His steps were heavy, or at least they felt heavy. Certainly heavier than on any of the other occasions he had walked down the street, through the blue door and up the flights of stairs to be reunited with her again every morning in the weeks that had passed. Even heavier than a week ago when they operated on her.

She was in pain. He could clearly see it. Not just physical pain, that was to be expected after all, but she was in emotional pain as well.

It was in her actions, in her longing looks, and most importantly, it was in her silence. He just wished he knew what it was so that he could help her.

Today was their wedding anniversary. Today marked 39 years since they had stood in that truly freezing cold church on that otherwise remarkably beautiful Sunday, vowing to devote their entire lives to one another. And they had kept true to that, to their vows. They had had a rocky start, there had been several instances when everything was seemingly lost between them, but they had emerged stronger from the rubble of each hardship they had to face because ultimately, they faced all of them together as husband and wife. And Robert was sure that this would not be any different. In fact, he knew it would not. He had never in their 39 years together spent so much time with her. He had never shared so many incredibly intimate, yet innocent moments with her as he had in the past four months. And he could honestly say he had never been more in awe of her. He had never been more in love with her.

Usually, they would be preparing for a grand dinner to be hosted that evening at Downton Abbey by now. In the past, they had typically invited family and friends, sometimes the odd acquaintance or a possible suitor for one or all of their daughters. Or occasionally, he had whisked Cora all the way down to London to treat her to a night out in one of London's finest restaurants for a lovely meal followed by some dancing. Robert had never been the biggest romantic — he had never cared too much about this anniversary business, much to Cora's chagrin. Yet, he had always tried to make it as nice a day as possible for her. It was the day she had given up any last chance of returning to her old life in America in favour of saving him, his family and this estate from ruin at the expense of her own identity. When they stepped out of the church and into the world as husband and wife, squinting against the cold winter sun that welcomed them outside along with the many villagers, Cora Levinson was no more. Her free American spirit that had set her apart from all the other young women in the stuffy ballrooms, that had drawn him to her, was to be repressed by his quite overbearing, strict and traditional mother. When they stepped foot onto the churchyard, in young Miss Levinson's stead stood Cora Crawley, Viscountess Downton. He had always at least tried to make it a special day for her and he had only too gladly boasted about the true treasure he was lucky enough to call his wife to everyone who had to listen to him, be it their guests and staff or at some point even an unsuspecting waiter in a restaurant.

But not this year. This year, there would be no dinner party at which he could boast about his darling wife. This year, he would not get to twirl her around the dance floor of Claridge's or the Ritz. He would not even get to dance with her in the close confines of her bedroom.

This year, they were trapped in an inconspicuous hospital room in one of the many doctors' practices that lined Harley Street. They would spend the entire day in her room, just like they had the past few weeks. She would be sleeping a lot and a nurse would come to dress her wound sometime after noon, usually at around two o´clock.

And undoubtedly, she would ask him to leave the room again once the nurse would walk in. She had done that every day since her operation a week ago. Something about him having always felt uneasy with everything medical and not wanting him to have to see the wound with how queasy he gets around blood. She was only mumbling and he honestly did not want to hear any of it.

He had protested. She was right, he had never been comfortable with this, but she was his wife and he had been with her every step of the way. He had promised her. And he had kept that promise. But for what? Only to have her send him away when things were rough? She had cared for his wound when his ulcer had burst and the doctor had sent him home from the hospital to convalesce, and now she refused to even just have him in the room when they changed the wound dressing on her. He did not understand it. Not any of it. Of course, he had protested, but she had been adamant and never budged.

The clock was about to strike two in the afternoon when the nurse appeared, a tray with different instruments, creams, salves, and bandages in her hands. Cora did not even have to say anything, Robert already knew what she was about to ask of him when they turned and saw who had entered the room.

Robert rose from his chair as the timid nurse who had done the wound dressing the past three days came closer. His hand was still loosely holding onto hers as he stood there next to her bed and looked down at her. Hesitantly but hopefully, he offered: "I could always stay, Cora."

"No, Robert. You know how you get around blood," she sighed, a warm, affirmative and yet firm smile on her pale face.

His thin lips pursed, but he nodded slowly in understanding and started to make his way out of the room, but not before nodding at the nurse in greeting. She had a look of pity on her face as she watched him leave, and Robert did not like that one bit. He knew he should be in there with her. He should be there and watch the nurse do her work and learn, he should ask questions. Robert wanted to be able to care for her the same way she had cared for him not too long ago. Cora, however, did not want him there and he could not pretend to not be hurt by that.

The wound dressing was taking uncharacteristically long today, it made him strangely nervous — what if something was wrong? Maybe there was an infection or parts of the wound had opened up again or mayb-

A slight creaking sound coming from somewhere behind him filled the sterile-smelling lofty corridor as the nurse came back out of Cora's room. After roughly thirty minutes of him restlessly pacing the hallway and mulling all the things over that could have happened, the door opened again - finally!

He quickly turned back around to face her. Just as he was about to ask what had happened, he saw her timid smile and heard her say: "All finished for today, Lord Grantham. Have a very nice day."

Cora must have told her what today was — the shy and pitiful look from earlier had turned into full commiseration in the few minutes spent inside and he could not fathom why else her expression would change like this.

No word of anything, so nothing had happened. But why had it taken them so long, then?

Deciding not to dwell on that fact any longer, he began to trace his earlier steps to join Cora again. To say that he was relieved he could go back in would be an understatement, he couldn't bear to be separated from her any longer than he had to, least of all on this day.

Once he had reached the doorway the nurse had just walked through, he came to a halt. He simply stood there on the threshold - without crossing it.

Just looking.

Nothing more.

She was sitting in the wheelchair they had given her to get around, the one she had refused to even so much as look at the past few days. Every day since the operation, they would tell her to please let someone help her get dressed and let herself at least be pushed around the hallways on this floor. He had tried to persuade her every day to please let him help her out of the bed, but she had refused every time. And now there she was, sitting in that wheelchair, her back turned to him as she gazed out the window into the garden down below.

With a relieved smile on his aged face, Robert stepped closer and came to stop directly behind her, his hands carefully coming to rest on her slender, bony shoulders that were covered not by one of her nightgowns, but by a nice blouse they had brought from home, much to his surprise.

She had been so lost in her thoughts that she had not heard his footsteps on the floor as he drew nearer. Her thoughts had been somewhere miles and miles away. She had been thinking about home, about the abbey. How much she would have loved to simply sit in the sitting room Robert had refurbished for her so lovingly. Or how much she would have loved to walk around the gardens there, passing by the first flowers of spring that slowly emerged. No doubt the first snowdrops were already peeking out from the ground now that the harsh winter had finally lessened its strong hold on the country, allowing the sun to shine through with increasing regularity. She wanted to be there instead of here. She wished herself to be in peaceful Yorkshire and not noisy London. She wanted out of this room, this small, restricting and, quite frankly, depressing room. She wanted to go home. She wanted to be around her family.

A small and melancholic sigh escaped her lips at these thoughts, her face showing clearly all the longing that was bubbling deep inside her.

When she felt the weight of his big hands gently press down on her, however, she was transported back to the real world. There was no way she could go back to Downton, she could not even leave this room on her own. But he was there like he had promised, and he wanted to help her. She knew that he did, he offered time and again to stay and let the nurse show him the way he could care for her. A part of her wanted him to stay, to help her the way she had helped him.

There was the selfish side of her, the one that told her that was what he was supposed to do as her husband, and she knew it was wrong to think like that. Cora knew he loved her, his actions the past few months had been the biggest testimony to that, but she found she simply could not let him see her that way. She was not the woman he had married many years ago. She did not even feel like a real woman at all any more.

He stood close behind her and she leaned her head back against him, a smile now forming on her lips at this moment of peacefulness as they both looked outside.

"I see you got dressed," he remarked quietly, looking down at her without tilting his head much.

"I did."

"May I ask what for?"

"I thought you could take me out to the gardens below. The weather seems so nice," she said, a hopeful tone in her voice as she craned her head to smile up at him.

His lips began to curl upwards and he replied: "Of course, my darling. Let me get our coats though, it is quite cold outside despite the sun being very generous today," Robert retorted, reluctantly letting go of her to do as he said. He was relieved, however, that she had been the one to ask him to go outside. He was relieved to see that she had even wanted to be out of bed for a change.

Getting her downstairs and outside proved to be somewhat challenging, with her room being situated two flights of stairs up from the ground level. A joint effort between him and two nurses proved to do the trick, though. He picked her up and cradled her to his chest, carrying her down the two storeys while the nurses went ahead with the wheelchair. Once they had reached the ground floor, he sat her back down and covered her legs with the blanket again so that she would not get cold sitting still.

Before they could step outside, though, he needed a second to catch his breath. She had always been a slender woman and he had never had any trouble picking her up if he wanted to. It should have been even less of a problem now that she had lost so much weight during her ongoing fight with this illness. But he was not getting any younger, and carrying a grown woman down two flights of stairs was not easy on his ageing body.

Once he caught his breath, they stepped outside, and Robert saw how she leaned her head back to bask in the rays of the cold winter sun as he began to wheel her to the small sitting area in the middle of the garden where a nurse had already prepared their tea setting for the afternoon like he had asked her to when he had asked for help to get her downstairs.

"Oh Robert, this is lovely!" she exclaimed in surprise when she saw that he was steering her there to the small pergola.

"It is just tea, my dear," he smiled in response when he took his seat opposite her. Pouring their tea, he kept stealing glances at her as she looked around the garden. "Penny for your thoughts?"

"I am just admiring all of this. And the sun feels so nice."

They both smiled and enjoyed their tea in relative silence, apart from the occasional small pleasantries that were exchanged. There was no need for big discussions. Simply being in each other's company was enough for the moment.

But then Robert remembered what he had so carefully put in his coat pocket that morning. Clearing his throat quietly, he reached inside and pulled the small and quite flat square package out as she turned to look at him.

"I have something for you. It isn't much, and it is certainly not a grand dinner at Downton or anything even remotely comparable, but I still want you to have it. As a small gift to you on this special day."

He handed her the wrapped package and with her eyebrows raised in curiosity, she began to unpack it with deft fingers.

Underneath the brown wrapping paper, a beautifully carved wooden picture frame appeared, a photograph already placed inside.

She took it in, the scene that had been captured. And tears began to well up in her eyes.

"Robert," she began.

"I wanted you to have a reminder of all you sacrificed. There are more than enough photographs of us on our desks and on the walls. Thirty-nine years ago you left America behind and married me. You showed me what it meant to love and be in love. You gave me our family. This wonderful and quite adventurous life we have led, I owe it all to you, and I could not have wished for a better life or someone better, more perfect, to share it all with. You left your life behind, your family, for me. I knew I had to find something that would remind you of your roots, of who you were and are."

Cora looked up at him and back down at the picture in her hands. There, behind the thin sheet of glass, were two dancing figures. Harold and her. Pictured on his wedding day a few months ago. Dancing to the same melody they had danced to so many years prior.

She remembered both instances vividly. She thought about all the years that lay in between them. All the things that had happened. How fundamentally different her life had been from Harold's. How far she had strayed from the person she had been in her youth in America. She had changed, and so had he. And yet, after all these years, they had both remembered that first dance they danced in their youth. The moment shared between her and her brother at his wedding had meant a lot to her, an awful lot. And to have this moment captured in a single frame, to be cherished by her forever, given to her by her husband — it was the greatest gift she could have wished for at that moment. It showed just how considerate Robert had been in all of this. He had made her so happy, for almost four decades now, and she had loved him from the start. She could not have made it without that love she had always felt for him.

Thirty-nine years. That's how long they had already been married to one another, and she hoped they would still have many more years together on this earth. Thirty-nine unbelievable years with him.

Cora had loved him from the start, but she could honestly say that she had never been more in love with her husband than at that moment, sitting in the garden of a doctor's clinic in London.