Author's note: The following is an imagined exchange between Sybil and Branson the morning after the count at Ripon. The focus here is on Branson's feelings and his point of view; if readers seem to like it well enough I may explore the immediate aftermath of the same event (that is, the count at Ripon) from a Sybil-centric perspective as well. If not, it's a one-shot. In any case, I hope you enjoy it… just a little something that kept insisting to be written!

Branson slept fitfully that night, drifting in and out of dreams, his mind replaying the horrible scene from that evening both in waking and in sleep: the pushing and shouting; Sybil's stubborn insistence that they stay; the sick thud of her head hitting the table; the blood on her forehead; how utterly limp she had been in his arms. His stomach tied in knots at these memories, and coupled it with an almost equally sickening thought: he was going to lose his job.

Of course, it wasn't really his job that he would lament. It was her. And that realization was as sobering as any. After they had brought her home, after he had had time to sit and think about the situation – and maddeningly, all he could do was think, paralyzed into inaction because he was just the chauffeur – he realized for the first time how truly gone he was.

For months he had tried not to think about it. He had tried not to think about the way his palms started sweating when he saw her approaching the car, knowing that within seconds, she would invariably put her hand into his as he helped her into the vehicle, her fingers closing around his for the barest of seconds. He had tried not to think about the little thrill that shot through him when she laughed at something he said, or when she remembered something he'd mentioned days ago, like she really listened to all his stupid ramblings, like what he said was important. He had tried not to think about the time she had asked him, ever so casually, Branson, what's your first name? and the way she had repeated it, slowly and thoughtful, when he told her: Tom, like she was tasting a new flavor of ice cream, holding it on her tongue and letting it dissolve in her mouth, and he swore he could hear the smile in her voice when she said it again, more softly, almost to herself: Tom. He had tried not to think about the day he had pulled the car around the back of the house so no one would see her returning from the political rally, and the whisper of her breath against his neck when she leaned forward from the back seat and said thank you, springing out of the car lithely and rushing up the back steps, the goosebumps still tingling against his skin until after she was out of sight. He had tried not to think about all these things and more, but now, with the possibility of losing her so imminent, they flooded his senses so powerfully he could no longer ignore the lingering thought that he had never consciously allowed himself to admit until now: he was in love - foolishly, hopelessly, achingly in love.

Of course he knew that nothing could ever come of it. Like he had told Mary, he was a socialist, not a lunatic. All it could ever be was all that it was now: thoughtful conversations that he replayed over and over again in his mind, little smiles and teasing comments that haunted him for days, accidental touches and tiny brushes of contact that seared into his skin. Even so, even knowing that that was all it could ever be, he couldn't bear the thought of losing it.

A sudden knock at the door of his cottage awoke him from troubled dreams; his first thought, thick and heavy like a lump in his throat, was just one word: Sybil. Was she better? Was she in pain? Would he ever see her again after today? That last thought was almost enough to make him nauseous; usually waking after nightmares was a relief, but today Branson felt sure that reality would be no better. The knock came again, reassuring him that he hadn't dreamed it, and glancing groggily out his window, he was surprised to see that it was not yet even daylight; the sun was just beginning to come up, but it couldn't be any earlier than 5:00. He had not expected the axe to fall this soon, and then another deeply distressing realization hit him: he would not even get to see her again before he left.

"Just a minute!" Branson yelled as another knock came, pulling on a T-shirt and shuffling wearily to the door. He had expected Carson, coming to inform him of his dismissal, or anyone, really, other than the person now standing before him.

"Sybil," he said, an involuntary, astonished little utterance that came out in a choked exhale before he even had the chance to think. He blushed, then, for many reasons: because he had said her name, just her name, in the hushed, amazed kind of way a lover might; because he was undressed, wearing just his pajama bottoms and a thin white T-shirt, his hair mussed and face rough with stubble; because she was undressed, a dressing gown wrapped tightly around her, her hair in a low ponytail over one shoulder; because she was at his cabin, alone, in the intimate rising glow of very early morning, the bottom of her dressing gown wet from morning dew; and because he loved her, desperately.

"What are you –" he swallowed and searched for the right thing today, struggling to settle on just one question, when there were so many racing through his head, "- are you alright?"

"Yes," she said, with an emphatic nod. "Can I come in?"

He was about to refuse, his sense of propriety very close to filling in the appropriate answer automatically: I don't think you should it wouldn't be right you should go back to the house we'll talk later – but instead, to his surprise, he heard himself say "Alright," very quietly, and then he was stepping aside and letting her into his cottage, shutting the door behind them.

She looked around awkwardly for a moment before he pulled out a chair – well, the chair – from his little kitchenette table, and she sank into it, crossing one leg over the other and pulling her dressing gown tighter around her. There was nowhere else for him to sit but the bed, so he perched carefully on the edge of it, embarrassed by the tangled sheets that must betray the restlessness of his night. They both started to talk at once.

"I wanted to apologize –"

"I hope your head is –"

They both stopped mid-sentence, unsure of how to proceed, and Branson laughed nervously. "You go ahead," he said. "Ladies first."

Sybil smiled and blushed, then looked down quickly, bashfully, wringing her hands together. "I just came to apologize," she said, her voice uncharacteristically hesitant and nervous. "About last night, I mean. I didn't know if I'd get the chance later, so I thought I'd better come before everyone woke up."

"I thought it was Mr. Carson, come to sack me," he said, smiling ruefully, still fully expecting that that visit was only hours away, but immensely grateful to have this one last private audience with her. Maybe he should tell her how he felt. It would be his only chance, and what did he have to lose? She'd be surprised, of course – maybe even offended or distressed, though he hoped not – but how could he leave without saying something? And yet, he'd only just come to realize it himself – the idea that he loved her was still so new – stiff and uncomfortable, like a pair of shoes not yet broken-in. How could he tell her when he had yet to even come to terms with the idea himself? In many ways he felt like a man newly diagnosed with some strange affliction, confused and vaguely frightened about its future course, understanding only that from here on out his life would never be the same again.

"But you're not getting sacked!" Sybil said, suddenly animated, and Branson looked up in true surprise at this proclamation. "Papa wanted to fire you, but I explained how you hadn't done anything wrong, that you didn't know anything about it."

Branson was simultaneously dumbfounded and elated. Knowing that he could stay at Downton – that he could stay with Sybil – changed everything. "I'm surprised he believed you," he said, and truly, he was.

"Well, I'm not sure that he did," Sybil said, "but I told him that if he punished you, I'd never speak to him again."

"You did?" Branson asked, unable to keep the genuine disbelief from his tone; he was not surprised that Sybil had defended him, because it was not in her character to let an innocent party suffer, but he was surprised that she had made such an extreme (if ultimately unenforceable) threat for his sake.

"Yes," Sybil said, looking a little embarrassed to have admitted how passionate and petulant she had been in defending for him, but then she raised her chin, and added with a more familiar note of defiance, "and I said that if he fired you, I'd run away." Her eyes were flashing, and his heart swelled: if she had been anyone else in the world, if she had not been so very far above him, he would not have been able to resist closing the space between them and kissing her soundly by way of showing his gratitude. He would've asked her, quietly, So it means something to you, then, that I stay? Where would you go, if you ran? Would you come with me? Would you? But he knew that he could not, and so instead he only cleared his throat and said, his voice thick with sincerity, "Thank you. For sticking up for me."

"Of course!" she said breathlessly, looking up at him with wide eyes, her expression incredulous, as if the suggestion that she would do anything less was utterly unthinkable. "Did you really think that I'd let you take the blame for something I did?" she asked feelingly. "I'm so sorry –" she looked down, seeming ashamed. "I should never have lied to you, and it was wrong of me to get you involved."

He wanted desperately to tell her, No, don't say that – to tell her how very much he treasured that they had something that was theirs, something they shared only between the two of them, even if it was something as simple as an interest in politics. Even if the secrets they shared were not the kind of secrets that lovers shared, they were still sacred to him, something that was theirs and theirs alone, and the thought that she might shut him out now – that she might throw up her walls again with some kind of noble goal of protecting his job security – was almost worse than the prospect of leaving Downton forever. He could bear it, he thought, if they remained merely as they were: tentative friends, genial acquaintances, two like-minded young people with a passing interest in each others' welfare. What he could not bear, he thought, was to regress to anything less than this: to hold his tongue when he was with her, to never again take part in her dreaming and planning, to be reduce to the role of silent servant. Not that. Please not that. Please, please, let me be involved - let me be a part of your life. Not as a chauffeur, not as a servant, as a friend. He would rather be separated from her forever and hold on to the memory of what they had had than to be so near to her and yet insignificant, a mere prop in her opulent life.

"You don't have to apologize," he said, shaking his head. It seemed an absurd subversion of their roles; servants apologized to their employers, not the other way around, and they certainly didn't visit them in their private quarters in their nightclothes: but then, nothing about Sybil was very conventional.

"Aren't you mad at me?" she asked, and the true concern in her voice and her visible distress at the possibility made his pulse quicken.

"No," he laughed, shaking his head. How could she think that? How could he ever be mad at her? He so admired her passion, her idealism, her stubbornness, her determination to be informed and be involved, even if it meant defying her parents and defying the strictures of conservative society. Those were the things that had motivated her to go to the count, and he could not fault her for them. "I just hate that you got hurt," he said. He grimaced, the mental image of her lying so utterly still against the pavement flooding back over him. In some ways, he blamed himself: perhaps he could've been firmer, insisted that she leave even if it made her angry with him. He should've caught her, should have never taken his eyes off her; if he hadn't, then he would've seen her falling, could've stopped it all.

"I should've listened to you," she said, looking at him with genuine abashment.

"It's alright," he said, again feeling confused at being apologized to, unsure of how to respond. The guilt she felt was obvious, and he had no desire to compound it. Sybil stood and he thought that she was going to leave now, but instead she said very quietly, "It was you, wasn't it?" Then, realizing that he did not know what she was referring to, she added hastily, "It was you that carried me, I mean."

He looked up, surprised at this question, and nodded softly. "Yes," he said, remembering how small and fragile she had seemed in his arms, and how disturbingly limp, a dead weight – not at all like he might've hoped, not at all like he'd dreamed of holding her. But then she flashed him a shy smile and his mood lightened a bit at the sight.

"I hope you didn't have to go very far, for your sake," she said, a note of teasing in her voice.

Branson had to laugh at this. "Don't be ridiculous," he said. "You don't weigh any more than a sack of goose down." Then, more soberly and more hushed, he added bravely, his eyes dark and serious, "I'd have carried you for miles." It was as close to a confession as he dared, at least at this point, and he worried for a moment that she would blanch, offended, and make a hasty retreat. But she did not – in fact, she held his gaze steadily, her eyes soft, an appraising, questioning, open look that was almost paralyzing in its frankness.

"Does your head hurt very much?" he said, a choked, quiet question – because he had to say something, anything to ease the almost insurmountable tension that had suddenly settled in around them, thick like humidity after a summer rain.

"Yes," she said, laughing a little as if embarrassed at her own foolishness, and looking down, her cheeks flushing noticeably. "It's awfully sore," she admitted softly, "though it's better than it was."

Impulsively, without thinking, he reached his hand up to her face and brushed the hair back from her forehead near the painful-looking bruise and knot at her temple, his middle finger just barely grazing her skin, the others ghosting down her cheek. Sybil inhaled sharply at the contact and looked up suddenly, her eyes wide and searching, and he dropped his hand hastily, remembering himself, blushing furiously and looking down at the ground, unable to meet her eyes. How could he have let himself dare such an intimate touch? – And yet, it had happened outside of conscious thought, almost reflexively, as automatic as blinking. Swallowing heavily, he dared to meet her eyes again, expecting (and probably deserving, he thought) a sharp rebuke, a glint of anger in her eyes, a warning about impropriety. Instead, he found her blue eyes bright and glowing and intent, her breathing a bit shallow, her lips parted expectantly, the very picture of breathless anticipation. The silence around them was deafening; he could hear his own heartbeat thundering in his ears, and then she lifted her chin a fraction of an inch more, still holding his gaze steadily. Branson felt sure now that he must be dreaming; maybe he was the one who had taken a blow to the head, because this: Sybil standing inches from him, small and soft and delicate with parted lips and pleading eyes that said Kiss me kiss me kiss me was the stuff of fevered dreams, not reality. And yet, here they were.

He wanted to kiss her. Maybe he should have kissed her. But he did not, for many reasons.

He told himself that he did it for her sake, to save her from inevitable regret. Because surely that was what it would come it, surely that was how she would come to see it, in the end: an embarrassing dalliance with one of the servants, a stain on her spotless life, an impediment to her finding the kind of man she could actually build a future with. He told himself that he was sparing her from all those things, that he was doing what was right and noble, but in truth, he was sparing himself, terrified at the possibilities. He knew there could be no going back from such a thing, and yet there was no hope of going forward, because chauffeurs were chauffeurs and ladies were ladies and a chauffeur could never be a lady's husband. Knowing that, he could not bear the thought of their relationship being one that she looked back on in her adulthood with remorse and shame, and he could not imagine that she would not eventually come to her senses and realize the gravity of her mistake, regardless of how she might feel now. His pride would not let him be the folly of someone's youth; his heart would not let him risk the possibility of her one day saying It was a mistake I'm sorry It was wrong I should have never… It was a shame, a terrible shame, because this moment was so perfect, the dawning sun's first hazy rays now streaming in through the window, the world outside just beginning to wake and stir.

He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his pajama trousers, balling his fists, and said quietly, "I'm glad you're alright. And I'm glad I won't be leaving Downton."

Sybil exhaled deeply, endeavoring to be resilient and unflappable in that way the English were always teased for, trying to hide her confusion and disappointment. Her best efforts resulted in a rueful smile, her voice a little wistful, and she nodded and said softly, "So am I."

Branson sighed quietly and said gently, "You'd best get back to bed before someone finds you missing." Then, with a little teasing creeping into his tone, he smiled and added, "I'm sure Lord Grantham would be none too thrilled to know you've been cavorting with that damn revolutionary Irish chauffeur again."

Sybil laughed. "Yes," she said with a smile, "God knows I'm in enough trouble already. I'd better not push my luck."

Branson opened the door and Sybil stepped out into the morning fog. She went a step, then hesitated and turned back. "Branson?" she said.

"Yes?"

"I'm glad we're friends."

Branson breathed in heavily, letting the cool morning air fill his lungs, his heart swelling at her words. Then he released the breath, slowly, and gave a soft little nod.

"So am I," he said, and he smiled.