John had to wake Sarah to next morning. She had contentedly overslept. John could sense it was morning, he could smell the freshness and the light was brighter. Sarah was a light weight against his side, she was comfortable against him, her hand sprawled across his chest.

Something was different.

He felt happy.

Maybe that was it? Sarah was warm and soft. Her chest rose and fell naturally against his side. It felt good. He was loathed to wake her but knew he must. She must do her job, her duty.

He shook her lightly and she stirred.

Sarah dressed slowly. Looking out of the windows, although the curtains were still drawn against the white light caused by the snow. She lent against the bed and bent down to kiss John's forehead, her hair still plaited down her back. She stroked his cold cheek with one long finger and her caught her hand in his and pressed it against his lips.

"I heard yer"

"Pardon?" Sarah spluttered surprised.

"Last night, I heard yer"

Sarah grinned at the memory of last night, his hot bare skin against hers, hands clutching, rough lips. She had cried out into the darkness. "Well, it was your fault!" She brushed her hand against his lips and he kissed her again.

She turned and walked back to the window, coiling her long, dark hair on top of her head.

John turned his head towards the sound, letting his fingers curl around the soft sheets he lay in. He wanted to get up but knew he was wearing nothing under the covers. Best to maintain what little dignity he had left.

Sarah moved the curtains back from the window, letting a soft lithe of bright winter sun light into the room. It stung John's eyes and he put his hand up to shield them. He could make out a dark blurred shaped. It moved almost teasingly, swaying as it hummed.

John blinked in astonishment.

It was no dream. It was Sarah's silhouette against the window.

He gasped and sat up, holding the sheets around his waist as he did so. Sarah turned to look at him and found him staring right at her, not to the side but right, directly at her. His face broke into a beautiful smile that nearly broke her heart.

His hand stretched out to her and she moved to take it willingly.

He looked directly into her face and cupped it with both hands, tears streaming down his cheeks. Beaming with happiness.

His lips found hers.

After what seemed like forever they broke apart, breathless.

John pulled her back on to the bed, into his arms. "I didn't mean that! I meant yer murmur…I wasn't asleep yer know"

Sarah looked up in surprise. He had heard her whispered confession.

"I meant it"

He brushed the loose strands of hair from her face and stroked her harsh jaw line tenderly.

"I love yer too. Always. Whatever yer do."

His confession light up her whole world. This was the moment she had been living her life for. The whole point of her existence. Only…her heart burned with guilt and regret and loss. Mixed emotions tumbled through her with an icy chill. The truth seemed to bubble through her. It burst out of her lips with a terrible loudness.

"I lost our baby."

His arms went stiff around her and his face paled.

"Our…baby?"

His voice trembled, wavered at the life that had been so cruelly taken away. A life he hadn't even known had breathed in this house. Sarah wanted to run away, to hide. But she could never leave his arms. Even if he pushed her away.

"When…?"

"Summer"

"How?"

"I...I don't know…she just.."

"She?" John voice brokenly interrupted.

"Emma"

John sat in stunned sadness. Sarah made an attempt to pat his knee but couldn't bring herself to move.

"Forgive me"

"Don't be silly…"

His kind words were too much. Sarah burst into tears.

John tightened his arms around her and held her against him, rocking slowing. There was a pain in his chest, as if his heart were being stabbed with a needle. How had she managed to cope with the loss of a baby? He kissed the top of her head and murmured comforting nothings. She wrapped her arms around his naked waist and buried herself into him, hiding from the world.

Winter passed them by, spring brought more light into John's life; summer made Sarah sad and before they could blink a whole year had passed.

William came back to Downton, bruised and battered but very much alive. Daisy married him within a week. His presence at Downton seemed to open many wounds of the war.

Mary Crawley stopped snapping at her sisters, stopped coming down for breakfast briskly and then one day didn't wake up at all. She had over dosed on laudanum. She had truly loved Matthew Crawley.

Carson wept openly at her funeral. Elsie Hughes held his hand in her small ones. They stayed like that; at each others sides but never quite together.

Anna waited for Mr Bates to come home from the front. She waited for years, a lifetime. He came back unchanged. Still limping, still completely in love with her.

Lady Grantham felt the war change the English countryside, it swept over them like a new dawn. Robert continued to look at her with the same sad twinkle in his eye, love still stood strong between them.

Edith Crawley felt her sister's loss considerably. She and Sybil both left Downton in quiet un-dramatic ways, one to join the land army and the other to be a nurse.

John and Sarah Knight stayed at Downton Abbey. John pottered around the gardens as he regained his sight and Sarah finally let herself be loved by the one man who had truly saved her. John's shell shock never left him.

One fine, warm evening Sarah looked out of her kitchen widow to see Mrs Hughes running down the lawn to her cottage. The woman burst through the door with joy and hugged her. As much as Sarah was taken aback by these actions she returned the embrace.

"The war is over"

A strange peace descended over Sarah and she smiled at Elsie Hughes.

That night she slept peacefully with her husband. She felt extraordinary, lighter somehow. Now when ever she thought of the past it didn't jar her as it had once done but instead it seemed to roll away, like the rest of history, an everlasting timeline of everyone's guilt.

She had finally done it.

She had forgiven herself.

End.