When Bertie kissed Edith in the hallway of her flat that day he was careful only to touch her with his lips. He wanted her to be able to take a step back or turn her head away if she didn't want him to kiss her.
He didn't want to impose himself on her. He only wanted to show her that he loved her. And he had been too nervous to find any words.
It was a great relief for Bertie when he felt Edith answering his kiss. He was so happy when she put her arms around him and held him close.
This was the second time he had kissed Edith without being at all certain that he would be welcome. He had been even more nervous this time than when he had kissed her for the very first time after putting her cape on that day, many months ago.
He was glad that he had kissed her today. Because knowing she accepted him had made him less nervous. It had made him able to speak again, to find the right words - or at least almost the right words - to tell her how much he had missed her.
He had kissed her so many times between that first time and now, and usually he wasn't nervous at all. Nice and automatic, she had once called it. He had found that slightly insulting at the time, but perhaps it was the perfect description of how easy and natural their relationship was.
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Bertie kissed Edith many more times that day before he left her in the evening.
He did leave her in the evening though. Edith had told him she was going back to Downton and Marigold with the morning train, so he decided that he could as well come with her so they could announce their engagement to her family. She agreed to that and a little while later he left her to let her get a good night's sleep before their early journey, promising to meet her in good time at the train station the next day.
But of course she couldn't sleep much that night. She was too happy.
Neither could he.
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Three months later Bertie and Edith were married at the Downton village church. The Marquess of Hexham marrying the daughter of the Earl of Grantham who was also the owner of the Sketch - it was called the wedding of the year in all the papers.
A year after that their little boy was born. He was, of course, given the name Peter. Three years later their little Rosamund arrived to complete their family of five.
Marigold was happy about her new siblings. She had missed Sybbie and George when she and her mother - who wasn't just Aunt Edith after all - moved to Brancaster to her new father. Moving away from her cousins had only been partly compensated by her new Papa having a big castle of his own for them all to live in.
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Did Edith and Bertie make it to their wedding night without getting "carried away" like Bertie's parents had been? Well, their kisses were getting hotter and deeper during their engagement, their embraces longer and more tender so there was of course a certain risk that they wouldn't.
But I think that this is their private business, and I ought to leave it like that. Suffice it to say that Edith wasn't pregnant on her wedding day.
Or does it suffice? Because, although Edith wasn't pregnant she wasn't entirely certain of that fact.
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Edith and Laura continued their campaign for unmarried mothers and their children. It led to the whole thing getting accepted in society many decades earlier than it would otherwise have been. Things worth having are worth fighting for, as Edith had learnt so often in the past.
One of the most successful articles was published almost a year after Edith's marriage to Bertie. It was written by Edith herself and told about her experience of having to hide the child she was so proud of.
Perhaps it was the fact that Edith was a Marchioness and heavily pregnant at the time that made this easier for people to accept. Perhaps it was the fact that her husband so obviously stood by her. This was one of the first of the many causes he had told his future wife that he would fight for on that bench at Downton Abbey when he had worried about becoming a Marquess.
"I'm proud of my wife and she has absolutely nothing to be ashamed of", he told a reporter from one of the most notorious gossip papers. "And I don't want to comment any further on this, all you need to know is in my wife's article in the Sketch. You can read that."
Even more important was perhaps that Edith's mother-in-law supported her wholeheartedly.
"Marigold is a wonderful little girl and I am proud and happy to have her in our family", she said to the reporter. "Her mother is lovely too. I think my son has made the perfect choice."
The gossip paper still considered publishing an indignant article about Lady Edith's loose morals, but realised it would only make them seem hopelessly old fashioned and out of date.
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Another cause that both the Sketch and the Marquess of Hexham fought for was Irish independence. Edith asked Tom Branson to write a number of articles about that for the Sketch. He was happy to concede, not only because the cause was very dear to him - in fact the dearest cause of all - but also because it gave him a chance to go down to London and speak about his articles to Laura, Edith's editor.
A year later the two of them were married, giving little James and Sybbie two small twin brothers the year after that.
Laura had written her own article for the Sketch about her role as an unmarried mother, but not before she had told Tom about little James.
Tom decided to move to London after their marriage so Edith offered him a post as co-editor. Laura and Tom took care of the Sketch together, with Edith coming in only occasionally since she was living much further away now and had a lot to do on the very big estate.
Edith had been afraid of having a male editor, but this was Tom, who had given her so much support over the years.
Edith and Laura were both happy that their stories were all out in the open now, and also that they now at last dared to let their children call them Mama. And call their husbands Papa.
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Isobel married Lord Merton and was henceforth called Lady Merton. But not by little George, of course, who continued to call her Granny. Isobel moved to her husband's estate, leaving Crawley House in the village free. Cora and Robert decided to move there with only a couple of the servants and leave Downton Abbey to Mary and her new husband.
Their new home was indeed a lot more comfy.
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Mary's marriage turned out surprisingly happy, although she had been more or less bullied into marrying Henry.
She didn't get any children with her new husband, which was perhaps as well. She tried to be a good mother to little George, but she really enjoyed taking care of Downton much better than she enjoyed motherhood. And she had had enough of sibling jealousy for the rest of her life.
She told her new husband before their wedding that she was going to buy a contraceptive device - but of course she already had one. It really came as a relief to him, he was much more interested in cars than in children and found it hard enough to take an interest in little George.
What Edith had said on the day of Mary's wedding had struck a cord in her sister. Mary and Edith got along a lot better the few times a year they met after that. They weren't exactly friends, but at least they tried to be civil to each other. Especially since their husbands were such good friends.
Bertie never blamed Mary for making him split up with Edith. He was of the opinion that he only had himself to blame. And that those horrible weeks apart had been good for him, making him realise how utterly important and precious Edith was to him.
So Edith thought that what had happened that morning was her own fault, Bertie thought it was his own fault and Mary thought it was her fault.
No one blamed anyone else, which was in many ways perfect.
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And Lady Violet? Well - what can I say. This is my story and I don't want to kill her off. So she just lived on and on, her tongue not getting softer and herself not getting wiser as the years went by.
She was of the opinion that she was wise enough already, of course.
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This is the end of the story.
Merry Christmas to all of you! Happy Holiday
Or God Jul! as we say here in Sweden. I'm off to celebrate!
AN: Thank you for reading! Thank you for all the lovely comments to last chapter and all the earlier ones!
I don't agree with everything you write, but it is always interesting to hear what you think. (I don't find Gregson at all likeable, for instance.)
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And thank you all for following me on this journey along the road of wishfulfillment that writing fanfiction is to me.
I'm not sure but I think this is the longest Edith/Bertie fanfiction ever written, which, admittedly, doesn't amount to much.
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Looking forward to the CS, but even if I'm happy about it I will probably still prefer my own version of Bertie and Edith's story. I want Edith and Bertie to get together only because Bertie realises he was wrong and goes after her, I don't want anyone else to interfere in that.
And I like Bertie's mother to behave like she does in my story, because that will make life easier for Edith and Marigold. But I will of course enjoy Bertie standing up for Edith to her on the screen if that happens.
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I have just seen the BAFTA celebration. I'm glad to see that Harry Hadden-Paton, who plays Bertie, was there! I think he did a great job playing this very adorable man.
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If Julian Fellowes will ever read this, which of course I doubt, I want to thank him for creating all the lovely and believable characters of Downton.
I think that all of us fanfiction writers have reason to thank him.