Take a drink because you pity yourself, and then the drink pities you and has a drink, and then two good drinks get together and that calls for drinks all around. - H. Beam Piper

June 23, 1919

Murphy's Pub, Dublin

Patrick Branson was feeling sorry for himself, and he didn't know how to handle the experience. He was wallowing, he realized in surprise. This just wasn't him. Melancholy was alien to his nature. Things that would have flattened another man were taken in stride; circumstances that should have left him frightened or unhappy were safely locked away in his mind and left to fade away. It had always worked well for him before.

So what was the problem now?

No one would have faulted him for being angry at what had been done to him. The bruises and the headaches were a constant reminder that Ireland was at war, that the innocent were as likely to be caught up in the violence as those who sought it out. Two weeks ago he had been walking down his own street, minding his business, when he'd been set upon by a gang of toughs who thought he was in the IRA, and beaten near to death.

That the attack was a case of mistaken identity, that their intended target had been his brother Michael, who was in the IRA, did not help when he couldn't sleep at night for the pain, or when he forgot mundane things that he should have known. His new sister-in-law Sybil was a nurse, and she had assured him that the memories would come back; it just took time. He trusted her…hell, he was half in love with her…but it was frightening just the same.

And there it was—the source of one of his problems. Women. Since his brother Tom had come home from England five weeks ago with Lady Sybil Crawley, no woman was enough to hold Patrick's interest. Sybil was just different, exciting…perfect, and dammit, she belonged to Tom, heart and soul. They were so in love it was sickening; neither had eyes for anyone else if the other was in the room. He loved his big brother with every fiber of his being, but sometimes he was so jealous he just wanted to drown himself in a vat of Guinness. Which he was trying to do right now, with some success.

He had plenty of time for his new endeavor. He'd been out of a job before the attack, and now he was next to useless until he healed. He was ashamed that he wasn't pulling his load in the family, even though he knew they didn't fault him for it, given the circumstances. Everyone needed to be productive in order to make ends meet. But he couldn't work, and that was all there was to it.

So…ticking off his problems in his head…he had no girl, no job, and no hope that either of those things would change anytime soon. Well, that was not strictly true, at least not the first item. He had more women than he knew what to do with. He was currently seeing three girls, none of whom knew about the others. Before the attack, keeping them apart and appeased had been the only danger in his life, and since the attack they all wanted to mother him. God knew, if his actual mother knew about all this there'd be another sort of attack, one which he'd be unlikely to survive! Claire Branson did not play.

Besides, none of his three girls were at all like his sister-in-law. They cared about fun and looking pretty, which had been fine with him—until Sybil. She was beautiful, sure, but also brave, and the most ambitious woman he had ever met. In fact, the only woman he'd met who had come close to measuring up to her was her sister, Edith. Lady Edith to you, lad, he told himself. They had met for the first time two days ago at Tom and Sybil's wedding, and had hit it off right away. She was pretty, and smart, and he had sensed a vulnerability in her that he found charming.

They had spent most of the wedding party together, swapping stories and drinking. Oh, how that woman could drink! He'd told her that she must have been an Irish changeling, the way she could down a pint. She'd taken it as a compliment and challenged him to a contest. He'd told her about his crazy sisters and their escapades. She'd invited him to England to be her chauffeur, which was her little joke—that had been Tom's job, before he'd fallen in love with Sybil and stolen her away to Ireland. They'd laughed, a lot. All in all, Patrick couldn't remember when he'd had so much fun.

Oh yeah—and she was four years older than he was. And an aristocrat. So that was that. Plus, she was gone, back to England and her posh lifestyle. He was sure that Lady Edith had already put Sybil's funny little brother-in-law with the mangled face and rainbow of bruises into her scrapbook of amusing memories. Shame she hadn't met him at his handsome best. Shame he wasn't rich. Or English...wait, no! He'd be damned if he'd ever wish for that! Too bad he was just a kid. A poor, ugly, swollen Irish toad of a kid. He took another swig of his ale. This feeling sorry for yourself thing was getting easier by the minute.

June 24, 1919

Luxury Flat, Dublin

Tom was sulking. He knew it, Sybil knew it; he would be surprised if everyone in Dublin hadn't noticed the scowl on his face. The only one who seemed impervious to his mood was Sybil's granny Martha. This was the third flat she had dragged them to; the woman was tireless! And Sybil wasn't helping. He might have expected a little support from his loving wife, after all. Where was all that "You know I don't care about all that nonsense?" and "I want us to make it on our own" stuff when it counted?

What had happened to her? he fumed. She knew that none of the flats Martha had chosen were anywhere in the vicinity of affordable for them. They were located in the best part of town, in an area he had never even been to in his life. The first one had had four bedrooms and two baths, for God's sake! And the next two were nearly as dazzling. He did not want to be bought by the aristocracy, damn it, but that was where this was headed, for sure.

"Now, I think this might be the one," Martha was saying, as they took the lift to the third floor. Yep—the damn place had a lift!

"Mrs. Levinson," Tom tried again. "Sybil and I want to live simply, and we simply can't afford something like this on our salaries."

"Oh, pish! Didn't I make that clear? This is my wedding gift to you! You won't be paying for a bit of it!"

Tom ground his teeth, thinking of the reactions of his family and co-workers when they discovered his new address. He could feel his manhood draining away through his boots.

He looked at his wife in desperation, but she didn't notice. She and her granny were discussing some obscure aspect of the architecture that he didn't even understand, corbels and mouldings and whatever. He groaned. She must be having second thoughts about marrying so far beneath her, now that she had seen how her own kind lived in Dublin. He went to the huge window of the empty flat and pressed his nose against the pane. He was trapped.

A beer truck went by on the street below. Tom wished he had a beer…or two. Or three. Normally he wasn't much of a drinker, never having had the time or the money to spend in the pub, but at this moment he wanted nothing more than to drown himself in a pot of ale. The agony wouldn't last long, and he'd be rid of Sybil's granny. He would miss Sybil, but she'd be better off without him. He knew he was being ridiculous, but he was enjoying his misery too much to quit the exercise.

When Martha Levinson had arrived at the wedding party and announced that she'd be finding them the grandest flat in Dublin, he'd thought she was exaggerating. Besides, he had been preoccupied with other things that night. But then she'd shown up the next day and informed them that on Tuesday she would pick them up bright and early for their adventure.

No one seemed to resent this "gift" like he did; even Sybil seemed to think he was overreacting when he'd whined—all right, yes, he had whined— that he would feel like a kept man. Strangely, it was his new father-in-law who had offered the most support, before he had gone home to England.

"Listen, Tom," Lord Grantham had told him seriously, "I understand that you want to support Sybil on your own merits, and I admire that. I'll admit that I didn't always feel that way, but I've come to know you as an honorable man. And I know that is one of the things my daughter loves in you.

"Having said that, there is absolitely nothing you can do to stop a runaway train, and if you thought Violet was a juggernaught, you haven't seen anything like Cora's mother!"

He clapped Tom on the shoulder. "So give it up, and save your energy for a battle you can win."

Tom turned away from the window in time to hear Martha say, "So, this is it, I think! Not too far from the hospital and that place you work, Tom, and enough room for a family." She leered at them.

He looked at Sybil, saw her sparkling eyes. "Tom?" she said softly. "It is lovely, isn't it? Do you like it, even a little bit? It's all right if you don't, we'll find something else." What was he supposed to do, seeing the hope in her eyes?

"Sure, darlin," he said, his tone that of a man resigning himself to the gallows. "It's grand. Thank you so much, Mrs. Levinson."

She beamed at them. "Good. Now, I know you two have to go back to work, so I'll just take care of ordering the furniture you'll need to start. You must have a couch, chairs, a dining room, and of course the bed…"

"No!" Tom and Sybil exclaimed in unison. "We already have a bed!"

August 22, 1919

London

In any family with three children, there is a middle child, one who can feel lost in the shuffle and overlooked, and the result is often a lack of self-esteem. In the Crawley family that child was Edith. If she ever had children, she told herself, she would have one or two…or four. Never three. But considering her luck with men, that was unlikely anyway.

At the moment Lady Edith Crawley was staring at her reflection in the champagne glass in front of her, wishing the liquid was Guinness. At least the Edith in the glass looked bubbly, she thought. She glanced at the elegant gentleman sitting across the table from her at the Criterion and sighed. He looked bubbly too. In fact, he hadn't stopped bubbling since they had arrived. She wouldn't have been able to get a word in if she'd wanted to…which she didn't.

Her escort was a minor peer, a friend of a friend of Mary's, and Edith suspected that her sister knew right well how horrible he was. How could the man talk so much without taking a breath? This dinner had lasted a year at least already; she would soon know more about this pretentious ass than she knew about herself…or she would if she was listening to any of it.

She took another indelicate swig of the champagne and let her mind wander. Lord Pomposity would never notice, enthralled as he was in his description of the many hunt victories for which he was apparently famous. In her imagination she was driving around the track at Brooklands, her scarf blowing in the wind, leaving the other (all male) drivers in her dust.

Her racing suit, designed of course by herself, was the epitome of current fashion, perfectly matched to the green of her race car. Edith remembered having read somewhere that every country had its own racing colors, and Britain's was called British Racing Green. She looked good in green. It reminded her of Ireland.

Ireland. Her thoughts snapped back to June, to Sybil's wedding in Dublin and two of the most wonderful weeks of her life. The excitement, the danger, the differentness of it all had intrigued her more than she had thought possible, and leaving had been painful. She missed her sister. She missed the music and the informality. She missed the local ale and the feeling of courage it gave her—a feeling that had dissipated as soon as the ferry had docked at Holyhead.

Back home in her own luxurious room, surrounded by wealth and privilege, she had begun fading, wilting again into the person she hated and feared. That petulant, whiny brat, the woman at every party who was destined to be a spinster and embraced her fate. The one who invited Mary's ridicule and spite because she deserved it.

In Ireland, Edith had blossomed. She had begun to think she could do things, accomplish something with her life. She envied Tom his new job as a journalist and the joy it gave him. She applauded Sybil for her courage in seeking a position as a nurse in a country that hated people who spoke with her accent. She admired Tom's family for persevering when money was always scarce.

She knew that they struggled sometimes to make ends meet. Tom, usually the smartest person in any room, had been unable to go to university after his father died, instead entering service in order to help his family survive. His mother worked long hours as a seamstress in order to feed and clothe six children. They all pitched in; it was the way of life in working class Dublin.

Well, except for Patrick, currently unemployed. Edith's mouth curled upward in a rare smile at the thought of Tom's youngest brother. Such a funny boy; he'd kept her laughing during Sybil's wedding party, bantering with her as if she were the most interesting person he had ever met. Despite the myriad bruises and injuries that currently deformed his face and crippled his body, she suspected that he was as handsome as his older brothers, Tom and Michael, and he certainly had charm enough for all of them. There was just something about Patrick…

The smile disappeared. What was wrong with her? He had been kind to her because she was drinking alone at a party. Poor, pitiful Edith. He'd felt sorry for her; that was all it was. Patrick Branson was worlds apart from her in every way possible, and she was not Sybil, able to overlook that fact. Unlike her sister and their former chauffeur, she and Patrick had nothing at all in common. This meandering just showed how pathetic she'd become.

Besides, he was at least four years younger than she, a baby. She must seem like a faded maiden aunt to him. A sad, tired old biddy. And wouldn't Papa have apoplexy if he knew that another of his daughters had even been thinking about someone named Branson? The very thought made her laugh out loud. She quickly took a gulp of her champagne to stifle the giggle and choked when it went down the wrong way, eyes watering.

Her escort narrowed his eyes at her. He didn't think he'd said anything particularly funny; why was she cackling and snorting in such an unladylike manner? Mary had told him that her sister was a bit dull but a good listener, and to be kind to her. She hadn't told him that Lady Edith was a tippler! He had tried, really. Maybe the discovery of his status and accomplishments was making her nervous. He didn't think this date was going to work out; she just didn't seem to appreciate who he was.

Edith was almost giddy with relief when Lord Peacock suggested an early end to the evening. She was busy planning and didn't have another minute to waste on this boor. Thoughts of Ireland had rekindled a spark that had nearly gone out, and she was desperate to fan the flame before she died of boredom. It was time to visit Sybil.

A/N: It is no coincidence that the British racing colors reminded Edith of Ireland. In 1903 Britain won the right to host an international race. The problem was, Parliament had decreed that no car could exceed 12 mph, making motor racing illegal anywhere on the island. So the race had been moved to Ireland. Thereafter, England's color was British Racing Green, in tribute to the Emerald Isle.