AN: Hi everybody! No, I haven't stopped work on "Far More," but this is the other story I mentioned. I'll be writing for both simultaneously. Once I managed to process my massive feelings about the Red Dinner, I could consider the rest of episode 5, including that darling grandparents scene. Wait, stop the presses—did they just say they went to Egypt as a young couple? Cue all sorts of Cobert-in-Egypt scenes that started running through my mind.

And here we have the result. :-) I've decided to alternate chapters between a post-series, nostalgic anniversary trip to Egypt, and the original visit during the first year of their marriage. I've never been to Egypt and have no firsthand knowledge of it (so the research my slow my updates a bit), but if you are Egyptian (or even have just visited there), definitely speak up if I'm getting stuff wrong (or if you've just got a great scene idea).

A quick note on the title and the cover image… The title comes from Howard Carter's words when he first stepped inside King Tut's tomb in 1922. His patron, Lord Carnarvon (the real-life owner of Highclere) was standing outside waiting for a report. Carnarvon was getting a bit impatient with Carter, who'd yet to make a truly exciting discovery with Carnarvon's money, and he suspected this tomb might be another dud. He called out, "Can you see anything?", and Carter, who was gazing at all the treasures of one of the greatest finds in Egyptian archaeology, said, "Yes! I see wonderful things!" My cover image was a lucky find on Google. It's from a movie called The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec, which is a historical fantasy set in early 20th-century France and Egypt involving a young woman writer and the resurrection of (friendly) mummies. It sounds both bizarre and wonderful, but most importantly, doesn't she look a bit like a young Cora?

But without further ado, let's get rolling…

February 1929

She had never been a good sleeper on trains.

Cora sighed as she rolled over yet again in the tiny single bed, her body stiff from the flat mattress. She was cold, too—these blankets were far too thin for a winter's night, and she thought longingly of the fire that would have been crackling in her bedroom at Downton. Never again would she be coaxed on an overnight journey before May, she vowed. Certainly not one on a train, where she was prevented from cuddling close to Robert. She sighed again, imagining herself snuggling against him, her face between his shoulder blades and her arm around his waist, basking in the warmth he provided.

The whole trip had, in fact, been Robert's idea, one that he had first mentioned nearly a year ago, on their last anniversary. "It'll be forty years next year, Cora," he'd remarked as they'd lain tangled together in bed. "Forty years."

She'd groaned. "Heavens, are we that old?"

"You're not," he'd said, kissing her hair. "I'm convinced that somewhere along the line, someone slipped a younger wife in when I wasn't looking. The woman I've just made love to could not have been anywhere near sixty."

"No?"

"No. Not a day over fifty-five, I would say," he said seriously, and she kicked him.

"Robert!"

"Ow! I misspoke, I misspoke!" he said, laughing and drawing a chuckle from her, too. "I meant twenty-five. Not a day over twenty-five."

"That's better," she said, pressing a kiss to his jaw.

"I was thinking we could go away somewhere next year."

"You mean, Paris again?" she asked. "We could combine it with Valentine's Day and—"

"No, not France. I was thinking…perhaps Egypt."

"Egypt?!"

Robert had been different since his health scare two years earlier—calmer, easier, happier, and also more romantic. She'd taken great pleasure in growing used to his newfound tendencies to whisk her away at a moment's notice for dinner and dancing and the theatre (he'd even condescended to try the cinema a couple times), to find hidden spots on the estate for sunny afternoon picnics, to pull her into her room at teatime for a "private tea," and to carry her off to have his way with her for a night in the empty cottage he'd renovated last summer as a birthday surprise. His retirement thus far had been something of a second honeymoon—only one where they were actually in love. A few months ago, he had splurged on a luxurious, decadent two weeks in Paris, but she'd had no indication that his thoughts were running anywhere near as exotic as North Africa.

"It's not so strange," he said, his fingers tracing over her bare back. "We've been there before, but there's more to see now. And you didn't have a very good time on our other trip. I want to make it up to you."

"I had a good time at the end," she protested.

"At the end?" Robert frowned. "That was when we had all that business with your poor arm."

"And think of all the attention I lapped up from you as a result."

He laughed. "I'll make the whole trip that way this time," he promised. "Except you haven't got to nearly lose a limb." He lifted her hand from his chest and kissed her palm gently. "We don't have to repeat that part."

She'd wondered if Robert—who had not been a man she would have classed as "adventurous" at any point since the girls had been born—might lose interest in the scheme, but his excitement had only grown, and he'd happily plotted out most of the trip on his own, promising a vacation full of surprises.

The first of these had been his accidentally booking a train compartment with twin beds for their overnight ride through the south of France.

Cora sighed. It was too dark to see her husband as anything more than a dark lump in the black of their compartment, but she could hear him perfectly well, snoring contentedly in the bunk across from hers where he had slept soundly for hours. She would know—she'd been awake for most of it, snatching a nap here and there before she was once again awakened by the swaying motion of the car.

What time was it? She hadn't the foggiest. Perhaps she'd get up and put on her dressing gown, take a stroll down the corridor, see if stretching her legs for a bit might relax her enough to fall back asleep.

Cora sat up in the dark, moved to stand, and cracked her head sharply on the roof of her bunk. She could not hold back a slight yelp of surprise and pain, and the snoring paused.

"Cora?" Robert asked sleepily.

She knew she ought to feel guilty for waking him—and she did, slightly—but mostly she was irritated at his ability to sleep for uninterrupted hours. "What?"

"Are you okay? Did you just say, 'ow'?"

"I'm fine. I hit my head on the edge of the bunk, but I'm fine," she said, gingerly inspecting her scalp. She expected an egg in the morning, but at least the stars were beginning to clear from her vision.

"Are you sure? Will you let me see it?"

"Yes, I'm sure, and no, you can't."

"Cora…"

"I mean you literally can't, Robert. It's pitch black in here, and I don't think I could find the light switch if my life depended on it."

He chuckled. "Well, we'll have sun again in the morning, I suppose, and maybe the boat to Alexandria will be better. Why are you up?"

"I can't sleep," she said, hating the whine she could hear in his voice. "I can feel every movement, and the mattress is awful, and I'm so cold."

"Why don't you lie down here?"

"Thank you, but the beds are the same—you just fall asleep more easily than I do. There's no point in switching."

"No, I mean, lie down with me."

"There's not room!"

"Oh, there's room enough if we snuggle close." She heard him shifting in the bed. "You'll be warmer, and I promise I'm a better pillow than these awful lumps the railroad's given us."

She laughed in spite of herself. "Won't I keep you up?"

"Then we'll be up together. Come on…I've missed you."

"You have done no such thing, Robert Crawley," she said, getting up more carefully this time and feeling her way toward him. "You started snoring thirty seconds after you lay down."

"Well, I miss you now that I'm awake," he argued as she climbed in next to him. "Oh, there you are…"

Cora giggled. "I told you it was dark." There was a moment's shuffling as they fitted themselves together in the narrow space, and then his arm slipped around her. She sighed, instantly warmer, and snuck her freezing toes between Robert's feet. It was softer here, too, she thought, closing her eyes as he kissed her forehead: the mattress was just as bad, but she was leaning against Robert, and that was so comfortable that the bed itself didn't much matter.

"Do you think you can sleep now?" she heard him whisper, as though from a great distance. She wanted to tell him yes, but her eyelids were suddenly too heavy to open, and she was drifting off before her lips could form the word.