This chapter and at least the one following will contain large parts of the original dialogues from the show in the scenes I've chosen to include in this story, I'm only putting my own little spin on them here.

It was a risky move. Robert was painfully aware of that, but he found he could not stay away. Not a minute longer. Even after pondering this at length over the second full glass of whiskey he ended up leaving untouched on his desk, he found he simply had to go upstairs and see her.

He had tried to keep his distance for a week already. He had to endure Mary asking him night after night to please sleep in his dressing room, putting him off only for another night, over and over again. Not that he was getting much sleep either way, but he wouldn't burden his eldest with all that. It would not benefit any of them. It was just all too much and he felt like he didn't know anything, as if he couldn't tell his left from his right. At times, it felt like he did not know who he was and what it was all for, but he wouldn't burden her with all that.

All he knew was that he needed to be near Cora. Today of all days. They didn't have to talk, she wouldn't even have to look at him. He just needed her close, needed to feel her presence and her warmth. They had just buried their daughter barely 12 hours earlier, she couldn't send him away again. She couldn't.

Robert did not knock, he never did, but that night when he entered he almost felt as if he should have. It did not take a genius to deduce that she had been crying again; not even her quick shuffling of the book in her lap could cover that. Nothing could have detracted him from the fresh trail of tears that was running down her cheek, even if she tried to hide it from him by turning her head the other way.

He was an intruder. He had rarely felt this way, least of all in recent years, but that night he did. He was an intruder in his wife's bedroom — their bedroom — and that realisation was like a stab in the heart. He should be used to experiencing pain like this by now, and yet he wasn't. Far from it.

They needed to talk, someone needed to take that first step. They could not keep on going like this. And this time, he would have to be the one to reach out. Not least because he needed her. And boy, he truly needed her. By the looks of it, they needed each other.

For a second, he was trying to find the right words to say — he could not just march in and declare he would come back, could he? But then he saw the state she was in, and he knew that he was in no position to demand being allowed back in the room that once was only hers, many years ago. Taking a deep breath and with his hand still holding onto the doorknob of the open door, he turned to face her fully. He spoke with determination and gentleness, both things he did not know he still had in him. "I thought I might move back in here tonight, if you'll have me."

He had interrupted her. The book she had chosen to read before any of this happened was open in her lap, he recognised the cracked spine almost instantly, and yet he instinctively knew she had not been reading a single word when he entered. He had interrupted something else, something going on inside her head, and that was so much worse than had she been merely reading. Seeing the tear stains on her cheeks and her feeble attempts to cover it up felt like someone was stabbing him from behind once more, and that certain someone was him.

He was the reason she was in that bed. Alone. Crying over the loss of their youngest daughter.

Cora knew that he was standing there, looking her up and down, expecting her to agree to his request. Yet, she found she simply could not. She could not even look at him, her hurt still too deep, too raw, too fresh. Allowing him back would equal forgiving him, and that was something Cora simply could not bear to do at that moment. Even just hearing his voice was like torture to her. Trying to keep from shedding more tears in front of him, she nervously toyed with the upper corner of the page open in her lap and replied with a choked voice: "Not yet. I think I'd rather sleep alone for a while yet."

Robert did not know what he had expected, but it for sure was nothing like this. To see her so low on her own, refusing him, refusing his help; it stung terribly. This was unlike anything that had ever happened before and once again he could not help but think that maybe this time around, there was no way for them to ever see eye to eye again. Maybe this time, she could not let him in again. As that thought occurred to him, he couldn't help but think that he deserved it.

The resignation coursing through him in waves caused his upright posture to slacken, like the courage and the fight he had built up ahead of going upstairs was leaving his body again. "Well, if you're sure," he replied, a little more than just crestfallen at her rejection. Nervously, he glanced around the room, only to find his gaze always gravitating back to her like it always had. Just this once, though, he wished it didn't. The pain on her face when she so subtly nodded her head made her hushed answer all the more painful and harder to bear.

"I'm sure."

This was as clear as it could get, she truly did not want him there in the room. She could not even stand to look at him standing there at the door as she answered. Knowing that he was at least part of the reason she felt this way caused the already quite substantial guilt he had carried around with him for the past week to triple. Cora, his own wife, could not stand to even so much as glance at him. Downcast, he turned towards the door once more, about to make his way to the room adjacent when he turned around again.

"Cora-" he began.

But she interrupted him right then and there, shaking her head vehemently. They had been over this particular argument on multiple occasions during the past week and it had never got them anywhere. Right then, Cora was just tired of it. So tired of this argument. So tired of feeling like this, of missing her darling daughter. So tired of it all. "Let's not go through it all again."

"But I'm not arguing. You listened to Clarkson and so should I have done, but Tapsell has a reputation as an expert-"

"And you believed him. When Doctor Clarkson knew Sybil's history and he did not," she got out, trying to reign in her emotions as she once again thought back to the events that brought them there to this point. As she went on, though, holding back her innermost feelings proved to be something she simply could not do. Sometimes, she simply could not keep it all inside, and this time around it was her voice that betrayed her. The more she spoke, the more desperate she sounded and the more her voice quivered and ultimately broke. "You believed Tapsell because he's knighted and fashionable and has a practice in Harley Street. You let all that nonsense weigh against saving our daughter's life. Which is what I find so very hard to forgive."

He knew what he had done. He was painfully aware of the wrong calls he had made that led them to this moment, this ultimate test that was about to drive a wedge between them. For all he knew then, their chances of bridging this divide were going against zero, and getting even slimmer with every minute, every second. As he listened to her talk like this, reiterating his mistakes while placing so much blame on his broad shoulders, he could not help but feel anger starting to bubble up inside him. Maybe it was that first glass of whiskey he had had before coming upstairs that night, maybe it was just his natural temper shining through. Robert knew that an angry outburst would not get him anywhere with her. If anything, it would make matters far worse, which he did not need at all, and so he tried desperately to keep his calm. Nevertheless, there was a question burning, begging to be asked after all she had said before, and he needed to ask it now.

"Do you think I miss her any less than you?"

"I should think you miss her more," she said.

Which confused him. She was in bed, suffering greatly, barely leaving her bedroom throughout the day. And yet she thought this?

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw how his eyebrows knit together. "Since you blocked the last chance we had to prevent her death."

Robert was almost glad she didn't look at him. He didn't want her to see how much that single sentence hurt him. But then, she turned and looked at him. And he almost wished she did not. At least, when she was refusing to look his way before he had not had a chance to look in her eyes and see all the anguish there. Seeing her bloodshot, teary eyes made hearing her say this worse yet. When she forcefully turned her head away again to focus on the book open in her lap once more, tears running down her cheeks, Robert knew then that there was truly nothing he could do that night, nothing that would benefit any of them. That thought alone scared him more than he'd like to admit.

Feeling utterly defeated, he gravely said: "I'll say goodnight then."

"Goodnight."

The door clicked shut behind him, separating him from his wife once more. But it should not. He should not be standing out here, out in the long, dimly lit hallway with his back facing the door, while she was in there. Behind that white door. Crying. All alone.

This was wrong, so very wrong.

And her words, they stung. They cut deeper than a knife. Because there was truth in them. He was the one who spoke against Doctor Clarkson. He was the one who had invited the knighted Harley Street doctor instead of trusting the physician who had known her all her life. He was the one going against her opinion, her intuition that possibly could have spared their daughter's life. Of course, he had had his wherefores and he deemed them plausible enough to at least expect to be given the benefit of a doubt, but bringing them up would not have done any good tonight. That much had been apparent even when he had only entered the room to find her crying in bed.

His wife had every right to resent him, for he sure did, too. He blamed himself. He loathed himself. He had killed her. Not with his own hands, and certainly not with any intent. It was painful to admit, but he had killed his youngest daughter. Acknowledging his role and admitting this, though, did not mean that he did not need Cora to forgive him. He needed her forgiveness and he needed her warmth to get him through these coldest of nights.

With a lump in his throat and a hot trail of tears on his cheeks, he quickly walked the short distance to his dressing room. However, before going in, he turned around and hurried back down the stairs and into the library again.

Once more, he was alone in the library. Alone at last with his unfinished drink from earlier and the decanter of whiskey nearby, and the dying flames in the hearth in front of him were the only company he had.

Maybe this was for the better. Maybe he was meant to be alone. At least this way, he did not cause anyone any more pain than he already had.

Why had she said that? Why had she said all these horrible things to him? She did not even mean to say all that, it just came out. It was as if she had no control over it. Then again, that had seemed to be the theme recently. Nothing was within her control. If it were, then her husband would be there beside her, peacefully snoring away. If it were, she wouldn't be reduced to a tearful mess as soon as her mind was not otherwise occupied. If it were, her darling daughter would still be alive and well, basking in the bliss of motherhood. Yet, none of that was happening, even though Robert had wanted to be there that night.

Her mind had been screaming at her to accept the offer, to allow him to come back. His strong arms would be able to offer her at least the tiniest bit of comfort after watching Sybil's coffin be lowered. But no, she just could not bring herself to say the words. The part of herself so deeply hurt by his dismissal and the consequences of his horrid stubbornness weighed far too heavy on her. She could not forgive him for not listening to her and their doctor, couldn't forgive his snobbishness. He had always been this way and it had always bothered her, but so far nothing so unforgivable had happened. Until a week ago. Until this cost them more than money or their name. Until it cost their daughter's life.

She wanted to forgive him, to let go of this resentment constantly holding onto her for dear life. She did not want to feel like this, not at all. Every time she was about to go and seek him out, to go and talk to him, images of that night flashed across her mind. Images of how he argued against taking her to hospital when there was still time to operate, images of him asking Tapsell instead of Doctor Clarkson for help when things were already clearly going awry, images of her pleading for her daughter to breathe while he stood there and argued. Every time she wanted to tell him that she just needed him to hold her close for a second, she remembered the hours she had spent at her daughter's bedside, watching over the body that lay so still in that bed, the hours she spent holding her baby's hand for one last time. Sybil had almost seemed peaceful then, after everything she had been through before on that fateful night. The terrors that room had seen just hours before had seemed a world away.

Cora wanted to forgive him but found she just could not. And yet, she hated and resented herself for saying these awful things to him just as much. This was not like her. This was not who she was.

He must have rung for Thomas at some point because his temporary valet knocked on the door a while later and subsequently entered, but Robert did not recall ever pulling on the cord. And he did not ask, either. He might have trusted the footman enough to temporarily fill in for Bates while he was otherwise occupied, but there were things he simply could not share with him. Big parts of him even doubted he could have shared this with his old comrade in arms, in fact.

Robert was a hot mess, as was the room. His dinner jacket lay discarded somewhere in the room, his bow tie had been flung somewhere behind him in the frenzy of trying to get it off before it choked him, and his hair must have looked wild from all the times his hands had frantically run through it within the last 20 minutes alone since he had come upstairs again. He didn't even dare to think about the smell of whiskey that must have been wafting through the quaint dressing room. Maybe he should have opened a window.

If Barrow was surprised by his employer's appearance and the state of the room when he entered, he did not let it show. Instead, he quietly got to work, holding out the clothes for Robert as the Earl undressed and slipped into the black pyjamas dug out of the closet upon Carson's prompt request.

It was a silent affair, neither of them spoke. Barrow saw quite clearly that the Earl was struggling, that he was grieving, and he did not want to get in the way of that. Thomas had known Sybil best out of possibly everyone downstairs, having worked with her at the hospital and then the house during the war, and he had been more than a bit upset when they were told what had happened. Being found and comforted in the hall by Anna and later Mrs Hughes was certainly not a moment he'd count as one of his best.

The thing was that he had known her, had actually liked her. She was the most decent out of all of them and he would be outright lying if he said he did not miss her friendly face around. And the man about to slip into the robe he was holding out for him had lost her, his daughter. Thomas simply could not imagine what that felt like. All he knew was that his employer was hurting, that much was painfully apparent.

What he did not know was that Robert was not only grieving for Sybil. That particular part had still not fully registered with the Earl. No, he was grieving for his marriage to Cora, the love of his life. There was no way they would be able to find a way back together when the blame hung so heavily above him like the sword of Damocles. She blamed him. He blamed himself. They shared that opinion. And yet they did not see eye to eye for the first time in probably forever. They had always managed to talk about things, to find a way to overcome whatever hurdles they were facing. But maybe this one was a size too big. It would need lots of forgiveness, and apart from needing all that from Cora, he also needed to forgive himself. And that was something he was not sure he would ever be able to do.

Maybe love could not conquer everything. Maybe love, no matter how pure and true and strong, was sometimes still not enough.