They left Lucie dozing in her hospital bed and made their way down to the cafeteria, Sybil making sure that she would be paged the second that Lucie or one of her other patients needed her. The sun was just beginning to set as they entered the cafeteria, the fluorescent lighting humming above their heads. The cafeteria was mostly deserted at this time of night, too late for dinner but too early for the first late-night rush, with only two rather haggard-looking families and a couple at a table in the corner picking at their limp salads. Sybil was about to volunteer to get the coffee, but Tom surprised her, heading over to fetch two cups as if he'd done it a thousand times before. But then again, Sybil realized guiltily, she supposed he had. Lucie's previous two rounds of chemo had been long and grueling, and Tom no doubt knew the hospital in and out by now.

They sat with their milky coffee in their hands, both of them feeling slightly out of place. Sybil was no stranger to dealing with parents of patients, but Tom felt different somehow. Maybe it was because she felt like she had such a strong, deep connection to him and Lucie already.

"You must be so proud of her," Sybil said quietly, bringing her coffee to her lips. "Not just because of how brave she is. Lucie's really amazing, Tom. So clever, so thoughtful..."

"I'm a lucky man," Tom agreed with a small smile.

They fell silent again, stirring their coffee and avoiding eye contact. Had she always been this awkward with patient's families before? She doubted it. Sybil tried again, "I'm sure you're worried-"

"Of course I'm worried," Tom answered evenly. "I worry about her twenty-four hours a day, Nurse Crawley. About all kinds of things. But I'm a father, and that's just what I do. I resolved myself to that fact a long time ago. But if you don't mind, I don't want to worry about Lucie right now. Let's talk about something else. Just for a change of pace." He gave her a weak smile. "Sorry. I didn't mean to be rude. I get like this sometimes. Just ask my friends. I get desperate for any kind of conversation that isn't about cancer."

"I understand," Sybil said immediately. "I understand perfectly. What would you like to talk about?"

Tom set down his cup and gazed at her a moment, as if sizing her up. Sybil tried not to blush under his stare. "Tell me why you decided to become a nurse," he said finally.

Sybil blinked, surprised and more than a little relieved. "Oh, that's easy," she said with a grin. "it was because of my nephew."

Tom looked intrigued, and Sybil quickly explained. "His name is George. He's about a year and a half older than Lucie. He was born about a month premature-not early enough to cause any major concerns, not really, but just early enough that they had to be careful and make sure he stayed in the hospital a few extra days. I stayed at the hospital with my sister and brother-in-law during the day, just in case they needed me, and while I was there I got to watch the nurses at work. They were amazing. They were the ones taking care of George, answering all of Mary and Matthew's questions...they made everything so easy for them. The doctors were great, too, I'm not saying that they didn't do their job, but...the nurses were just always there, always watching over their patients when the doctors were nowhere to be found. I was really inspired by them, how they do all the hard work but hardly ever get any of the glory, and by the time George was released from the hospital, I knew that's what I wanted to do. I walked into my adviser's office at uni, where I was studying literature, and dropped out the next day. A month later I was in nursing school."

"That's impressive."

"I just realized that where I needed to be was in here, helping people. Helping families-like yours."

Tom beamed at her, and Sybil swore her heart beat faster in her chest. They must be making the coffee stronger than usual. "Well, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. It's nurses like you that helped keep Lucie's spirits up during her chemo-and I can't even tell you how much she's loved having you as her nurse. She's already saying she doesn't want to go home because she won't get to see you every day."

"No, she's going to go home, because all of her scans are going to come back clean and you'll never have to set foot inside these doors again," Sybil said confidently. "But I answered one of your questions, Mr. Branson, so it's only fair that you answer one of mine."

"I wasn't aware that was the game we were playing."

"Well, it was. You asked me why I wanted to become a nurse, so now it's my turn: what made you want to become a writer?"

They went back and forth like that for a while, getting to know each other in a way that was never possible during the normal chaos of the day. Tom told her of growing up in Ireland and Sybil tried her best to make growing up at Downton Abbey seem as normal as possible, but she as certain she hadn't succeeded. She told him of Mary's life with Matthew and Edith's work as a journalist in New York, her most embarrassing moments in nursing school, the day when she realized that her father was finally proud of what she did for a living. Nothing was off-limits, every topic was on the table, and the more they talked the more comfortable they both became.

So when Sybil asked a question about Lucie's mother, she assumed that it would be all right.

Tom's smile immediately faded, and he sighed, not meeting her eyes anymore. Sybil mentally kicked herself. "I'm so sorry, Tom," she said immediately. "I didn't mean to get so personal. You don't have to answer if you don't want. I shouldn't have—I don't know what I was thinking…"

"No, it's all right," Tom said finally. "I don't know why I get so defensive about it. I think it's because Lucie got sick. If she was healthy, then nothing that my ex did would seem as bad. But then she was diagnosed, and…and suddenly everything just got so hard. Being a single dad is difficult enough, but a single parent with a sick child is…"

"Unfair," Sybil said softly.

"We met when I was still in university, Lucie's mother and I," Tom said, not commenting on Sybil's choice of words. "At a political rally at Trafalgar Square. She was completely mad—reckless, wild, everything I thought I wanted when I was twenty-one. We'd been dating for four months when she got pregnant with Lucie. My mam is pretty liberal about most things, but I was pretty sure that knowing that her youngest son had fathered a child out of wedlock would have killed her. But more than that, I knew what it was like to grow up without a dad, and I didn't want that for my child. I wanted to be there, to be part of it all, so I proposed. We got married a few months later, after I was done with uni. It was fun at first—the two of us living in this tiny flat in London. I felt more like a kid playing house than a father-to-be with a job and bills to pay and a pregnant wife. Maybe that was part of the problem, we just weren't ready. But I told myself that every new parent feels this way, that things would get better once the baby arrived. And at first, it did."

He took another sip of coffee before he continued. "It wasn't until Lucie was about four months old that I noticed that her mother wasn't taking to parenthood as easy as I was. I suggested she go in to talk to someone—my mam's a midwife, and I know about postpartum depression—but she insisted she was fine. She started staying out late, missing dinner, leaving me with Lucie. I wasn't sure what to do, even when she stayed away for days at a time and came back drunk out of her mind. I had friends to help out with Lucie when I needed them to, but she needed her mother…but her mother didn't want to be needed. She'd come home and promise to be better, spend a few weeks trying to be as devoted a mother as she could, and then disappear on us all over again. This went on for a year. In the end, she was completely out of control. I checked her into a rehab facility the day of Lucie's first birthday party."

"She was there for about six months, and when she came back she said that she wanted to try a trial separation. I said no, that Lucie needed her mother, and that the two of us were going to try to work things out for the sake of our daughter. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I'd said yes. Maybe things would have been easier. We weren't right for each other, you see. We didn't even love each other, not really. But I was just so angry at her for putting my little girl through this that…part of me wanted to punish her, to make her confront what she'd done instead of running off again. I wanted my daughter to have a family, but I didn't think of what the consequences of that might be."

"What happened next?" Sybil whispered.

He gave a shrug. "Nothing for about six months. After that? More late nights, more drinking, a string of boyfriends she didn't try to hide at all. I wanted to get her back into rehab, but she wouldn't go. We fought constantly when she was around, which wasn't often. In the end, she didn't care. She tried being a mother and found it didn't suit her. I think she was hoping Lucie would be like a doll, something she could put down and not have to deal with when she was tired of playing with her. She left for good when Lucie was almost three and a half. Ran off to Scotland with her boyfriend, dropped him like a hot potato when she met someone else in Glasgow, went traveling. For about a year she sent Lucie postcards and presents from all over—Nepal, Cambodia, Chile, the States. She'd even call us sometimes, ask to talk to Lucie. She could never stay in one place for very long. Maybe that's why we didn't work out, in the end. I kept trying to tie her down and she couldn't take it."

"Where is she now?" Sybil ventured.

"Mumbai, last I heard. Some kind of spiritual retreat. But we haven't heard from her since Lucie was diagnosed. Not a single word."

Sybil choked on her coffee. "What?"