A/N: Thank you for the reviews! And for those of you who favorited and followed my story, I appreciate that as well! I know Tumblr has been a bit out of hand lately. I'm not going to lie, I drank my sorrows away Saturday night after crying and feeling super depressed about the CS Promo. Trying to keep my head up though and I suggest the rest of our lovely ship do the same!

Oh! Sorry for the small error in last chapter. Not sure why the doc manager cut off a sentence halfway. I fixed it and I promise (if only to avoid my personal shame) it won't happen again!

Timeline: After Sybil's return from London in Episode 1x07

Song: Everything Has Changed - Taylor Swift ft. Ed Sheeran

He saw her coming in a way that he wished he had a year ago. Then, she came out of nowhere, suddenly asking him about politics, his political life, and where he wished to someday work as if it were a typical thing for a lady to be asking a chauffeur. After all, she was in fact a lady and he just a chauffeur, both of them alike in aspiration but so far separated by class lines that such a conversation could have him without a job and she without a crystal reputation.

Her hair was in a braid now. He'd never seen it like this, not pulled back and hidden under a hat. He wasn't allowed in the house to see how she must have worn it during dinners though he imagined it rested at her neck in pins of only the best quality. Like this it was similar to what he imagined her to look like right before bed, with the hairs around her face curling from a day's worth of wear. She was beautiful, here and like this just as he assumed she was beautiful hidden away in the big house she had just traversed down from. He hated himself for thinking that no matter how true it was. It was something he had thought since he first saw her, back in her father's library, months ago.

He was pleased that he was allowed to introduce himself that day and now he was pleased as she walked slowly to the large stall doors of the garage, peeking her head around the corner as if looking for something and then stepping back when his voice rang out signaling she had found it.

"Can I help you, m'lady?"

"I see you standing there, Carson and I told you I promise to sign out whatever I take." Sybil felt his presence behind her, a figure standing at the door with arms clasped behind his back. The figure was watching for her, waiting for her to drop a book or to rush to her side should the stool upon which she was perched falter beneath her.

When the energy shifted as he took her in, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he swallowed a few choice words, Branson stepped forward. "It's not Carson, m'lady."

Sybil turned around,"Oh...oh." He was in livery but she didn't let herself notice that until after she took her eyes off the veins in his arms where his sleeves were rolled up or the way the corners of his mouth tugged upward into a tight-lipped smile. The white shirt he wore was starched and unbuttoned at the top making Sybil wonder, if only for a moment, if Carson knew that he was inside the house. Of course he didn't, she thought. A man of his class would never be allowed in the house without full livery, and his lack of a jacket and driving hat signaled that he was slightly undressed. The thought made Sybil blush and then return back to her original internal conversation; this house was her house and she didn't mind in the same way that she didn't seem to mind that for once someone other than Carson was watching her from the door.

"I'm sorry. I can come back. I was just returning a few books," he said, signaling to the books he carried at his waist with their spines making a bed in the palm of his large hand.

He was polite, she thought. "Branson, right?"

He nodded, taking a step into the room as if her acknowledgment of his name was an invitation in. "S'right...m'lady"

She laughed, closing her eyes to enjoy the way this young man spoke to her. Aside from footmen it was rare for someone even close to her age to step foot into this house, much less into the confines of her father's library. She had guessed he was about twenty, though she rationed that you really never could tell with boys these days. Men, really. She was sixteen, but she felt as if she could be any age. Twelve maybe, by her parents standards, but much much older if she was given the option to choose. "Sybil."

"Lady Sybil. Right. I have met your two eldest sisters but-"

"They hide me in the basement. Something about sunlight and suitors, or something of the sort..." Branson's face grew serious, unsure of the humor, if there was any, in what she was saying. "I'm kidding, silly! Though I am sorry you had to meet Mary and Edith together..."

He smiled and she smiled and they both noticed how close they were standing even with Branson hovering behind Sybil's left shoulder. "They were lovely-"

Sybil took a step back. She was assessing the bookshelf in front of her. With her hands on her hips she looked down toward her father's desk, wondering what book she would take out this week. As she did, she spoke, paying no particular mind to the boy still standing behind her."Now don't lie."

"I'm not lying, m'lady."

"Well you're sweet but really, it's fine. My sisters are a bit too much sometimes. And to have to drive them around...sorry." It was Sybil's turn to soften, realizing that for the first time she had actually insulted someone's profession. He had a job and it was one that she was sure he was all too proud to have. Who was she to ever make him feel bad about a job he was chosen to do? After all, a part of her was jealous for the freedom he must feel driving the car she was always told was off limits to a lady.

"No harm, no foul."

She bit her lip, turning over her shoulder to take him in again. He was broader now, standing here at nearly an arms-length away. She enjoyed the way his boots made his pants widen at the knee. He looked fine, she thought, earning herself another set of blushed cheeks. "You're Irish..." The comment was bold, pushed out of her plump lips with a breath she wasn't even aware she was holding in. It was a reminder to inhale and exhale and then quickly get herself out of this stuffy library for she had places she had to be.

"You ask a lot of questions...I mean...I'm sorry m' lady." Branson faltered, unsure of why he was allowing himself to stand in this very place and talk to this girl he had only just met. After all, she was a girl, with her high waisted skirt and pumps. He belonged back in the garage. The library was much too dangerous on a Sunday afternoon.

"What books have you taken out? Do you mind?" She stepped toward him, forgetting her previous reminder to herself. He handed her his books all too quickly, watching as her eyes widened taking in each cover. "John Gray, John Stuart Mill and...Voltaire...who are you Branson?"

"I like to read," Branson offered.

Sybil was flipping through them now, staring at the words and the way they all came together to form sentences about 'revolutionary nationalism,' 'social liberty,' and 'civil liberties'. "Are they any good?"

"I suppose they were and your father was very kind to let me borrow them-"

"I'll put these away for you, Branson." Sybil smiled, turning back toward the bookshelf. She could take a hint. This man worked for her family and she was almost positive she was making him uncomfortable. Of course he liked to read. Mrs. Hughes had been known to take a book or two out of the library. It wasn't uncommon for Sybil to talk to the people that worked in her house. This felt different. Her own awkwardness was personally accounted for and as she stepped back she fueled it into looking for where these foreign books belonged. Branson noticed this, specifically in the way she stepped up onto and then back down from the wooden stool in the corner.

"Really, m'lady, I wouldn't ask you to do that..." But she did and he let her.

"But I offered. Don't you have somewhere to be soon?"

"I do but-" Branson excused himself, taking one last look at the girl in the library before he did so. On the way out of the library he grabbed his jacket from the front chair upon which he had left it. In putting his livery on he too was reminded of how inappropriate the conversation he had just had was. He thought back to London and the family he worked for. Boys: they had boys there and it had been months since he had had an intelligent conversation with a woman, much less a lady in the same house he was working.

He was working, he reminded himself, as he slipped out through the main door unseen.

Branson saw Lady Sybil mere minutes later being the last of her family to climb into the Renault (with the help of his own hand) with her hair in a low bun resting below the brim of her hat. She was kind and witty and if he had the gall to say it, as interesting to look at as she was to listen to. She was right; her sisters were a bore but not too far removed from what Branson was expecting. It was she, Lady Sybil that caught him by surprise, arguing with her mother over the dressmaker they were all going to see. She confronted her mother in the very same way she had confronted him, but her mother smiled and allowed her daughter to speak on almost belittling her as she did so. Although Branson knew that he was supposed to do the same thing back in the library, he couldn't help but meet her, Sybil. With every quip and look she gave him, he met her, compromising as they stood in the library saying only half of what they were both thinking.

She continued to surprise him a week later. As he drove Lord Grantham to a local farm, he casually asked Branson if he had begun to read the books he had borrowed. "I did m'lord. I returned them two days after I took them out..."

"To the library? My library, Branson?"

"Yes m'lord. Of course. Thank you again for-"

"The ledger says otherwise but I am sure it is a misunderstanding."

Branson let the moment die. What was he supposed to say? That he let the daughter of his employer sort and shelf his books? That he hadn't watched as she mounted the wooden stool with her elbows bent creating angles contrasting so sharply with her curved backside which drew a straight line down to the hem of her charcoal skirt? Of course. "M'lord, Lady Sybil-"

"I'm sure she did." Lord Grantham had said other things on that drive letting Branson know this family was not like the families he had worked for in the past. They spoke to their servants differently and involved them in a life not allowed for most of the help of England. As he'd tell Lady Sybil a day or two later, her father was a good employer. He hadn't lied either when stating that he was a decent man. He meant all of these things as all of these things were true. He wondered though, what exactly Lord Grantham thought of his youngest daughter. He had heard him and his wife speaking in the backseat about Mary's wedding prospects and even Edith's lack of, but not once did they mention Sybil. She disappeared into places like the library and he was wondering if they rather liked it that way. She wasn't rude and outspoke like her eldest sister or curt and bothered like her middle sister. Sybil was kind, Branson thought. She was also more mature than either of her sisters appeared to be. There was poise there and a quiet methodology behind her eyes that told him she was just waiting for her moment, a moment she would earn and not be given.

Somewhere along the road, Branson had dropped the Earl off at his destination. He took a backroad back to Downton, all the way wondering about the girl in the library who had apparently read his books and had forgotten to return them. He laughed to himself remembering the first words she had spoken to him when she thought he was someone else. He was a chauffeur and these were not his books.

"Um, no, I just..." Her words spoke retreat but she remained, even going as far to take a step into the garage so that Branson could take her in. As he did so, she looked around, wasting time admiring the wooden walls with their chipped paint instead of smiling at the chauffeur with his arms folded across his chest. He was admiring her hips now, staring still at the braid down her back. Her shirt was purple today and not the pale blue it was on the day he had taken her and her family to the train station before they departed for London.

"M'lady?" He walked toward her. His hands were in his pockets. Why were his hands always in his pockets, she wondered.

"I just wanted to say thank you."

"Thank you?"

"Well everyone is saying how I was lucky that Matthew was at that rally back in May but it was you who carried me...Matthew just told me and-"

"M'lady you were hurt and-"

Sybil cut him off but not in a way that he would have expected from a lady. She wasn't irritated or harsh, but frustrated; this was hard for her and he wondered why she even came. She owed him nothing; he was just doing his job, he reminded himself. He was doing it often: thinking things hoping that in doing so they would slowly become true. "I said thank you, didn't I?" She paused, and then continued. "I mean it. Thank you." With her hands clasped behind her back, she stepped toward him. The two of them now stood at the helm of the Renault. "I was stupid and shouldn't have gone to Ripon under false pretenses. I was lucky to have you around. Even Matthew said it."

"Well my pleasure, m'lady."

"Okay."

"Okay," he nodded, laughing slightly. Of course he only did so once the young Lady Sybil began heading for the door. He would never allow her to catch him enjoying her awkwardness. She was young, he thought. You work for her father, he continued.

"I read those books. The ones you took out. I know Papa scolded you for not returning them. I'm sorry."

Had she stopped talking? She must have. He looked up, following a line from her shoes to her lips. They were moving and yet she said nothing. He wanted to laugh again but he wouldn't dare. He would hate to push her away, not now, not ever. "He didn't scold. Don't be sorry. They're back now, I presume?" If Branson was being honest with himself, he rather enjoyed this rhythm they were falling into.

With one last smile, she had hit the door. She allowed her hands, her porcelain skin to reach out and grasp the faded wood in contrast. "I'll see you around, Branson."

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x. Elle