A/N: Everything from here on out is pretty much headcanon. I may use some of JF's plot lines but I will rewrite what he so clearly butchered. There is one storyline I will be ignoring completely and I will not even do it service by saying it (typing it?) aloud.

Timeline: Guess! (I'll tell you: Back at Downton for Mary and Matthew's wedding.)

Song: Home - Foo Fighters

Sybil felt it, the smile Tom held as he watched her embrace her parents. She knew though, how he really felt for he had disclosed much of it on the train ride from Liverpool into Downton. It started small, with Sybil asking who he thought had sent them the money. Quite plainly, Tom responded saying that he didn't care who had sent the money and that he was glad that Sybil was going to be able to attend her sister's wedding.

What Sybil heard, however, was Tom's intense dislike for the place he was about to return to. She felt it, along with the familiar tug always evident to a girl when returning to the place that raised her. It was difficult, forging through her old life as she so greatly cherished her new. Dublin was home now, and Tom was her family, but there would always be a part of her that belonged at Downton.

It wasn't a fight or a disagreement, but Sybil felt the need to press a kiss to Tom's neck nonetheless. He smiled as he felt her lips, wanting and chaste against his skin. He wasn't mad at her because he wasn't mad at all, really. The things Tom was feeling were complex and part of him believed them to be forever unresolved. Nothing could ever change that he had fallen in love with and married the daughter of an Earl who had, with her own will, ran away with him to his hometown to get married. It was lovely and perfect and they were happy, but he knew that no like adjectives could make such a thing okay in her parent's mind.

This was all confirmed as he saw her, stepping out of the car to run to her father who accepted her with stiff arms. The look on Sybil's face and it's contrast with the way Lord Grantham so coldly accepted her kiss to his cheek brewed many feelings within Tom. He was happy for his wife that she was home for he knew the feeling well. At the same time, he was disgusted that a father could stop showing adoration for a girl he used to esteem to highly.

Tom knew what to expect but was told by a rather optimistic Sybil to think better of all of it. He did, but only because he would do anything she ever asked. The doubt crept in only when Carson returned, or attempted to return, the smile Tom sent his way. It was more of a smirk, a glance that read as all of the things Lord Grantham would never say. Lord Grantham was allowed to disapprove; it was his daughter Tom married. Somehow, Carson's disapproval meant more, like the betrayal of an allie when waiting hopefully on the last chance you are to be given.

"I had the maids prepare your old room and one of the guest rooms down the hall…"

Sybil stepped forward. The new footman had begun to take her and Tom's luggage up the stairs but he waited as the youngest Crawley daughter made her decision. "Well Tom and I are married, Mama, so we'll be sharing a room of course…"

Cora smiled, doing her best to allow her own happiness at seeing her daughter hide the anxiety such words were causing her husband. "Of course, dear. I only meant that you could choose what room you would like. I wasn't sure what you preferred."

Sybil's cheeks reddened. On instinct, she grabbed Tom's hand, holding it comfortably in her own. "Oh, right." She looked to Tom, wondering which room he'd prefer. She wanted to smile, but her blush only grew as she remembered a conversation they had had on their wedding night when Tom disclosed that he often fantasized about taking her in her own bed back at Downton.

"We'll take my old room, please…" Her voice trailed off, waiting for the footman standing on the landing of the staircase to give her his name. Mary rolled her eyes, watching as her baby sister returned to her old habits of showing genuine interest in people she had no business with.

"Alfred," the footman offered, unsure of how to react to this new girl.

She was a Lady, or at least she had been. They rarely discussed her downstairs and he only heard her name when serving the family in the dining room. She was pretty, that much he knew. She also talked differently and stood taller than her sisters despite being much shorter. She was petite, but he noticed the growing swell of her stomach hidden underneath the belt of her jacket. She didn't dress like a Lady but her looks were enough to distinguish her in a crowded room. She smiled, briefly, and usually at the man standing next to her. Albert had heard far more about him than he had about her. It was more proper for servants to talk about other servants than it was to talk about the family you worked for.

Mrs. Hughes had briefed the downstairs staff on the arrival of Sybil and Tom. She said little, though she was unable to hide the pull of a smile as she discussed their return. In all honesty, her reaction when she first saw them holding hands so many years ago was one of fear and not distaste. She rather liked Tom and Sybil had always been her favorite.

Mrs. Hughes knew from her time first working at Downton that Sybil was always different than her sisters and even much more different than the other societal ladies that often stopped by for tea. She was scared though and she still felt it, even when pulled aside by Cora to discuss wedding arrangements. Elsie felt it, the love and respect the two shared for one another. She also felt how quickly the house they were returning to was willing to threaten their love and take it all away.

Alfred helped the two young lovers up the stairs to Sybil's old room. It was the first time he had been inside the bedroom and he felt out of place, unaware that Tom was thinking the same thing. "Can I get you anything else, milady?"

"Sybil, please," she requested. "I really would like some milk. What time is dinner?"

"Six o'clock, I believe. The dressing gong will be rung sometime around 5…" He explained, wondering how much had changed since she had left and he had arrived. He resolved that the answer was not much and that she was just being polite.

"Can you do me a favor, Alfred?"

He nodded. "Anything, milady…"

Tom was unpacking already, ignoring the way this new footman addressed his wife. He smiled, the same way he had when Sybil first requested for pleasantries to be set aside, as Alfred continued to call her by her title. He remembered back to a day when he addressed her as the same, but then quickly forget, only knowing how easy it was for both of them to let such names go.

"Can I please have a glass of milk and while you're downstairs can you let Anna know that we will not be needing help when the gong rings?"

Alfred's heart dropped. Was it really his place to deliver such a message? "I suppose I could do that, milady. Anything else?"

Sybil shook her head. "No, thank you. You've been an awfully big help. I do hope you like it here," she added.

When Alfred returned, he set Sybil's glass of milk down on the end table, paying special attention not to bother the couple who had just been sharing a few kisses before he entered. They seemed nice enough, and it was all too clear how much they cared about one another. He loved his job and he understood how things worked but he didn't quite get the way looks were cast and words were whispered about these two.

"He's rather tall," Sybil said plainly, trying to rid her cheeks of the embarrassment they carried as Alfred saw her and her husband being rather intimate.

Tom laughed. He continued to unpack his suitcase, doing his best to figure out the armoire Sybil used to call her own so he would not have to ask her about the space they would share. Sybil could only smile, watching him acclimate for her sake and nothing else. "He is. I wonder what Carson had to say about it."

"All too much, I imagine." She paused. "How are you holding up?"

Tom sat on the edge of the bed now, watching as his wife opened up the door to the armoire revealing the dresses he used to admire her in. She flipped through them, her eyes settling on one he had commented on a few years ago. She wondered if it would still fit with the child, their child, growing steadily inside of her. "I'm fine, love."

"I know this is hard for you...I want to make it easy, really I do. And they seem to be coming around to us. Mama really looked happy to see you."

"She looked happy to see you," he correctly rather bluntly. He stopped himself, knowing she deserved better. "I'm happy that we're here. I know how you and Mary are and I want you to be there for her wedding. She was there for ours," Tom reasoned.

"I'm sorry this isn't what you wanted."

"Sybil, please…," he began. "I'm serious, love. We're here now. Really, I'm okay. Please don't worry about me."

Sybil had laid the black dress on the bed, now going over to her jewelry box to select an appropriate necklace. "I don't worry about you. I worry about them and you. I just want this to be easy-"

"For me or for you?," he snapped.

"Tom, please."

Tom buried his head in his hands. He pulled her to him so that she was standing between his legs. "You're right. I'm sorry...that really wasn't fair." He held her hands in his, bringing them up to his mouth so he could kiss her wedding ring. "I am trying, please know that."

"You haven't really been given a fair shot."

"I'm glad you think so. Your father would probably like me to know that I'm lucky I've been given a chance at all." He paused, thinking back to when he first helped her out of the Renault, the same car that brought them so close together. "Did you see the way he looked at you? At our child?"

"He was just shocked, is all. I think it's one thing to hear about it in a letter and another to see your youngest daughter expecting…"

Tom sighed. "I just don't want our child to grow up in a world where she's resented. That's not fair, y'know? They can hate me, but I don't want them to ever despise the child we created. This one or the next three," he said, referring to a few months ago when she had mentioned how many children she wanted. It was the exact some figure he had imagined her carrying and then baring for them to take care of together.

"They won't resent her," Sybil reasoned, her eyes looking down. She smiled; apparently Tom had wanted a girl as well. "They'll come around to us, I promise. I think it's just hard...they worry, you know. I can tell them and tell them how happy I am, how happy you make me and how wonderful of a man you are and how well you provide for me, but it's never enough." She breathed out deeply. "It's enough for me though," she whispered looking back up to him.

Tom pulled her in so that she was sitting on his lap. "I love you for saying that."

"It's true."

"I know." Another kiss to the temple causing Sybil to smile through it all. "I love you, crazy girl."

"I love you too," she whispered again, wondering if her voice would ever regain its volume while here in this place that used to be so familiar. Hiding a tear that threatened to spill down her cheeks she separated from him, walking behind him to where she had laid her dress down. "What are you wearing tonight?"

"One of my work suits, I suppose…"

"Okay."

Tom chuckled. "It's not as if I brought anything else. They're going to have a fit."

Sybil smiled mischievously. "Oh, absolutely." She paused and then: "But I'm sure you'll look handsome. You always do," she added for good measure.

"I'm guessing you're wearing that?," he asked, referring to the dress she was still staring at. Part of him saw it in her, the way her body, no matter what her mind said, found comfort in such uncomfortable frocks.

"I left my pants back in Dublin," she said, calmly and assertive. Both of them laughed, hearing the dressing gong ring out. "Help me, would you?"

Tom nodded, walking to where she stood. He helped her out of her dress, reveling as she stood before him in nothing but a bra and lace knickers. Her stomach was growing, swelling to the size it would soon need to be to accommodate the life inside of her. Tom was all too happy to help her into her dinner gown, knowing that for her to allow him to put her into such a dress was more confirmation of the progress they had made rather than the life she had left behind.

~!~

After dinner, Sybil and Tom returned to their room, forfeiting the tea being served in the drawing room so that Sybil could rest. She was exhausted, both from the conversations held during all three courses of a meal Tom was all too unsure of as well as the boat ride they had endured earlier that morning.

Sybil did not ask for Tom's help this time, instead using her own patience and his watching eyes to undress herself slowly. He watched in the way he always did, loving the way her skin was exposed to him as she stripped off her undergarments and got into her pale blue nightgown. She took her time with this part, loving how he stared at her changing body harboring the child they had made and loved already. She no longer wore a corset and he was thankful of the fact for many reasons. The most notable was the fact that the brassiere's she wore exposed her bare tummy to him, making him want to kiss the skin there as he so often did.

Sybil got into bed, leaning up on an outstretched arm to stare down at Tom. He was leaning against pillows he had propped against the headboard. Sybil smiled at his ability to get so comfortable encouraged only by her presence. "Apparently we're having guests tomorrow for dinner."

"Guests?"

"The Grey's. They're old family friends but Larry Grey used to be sweet on me."

"And you?"

"Oh god no," she explained. "He was never that much to look at and-"

Tom cut her off. "Good to know what you look for in a man."

Sybil swatted at his chest. "You'll see. He's awfully full of himself and not in the way I love about you," she stated, knowing she was teasing just as much as he was.

"Aye!"

Sybil smiled. She was nestled against him now, listening to the thud of his heart beneath the fabric of his undershirt. "He just wasn't much. He was my Bridget," she said with a chuckle, catching Tom's eyes to savor his reaction.

"Well then he really must be an arse-"

"Tom!" She paused, still suppressing a laugh. "He's a family friend and I have no doubt he's matured a bit, but he wasn't for me."

In response, Tom kissed her, breathing in deeply as he did so. She responded in kind, reaching up to stroke his cheek. As she pulled away, she smiled at him, causing him to do the same as he looked back down at her. "I promise to try and keep my mouth shut tomorrow," he said, knowing he was answering a question she could only think. "Even if this Grey kid is all over you."

"He won't be all over me," she reasoned. "His family will be here and I'm sure he knows I'm married now."

"I somehow doubt that will stop him."

"Says one persistent man about another."

"But I'm enough," Tom teased. "You said so your-"

Sybil cut him off, kissing him with all she had in her. She was still tired, and now her eyes felt heavy, made easy as she closed her eyes to savor the moment. They would have made love had they both not fallen asleep minutes later. Sybil curled further into Tom's side, needing and wanting him so much closer. It wasn't Dublin, but it felt like home with him nestling into her as he stroked her stomach.

I'm currently working on another fic that has been a few months in the making and that I have finally had the time to commit to paper after extensive planning. It is modern AU and I am extremely proud of it. I will be posting the first chapter of that soon but won't post the rest of the story until this one is complete. Just something to look forward, I suppose.

Thanks for reading! Please review if you feel so compelled.

x. Elle