This right here is everything I love about Sybil and Tom. How they feel like partners in crime more often than not, how they have all these dreams and plans, and remain independent people even as they stand together against the world.

This is perfect. From Sybil channeling Violet to get her husband out prison (while hating that other women don't have that privilege) to Tom deciding that the stakes are too high now, and he won't sacrifice his wife and daughter even for a free Ireland, it's all perfect.

Beautiful story- and gets to the core of who Branson and Sybil are- two imperfect people who will sacrifice for each other because together they are stronger.

And I love this:

"I won't leave you. We'll be where you are. How would it be better to have you in the midst of this when I'm so far away that I can't find you, can't help you?"

Very nice.

I am endlessly amazed that this brilliant story only has 14 reviews. It's so touching. You've written their fears so palpably. I've opened another window to copy my favorite passages, but they're too many & too long.

Regal Sybil, channeling the Dowager Countess, is wonderful! And I love that you have presented both of them as willing to swallow very bitter pills for the sake of the other. That Sybil would be that aristocrat every day if it would keep Tom safe, even though she feels guilty about her colleagues who, as commoners, as Irish women, have no such recourse. And Tom would give up fighting for his country's freedom to keep her safe.

I could go on & on. This is a splendidly written story. Thanks for sharing it.

Wonderful story - nice interactions between them, and it's very plausible that Sybil would call on her training and upbringing to get Tom out of jail.

This is one of my favorites. I've read it several times one.

I just realised I've read this three times without reviewing, and it was beyond time.

So, I love it, I love how you portray them and the vision you have for their future.

If I would say one bad thing about it, it's that it's just a one-shot. Yes, you are just that great.

Gorgeous. I can't say how much I enjoyed this. :) It was rich with emotion and so enthralling.

"Those early days when he'd shyly ask if he could have her, scarcely able to catch his breath when he made her come, seemed so far away and yet so near." - Write that story? Please?

Genuinely fantastic stories. You clearly have a knack for creating a the setting perfectly and the characters are bang on! Wow! Just wow!

All I can say is wow. Real and raw and bittersweet, but hopeful, just like the characters themselves. This is so much more, so much better, than we're likely to get from the series. You've done just a lovely job with this, really. Well done.

Hi, just wanted to say your stories are heartbreakingly beautiful. I love the way you've portrayed Sybil here, having her be so subtly uncomfortable with being a lady again. And I'm so flattered that you favorited my story!

Favorite lines:

"Good lord, was that his wife or her grandmother speaking?"

"He'd always hated the British in power in Ireland, always, but perhaps never more than now for failing to offer a chair to his clearly exhausted wife. Bastards."

"She thought you were lying dead in the street somewhere. We all did." She squeezed his hand. "But you weren't, thank God. I could see it in her eyes, she was trying to figure out what in the world she was going to do if they'd killed you. Baby only just born, in a strange country in wartime…"

This is wonderful! For some reason I especially loved Tom's mum reprimanding him for his language and Tom almost purring.

I hope you'll write more of this some time!

Such a good story- I loved the whole idea and you wrote it so well and fluently!

Tacxxx

This is one of the best Downton fics I've ever read. Tom and Sybil are in character, they're dynamic, it's within the realm of reality and the emotions are so touching and real. I can only hope that in Season 3, their storyline is as rich as this is.