A/N: I know the previous chapter was pretty dark, particularly after the antics of Basil and the boys in Chapter 18 (it gave me a little writer's whiplash as well), but there's a method to the madness as they say. Two or three parts will follow this one, so its a marathon. I very much appreciate all the thoughtful comments.

And, as always, thanks to foojules for the beta.

OUT OF THE DARK, PART II
Downton, October 1925

Helen Drewe would not be the last to perish. As Tom and Sybil huddled with their son in the days that followed, death slipped in and out, a phantom thief leaving a tide of desolation in its wake. Two-year-old Nigel Marsden, a local storekeeper's son, died a few days after the Drewes' daughter, followed by Emily Parks, another tenant's child, who'd turned five that summer. What made matters worse was that Emily's condition had seemed to improve before a sudden relapse claimed her in the night. A judge without a jury, Thomas had said; indeed, the disease had mercilessly overruled the hospital staff's relentless treatments.

Tom went to the churchyard for little Emily's funeral but held back from the gathered throng of black-clad mourners. Though Dr. Clarkson had cleared him and Sybil, he remained cautious about being too near anyone else. He stood by the gate and, catching the gaze of the Emily's father, gave a little nod. Ben Parks tipped his cap and led his wife away as the crowd dispersed.

Tom leaned back against the stone wall, nodding to those he knew as they passed through the gates. A few inquired after his son, but mostly they cast him sympathetic smiles. He recognized the petite build of Bobby's schoolteacher as she paused on the walkway, keeping her distance.

"How is Bobby today?" Miss Bunting asked.

"His fever is down again," Tom replied, "but it never seems to stay. Dr. Clarkson said that's to be expected."

"I'm surprised you're here," she said. "I understand you and your wife haven't left the hospital. You should rest when given the chance."

Tom gave a tired smile. "Mr. Parks – Ben – is one of the estate's best tenants," he explained. "And he's become a good friend to me over the years. Didn't seem right not to come."

"Emily and Bobby sat next to one another at school," she said after a moment.

A chuckle bubbled in Tom's throat. He crossed his arms and raised a brow. "He'd told me that on his first day. I admit I was a bit surprised to hear the school had mixed the seating."

Her head tilted with a haughty twitch. "Well, how are we to overcome social inequality between the sexes if we reinforce it by separating the boys and girls from the start? Learn together to live together is my teaching motto."

"My wife would certainly appreciate that."

"Mrs. Branson and I haven't had much time to exchange opinions, but I can tell she's someone I'd like to get to know better."

Tom flopped his cap back on his head and pushed away from the wall. "Then you'll have to come to tea when all this is over," he said, throwing a weary hand at the churchyard.

"Does Bobby know about Emily?"

"No."

"She was a bright one – already at the top of her class." With a wistful smile, she added, "He told me after school one day that she was the prettiest and smartest girl he knew, except for his Mama of course. I think he was a little smitten with her."

Tom's face softened, trembled with a smirk. "Just like his Da. Pining after a woman who's too far above him." The remark obviously struck Miss Bunting as curious, but she brushed it away as he sobered again. "Have any other children fallen ill?"

"No, the tide seems to have been stemmed." Her eyes drifted over the mound of earth near the small grave, moistening as she blinked. "And I pray this is the last."

The church bells, beckoning a new hour, accompanied Tom on his return to the hospital just a short distance away. He shuffled into Bobby's room, hung his cap on the back of the door and squeezed by the end of the bed. Sybil sat on the edge of the mattress, bathing their son's face. Tom sank down behind her, dropped a kiss on her shoulder. The little boy lay quiet, the distortions of his diminutive frame somehow less vile when he was resting. The sheet, tucked up to his shoulders, partially masked the stiffness of his back and neck. It seems to be improving, he thought, but maybe that's just wishful thinking. Gently, Tom removed the cloth from her hands and draped it across Bobby's brow before settling her back into his chest.

Sybil sighed and, for a moment, remembered the days preceding their son's birth – when they feared they would lose him or that she wouldn't live to see him or both. But the hours of labor had culminated in a flood of relieved tears at the first strong wail. Bobby had become their last link with Ireland, the first embodiment of a social divide transcended by love.

"When we left Dublin, we had little more than the clothes on our backs," she whispered. "And him. But that's all we needed. I thought that when I got to Downton, if you had made it safely before me, my prayers would be answered. I knew I could make a life anywhere with you and our child."

Tom's mouth pressed into the back of her neck. "Our little stowaway."

She chuckled softly at the nickname they'd favored over the nebulous it. "Do you remember the night he was conceived?"

His lips curved into a slow smile against her skin. "I think it would be hard to point to just one."

"It was at Ballykeegan." Sybil turned, kissed the thick stubble on his cheek – he hadn't shaved in days. "When we stayed at that little pub."

"O'Malley's?"

"Perhaps it was meant to be, our son coming into existence near the home of his ancestors." His thumbs grazed her forearms and he rocked her: not much, but just enough. She tucked her head into his, closed her eyes.

"Do you really think it was then?"

"I know it in my heart."

"Then that's when it happened." In the quiet of the room, Tom could hear their child breathing, found reassurance in each little puff.

During the war, when Sybil had deferred Tom's declarations of love time and again, she'd seldom allowed herself to imagine what the future might hold. But she could never have known how full her heart would be at the sight of her husband and children rolling in the back garden, how she'd thrill at the lilting timbre of his voice when he read his children stories or at the way the corners of his eyes crinkled when they greeted him at the door. The reality had surpassed all of her dreams.

Tom seemed determined to give Bobby and Saoirse the childhood he'd been denied; it made him over-protective at times, particularly with their son. Perhaps it was borne from their fear of losing him at birth or because Bobby had been an only child for so long. Maybe there was just something buried in a father's love for his son that she'd never understand.

"How are the Parks holding up?" Her voice was barely a whisper, but it startled him in the stillness. "Emily was only five years old, Tom."

"Sybil..."

The sinister image of a vacant chair at the table flashed unbidden through her mind. She choked on a sob. "I don't know if I'm that strong."

He clutched her tighter, the burn in his throat building as she began shuddering in his arms. "I keep praying we won't have to be."

By the end of the second week, Bobby's symptoms had eased. His arms, back, and neck relaxed, he moved a bit more, and he seemed less agitated and muddled. His fever, which had dropped after every lumbar procedure only to spike again in a matter of hours – Dr. Clarkson told them to expect that – stabilized for an entire day, and then another. The little boy woke one morning in the middle of the third week with a yawn and a great stretch, asking if he could go home. He greeted his parents' astonished faces with a frail, but unmistakably impish grin. Both Sybil's laughter and Tom's was choked with held-back tears of relief. Together – delicately – they pulled the child into their arms, raining kisses on his face and promising they would take him home soon.

Dr. Clarkson asked them to leave Bobby a few more days for observation, unwilling to release him until all of his symptoms – the rigidity, the fever, the bacteria, everything – had disappeared, signaling a definitive end to the disease. Again, they waited. Despite her earlier promise to stay at Bobby's side, Sybil relented enough to go home at night while he slept. With their nightmare near an end, her fears gave way to weeks of pent-up stress and fatigue. She needed a real bed beneath her back and a good soaking bath instead of the makeshift washing she'd been allowed in the nurse's room at the hospital. She needed a return to normalcy, even if it was something as simple as cleaning the breakfast dishes. So on the second night after Bobby had begun to act like himself again, she and Tom trudged home to a quiet Downton Cottage.

While Sybil desperately needed the respite, she missed the patter of tiny feet in her house, the squeals and laughter of her children pealing through the halls. She and Tom both did, and after a pair of hot baths, they padded downstairs in their nightclothes to share a light dinner. They had little to say to each other; there'd been no news beyond what they'd been fed day after day in hospital and neither was willing to mention the absence of their children, so the meal largely passed in silence. When they finished, Tom pulled down a bottle of whiskey, poured two small glasses and sagged back into the chair. He reached for Sybil's hand across the table and closed his eyes: God, Our Father, we pray that through your intercession of St. Nicholas you will protect our children...

Sybil admitted Tom was the more faithful out of the two of them. She hadn't realized until then that over the course of the previous weeks, she'd forgotten to pray herself. Instead she'd clung to science, to what she'd been trained for as a nurse. She squeezed his fingers as he intoned the words, drawing strength from him. He glanced up after a whispered Amen, caught her eyes with a forlorn smile. "No one warned us about this part of parenthood, did they?" She shook her head and sat, twiddling with his fingers, until he led her upstairs.

They lay in bed exhausted but unable to sleep. Sybil picked at the hem of the sheet, crossed her feet, re-fluffed the pillow. Tom sighed heavily and flopped over and back again, the bedsprings eeking out in protest. She turned to face him.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

Her hand came to rest on his shirt front. "I can't sleep either." He draped an arm over her hip and for a while they were simply content to blink through the grayish luster cast down by the moonlight and listen to the wind brush against the windows. His eyes had started to droop when her whisper scratched through the silence. "Tom?"

"Hmm?"

"I want to make love." Given the hour and the circumstances, that was hardly what he expected to hear. Sucking in a sharp breath, Sybil lay back, drawing her hands to her face. "God help me, I just want to feel alive again." Her voice swelled with frustration and she exhaled a derisive laugh. "I'm sorry – what a terribly selfish thing to want at a time like this."

"Sybil..." He pulled one of her hands to his mouth, pressed his lips to it. "You're the least selfish person I've ever known. There's nothing to be sorry for."

"If nothing else, maybe sex will help me sleep."

"That's a lovely endorsement – so I'm a cure for insomnia now?"

She groaned. Maybe I should just shut up, she thought, before I shove the other foot in my mouth. She heard him chuckling, though, and turned to find him grinning.

His palm slid over her hip; his fingers inched into her skin. "Come here."

It was quick and graceless, their customary passion floundering under fatigue and desperation. Clothes were pushed aside as a mere afterthought – they were too weary for much more. She didn't quite feel alive yet, but when they cried out together, she sensed it. Like trying to catch a leaf on a breezy day, it flitted a stubborn distance beyond her fingertips. At least it was there again, hand-in-hand with hope and meandering back from their endless bedside vigil. They lay quiet as their breathing waned, their hearts thrumming against each other's skin.

Tom grew heavy on her, rolled them over in a lazy heap. "Go to sleep, love," he slurred through a yawn.

Sybil burrowed into his chest, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, and succumbed to the fog of exhaustion as it finally carried them away.

The shrill buzz of the telephone jarred them out of a deep slumber a few hours later. Wrapped around her, Tom felt the tension erupt through Sybil's body. "Wait here," he muttered, shoving his way out of bed. He stumbled downstairs into his study and fumbled the receiver to his ear.

The nurse's voice trembled through from the other end. "Sybil asked me to ring if anything changed..." He wouldn't remember the rest, only the icy tentacles that snaked through his blood. He thundered back upstairs – Sybil was already dressed – threw on a set of clothes and barely caught up with her as she bolted from their front door.

They didn't even bother with the motor, as it would have still been chugging out of the yard by the time they dashed through the murky streets of the village and into the hospital a few blocks away. They heard the screams from the lower level of the stairwell: piercing wails that prickled the hair on Tom's neck. His feet planted stubbornly on the first step as Sybil charged ahead. Please God, not again, he prayed and jerked on the handrail to force himself onward.

In the upstairs hall, Dr. Clarkson shoved past him with a syringe. Tom followed into the room, heard Sybil plead with their son, "Bobby, darling, it's Mama. Calm down." The little boy was thrashing about on the bed and another nurse squeezed in to help wrestle him.

Tom rushed over next to his wife, grabbed one leg and tried to hold on. Despite the child's sapped strength, he was putting up a struggle. "What's happening?"

Standing at a safe distance, Dr. Clarkson flicked the end of a syringe and moved toward the patient, but stepped back when the child screeched and kicked. "You must hold him down."

By then Bobby had wrenched his arms from the nurse – his was skin tattooed with slender bruises – and thrust his palms against his eyes. "Noooooooo..."

Tom pulled his hands away, gripping them as he leaned into his son's face. "Bobby, lad, look at Da..."

But the child's eyelids puckered shut. He forced them open, his eyes rolling wildly, before squeezing them tight again. "Da, it burns..." The last word spiraled into a shriek.

"What burns?" Tom sat on the bed, squeezing his elbows against Bobby's sides and pinning his arms. "Tell Da – what burns?"

With his upper body in a vise, Bobby kicked again, nearly hitting his mother as she moved to his other side. The little boy gasped, his voice cracking, "My eyes!"

Sybil dabbed a cold cloth over his eyes, brushed back his hair and dropped a kiss to his brow. "There, is that better?"

He said nothing, but after a moment the spasms tapered off and his breathing evened again. He's exhausted, thought Tom, until he noticed Dr. Clarkson hovering back with the syringe.

"Just a little bit of morphine to settle him," the doctor whispered, waiting with the parents as the child's body relaxed.

Tom lightened his grip, felt a small hand fumble heavily for his. Sybil lifted the cloth; Bobby's eyes darted about the room, blinking erratically. Dr. Clarkson checked his pulse and motioned for the nurse to leave.

Tom glanced up. "Will you please tell me what's happening to my son?"

Clarkson lay a hand on Bobby's forehead, thumbed open one eyelid and then another. "It could be a relapse..."

"You said the treatments worked!"

"It's the only treatment we have for meningitis. And while we may think the serum has done its job, if the body is infected so acutely, one round may not be enough. It's not uncommon." He pointed to the lumbar puncture on the side table. "I'll draw a sample and we'll administer another course if we need to..."

"Da?"

Tom almost missed the whisper. Bobby's eyelids fluttered, struggling against the morphine. "We're here," he said. "Bobby, can you hear me?"

The child gave a slow nod, forced a few more blinks before peeling his eyes open again. His voice came garbled under the morphine. "Da, can you turn on the lights?"

Lord Grantham stared over his daughter's shoulder and through the cracked door to his grandson's room. Sybil had told him and Cora what was happening the morning after Bobby had started complaining of pain in his eyes, but each day when they visited the maddening cycle was the same: the child's vision blurred and sharpened with the hours. It was only reasonable to assume it would improve this time as well. So Robert's mind rejected the fatalistic tenor of what Sybil had just said: blind. He felt Cora's arm, hooked in his, slip away to take their daughter's hands.

Robert's voice quavered. "But his sight has come and gone, surely this is only temporary..."

"I'd like to think so, Papa, but he's not been able to see much of anything during the past twenty-four hours." She inhaled sharply, forced a brittle smile. "He seems to be free of the meningitis, though. Dr. Clarkson's confident he didn't suffer a relapse and thinks it should be safe to take him home in a day or so."

"So, why this?" the earl sputtered.

Sybil's gaze followed his over her shoulder. "He seems to think Bobby's sight is deteriorating...something about inflammation of the optic nerves. Honestly, as a nurse, you would think I'd understand all of it..." Her fingers scrubbed at the dark circles under her eyes. "Dr. Clarkson says we should take him to a specialist in London. But he didn't sound hopeful."

Lord Grantham stepped around her, peering into the room. His grandson lay quiet on the narrow bed, one hand secured a stuffed toy beside him; the other reached out wide, away from Tom. Lord Grantham watched as his son-in-law swiped at his face, and then brought the small hand to his lips for a kiss.

"Tom's hardly said a word," Sybil whispered behind him. "And I'm not sure Bobby realizes what's happening to him..."

Cora squeezed her daughter's arms. "You don't know anything for certain yet."

"No," she replied. "But I've never felt more powerless in my life."

Bobby loved trains. Whenever the Bransons traveled, the little boy had always sought the window seat, spending most of the trip with his nose pressed against the glass or pulling his Mama or Da by the hand up and down the aisles. But on his first darkened ride to London on that brisk late-October day, he sat rigid between his parents unless the whistle blew, and then it startled him into tears. Neighboring passengers looked askance, some sympathetic, some annoyed, as Tom and Sybil cooed to calm him as if he were an infant. Once quiet again, Bobby's hands clutched his toy train, twirling the wheels with his fingers. In the facing seat, Matthew offered a reassuring smile. He'd come along for a last minute business trip. Guise or not, Tom appreciated the gesture.

Tom stared through the window, the green and yellow countryside blurring his mind from one nightmare to another. When they'd finally brought Bobby home a week before, he'd refused to stay alone, screaming whenever he sensed an absence in the room. Even when he fell sound asleep in his mother's arms, once they put him to bed the boy would wake scrambling for his bedside lamp. He'd already broken it in frustration, and twice more he had toppled onto the floor. So Sybil and Tom finally took him into their bed, where he slept secured between them.

Despite Dr. Clarkson's bleak diagnosis, Tom clung to a sliver of hope during their visit to the Moorfields Eye Hospital. The institution had been founded more than a century before, the world's first hospital dedicated to diseases of the eye; an influx of conjunctivitis brought home by British troops during the Napoleonic wars had predicated its establishment. Dr. Clarkson had arranged a private consult with Dr. Gerald Parker, one of the hospital's leading ophthalmologists, who'd treated Mrs. Patmore's cataracts before the war.

Parker was an older man with thinning gray-blond hair, a hook of a nose, and a voice burnished with a kindness honed through years of treating frightened children. He directed Bobby through a series of tests with clunky metal instruments that pressed cold against his skin. They're telescopes into the mind, the doctor explained, his tone arching surreptitiously, so try to think of something pleasant and not about pinching your sister. Bobby's mouth curved into a smile, listened to the doctor spin wild stories about pirates, and rolled his eyes or head this way or that when instructed.

But once Parker moved onto flashing lights and colored cards and tell me what you can see when I do this, Bobby's patience gave way to bitter frustration. By the end of the examination, he'd merely grunt and blurt I don't know! Tom and Sybil watched from the far side of the room, kept at bay several times by the doctor's lofted hand. When he finished, Dr. Parker's smile concealed any preliminary observations. He brandished a piece of licorice from his pocket. Placing it in Bobby's hands, he called for a nurse to collect the little patient.

The doctor flipped through his notes, waited for the door to close. "The meningitis doesn't seem to have impaired his cognitive ability," he said, forcing a smile. "He's a very bright and curious little boy. But I agree with Dr. Clarkson. His sight has deteriorated."

Tom sat mute, hands twiddling with his hat. Sybil's knuckles blanched as she clutched her bag. After a moment, she found her voice. "Dr. Clarkson mentioned something about an inflammation."

Settling into a chair facing them, Parker nodded. "It's not unheard of for meningitis patients to suffer an optical inflammation – neuritis, we call it – even at the very end of the disease. That inflammation is what caused the excruciating pain and the transient vision loss while he was in hospital."

"But he's out of pain now," Tom said. "Does he still have it...the neuritis?"

"There's some minor inflammation that will work its way out, but the acute bilateral attack resulted in optic atrophy – damage to the both the optic nerves and discs."

Sybil's hand went to Tom's. "Is it permanent?"

"The damage is irreversible, so yes, I'm afraid so."

Tom's eyes flitted about the room, blinking rapidly. "Can he see anything?"

The doctor turned to place his charts back on the desk. "He has no peripheral vision," Parker explained, cupping both hands tight to his temple. "Everything's more or less black from here out. He retains some residual sensitivity to light, but not much. His color perception and acuity have been diluted into a dark, fuzzy gray. Like a thick night fog."

Sybil squeezed her husband's hand, found it cold and trembling in her grasp.

"With the nerves being attacked so severely, they may continue to break down. So his vision, such as it is, could fade even further. I can examine him again in a few months to see, but for all practical purposes he's totally blind."

Tom glanced over the doctor's shoulder to the far wall. A poster, sporting the image of a woman holding a lantern, stared back: Moorfields – the light in the blackout of blindness.

"I know this is terribly difficult," the doctor went on, "but the truth is your son was actually quite lucky. I've known patients who survive brain fevers only to suffer both vision and hearing loss, in addition to neurological debilities. In time, Bobby will learn to live with his condition. And, he's the added benefit of having known a sighted world, so learning will come far easier for him. There are schools..."

Sybil's head shook. "No, Dr. Parker, I'm a nurse. I can look after him..."

"Mrs. Branson, he doesn't need a nurse," the doctor insisted. "He will need special instruction on how to adapt to his new world."

"I've tended the blind before," she said. "I helped treat those afflicted by the gasses during the war."

"Then you understand the psychological trauma that often accompanies acquired blindness. Most individuals resist at first because they don't want to accept their situation. I warn you, it can be a rather uncomfortable process with children..."

"I am his mother," Sybil cut in. Tom glanced up at the grit in her tone, recognized the steely set to her jaw. "And for more than three weeks, I spent every hour wondering if my son would live to the next. I'm not frightened by a little discomfort, Dr. Parker. Or hard work, for that matter."

Dr. Parker pushed up from his chair to rummage through a nearby drawer. "There is a man here in London, highly respected among blind educators." Scribbling on a scrap of paper, he continued, "He's worked for the Ministry of Education and is a great advocate for the advanced learning of blind children. I'll give you his address – he also has a telephone, so you could ring him if you wish."

Sybil pulled the slip from his fingers, studied the name briefly, and handed it to Tom. Robert Woolstone, specialist for education of the blind. Tom thrust the paper into his coat pocket and swallowed audibly before taking the doctor's offered hand.

"Mr. Woolstone will be glad to give you general instructions to prepare your son for his new world," Dr. Parker said. "I would recommend he come to your home, so as to explain things to the rest of your family. Bobby's education is everyone's responsibility now."

With no children of her own, Lady Rosamund Painswick had always favored her three nieces and, in recent years, had learned to tolerate Edith's avant-garde lifestyle. Like the Dowager Countess, Rosamund understood that aristocratic society lived for intrigue and scandals could be marginalized if one controlled the information. So, while her brother Robert blustered and fumed back in Yorkshire over Edith's now-open relationship with Michael Gregson, Rosamund assumed the role of family sergeant-at-arms in London. Edith and Gregson were regular guests at the Painswick house on Eaton Square now and had come over when they'd heard Tom and Sybil would be down from Yorkshire. Edith had visited her nephew that afternoon; by the time she exited the room, she was expressionless and pale. She'd hardly spoken at all during tea.

Rosamund glanced around her dinner table that evening. If Papa could see this, she thought, her eyes glossing over her nieces' chosen partners: the middle-class lawyer, the former chauffeur, and the can't-get-divorced editor. She thought on her late husband Marmaduke – that banker, her mother often called him – and how positively conventional their marriage would seem among this lot. Her eyes found Tom's and they exchanged thin smiles. Years ago when the Dowager had written about Sybil's unpropitious attachment to the chauffeur, Rosamund was hardly surprised. She'd never been particularly close to her youngest niece, but had once observed that of the three girls Sybil would be most likely to find joy in a cottage and she'd done just that, thanks to the Irishman who doted on her and encouraged her politics and career.

Sybil's absence at dinner left a palpable gloom over the table. Bobby had not yet re-learned how to feed himself and she wasn't about to throw him off on one of the maids. So for Tom, the meal passed in a lonely cloud of empty chitchat concerning fashion, gossip, and the final days of the British Exhibition at Wembley. Edith piped up at one point about the exhibition's air display that summer: six nights of red aircraft firing blank ammunition and dropping simulated bombs.

"They called it London Defended," she said. "It was quite a spectacle."

Gregson reached for his glass. "Quite a loud spectacle, I should say. Some poor chap beside me almost had a seizure. He'd been wounded at the Marne and the noise proved a bit much for him."

Matthew barely glanced up from his plate. "The organizers should be more mindful of glorifying such things."

Edith gave a contrite smile, her attempt at lifting the mood having bombed itself. Everyone seemed content to focus on their meals again, except Rosamund who, much like her mother, couldn't bear prolonged silence. She turned to Tom, seated next to her. "What did your doctor call it again?"

Tom cleared his throat. "Optic atrophy."

"And it isn't temporary?"

He and Sybil had explained the prognosis soon after they returned, but it seemed that having a serious illness in the family affected people's powers of comprehension: the dreary news had to be relayed again and again. "He doesn't seem to think so."

Matthew sipped his wine. "The doctors were certainly wrong about me. Perhaps..."

"I would like to believe that, Matthew, but this is hard enough without adding false hope into the equation."

"Of course," he replied, turning back to his plate. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking."

Rosamond's face broke with a pleasant smile. "If there is anything I can do..."

Tom's fork jabbed into a slice of ham. "You can tell me how I'm going to explain to my son that he'll live the rest of his life in the dark." He glanced up, found a table of downcast eyes, and was immediately shamed. They mean well. "I'm sorry, Lady Rosamund. That was rude of me."

Shaking her head, she forced another smile, waved him off. "Raising children is a complicated business under the best of circumstances."

"The truth is that we feel as if we've been tossed into a maze without a map. I don't know what we're to do."

"Your family is here for you, Tom," Matthew said.

Giving a grateful nod, Tom turned to Sybil's aunt. "If you'll excuse me, I should go check on them, but I'd like to use your telephone first if I may."

Rosamund nodded towards her butler. "Certainly. Mead can show you." When the door closed behind them, she blinked rapidly, her lashes wet. "That poor child."

"I can't imagine what they must be going through," Edith said.

Rosamond cleared her throat, took a few extra sips of wine. "I can," she muttered under her breath, but still it drew in everyone's attention. She looked up, fidgeted under the curiosity and then smiled sunnily. "So, Edith... you mentioned the Duke of York is to close the Exposition in a few days?"

"Yes, on Saturday, are you going?"

"Heavens, no," she quipped. "His last speech was a rather painful affair. I think I'll sit this one out."

Pulling at his tie, Tom slipped into their room upstairs, dusky in the light of the single lamp. Sybil, dressed for bed, perched on the edge of the mattress. Her fingers dusted across Bobby's brow and cheeks and down his arm where it crooked over his favorite stuffed bear. The toy had been a present from Lord and Lady Grantham on the child's first birthday and was so loved that it had since required several surgeries to replace its stuffing. For a moment the world seemed righted: their son peacefully slumbering, safe, protected, and showing no outward hint of the weeks of anguish behind them or those to come. And then Sybil swiped at her cheeks, reeling him back to reality.

"How is he?" Tom whispered, clicking the door shut behind him.

"He's finally asleep. He didn't want to close his eyes." No, Mama, no, Bobby had begged. Read me another story. She'd sat still, marveling for a moment that he'd detected the sound of the book thumping closed. So she read another, his hand never leaving her knee, even after he'd fallen asleep.

Tom trudged towards their suitcase and shed his suit. "Did he eat?"

She nodded. "Some."

"Remember Dr. Clarkson said it may be a while before he gets all his appetite back." He fished around for his pajamas. "Try not to worry." He slipped on his bottoms, groaned a bit as he shrugged into his top. Weeks in the hospital had left him rather stiff. "He's a Branson – he won't shy away from food for very long."

That made her smile. "How was dinner?"

"Just as one would expect," he sighed, kicking his dirty clothes into a pile. "No one really knowing what to say." Shuffling over, he dropped a kiss to her head. "Reminded me a bit of the first time you brought the chauffeur home." Sybil exhaled a soft chuckle, eased Bobby's hand from her knee and pulled herself up into Tom's embrace. For a while they simply held one another, both gazing down at their sleeping son. "I telephoned the man Dr. Parker recommended. Mr. Woolstone's to come to Downton next week to talk to us. Rather, the entire family."

She nodded against his chest, her fingers curling into the back of his shirt as he rocked her. She'd been mulling their visit with Dr. Parker all afternoon. It hadn't been her intention to throw down the gauntlet for Bobby's future on a whim, but the thought of sending him away, quite literally blind and helpless among strangers, was too much to ask. It's too soon, the mother in her had screamed. I won't give him up. "You would think being a wartime nurse would count for something." Her voice trembled. "I've certainly seen worse things than this."

"This is our child," he whispered, tipping her chin. "Nothing is worse than this."

A sniffle escaped, but she refused to cry, not now, not again and not in front of their son. Plunged into a darkened world in which even the most familiar things unsettled him, Bobby needed her resolve and reassurance. He needed her to be the mother who had brought him into this world, the woman who had defied an archaic system to follow her heart.

She picked at one of the buttons on Tom's shirt. "I'll take leave from the hospital. If we keep Kitty on, it will pinch our pockets for a while, but we've certainly done that before."

"We'll make it work," he promised. "Besides, you'll need her help."

"So that's it then," she said, her voice coming stronger again. "We'll move forward."

He bent down, brushed his mouth to hers. "Always."

A/N 2: In regard to the meningitis storyline – it was partially inspired by my great-aunt (my grandmother's older sister), who left some memoirs about her life growing up in the rural south. In 1919, her seven-year-old brother contracted meningitis and died just a few days before Christmas. She was fourteen at the time and her recollections of the experience are chilling to read. For obvious reasons I chose not to go down that path here, but it even with the serotherapy treatments discovered in the very early 1900s, the mortality rate remained frighteningly high. As in 'the birth' chapters (13&14), I attempted to scour through some period medical books to balance what we know today vs. what was known at the time. I'm certainly not a doctor and I'm sure I probably misinterpreted some portions of the disease, so any medical faux pas are all mine.

Next up: Tom and Sybil adjust to their son's disability...