Sybil Crawley is not a girl who-

No, no; Sybil Crawley is not a girl.

She is a woman, now.

Papa and Mamma and Granny and Mary and Edith perhaps and certainly Carson and quite possibly even Mrs Hughes - who, for all Sybil knows, may still carry that seemingly limitless supply of sweeties in her apron pocket, always prepared for the eagerly grasping little fingers of the final wee darling little one left in the nursery - perhaps they consider her to be a girl still.

But do their opinions really matter, when she knows herself, feels herself, to have outgrown girlhood? Even if this new self-knowledge has only come upon her quite recently?

Sybil Crawley is not a woman who oftentimes finds herself left speechless.

She has always wanted to be the sort of person who says important things, powerful things, at important moments. It's simply that, until just about a year ago, the very notion of her wanting any of these things was quite beyond her grasp. Simply because of her sex, a factor so utterly and entirely outside of her control, she had never been taught to examine her own desires, let alone to entertain the possibility that they might differ from those of her family's.

Certainly she'd begun to first feel the stirrings of something a few years earlier, when she'd caught Papa and Cousin James speaking in hushed tones in the parlour, something about "mad suffragettes"and Prime Minister Asquith and damage to a motorcar, and Cousin Patrick had interjected to ask "did they know the press were calling it Black Friday now?", before Cousin James had caught her curious stare fixed on them and tapped Papa's elbow.

"Pas devant les enfants" or "Pas devant les femmes", he'd said, one or the other, and although no one would ever mistake Sybil for a native speaker, her governess French was decent enough to understand him. Certainly the tone in James's voice needed no translation to be intelligible, and she rather doubted he'd ever made much of a distinction between either party.

Patrick had been different; he'd cast her a rueful look at his father's remark and ever afterwards, during his visits to Downton, had shown a distinctive tendency to forget to remove his old newspapers and the rather more radical political journals he read from the library. Oh, how she'd loved him for it!

Even so, it had taken time; time, a fistful of pamphlets, and the resulting cautious delight at having found a willing ear, an encouraging voice, an engaged and engaging mind, an ally at last! to fan those stirrings into a passion.

Sybil still has much to learn about the important moments she longs to discuss, longs to create, but she has been learning to recognise them for some time now, and if this moment, the moment in which Branson stands close to her, his hand holding her elbow, her hand resting on his arm, while the sound of the rain outside accentuates the silence between them, isn't important…

...Well, she wouldn't believe anyone who'd try to convince her otherwise, not Papa, not Mamma, nor Granny, Mary, Edith, neither James, nor Patrick, God rest their souls, not Tom Cobley and all.

She closes her eyes for one brief moment.

Branson's skin is warm and soft under her fingers.

She tells herself that she will not file away this knowledge, nor will she remember it later today when she is alone, and certainly she will not ever decide that the feeling of Viscount So-and-So's and The Honourable This-and-That's hands wrapped around her own, clad in her best silk gloves purchased especially for her London debut, had felt really rather wanting in comparison.

This is what she tells herself, just as she tells herself he can't possibly have heard her slight intake of breath as she lets her hand slide off his arm, despite his uncharacteristic silence as she does so.

She raises her eyes to his, lifts her chin. "Thank you, Branson. I can manage now."

He releases her elbow. "Of course, milady," he responds in the same even tone he uses to announce they've arrived at any of the numerous destinations to which he routinely drives her.

There's really no need to apologise to him, especially when, if considered objectively, this moment that has just passed between them is not so very different from his handing her into the motor. She feels compelled to offer some further explanation nonetheless.

"Only it's difficult to get around very well, you know, in a c-" She breaks off. Corset, she had meant to say, but that won't do, not at all!

She tries again. "In these we-" Wet clothes? Golly, that's worse than "corset"!

Casting about for a suitably demure conclusion for a long moment without avail, when one at last presents itself, Sybil grasps at it with relief. "...That is to say, in this weather."

Branson grins at her as though somehow he knows exactly what it was that she had intended to say at first. That suspicion might have made her feel uncomfortable, had he been anyone else but Branson. "Then I'm doubly glad you were able to find shelter here, milady. After your walk was so inconsiderately interrupted by the weather and all."

She answers his grin with a smile of her own. "Oh, yes. How very fortunate that when I came by, you were here working, and not gone off on some errand to Ripon, Malton, or heaven forbid, Kirkbymoorside!"

"That's not likely to happen today, milady. Not in this weather, nor with the condition the roads'll be in," he comments.

She understands his meaning at once. How funny to realise that her family - and admittedly she herself when she is with them - can talk so much, yet say so little! With Branson, it seems, she need say very little, if anything at all, to be understood.

Granny has always declared that "the perfect servant knows precisely what is desired before a command is given", but Sybil is quite certain there is something more than that at work here: a pleasingly easy understanding has developed between the two of them, the likes of which she hasn't shared with anyone before, not even Gwen, fond though she is of her.

Besides, she rather wonders whether Branson would ever describe himself to anyone as "the perfect servant". Her brief attempt to picture him doing so in earnest brings another smile to her lips.

Still, despite the fact that interruptions are unlikely, she supposes she oughtn't distract him too much, imposing on him as she is, and here in his domain at that. "Do carry on with your duties, Branson. Don't let me deter you."

He inclines his head in acknowledgement, "Milady", before moving away to the workbench where he begins to closely study the thick manual that lies there.

She in her turn closely studies him as he leans over the text, traces the curve of his back with her eyes, observes the nimble quickness of his fingers as he leafs through the pages, watches the shadows play over his face when he reaches for the at long last remembered cup of tea beside him, and fights a smile when he frowns in disappointment at finding it cold to the touch.

It's unfair, really, the unkind things she's heard some of her set say about their servants.

She'll wager that Lord Merton's agent has a better understanding of biology and economics than Larry Grey ever gained during his years at Eton and Cambridge. And surely Branson's seemingly instinctive understanding of any and all of the complicated machinery that is dragging her parents' generation world forcibly forwards into a new age, an enlightened age belonging to Branson's and to her! generation, is worth far more admiration than a brace of pheasants or partridges after a successful shoot and a well-played round of golf?

How much more useful, how much more productive, to know how an engine works! Sybil would gladly sacrifice her understanding regarding the proper usage of spoons in return for some real, practical knowledge, some knowledge worth having!

But then, of course, as there are many forms of wisdom, there are also many forms of ignorance, and one of them is to imagine oneself to be devoid of ignorance altogether.

Branson shifts again, and she knows him well enough by now to recognise from the set of his shoulders that he has determined on a course of action, even before he closes the book with determination. She doesn't need to see his face to be able to imagine his eyebrows drawn together in thought. One doesn't spend over a year carrying on increasingly in depth conversations with the back of someone's neck without gaining an intimate understanding of their body language, after all.

The set of his shoulders, the sigh, the sharp tug at his cap which she imagines he does in lieu of raking his hands through his hair - what does his hair look like when it isn't slicked back with pomade? - and most cherished of all, for the rarest it is, the brief glance at her over his shoulder and the accompanying crooked smile: Sybil has catalogued them all. Her dutiful cataloguing of the symptoms has enabled her to uncover their causes, and by this stage in their friendship, allowed her to develop a cure, if cured they need be.

The scrape of metal against metal as he opens the toolbox breaks her train of thought and she glances down at herself, smoothes out her slowly drying skirt, fingers curling in the fabric for a moment as she recalls a conversation with Imogen. Sweet, silly, pretty Imogen, who has beaux a plenty and who correspondently loves nothing more than to imagine that everyone else has beaux as well.

But then he passes by, eyes flickering briefly over to meet her own as he lifts up the bonnet of the Renault. "You haven't told me much about London yet."

She needs a moment to collect her thoughts, and so she demurs with a suitably neutral response, "Mm. I suppose I haven't."

"I've never been to London," he remarks.

She supposes she oughtn't really be surprised, considering the distance from Yorkshire to London for someone not from her environ - and yet it still surprises her. After her lengthy meanderings around Hyde Park and the very fascinating indeed half an hour she'd spent at Speaker's Corner, requested from and granted by Aunt Rosamund in lieu of a less interesting sort of birthday present, she hadn't been able to help but picture Branson before her, making impassioned speeches and turning curious onlookers into fervent believers.

London would suit him, she thinks.

She very nearly tells him as much, until the thought that he might misunderstand her, might think her to be mocking him, wins out, and so instead she chooses the path of humour rather than honesty. "Well, if you're quite sure the extravagances of the oppressive upper classes won't distract you too much from your work, I should be happy to tell you all about it."

"'Distracting'?" He lets out a laugh that sounds rather more sarcastic that she had expected. For a moment, she worries, as he shakes his head, and his expression turns very grave. "On the contrary; channeling my righteous anger at the oppression of the proletariat into motorcar maintenance has served me very well in my career so far." He nods at her. "As you yourself well know, milady. Why, no Tory mechanic is skilled enough to find employ in the house of the Earl of Grantham."

Delighted laughter threatens to bubble up inside her, and then - oh, hang it! - she decides she can't be bothered to suppress it, especially when she notices how his grin widens at her response. "And very glad I am for it!" she replies, grateful again to have found such a friend. And as his friend, she can't help but tease him, "Although perhaps you might add some impassioned chest-pounding to this fine speech of yours next time."

He heaves a long-suffering sigh. "Really? I was thinking more along the lines of some tugging-at-my-hair-in-despair myself, but...as milady commands, so I obey." He bows to her gracefully before reaching for some sort of...thing resting on the workbench. "Go on then, tell me about London, so I have something to listen to as I work."

Sybil is still full of thoughts and feelings about her Season, and so she obliges him immediately, even if afterwards she ruefully reflects that wasn't quite the proper behaviour of a suffragette, perhaps. Of course, enjoying a tête-à-tête with one's chauffeur quite unchaperoned is hardly the done thing for a Lady either. Yet how could that be wrong, when it's such terrific fun?

She tells Branson all about Baron Porchester's latest fling, and, making sure to lower her voice, the hushed rumours about the Duke of Crowborough, only half of which she really comprehends, the other half of which she hasn't entirely worked up the nerve to ask him to explain, and then all about Imogen's marvellous ball, including, after a moment's careful consideration for her sister's sake, her having enjoyed a dance with Evelyn Napier, although he'd struck her as being a little out of sorts that evening. A sad change, really; he'd been so jolly when he'd been at Downton for the hunt. But of course after what had happened to his friend...Well, one could hardly wonder!

"...Then Larry Grey asked me to dance with him again, and although he is quite nice really, he had made that wretched comment earlier when I'd asked him what he thought of Mrs Pankhurst's activities in the East End, so I really wasn't inclined to dance with him again, and so then of course I had to say that I was "terribly flattered", only my feet were quite worn out and I did not intend to dance for the remainder of the evening. Shame, really. I do love to dance. But Mary says little white lies like that are necessary, and do more good than harm in the end, so I don't much regret telling them, really."

She pauses, observes him bent over the motor, still hard at work. Despite his explicit request to tell him all about London, all at once, every word she's spoken for the last while strikes her as being awfully silly. She'd hate for him to think her silly, especially as Branson is one of the few men in her life who don't seem to automatically dismiss women as being silly.

Sighing, she meets his eyes."How I longed for rational conversation! Of all the things I found in London, that was not among them." Her fingers twist into the fabric of her skirt again. "But then I suppose I oughtn't have been surprised, really. Since you were not able to come down with us."

He stops doing whatever it was he was doing with the motor. She hadn't expected to receive that sort of reaction, and it makes her uneasy. For a long moment, they're both silent, until he clears his throat, rubs the back of his neck. "It was very quiet here without you, and without the rest of the family."

The awkward moment passes and to help dispel any lingering unease, Sybil ventures boldly onwards. "I am happy to be home again. Especially now, with the War...Who knows what will..." Her brow furrows for a moment, thinking of the War, of Tom Bellasis, of Evelyn Napier, of Matthew, and all of the other young men she danced with in London, but then she forces a smile onto her face, insincere, even if her words are not. "It is nice, isn't it? Talking to each other again. And face to face, for a change!"

"That it is," he agrees. "But then it's always nice to talk to you, milady." He turns back to continue his work on the engine almost immediately, and so Sybil is fairly certain he has not caught the blush his words have just brought to her cheeks. She looks down at her hands, now neatly folded in her lap, then down at her legs, swinging carelessly back and forth, as they'd done when she'd been a little girl, playing on the swing Carson had solemnly and so very cautiously hung off the large oak in the grove for Mary to play with when she'd been little.

Sybil brings her legs to a halt, crosses her ankles.

"Branson?" she ventures.

He doesn't respond. "Branson", she says again, and for a moment wishes she knew what his Christian name was. Not that she would ever call him by it, he isn't a footman, after all, but it does seem odd that she doesn't know it, especially as he uses hers constantly - albeit with the necessary prefix. She determines to review the register in the library the next chance she has to see how he signs his name.

When he turns to face her, there is something peculiar in his eyes that drives her to blink and glance away for a moment, before looking back at him. She's not quite sure how to start. "That day of the garden party...do you remember? After we brought Gwen the news. We were standing together, and-" She breaks off.

You held my hand, she thinks. You put your arms around me, or, well, one of them at least, and that was the first time any man had ever done that besides on a dancefloor.

Of course she doesn't say these things, even if she can't quite drive them from her mind. She probably ought to.

She lifts her chin slightly and continues, "Before Mrs Hughes came...well, you were going to ask me something, I rather thought. Do you remember what it was, by any chance?"

He nods. "I don't suppose you could picture yourself by my side. Helping me become a politician, after your success with Gwen." He gives her a cheeky smile, raises an eyebrow. "Turning a chauffeur into an MP, I daresay you're up to the challenge."

"Oh, Branson." Again, she can't help but return his smile.

After all, she is fond of him, and grateful, too, because he is a challenge for her, if perhaps not in the way he just implied.

He challenges both the best and the worst in her, and that challenge, more than any of her family's nonchalant acquiescence to what they consider her whims - not disapproving, but not encouraging either - is what has helped her find the path she is now travelling. "I very much doubt you will need anyone's help with that."

How grateful she is, and will always be.

For his belief in the future.

For his belief in her.