Richard, my love,

It's so dark here. Dark, and quiet. It's so strange, you see, to not hear the constant shelling, the screams of the dying, the barked orders and quiet moans of men lost in nightmares.

I have heard that, farther north in the summertime, days stretch on with no end in sight and the sun never sets. I wonder, then, how those people feel when it finally does? Does the absence of light unnerve them, the way the quiet unnerves me now?

And yet, it is not entirely quiet. You snore, darling. Yes, I'm quite afraid you do. Not terribly, but it's there nonetheless. And yet, I find that to be more reassuring than anything else. It's a sign of life, of hope, of normality, of daily existence. So many times I wished for any noise at all, a voice or a snore or even a rattling breath, to assure me that life still lingered.

I haven't any need to wonder now.

I've heard it said that absence makes the heart grow fonder; I have also heard it said that reality never lives up to dreams.

The first, I can assure you, is absolutely true. The second, total hogwash.

It was more than dreams, darling. Your voice in my ear, your hands on my skin – oh, but I have never felt this way. Not like this. I have made love before, as one does with one's life-partner and dearest friend, but not like this. Not like something out of a novel, where everything goes away and only the two of us remain in a world entirely our own, with no language spoken but a language of touches and kisses and whispered promises, and, finally, you where you were always meant to be.

When I saw you on the station platform I thought I was dreaming. I had wanted it for so long, after all, that I could hardly trust my own senses. If you had taken me in your arms then, kissed me like some romantic heroine, I think I might have always wondered.

But instead you simply reached out and took my hand and said, quite gravely, "Mrs Crawley", as though we had not bared our souls to one another over months of anguish and sheet after sheet of ragged tearstained paper. And when all I could say was your name, like the foolish teenage girl I once was, you smiled brightly enough to stop the sun, and I knew then that all would be right with my world again.

Dreams, after all, are insubstantial, flighty things in the end. This, I think, will be entirely different, forged in tears and sweat and blood and, yes, my darling, arguments too numerous to count. This will be earthy and sometimes broken, but always patched together by healing hearts who want nothing more than to heal each other, too.

The sun is only just beginning to rise, but here in this quiet room by the sea, it cannot matter, and I can do as I wish and return to our bed and your arms. I have slept, these last few nights in Scarborough, as I have not slept in months, and it is only because of you.

I am likely dreaming of you as you read this, darling, but finally reality surpasses even my subconscious.

I am, with all my heart,

Yours for ever,

Isobel Clarkson

Author's Note: I don't usually do these, especially not on this fic, and will delete it once the final chapter goes live, but since I can already hear the anguished, outraged howls...

(Yes, Aussies and Kiwis, even from you. This planet isn't that big.)

No, you don't get the reunion. An epistolary fic it has always been, and an epistolary fic it shall damn well stay. Said the iconic and breathtakingly brilliant Abigail Adams, "Poets and painters wisely draw a veil over those Scenes which surpass the pen of the one and the pencil of the other," in reference to her four-years-in-the-making reunion with her beloved husband John, and I think Mrs Adams has the right of it.

Really. If you want smut from these two, go read "E Tenebris, Lux" again. I'm told it's not too bad. :)

One more chapter to go, and then this epic saga concludes. Hopefully just in time for Fellowes to get his head out of his arse and make these two official, yes? ;)