AN: So, this is the final chapter. Thank you so much for all the wonderful support I've been overcome with how much everyone has enjoyed this particularly as it was very much new territory, writing wise, for me. Please tell me what you think about this last chapter and the ending I have created.

There are a few references to the prequel in this chapter, including its title! I wanted to link it with the idea that had first sparked this sequel.

I hope you're all eager for my next project (you really don't have to read it!), which is again, a new style for me. It's a Modern story I've had in the pipelines for a while which I've now decided will have a sequel. It should be up mid January latest, hopefully before but my Christmas Exchange story rather took my time!

Anyway, thank you all again! Enjoy!

December 1919.

Sybil twisted against the pain. She'd fallen into him the other night and obviously he had done the same to her last night. She was already having a certain difficulty sleeping; the closeness of the weather in their small house and the more pressing issue of how to break her news to Tom was keeping her awake well into the night.

She pads to the bathroom feeling the ache in her stomach already heading for her throat. She makes it just in time.

"Are you alright?" She almost swears under her breath, but she was a lady, somewhere, somewhere long buried. She couldn't quite manage it, even in this moment when she was thinking it so hard. She only debates for a few seconds, she's needed to tell him, now was as good a time as any.

"Yes. Yes Tom, I'm perfectly fine." She swivels from the sink, running the tap to drain away last nights dinner. She stops momentarily as she sees him stood there, one hand resting on the doorframe, his eyes searching her face for marks that might hide beneath the surface. "We should-" she gestures passed him, to the abandoned bed and he promptly walks back to it. He looks as baffled as she feels, she didn't realise it would be this difficult. She was so happy, he would be delighted and yet, something was holding her back. Not that it could hold her back anymore, not with Tom staring emploringly at her. "I'm pregnant. Or at least, I'm ninety-nine percent sure I am."

His face is quite frankly a picture, a picture of joy, for which she sighs inwardly. He stands from his sitting position, his hand gracing gently over her abdomen, little tears dancing in the corners of his eyes.

"Really?" She only nods, unsure of her own voice. "I can't quite believe it. Not this soon. I mean, I'm so happy but quite shocked."

"I was too. Not that I'm far along, just over a month, roughly."

"How long have you known? How long have you been being sick without telling me? Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"I haven't been being ill long. Just the last few days really. I have known for about three weeks and I've been meaning to tell you, but, I don't know, it sounds ridiculous to say that the right moment never arose, but that was truly how it was. And to be honest I thought that I might well, lose it, and indeed I still might, so you can't tell anyone. But, yes, I wanted to get used to it myself. I, I'm sorry. I shook have said." He shakes his head as he tilts her chin back up so their eyes can meet.

"I honestly don't mind you having not told me. I understand. There's a lot to think about before you wanted to get my hopes up. But, well, we can celebrate now." He presses his lips to her cheek, before she eases her arms around his neck, delighted, oh, so over the moon that he was pleased.

"I do want to write to Mama. Now I've told you."

"Of course. I'm sure your father will be delighted at the thought of being a grandfather." Sybil giggles against his cheek.

"Yes, and Edward an Uncle. Can you believe it?"

"Your brother will make for a superb uncle." Sybil can't help but agree to that.

"Time for some celebration I think?" She lifts her face from the comfortable position it had found upon his chest and kisses him. This was her favourite part of married life, being able to kiss the person most dear to her whenever she wished.

Mary couldn't quite believe, no she couldn't believe at all that after so many months of heartbreak. After so many months of Sir Richard she was finally sealing the future she wanted. Matthew was at her feet in the snow and she felt ecstatic. More than ecstatic really.

"Yes." That was all it needed. One word and her fate, their fate, as well as little Grace's was sealed. It makes her want to laugh at her arrangement with Richard, lengthy discussions as she tired to bargain for more room, more compromise.

"I love you Mary. Oh, how I love you." He whispers it into her hair as he supports her. This was what he wanted, Lord this was what he had wanted for years. But most of all in the last few months, watching her throw her life at Richard had been more than demoralising, it had slowly eaten away at him. He'd never known her plan and my lord, he'd almost stood up himself in that church. He'd been a millisecond behind Edward. Lavinia had given him a wonderful love, an amazing child but he was quite obviously his past now, never to be forgotten but never again to be seen. He had a life to live with Mary now. It didn't hurt him, moving passed Lavinia he felt truly that this was what she had wanted. She'd been right about Richard and about Mary being a good mother for their Grace.

"Me too Matthew. Me too." It wasn't difficult to know where their embrace was going next. Memories of their night together in Ireland were still very much fresh in her mind and she didn't doubt they remained fresh in his. Her lips seem to seal her very thoughts, enclosing around his in a promise. He breaks their contact too soon for her reckoning, his hands releasing her from his hold.

"You'll get cold." Her hands on his cheeks had alerted him to the chill of her skin. He takes that hand now, pulls her from the torrenting snow storm, the inviting warmth of the library fire already penetrating his body as he steps over the threshold. She shivers.

"I wasn't feeling cold you know." He chuckles as he turns to her, surprised to find her face deadly serious. "You were keeping me warm."

She blushes as she says it, she's sure. It was a phrase she'd heard her mother whisper to her father once. It had been the middle of the Autumn when her parents had struggled outside with her and her sisters. They'd enjoyed a picnic and she and Edith had run around a great deal: Sybil was still tiny at the time, a crying baby in a pram. Sybil must have fallen to sleep at some point, leaving her parents quietly sat closer than propriety would allow, Mary had overheard them whispering to each other as she hid behind a nearly tree waiting for Edith to 'seek' her. Looking back on it now, Mary realised there was more significance to the event than she'd realised at four. It was the first time since Sybil's birth that her mother had stepped out of doors. Sybil had been three months old at the time. Maybe that had been why it had stuck in her child mind- her father had still worried for her mother despite the fact, as Granny used to exclaim every day, that 'Cora has failed in her duty Robert, still no heir, nor likely to be one after that birth.' It was the first time Mary truly realised there was something peculiar about her parents marriage, a good peculiar, but different none the less. She'd wanted that then, she might have almost lost her way, but she wanted that now too.

"Let's hope I can always keep you warm." It felt more dangerous than that night in Ireland when he'd tiptoed down the corridor to see her. He thought it was probably the fact they were at home, anyone might appear at any moment and encroach upon their private time. He pours a glass of port from the decanter left on the table, handing another to her.

"I'm somewhat surprised it took you three days to get to this point." She glances up at him expectedly as he falls into the settee beside her, his hand reaching around her back. It was something she had wondered about, why after Richard's grand departure it had taken Matthew three whole days to finally propose. He chuckles.

"I didn't want you to know when it was coming. I wanted to keep you on your toes, and, well finding a moment alone in this house is rather tricky." She chuckles at that, just when you got rid of someone, usually her father, who was awfully good at hovering, Edward usually appeared, and nobody could turn him down. "You're happy?"

He's dropped his hand to her waist, pressing his fingers through her dress. She knows he's trying to get her to lean into him, but she can't because the chance of wanting to disentangle herself from his arms once she get there is very small and that could lead to things that they really couldn't risk.

"Very happy Matthew. Over the moon in fact."

"You'll let me kiss you again then?" She blushes at his insinuation but let's him push her gently back into the arm of the settee. She couldn't resist him, not really.

"We can't make a habit of this."

"No. But one night isn't a habit Mary."

"I'm not sure my parents would agree." She lets him kiss her anyway, his tongue pressing at mouth, pursing her lips open. Not that it lasts long, he seems to have taken her hint, or perhaps he also knew deep down that it was the wrong path to take, that they'd be better waiting.

"Shall we go and dance, in the snow?" He doesn't want to force her she obviously felt it was the wrong thing to do, he was willing to honour that, but he wasn't about to go to bed and cut their evening short. She was his fiancée now, he wanted to make the most of their time together before his mother and her parents jumped on the back of the wedding horse.

"Dance?"

"Yes, I will hum a waltz and hold you in my arms." She chuckles as his lips turn up into a boyish smirk, his fingers circling on her knee. He leads the way back out into the winter storm, his hands securing themselves on her body, his lips dropping close to her ear as he hums gently. She takes a steadying breath, swallowing back the tears that want to fall in pure joy. This she realised was all she had ever wanted, all she ever needed: to be loved and to love. The title, the house, meant nothing, not without love, a companion. Not without Matthew.

Edith wandered somewhat aimlessly to her drawer after Madge left. Her book had moved from its normal rest on her side table and she hoped she'd find it slipped into the drawer. It had been a long day, the anticipation of waiting for Matthew to propose to Mary eating away at every member of the family. No one could work out if they were keeping their secret or whether he'd actually proposed at all, and nobody dared ask in case they made the pair embarrassed. It had all been mighty awkward and Edith had vanished soon after her parents, not wanting to intrude upon the pair of them. Edith had been more than pleased by the show at the wedding, Edward had performed better than they'd even thought he would and the reverend had fallen into the charade without having to be told. The price had been little, Mary's scandal had hit the paper but not the made up story about Edward. The majority of papers had been far more interested in 'Carlisle beaten by his lady.'

The drawer was one that always reminded meticulously arranged so Edith immediately panics when she finds her book stuffed roughly at the back, her writing paper fanned across the front of the drawer. Someone had been in there. She quickly fumbles through the mess searching for the selection of precious items she keeps in there, when all are found she starts to rearrange the contents. Still mystified as to who had been to her things her hand falls on a rough piece of paper she doesn't recognise. It's folded around a thicker envelope, the writing on which she does recognise.

Patrick.

Her heart seems to stutter with the mere thought of his name and she falls to the bed; letter still clutched between her fingers. She folds open the attached note which contains only a hurried scribble of apology. It seems Daisy had forgotten about the letter she had been entrusted with until now, months after Patrick's death she had remembered to give it to whom he had asked her to months before: a whole two months before he'd actually passed away. It seemed more than a little surreal to be receiving a letter from a dead man. A man she was trying so desperately to keep from her thoughts. Not because she didn't want to remember him, she knew she would soon, but not yet, at the moment the memories were painful, raw.

It didn't stop her from breaking the seal on the envelope though, her subconscious mind desperate for answers; loving phrases, anything to stop it from having to admit Patrick was gone.

Dearest Edith,

I hope this letter finds you well, and not pining too much for the man who doesn't deserve you.

You've left me at this moment, allowing me time to write. I pressed you to go out this afternoon and now I fear I regret it, I miss you greatly. But I figure it's a small price to pay for the happiness and comfort you've given me, and an extremely small price compared to what you will have to live with.

I hope this letter brings you some reprieve, some completion to your worries. I returned for you, to tell you that I loved you and the months we have had together have been the brightest of my days. I don't think I could have remained so calm and content in my illness so far if you hadn't been beside me. Let's hope the last months of my life will be as pleasant.

There's little else to say, if God had granted me a longer life we would be planning a wedding now. But, alas, he has not. So, instead I'm left to pray that you find the happiness you deserve with a man who will care for you and love you in a way I can not.

All my love,

Patrick.

It was simple. Short and simple. But it conveyed all Edith needed it to convey. It had allowed her an element of completion most certainly. The tears spill on her cheeks and she quickly folds the ink away, not wishing to smudge it. It falls into the drawer beside the photograph of her and her siblings at Sybil's wedding. The snow swirls lightly to the ground beyond her window and she wanders to the glass, the snow soothing her aching thoughts, and her thumping heart and managing to slow her thick tears.

She spots the red of the dress first, then the browns and blacks that make up the profile of the man kneeling before her sister, finally proposing. She smiles, surprising herself. She never thought that she'd be happy to see Mary celebrating when she herself was left alone. But, Patrick had changed her, made her appreciate life and it's gifts, whether you liked them all or not, in a very different light.

Robert found her sat amongst the pillows, her dark hair fanned behind her. She was staring, her mind as far away as her eyes were trying to focus. She was deep in thought.

She notices him come in, she senses him but she can't seem to break her gaze, her thoughts from her images that flashed before her. Pictures of the last five years seemed to encompass her whole being.

"You're thinking?" His statement was meant to startle her quite as much as it does. He'd waited, removed his gown, untied his shoes and slipped into bed without a peep of acknowledgement from her, it had become disconcerting.

"Yes. About the last five years. How lucky we've been."

"Well, there was William and Matthew was injured. Lavinia-"

"There's been Edward too." That's what she'd thought of really, her baby boy desperately trying to find his place in the world, struggling to fathom the society in which he lived. She's surprised Robert chuckles.

"Well, you have nobody but myself to thank for that little miracle." He watches her glance at him, her eyes narrowing, her face shaking: she'd spotted his teasing then.

"You, Robert Joseph Crawley, are one very naughty man." She can't help shuffling into the bed and inching her body closer to his, her hand dusting lightly over his inner thigh as she moves herself. Two could play his game of seduction.

"No, I was just trying to remind you that if I hadn't been so irresistible you would have had difficulty fulfilling those desires of yours. And truthfully if I'd been any less open to the idea of-"

"Robert, I know what you're trying to say. But that doesn't change the fact that Edward is a darling. He was an easy baby and everyone he's met just takes to him."

"That's because he's very like his mother." He reaches for the hand of hers that seems content to rub at his thigh, he knew the game they were playing, he wasn't going to let her win that easily. He places a kiss on the palm of her hand, his lips snaking gently over the gentle throb of her pulse at her wrist.

"Are you flirting with me?" She doesn't really need to ask that question, she knows, oh she knows how he's going to play with her. She also knows that she's likely to succumb to him far more quickly than he will to her, he was a stubborn beast when he wanted to be, she was already toppling slowly over the edge, his lips too much of a delight in the slow sensuous patterns he was using.

"I might be. And you seem to be enjoying it." His lips come to rest on her shoulder, pushing the silk aside. He grins against her skin when he feels her shift her weight beneath him, her hand clamouring for contact beneath his shirt.

"I'm entitled to enjoy it, you're my husband and it's not often you're so direct, I have to relish you like this." She smiles when he whimpers at her touch his lips briefly stilling their attentions.

"This nightdress is new?" He been fumbling for at least a minute for the buttons he usually found down her back.

"Yes." She was pleased he'd noticed. It was indeed new, very new. "A Christmas gift for you." Her smirk appears as his lips still, his hand reaching into his hair- the usual measure of anxiety.

"Cora, I've told you before, you don't have to try and tempt me. It's nice sometimes I admit to change things about. But I'd want you anyway. I love you. Edward didn't come into this world because you tempted me one night with a set of new lingerie. He was born from how much we love each other." He sees the tears, the little flecks of her being slipping onto her cheeks. He catches them as best he can as she slips her arms tightly around his neck, her lips prizing his open. Her breath seems to run out first, her bright wet eyes opening to find his. He drops a small kiss to her cheek before shifting her body so he can get his arms around her.

"I love you too. But," she tilts her face up from his chest, "I didn't spend good money on this nightdress to get no fun out of it."

"Just fun? I thought some terrific fun might be in order?" She blushes a delightful pink and he grins as she tries to scowl slightly. It was enjoyable teasing her, watching her cheeks redden and her eyes drop from his. It did amuse him, that after all these years, and four children that when he was direct she was embarrassed and felt marginally self conscious.

"You're very naughty." She buries her face in the crook of his neck as he eases her onto her back. It was odd, she thought many of the things he was now saying, she was sure he thought them but it was beyond rare that they would ever say them, he'd been brought up in a way that forbade the vulgarity and Cora had often thought Robert would find her wanting. It hadn't been until late in their first year of marriage that Robert had realised she was keeping some thoughts locked away from him and persuaded her to open up.

"No more naughty than you wish me to be. I'm only trying to fulfil your wishes. Your wish is my command remember?" She wiggles her leg between his own, pressing her fingers beneath the hem of his shirt and tugging it over his head. Quite frankly she was rather in need of him getting on with it, his flattery was lovely but it wasn't helping calm the pressure in her abdomen.

"Um, and my wish at this moment is that you kiss me." He readily indulges her, his hand slipping to the soft skin he knows he'll find beneath her nightdress. She murmurs indulgently into his mouth, her hands slowly raking at his chest. It was a calming sensation feeling the tufts of hair running through her cold fingers, her fingers were always, even in the middle of summer, chilled. But it made for a strangely satisfying sensation when they warmed slightly on his skin.

"Am I allowed to make a wish?" She wants to groan at his disruption to their kisses. But when his hands clasp her waist and he roles onto his back, leaving her exposed above him, his hands swiftly removing her nightgown, she can't help but feel honoured to have such a man as her own. A man so willing to encompass her into his life.

"Uhmm," she presses a kiss to his throat, and then his collarbone obviously annoyed at his interruption. In truth he enjoyed this most, caressing her slowly, loving her as she deserved.

"Every day. I want to tell you, somehow, whether I kiss you, or hug you, say something...anything. I just want you to know that I do appreciate you Cora, and the life we've built together. And if I forget, you can remind me." She kisses the underside of his chin in a acknowledgement, her fingers twisting into his hair.

"You don't have to, I know that you appreciate me. I do. Sometimes you forget. But not often. Having you here is all I need. You've given me far more than I ever imagined any husband could." It was true, he quite honestly had, she'd been a nervous bride: he'd put her at ease. She'd worried over his mother; he'd protected her, mostly. She'd often felt she was a bad mother, that the girls didn't respect her; he made them realise she was lovely. She'd thought she didn't please him in the beginning; he'd assured her many a time that she was totally wrong. He'd never cast her worries aside as insignificant to him, and that meant the absolute world to her. They were equals. Lovers. Friends. Equals.

Edward looks up before him at the great house that had been his home for five years. The home that he was to rule over one day. He was beginning to realise how many people relied on his father. This house. The trips to the farmers houses he knew weren't for nothing, his father was preparing him.

He shouldn't be outside, not at this time of night, but he hadn't been able to help it, when he had seen the snow from his window he'd ran down and had now vowed to do a circuit of the gravel before bed. To walk the well trodden path of those men he saw pictures of in the halls. The men that had once been boys like him with a destiny to fulfil. His Mama told him not to worry. But he did.

He turns the corner of the last side of he house and stops. The shadows of two figures catching in the moonlight. He wants to jump up and down on the pathway when he identifies the two figures: Mary and Matthew. It seemed his helping at the wedding had finally brought them together. He keeps his feet still, not wanting to catch their attention. He skips joyfully back in the main door of the house, taking the red carpeted stairs two at a time as he races to his parents room.

He stops outside the door, the etiquette his grandmother had seemed to ground into him, despite having rarely been with him in comparison to his other relations, takes a hold of him, and he knocks. When no reply comes he puts his ear gently to the door, hearing muffled voices inside he twists the metal knob and enters.

His parents are curled together in the bed, both their backs to him. His Papa seems to be kissing his mother's shoulder, which he dimly realises is bare, his brow crumbles. He almost turns back around and slips silently out of the door, but his father murmurs something and his mother chuckles, twisting her face around to kiss him. He smiles, as an old memory comes to mind, him sat in a the nursery with bricks around him, Mama had been there, playing and then Papa had arrived and they had kissed then, curled up either side of him on the floor and he'd banged his bricks and told them: 'No kiss kiss, pway.' It was comforting Edward found to know his parents were still as they had been. He'd changed but they had remained.

"Oh, Edward?" It was his Mama shattering him from the blurred past. "What are you doing here?" He tries not to look too confused when she pulls her bedclothes to her chin and begins scrambling beneath them, her hand reappearing a moment later with what Edward realised was her nightgown-why on earth didn't she have it on? It was the middle of winter, and snowing outside!

"I came to tell you that Mary and Matthew are dancing, outside, in the snow, beneath your window." He races to the curtains and pushes them aside, feeling the excitement he'd felt about Christmas morning just a few days ago welling up inside. He presses his palms to the glass, and then his nose, desperate to see if he can see Mary's red dress below. He can, but only just. He parts the curtains frantically, skipping to the window the other side of his mother's dresser. Sure enough from that window he sees a little better the way they twist and twirl together, against the snow.

The pressure on his shoulder makes him turn his face upwards, finding his parents either side of him he snuggles himself against his mother's hip. His father's hand falls into his curls, pushing them out of line. Edward watches as they observe the scene below then for a moment before his father leans over and kisses Mama's cheek, his body pressed between theirs.

"I love you Mama, and you Papa. And Mary, Edith and Sybil. Tom and Matthew as well I suppose. But I love you most Mama, because you're pretty, clever and hug me nicely. And I love you Papa because you teach me things, and you look after Mama." His father chuckles and his mother runs her finger over his cheek.

"We love you to Edward. You'll always be our little miracle."