a/n, briefly - back for an extended hiatus from DA fanfiction. I have two pieces in progress that I need to finish, but I ran out of steam. the newest season has been ten different kinds of inspiring and has given me so many feels I don't even know what to think. Consider this just one of many stories that looks at Cora after the loss of Sybil.

She is made of steel and stone.

His beautiful wife, usually so soft and supple in his arms, is made of far sterner stuff than Robert gave her credit for.

Within twenty four hours of the loss of their Sybil, she slips effortlessly into the role of the mistress of the house once more. And though her impossibly blue eyes swim with grief and unshed tears, she accepts condolences with a ramrod spine and a gentle word for every caller. She sees to the arrangements necessary, every detail her own, and spends countless hours watching over the baby and Branson. Her fierceness is doubled when anyone even mentions a word that could possibly be construed as critical of her son-in-law, and she has verbally lanced the head of two different housemaids for their innocent discussion of him.

Robert watches his mother watch his wife, the woman whom she had disapproved of for so long. The Dowager's gaze is thoughtful and complicated, the corners of her thin lips trembling upwards despite her sorrow. One mother to another, they have found a level on which they can relate.

Violet takes her leave and in the massive doorway she presses dry lips to Cora's cheek, her palm sliding down the younger woman's arm to grasp tightly to her hand. She says nothing that Robert can hear, but Cora's head bows in grief once before she nods.

The dowager is the last of the visitors. It's over.

Cora soldiers on.

"You look very nice this morning."

"Don't flirt with me Robert, not now."

There is a gauntlet thrown between them, and Robert stops short, as though debating which tact to take. He waivers.

A sigh. His shoulders slump in defeat.

"Whatever can I do to help you, my darling?" He asks, wishing he was capable of taking away her pain, and his role in it. He has kept himself up nights, berating himself until his chest aches, for failing to protect their daughter. He cannot undo the past though he would give his very life to do so.

"This may come as a shock to you," She says primly, her usually kind eyes harder than he's ever seen them, "But this isn't about you."

He opens his mouth to speak, to defend himself, but her gaze is harsh and he snaps it shut again.

Robert spent many years making mistakes at Downton. He felt he'd made more missteps than any man should be allowed. Yet it had been Cora, always Cora, who allowed him his fallibility and assured him that everything would turn out fine.

It was Cora to whom he confessed his misgivings about his suitability for an Earldom. It was to Cora to whom he confessed his disappointment in himself, and his inability to produce an heir. It was to Cora he laid bare his soul about Jane.

It was Cora to whom he cried at his lost fortune, safe in the knowledge that she would forgive him, believe in him, and set his world to rights with her faith.

It was Cora who always forgave him.

With a dry mouth and a shell shocked expression he excused himself from the drawing room. He could feel the pinpoints of her gaze on his shoulders, and it was as though she could pour her disappointment straight into his heart.

He has no idea how much he's come to rely on her steadfast belief in him, until it is gone.

Cora knows a confrontation is brewing. Before the war, she had one job at Downton besides producing an heir, and that was to keep the peace. She mediated wars between her daughters, bitter words between the servants, and weathered more than her share of criticism from her mother-in-law. Her job, as she saw it, was to make Robert's life as peaceful and comfortable as possible. For more than three decades she never once resented it.

But now resentful is all she feels, the bitter emotion filling up the empty places in her heart and soul.

Resentment, blame, regret. Shame and fear. Anger and loss.

He comes to her at least once a day, his regret palpable as he tries to ingratiate himself
to her, to receive some sign that she is softening towards him.
He is looking for her forgiveness. Forgiveness she cannot grant.

She watches as he walks across the lawn, his dog at heel, his entire countenance one of defeat and loss.

She drops her forehead to her palm and a sob escapes her.

However can she forgive her husband, when she hasn't even begun to forgive herself?

"For how long do you plan to punish Papa?" Mary asks, in her way, and Cora drags her gaze slowly to meet her daughter's.

"What makes you say I'm punishing your father?" Cora asks, her tone one that is dangerously low. A tone she rarely uses, so she doesn't blame Mary when she doesn't recognize it.

"You haven't said more than a handful of words to him in weeks." Mary begins. "And everyone knows he isn't sleeping in your bed."

"Everyone knows?" Now Cora's eyebrows have winged up, and Mary shifts in discomfort. She recalls that tone now. Too late.

"It's just...he lost a child, too, Mama. Don't you think he's suffered enough?"

Cora's eyes slip shut and her sooty lashes rest on her pale cheeks. When her lids flutter open, her irises have gone to steel and a single tear leaks slowly.

"Whatever makes you say I'm punishing your father." She asks again.

When Mary leaves her, Cora is turned away, her hands made into fists, her own culpability written in the painful white of her knuckles.

In the end, it is Tom who begins the healing.

He finds them in the library together, an Earl and his Countess sitting on opposite ends of the couch, separated by worlds.

His cough is met with Robert's startled expression and Cora's frightened one. She has become fixated on the health of Baby Sybil, as though she is fearful that her only grandchild will be lost too.

In his weaker moments, Tom dreams of fleeing this place and these people. They represent everything he hates in his life.

Now, however, and more importantly they are his daughter's best connection to her mother. And even if he didn't find it terribly important for his child to grow up knowing the very best of his mother, he doesn't think he could be responsible for bringing more loss to the woman before him.

"You do a credit to your country, Lady Grantham." Tom says before he even knows he's speaking, and Cora's expression is bewildered and pleased. "You've been kinder and more accepting to me in these weeks than I thought possible."

"I promised Sybil," She began but he waved her silent.

"I'm sure you did, but mostly you are decent." He twists his hands together, a sign of his nerves. Robert bristles at the unspoken insinuation but settles at a sharp look from his wife.

"Lady Grantham - Cora," He amends when she opens her mouth. "You are kind and generous and forgiving. Your letters to Sybil always included me, even when I knew you didn't approve. Sybil was good and kind."

His voice cracked and his paused.

"Sybil wouldn't want you to search for blame. She wanted you to be happy - joyous. She wanted her Papa to have a grandchild to take riding and for her Mama to have someone to fuss over. She wanted you in our lives, and in our daughter's life and it wasn't until now I realized why."

He twisted his hands again and looked around, as though at a loss after his speech.

"I hope you'll forgive my intrusion. I'm not exactly sure what I came in here to say. Only I hope...you know how much she loved you. And I hope you know how much it would hurt her to know you were hurting. And I hope..."

Cora stood then, and stepped forward to clasp Tom's hands between her own.

When he finally turned to leave, Cora kept her back to her husband.

The clock on the mantle ticked away the seconds, impossibly loud in the deafening silence of the room.

"I don't blame you." Cora spoke, her accent thicker in her grief. "I blame us. This house. This life. I blame propriety and tradition. I blame our inability to accept change, and your fear of it. I blame myself for not fighting you, and you for not listening to me. I blame Sybil for running away and Tom for encouraging her. We're all at fault for the choices we make."

"I only wanted what was best." Robert said, and Cora held her hand out behind her. He gingerly laced their fingers together.

"You only wanted what was acceptable. I only wanted what was familiar."

We may have lost her anyway.

"I will forgive you, Robert. I may even forgive myself."

She isn't made of steel and stone, but blood and bone and a breaking heart.

She is a mother.