adifferentlife | Home is where the heart is

Another long day has passed by them, and Sybil is finding it harder to play along with her family. Though she and Henri had spoken at the hospital and mended much of what lay between them, things were still strained. They had not been able to say proper farewells, not with the other nurses and Doctors about, and as such she felt lonely and unsure.

Dinner had been difficult, Sybil doing her best to avoid Mary's glances and to have polite conversation. She could not help but look at it through Henri's eyes, and the extravagance of all that they had in Downton ate at her. When dinner finishes she stays only as long as she must, pleading tiredness in order to go to bed early. She can hear her Grandmama say that the hospital is working her too hard, but Sybil cannot stay to disabuse her of the notion, taking solace instead in the silence of her room.

Too much silence, she thinks hours later as she lies awake in bed. The sounds of a modern city have become the thing she is accustomed to. But it is not truly the quiet that keeps her up, but the thoughts she cannot escape. How will she manage here in this place that was once her home and now feels so strange? How will she find a way to make Henri understand as well?

Even the worst worries can only keep her awake so long, succumbing eventually to sleep. It only feels a few brief moments later when she's woken by the buzzing of her alarm, reaching out to find it and knocking glasses off her bedside table.

Henri's glasses. Her alarm clock.

Abruptly awake, she sits, seeing her own bedroom in Darrow and not the one she had fallen asleep in. Better, she thinks, is Henri beside her, rousing at the sound himself. Sybil gives him no time, pulling him into an embrace, kissing him fiercely.

They are home.

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Combeferre had slept poorly the night before, a habit that was becoming terribly common. Though grateful for the bed at the inn, it was small, and cold, and (most damning of all) empty of the woman he loved. Though relieved to have work still offered to him at the hospital, his days there both exhausted him and left him too troubled to easily embrace slumber. Worse yet, with every day, the feeling that this was a world in which he did not belong grew stronger, and more frightening.

But what could he do? He would adapt. He would find his way in the world.

Though he could not remember when, he must have fallen into a deep and dreamless sleep sometime in the wee hours of the morning. And strange, as he slowly drifted into wakefulness, he found himself more comfortable, more content and warm, than he had felt in days.

He opened his eyes, and without warning, Sybil was kissing him.

“Le bon Dieu,” he exhaled against her lips, for the moment so glad to have her there that he did not even ask why. “My darling…"

Hearing his voice, even when she has her arms wrapped around him, is a relief. Sybil feels as if she could cry, tears of joy for the most part, their return to Darrow something that she thought would never come.

“My love. You’re alright?” As if something might have happened in the scant few hours since she saw him last, or in getting back to her apartment.

“I was so worried-“ Though it seems wrong, now, to worry that she should be reunited with her family again and to never see Darrow, it is still what she feels.

“I am now,” Combeferre murmured, though guilt flashed through him even as he spoke. Sybil had been once again torn from her home, and while she seemed at least as relieved as he was to have returned to Darrow, could he in good conscience celebrate? “And you?” he asked gently, searching her face for some sign of how to proceed. Was she glad to be back? Heartbroken? Uncertain?

Sybil is all of these things at once, yet the one that wins out amongst them is relief. She cups his face and pulls it close, resting her forehead against his. "I am well, now that I know we are here and together."

Henri could only nod, uncharacteristically overcome as he was, and he pressed their foreheads together, as though to assure himself that she would not depart again. "I thought I had lost you," he confessed in a murmur.

"Never. You will never lose me," she swears to him, more sure of those words than she has ever been. "I love you."

“No matter what,” Combeferre murmured fervently, wishing he were as sure of that as he had once been. Yes, if they had truly been trapped in Downton, they would have found a way to be together; Henri had to believe it. But he knew he had lapsed, and lapsed terribly, in his faith. Would their bond be so easily frayed again? Or would it heal stronger than before.

For now, Combeferre wanted nothing but to stop his thinking and revel in the woman in his arms. He cupped her face and kissed her fiercely, wishing that he could never let go.

She needs that kiss, that grip of his hands as if he’s afraid to let go of her. Sybil is as fervent in her response, her arms circling his neck. When she had gone to bed she had been worried, practically distraught with the thought of what might come of them. Now here, back in her bed and the apartment they spend so much time in she has a hard time shaking that feeling.

“I was so worried.”

"As was I." Sometimes, one can forget the burden one carries until it is lift, ignore pain and tenseness until it is gone. So it was for Henri, whose very heart was lighter - though the grooves left by the burden of the last few days had not yet gone.

Henri swallowed hard. "I am sorry, Sybil. Sorry for so many things."

Sybil shakes her head, pulling him close to kiss him yet again. As much as being here in her own bed is a relief, a knot of worry is starting to form inside of her. "If there's anything to be sorry for, it should be me. My family- It was difficult, and I am sorry for all of it."

“Your family is your family. They do not change who we are. I allowed myself to forget it,” Henri insisted.

But how easy it was to insist upon such a thing when they were home and safe.

Was who they were the same in Darrow as it was in their homes? That was what was gnawing at her and what she didn’t want to think of quite yet. “And yet you are the man that I chose to be with, and that is important, more important than any of what they wanted.”

Henri was more relieved to hear that than he expected to be, feeling a bit more of the weight on his shoulders float away. They would have made it work, he told himself. Perhaps it had not felt that way yesterday, but if they had been forced, they would have found a way.

“I am grateful, my love,” he said, clasping her hands in his. “And now we are here, and we are together. That is the most important thing of all."

Sybil curls til she is as close as she can manage, resting her head on his chest. It's reassuring to feel the warmth of it against her cheek and to hear his heart beating. "Might we stay here for a while? Pretend the world doesn't exist for a few hours?"

“Please.” Combeferre was loathe to let Sybil out of his arms, let alone out of his sight. Here, they could cling to each other until the terror of separation had passed. And then they could confront the future.

For once, Combeferre was tired of thinking. All he wished was to feel. And so he cupped Sybil’s face in his hands and kissed her desperately with all the love, and relief, and frightening unsteadiness he felt in his heart.

Home is where the heart is

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