Downton Abbey Comment Ficathon
With the new season upon us, and fandom all extra-enthusiastic, I figured now would be a great time for this. Because there can never be enough Downton Abbey fic, and there certainly isn't enough now!
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--frostyblossom
Sybil and Branson - Things best left unsaid
She saw it coming.
Saw the earnest spark set off in his eyes that first alerted her, the suspicion confirmed when her light-hearted farewell was returned with something much more tender. He removed his hat - a familiarity reserved for when he had something truly important to say; and she saw what was coming, managing only a mumbled and panicked “Branson!” before he plunged right in.
She tried to warn him.
Tried to fend off any further advances with what little space his onslaught of words left her. He began with an almost-apology, a sidebar on what he knew was right and ought to be. “I wish you would,” she tried to warn him, but Branson would never heed what society considered the proper order of things, just as he would not heed her desire that he say no more.
She wanted to say more.
Wanted to tell him how much she admired his goals and pursuits and dreams and him. That she’d never known a man so passionate for what he believed in, who wasn’t afraid to hope for a different world and a different place for him in it, how his hope had transferred to her, and made her believe that the world truly would be different - one day. But she’d blundered her words, condensed them all down to a trite I’m terribly flattered; and though there was more, so much more she wanted to say, there was nothing more he wanted to hear.
She didn’t mean to make fun.
Didn’t mean to laugh at his remark - though honestly she had found it rather funny - but it was so astute and cheeky and so utterly Branson that the titter practically fell from her lips before she had time to snatch it away. His following look and plea shredded her insides to dull confetti, for she had never meant to make fun of him, even if she really did think his barb sounded more like him than anything else he’d said that morning.
She meant to be silent.
Meant to let the void span between them till it was filled with so much unease and fidgeting that it would drive him or her or them both away. She knew no other way out, had no reply that wouldn’t only make everything ten times worse, so she withdrew her eyes and closed her mouth and meant to stay still, and cold, and silent.
She feared his threat.
Feared that he would make good his vow to hand in his notice and be done with Downton, with her, forever. A fleeting image of a hobbled old man coming round with the car who cared nothing for politics or suffrage or justice churned her stomach to curdled knots. But it was the threat of who wouldn’t be there, not who would be there, that she feared the most when she whipped her head back and cried, “No, don’t do that!”
She would never tell.
Would never betray him to her father or let it slip out as Anna dressed her for dinner. Would never let even the barest hint of it flutter through her teeth while smiling at Mary over why she was chatting with Branson in the garage. No, she would never tell. They would never hear it from her.
Yet even more closely guarded than his secret is the one that is lurking, crouching like a predator in her mind, frightening in its audacity yet thrilling her with possibility. This secret she will hide in the farthest corner of her heart, let it exist untouched and undisclosed, till such a time as the world may be ready for it.
She could tell him, she supposes. The forbidden knowledge might ease the pained outline in his eyes whenever he looks her, or restore the bright smile that used to play on his lips whenever they were alone together. Except she knows that it won’t, that it will only increase his longing and desire and frustration.
So she stays the words, and measures her sentences, and decides that she will never tell. She was raised a lady, after all, and knows only too well that there are some things best left unsaid.
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