A/N: In my perfect world, 3x05 would have a very, very different ending and so would the CS so here we are. I've tried to stick to canon as much as possible but for the reason above, Sybil and Matthew are still alive here.

Disclaimer: If Downton Abbey was mine, Sybil and Matthew would obviously still walk the Yorkshire earth.

Voilà le soir qui tombe

There were two places in the vast estate that from her earliest recollections, Sybbie Branson had claimed as her own. One was the great library at Downton which had always felt expressly made, conjured and stocked for the pleasure of the avid reader that was the Earl of Grantham's eldest grandchild. The other was unsurprisingly the garage that had witnessed the unfolding of her parents' love story, a story that had remained closest to the child's heart, so much more than all the leather-covered tomes the entire library contained. Given, she shared both sanctuaries with her cousin George, who advanced honorary ownership at the least. It was in either of the two that she ran to in games of hide-and-seek, where she and George would scream about whatever they wanted at the top of their lungs after being scolded by Gran Violet that children should be seen and not heard, where she (and George) would devour Mrs. Patmore's cookies right before dinner, where she chose to cry in solitude when dear Isis had left Downton forever.

The sight of grey clouds gathering overhead was what prompted Sybbie to seek sanctuary and solitude in the former that particular day; that, and the fact that the garage seemed much too close for comfort to the source of her present affliction. Sprawled out on the couch, shoes and all, blue ribbon discarded on the floor, frock creased beyond belief, curls a mess, eyes red and swollen, cheeks wet, Sybbie wasn't in solitude, not really. True to his claim of honorary membership, George, her partner-in-crime, her best friend, really more a brother than a cousin, was sprawled out on the couch opposite her, shoes and all, clothes in the same creased state as her own. He watched her intently with worried Crawley blue eyes.

He was silent, she was silent, the room was silent.

It was not so long ago that Carson had entered to announce that luncheon had been served. What a sight they must have been – the future Earl of Grantham and the first granddaughter of the house lounging about in a manner most inappropriate for children of their station with no care for the growing number of creases in their clothes or in Miss Sybbie's case, the sorry state of her coiffeur! The good, old butler said nothing on the matter, however, and simply nodded his assent when George asked him to please make their excuses to his lordship – neither of them was in a state for luncheon at the moment. Carson gave Sybbie a sad smile and remarked to himself how incredibly like Lady Sybil she looked at the moment, before shutting the door behind him.

"Sybbie –," George started after another hour of silence filled the air between them.

He was answered with only more silence.

"Syb."

Silence.

"Sybil."

That went straight to the heart.

"George, please," she pleaded.

He knew where this would go and for a second he regretted his choice of name.

Catatonic. That was the state she was in before he had spoken that name – Sybil. At the age of ten, George did not know what the word catatonic meant any more than the eleven-year old Sybbie did but it was a word he heard his Grandmamma use when she visited the cottage hospital. Catatonic was the word she used for the patient that was just there. Catatonic was the word to describe Sybbie's state even as silent tears flowed down her cheeks. He pushed aside that brief regret for the moment and told himself that getting her out of that state would more than pay for the guilt he felt.

"I'm Sybbie, whatever name they christened me with. I'm Sybbie. Mamma is Sybil. She will always be Sybil and I will always be Sybbie."

The silent tears that fell down her alabaster cheeks now turned into heaving sobs. At this, George stood and put his arms around his cousin who then buried her face in his shoulder as sobs continued to rack her body. "No one else is allowed to be Sybil. Only Mamma can be Sybil."

It was a line that had charmed endless numbers of family friends and acquaintances, frequently repeated since their early childhood, "But Gran, Granny, Auntie Rosamund, I'm not Sybil Branson. Mamma is Sybil Branson, I'm Sybbie Branson."

This time, however, the use of the name was not a line that had elicited fond laughter from the acquaintances entranced by the precocious child. Today, the assertion that she is Sybbie and not Sybil unmasked the fear the family had held for months but did not dare speak, a fear that until later that day, George was not privy to – the fear that at this time tomorrow, Miss Sybil Branson will be the only Sybil Branson in the family and no longer will the names of Miss Sybil Branson and Mrs. Sybil Branson be a cause of confusion among the Crawley, Levinson and Branson acquaintances. The mere thought imported the grey gloom of outside into the room.

"Sybbie," George began again. "She's going to be alright, I know it."

"You don't know that," she lets out a shrill cry, "None of us do – not Da, not Aunt Mary, not Uncle Matthew, not Granny, not even Doctor Clarkson!"

"Syb, I do know," and he does.

He doesn't know why but he knows that this is something from which his aunt will pull through.

"Sybbie, Aunt Sybil is one of the most determined people I know. She has you, she has Uncle Tom and now the new baby. You can't honestly believe she would be willing to leave you, do you? The three of you are Aunt Sybil's whole world!"

"I know we are," she replies in a broken voice. More than that she sees and feels it with every fiber of her being. It was peculiar, perhaps, for a child to feel this, or maybe there is nothing more natural than this, but for Sybbie, her parents being each other's entire world and she being theirs is a simple fact, as simple as the fact that her hair is curly like Mamma's, as simple as the fact that Catherine is a doll, as simple as the fact that George is her best friend.

"But Mamma is only human, George. There are things that even her determination cannot control."

George doesn't know everything. He doesn't know the truth she now knows. She envied his ignorance.

She turned her gaze to the rain that had now noisily begun to fall in torrents outside the window. The Yorkshire air was grey inside and out. Unexpectedly, she thinks of the rainbows and the pots of gold that were the stuff of the Gaelic fairy stories her Nanna would tell her during those summer visits to Dublin. Would there be a rainbow with a pot of gold at the end of this rain storm, she wondered, or was this prelude to the unbearable storms that she could not weather?

To be continued...