searched for them in the darkness, sought their voices in the great infinity – for what? To assure them perhaps, to return to them most probably – But it was all in vain. The world in its entirety was the blackest pain.

Then, a cry.

It was a new voice, soft, and mewling. It was a cry different from the other cries that surrounded it. It was not a cry of grief but of urgency, a plead for help.

She felt a small yet warm weight in her arms that squirmed and opened and closed blue, blue eyes. Behind her, she felt warm strength; hands that held her own as she carried the bundle. The memory's fuzziness faded and gave way to sharp detail. Her mind was clear and her body strong. She felt pride. She felt warmth and happiness and a love so strong she felt as if her chest might burst with its intensity. "A hard sacrifice must be made for a future that's worth having." Oh, how right he had been!

The darkness had collapsed around her to give way to light. The orange glow of her childhood bedroom, their bedroom now, (or was it their bedroom then?) bathed them all. Her infant daughter's cries increased in volume and urgency. Why had no one gone to her? Why had she not gone to her?

"Sybbie – ,"

Why had she thought that? How had she known that? She had yet to have a name. From Dublin to Downton they had discussed and argued and teased, but their daughter still did not have a name. And yet, she did. Her daughter was called Sybbie, the second Sybil, she did not know how but she knew with certainty that she was that.

"Sybbie," she tried again but no sound came out.

"Tom," she tried again. She felt pain, of the emotional sort this time, emanate from within her chest. She felt desperation. She wanted to cry but she could not. She saw and heard everything in perfect detail, watched and heard them weep and plead, heard her baby cry, yet her lids remained shut and her body stayed still and cold.

No sound left her cold lips.

"Tom! I'm here darling! I'm just here, please!" her mind cried in desperation, "Sybbie, Mamma is coming, I promise! Aoife, Saoirse, don't cry. Mamma is here!"

More memories flooded her mind – of her own blue eyes and ebony locks, straightened in a tiny head that resembled her husband's in shape and structure, alabaster skin like her own. A second little girl was crying in her arms and then she was gone.

"No!" she tried to cry, "Aoife! Where has my baby gone?"

A third little girl was in her arms, warm and mewling, different from the last and yet physically so identical. In the same instant, she too was gone.

"Saoirse! Tom, where are you? I'm here, Tom! I'm here! Sybbie! Aoife! Saoirse! Where have my babies gone? Where is my husband? Where are my girls?!"

Their voices began to fade – Tom's and Sybbie's and Aoife's and Saoirse's, only her own thoughts remained. She was once again plunged into darkness, now more sinister and penetrating. She tried running but there was nowhere to run, there were no faces to chase, no voices to follow. The pain was gone now. It was only her and the nothingness.

"Mamma! Mamma!"

She felt pressure on her stomach. Not painful exactly, but a weight, a mass that proved something that existed was atop it. Her lids felt light. She had felt darkness because they were shut. She was no longer watching her lifeless body, she was her body.

"Mamma! Mam-mah!" the small voice was insistent. The small voice jumped atop her stomach and attempted to shake her shoulders in an effort to rouse her.

Blue eyes identical to her own were the first to meet her sight and her smile.

"Goo' mowning, Mamma! Aoife sleep in Mamma and Da's room! Sybbie and Saoirse too!" her daughter lisped, wearing a grin the replica of her husband's. Aoife. The tone of her daughter's voice told her that the little body that sing-songed so early in the morning was the elder twin and not her youngest daughter; it was a tone that reminded her at times of her husband and at times of her eldest sister, it was a tone that wanted to be heard and be taken seriously, one that seemed to insist that what she had to say was worth listening to, even if she was only a toddler; perhaps her daughter was like her as well in that aspect.

"Good morning, darling," she replied, pressing a kiss to her daughter's fine, ebony locks as she breathed in her sweet, baby scent. She still reeled from the nightmare and the tragedy in the hospital that was perhaps the culprit for bringing the nightmare about. The fear of the loss of her baby's warm weight in her arms was still so acute that she drew her child closer and kissed every inch of the small face whose blue eyes watched her with concern."Good morning my little Aoife."

The early light of a London day poured into the bedroom and bathed her and her tiny daughter in it, as it had bathed the room's other occupants. Her husband snored softly on the bed's other end – her side under normal circumstances, which he had shamelessly chosen to occupy every time she took the night shift at the hospital – still oblivious to the world, the younger half of their twin daughters cuddled to his chest. Their firstborn lay asleep in the space between them, now thirteen and no longer so little but still with old Catherine clutched to her chest. The sight brought her heart close to bursting. Oh, how she had lost them all in that nightmare! How she had ran after their voices, how she had called for them all in vain, and yet here they all were, safe and beside her.

She felt warm tears slide down her cheeks.

"Mamma sad?" her daughter asked, concern colored her toddler's voice, concern that should not be there yet, especially in such a young child.

"No, darling," she kissed her daughter's head again, "Mamma is not sad. Mamma's Aoife is here, why would Mamma be sad?"

The girl's name was Diana Cowper.

Sybil had recognized her not long after she had put down the receiver after letting Tom know that an emergency had necessitated the need of her in the night shift.

She was the youngest of Lord Stockbridge's granddaughters. Her father was the heir to a marquisate in Berkshire. A lifetime ago during her first and only season, Sybil had been presented to their majesties alongside Diana's sister Cornelia. Diana had been but a small child then, closer in age to the twins than to Sybbie. Sybil had remembered her as an impish child, a playful and willful sprite whose auburn locks were in a constant state of disarray as she charmed dozens of onlookers in various receptions, she was the antithesis to her cold and stately sister.

Diana could not have been more than seventeen now, she was still a child in so many ways and yet –.

It was the maid who had answered her questions and who had shared so much more. Lady Stockbridge, the girl's grandmother who had accompanied her had already become an utter mess. She was a contemporary of Sybil's grandmother, stately and composed, until the hysteria of that day had rendered her its paradox, that is. If she had recognized Lord Grantham's youngest daughter, she showed no inkling of it at the moment and neither did Sybil care; "I won't be received at London, I won't be welcome at court. How do I make you understand? I couldn't care less," she had told her father once and never had she looked back – that world was a different life altogether and never had she hankered for its return. From the very start, the grandmother amidst her panic had ordered the maid to tell the nurse the unfortunate story.

The cook's boy was the father, the maid had related. No, he was not under Lord Stockbridge's employ but he had grown up in the estate alongside Miss Diana and their friendship, greatly disapproved of, had blossomed into love. Lady Burke, the Miss Cornelia of yesteryears, had suspected of the affair and had sought to stop it by bringing some more suitable bachelor from London and Miss Diana and the boy, a lad named John, had wanted to run off to elope but they were underage and the economic depression had made it impossible for John to find employment. They had surrendered to it because they had believed it the only means to be together. No was her answer to a question Sybil had posed, they had not known that methods were available to prevent a pregnancy, such topics were prohibited under Lord Stockbridge's roof. Perhaps if they had known that, the discovery could have been thwarted. The boy had been arrested for rape under Lord Stockbridge's orders when the pregnancy had been known and the heartbroken Miss Diana was packed off to Mayfair to prevent talk in the county.

Geneva would have been a better option but it would prove too heavy a burden on the estate's finances. As it was, the girl was to be sent there with her grandmother for the last two months and the baby be given to some childless couple. It seems however that Sir Philip, the doctor who had been sent for and valued for his discretion, had miscalculated. The labour had begun in the wee hours of the morning, two months earlier than had been anticipated, "Miss Diana had always been small," the maid explained. Lord Stockbridge had refused to send for the doctor who lived close by and he had refused to send the girl to a hospital nearby, fearing the consequences should word get out. It had taken great effort from the part of Lady Stockbridge to convince her husband to allow their granddaughter to be brought to the hospital they were in now, "Far away enough to have no one of their acquaintance to spread the word, but middle class enough to ensure the quality of the services and the facilities".

"'Something has gone wrong, Henry! The headaches and the back pains –,' Lady Stockbridge said," the maid repeated, "'Please, Henry! Have pity on Di, have pity on me, please! This is –,"

"Toxemia," Sybil finished. She had known that from the beginning, known it from the moment the child had cried out in pain, begging them to do something, anything, to take away the pounding in her head, the pressure in her abdomen.

That was the reason Doctor Johnson had asked her to take the night shift. The situation was bad, perhaps if the girl had been brought earlier – but if there was the slightest chance mother and child could be spared, then perhaps the presence of a nurse who had survived the sinister condition could make all the difference.

But it did not, in the end it did not spare her or her child. Miss Diana Cowper, aged no older than seventeen, Lord Stockbridge's youngest granddaughter, seized to death an hour later before she could deliver. The child, a blue baby girl they had tried to save through a cesarean had already been dead. Two young lives, needlessly taken away by pride, sacrificed to the hypocritical values of the world she had once been part of.

"You're Lady Sybil Crawley, aren't you? The one who married the chauffeur," Lady Stockbridge had asked Sybil's retreating figure some time later, the end of hysteria giving way to the stately calm behind which she had hidden her grief.

"Mrs. Branson now, but yes, my husband was once employed as a chauffeur at Downton. He's a celebrated journalist now," Sybil had replied proudly, icily.

"And you have a daughter, I hear?"

"Three. One aged thirteen and twins aged two."

"I see. I recognized you from the start, you know. And I'm aware that you had toxemia as well. Your grandmother had written to me when Cornelia was pregnant, you see, she had warned me against that Sir Philip, told me how his pride and miscalculations had almost cost you your life. Henry refused to be swayed. He valued Sir Philip's discretion more, was willing to sacrifice Di to it, I believe. Well, you got lucky, I suppose," Lady Stockbridge had finished, calm still hiding her grief.

But Sybil was not party to such horrid and unfeeling calm, not on such a night that recalled so freshly the horrors of a similar night thirteen years past. In no way was the hospital a stranger to toxemia, neither was tonight the first she had seen a mother and a child lost to it, but only tonight had the mother been so young, only tonight had she seen a mother lost before she could have been saved through the folly of pride and ignorance. In all the thirteen years that had followed that night, only tonight had she watched a mother die in circumstances so similar to her own and had been reminded that it could very well have been her.

Exhaustion burst from her as she opened the door into the bedroom she shared with her husband – both physical and emotional. There he was, darling Tom whose exhaustion at work had likely been aggravated by the twin's squabbles, lying fast asleep on her side of the bed. On his chest lay one of their twin daughters, another at his waist – how small they both still were! And how identical they looked in sleep! At Tom's side slept their eldest, Catherine at her chest.

Their girls had their own rooms, Sybbie down the hall and the twins in the spare room that had since become transformed into a nursery. It was the thunderstorm, she presumed, one of those types that aggravated the frequent London showers. Nonetheless, she could not find it in her heart to mind, she was thankful, really, after such a night, to find their three darling girls squeezed between her and Tom. Tears wouldn't come much as she had wanted them to and she climbed in next to her daughter.

Fatigue claimed her body and memories claimed her dreams, thrusting her into an inferno that she won't be roused from until the sun claimed the London sky from stormy clouds and inky night.

"Mamma crying," her daughter persisted, "Mamma sad."

"Sybil?" her husband's voice called out. Sleep had colored his voice but concern had brought to it alertness, "Love, what's wrong? Was it something at the hospital?"

She nodded and he reached across their daughter, mindful of the sleeping child on his chest, to cup her face and swipe at her tears with his thumb. Try as she might they persisted in falling, releasing the emotion that last night's exhaustion had hindered, and she found herself leaning into his palm, feeling its warmth and from it drawing strength. He was here and so was she, as were all their girls. They were alright, they were safe, they were alive.

"Love, do you want me to –?" he continued, motioning to the slumbering children sprawled around them and the one awake whose great blue eyes shone with worry.

"No. I want them here," she answered. She needed them here with her, she needed all of them here with her now – Tom and Sybbie and Aoife and Saoirse. As she felt her heart break, she wanted and needed her family to mend it anew.

She thought of the mother who had been lost that night and the little girl who had also been taken. She thought of the boy in a cell somewhere in Berkshire, not widowed, not legally at least, but who had suffered a double lost. In a twisted fashion it echoed the darkness of her dream and its hopelessness. It had not been her that night but thirteen years ago, two years ago even, yet how easily it could have been. She looked at each of her daughters, innocence still marking their features, but they were growing fast. Sybbie was thirteen, a mere four years younger than Diana Cowper had been. She still held old Catherine close to her heart, but how soon before a young man took that place? How long before the twins followed suit? They were strong and stubborn and passionate, all three of them – had she acceded to her parents' wishes, had she not stood her ground and defended heart and mind, was that the ending her girls would have awaited?

"Sybil?" her husband asked again.

"I need them here, Tom. I need all of you here, please."

Just as he had mere minutes ago, she had reached across to him, cupping his face in her palm, drawing him to her, but it was his mouth she sought with her own. Seeing was not enough, she needed to know he was here, not in front of a burning castle in Ireland, not in a jail cell in Berkshire.

He is here, she told herself as their lips met, warm and sweet and desperate. She said a silent prayer in reconnaissance for her fortunes. He is here and he is Tom and I am Sybil. We are alive, our girls are alive. We are together and we are well.

"Anocht,*" she promised against his lips, "Now, I just need to be with all of you."

He was not without such nightmares, she had played witnessed to that as she held him and allowed him to weep into her shoulder and implore her many nights after Sybbie's birth and again many nights before their twins were born. She was his confidant and her arms were those he sought comfort in during those long nights. Tonight their roles would be reversed. Tonight she will cry into his chest and she will tell him of the girl who had died, of the girl and boy they could easily have become had their situation been the slightest bit of different – if they had been younger, if they had not been so brave, if chance had not been so kind. She would tell him of the dream that had haunted her – of a world without him, of a world without their girls, and he would stroke her hair and whisper sweet nothings and she will fall asleep in his arms.

Soon, Sybbie would wake and Saoirse too. Three daughters will be fed and one sent to school, they themselves had work days to attend to. But tonight, they will weep together and find comfort in each other.

"Anocht," she repeated. "I love you, Tom. So, so much."

Tears continued to flow as one hand entwined with his and another held their second daughter, clutching her even closer to her chest.

"Mamma loves you, Aoife. Sybbie and Saoirse too," the child had never shied away from their kisses and she found comfort in the fact.

"Love you too, Mamma."

Yes, tonight she will weep again but he will be there to comfort here. But her hand in his, their girls spread between them, for now, this was enough.

A/N: Anocht - Tonight; I used Google Translate for this so please correct me if I'm wrong.