A/N: I wish I could say this was a happy chapter? Emily grows sicker while Clara must cope on her own. More notes at the end

The sound of sobbing woke Margaret up with a start. Emily, she thought, as she ran to her children's room, not bothering to pick up her robe. She opened the door, but Emily was sleeping like a princess, still tucked in under the covers. Teddy's covers were half on the floor, and he was on his stomach, but he was also well and sound asleep. She stepped back into the hallway and realized the sound was coming from downstairs. Katy, she thought with a sigh, doubtlessly being dramatic about Owen being away. She went back and put on her robe and slippers before submitting to her duty and going downstairs. Sometimes, she thought, it was doubtful if live-in servants were worth the trouble.

She followed the sound into the conservatory, but instead of seeing Katy's dark hair and working girl robe, she saw a blonde in a green party dress curled against the back wall with her face in her hands.

"Clara," Margaret called, unsure if she should go to her or not. Since they'd traveled together to New York to obtain family limitation devices, Clara had been friendlier when they met. However, she still had never confided in Margaret, carefully protecting her inner life behind a wall of polite manners. Clara was more her father's daughter than she'd like to admit, Margaret thought.

Even now, when Margaret knew Clara's heart must be broken by the turmoil of the people she loved-The Tin Man, Jimmy Darmody, even her uncle-attempting to have her father killed, Clara's reserve remained intact, although the life seemed to have gone out of her. Clara drifted around the house politely, spending time with Emily who was still battling a fever, making small talk at the table. Even when her grandfather died, Clara had treated attending the funeral as no more than another outing she endured as Enoch Thompson's daughter.

But now, after not seeing the girl since she left for her grandfather's funeral that morning, she lay in a heap in an expensive dress. Clara had only been Teddy's age when her mother died, Margaret recalled. The only maternal figures she'd had since were Gillian Darmody and Nucky's companions. Margaret shuddered at the idea of any girl being mothered by the likes of Lucy and remembered how badly she'd ached for her mother during her first heartbreak.

"There, there. Whatever is the matter?" Margaret slid onto the floor next to her and patted her back, in the same manner she used when Teddy or Emily cried.

Some small part of Clara was mortified that Margaret was seeing her lose control like this, but the weight on her chest was so heavy and the storm of emotions-guilt, anger, remorse, grief- inside of her raged beyond her ability to control it.

"Tell me," Margaret said.

Clara rubbed her eyes and tried to take a deep enough breath to stop the sobs. How could she explain it? How could she explain that Jimmy was her oldest love, that she couldn't remember life without him, that his betrayal felt like a knife through her heart?

How could she explain she lay in bed at night and missed the press of Richard's body against hers, the way that when he would wake up he inevitably would pull her closer, or the feel of his stubble against her forehead? How could she explain she missed the way he always remembered exactly how she liked her coffee, or the way he listened to her talk without making her feel foolish, or the way he could be around her while she wrote, even though she couldn't bear for anyone else to be near her while she worked?

How could she explain that he felt like home, and nothing had felt like home since her mother died?

How could she put into words the feeling when she thought he had twisted her desire for him into something for Jimmy's stupid fucking coup, a way to make her almost complicit in the plot against her father? How could she explain the relief and new flash of anger when she found out Jimmy had lied to Richard?

And yet, when the shape of her father's new plan against Jimmy made itself clear to her, one that would sink Atlantic City, she ran without thought to tell him.

How could she explain what she felt when she saw that girl in Richard's lap? That, after all, Richard wasn't any different from any other man in Atlantic City.

And how was she supposed to explain the feeling when she saw Charlie Luciano, like someone had set a stick of dynamite in front of her and she looked down and realized she had a match in her hand? She wanted to hurt everyone at that moment, and seeing Charlie felt like a deliverance. So she lit the match.

Unfortunately, kissing him felt like kissing a hoover, something she told him on the car ride back to Margaret's. He told her he hadn't any other complaints, but then had handed her his handkerchief and tried to make her laugh by telling her stories of his sexual escapades.

She was still crying. At the moment, she felt like she was never going to stop.

"Is this your first heartbreak?" Margaret asked, trying to ease Clara into talking.

"No. During the war, there was a man. I...we didn't have long, and then we were separated. And I just let it happen." Clara felt that older pain resurface, pain she had worked hard to push down. "Afterwards, I just felt numb. I felt numb for so long."

That horrible year in D.C., when dinosaur bones were her only friends. When Jimmy's pain and anger were so deep as he lay at Walter Reed that he never noticed she was drowning. It's why she accepted her father's plea she marry Darcy Blaine, she realized. She didn't have enough energy, enough fight, to say no.

But she had written her way out of it. That horrible novel she wrote about pirates. Terrible, but it made her break out of her melancholy, and she just kept writing. She started getting jobs. It broke through the ice enough to make her fight her father openly when Jimmy was banished, and she plotted to find out where Jimmy was.

By the time she met Richard, she felt alive again.

Margaret got up and returned with a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. They knocked glasses, and Clara poured the liquor down her throat, enjoying the burn.

"For me, it was the solicitor's son. Ah, but he was beautiful, and when I realized he wanted me," Margaret began. When she finished the story she wiped tears from her eyes. "I never felt like that again, I never thought I was going to, until..."

Clara blinked and looked over at her. She wouldn't have thought Margaret felt like that. "Until my father?"

Margaret startled, as she had been thinking about how she hadn't felt like that again until Owen Sleater set his mouth on hers. She could hardly say that to Enoch's daughter.

"Of course," Margaret poured more whiskey into Clara's glass. "Do you want to talk about Mr. Harrow?"

Yes, Clara thought. I want someone to know how badly I hurt, why it's so bad. But I can't tell you, I can't tell anyone, because everyone I love is against someone else I love and I feel like I'm on a lifeboat in the middle of a storm and I'm tired of rowing.

Clara shook her head no, so Margaret kept refilling her glass as she told her stories about Ireland.

The sound of running feet and hushed, urgent voices woke Clara up. The first thing she was aware of was that her head felt like the ocean itself was slamming against it. Her throat felt like she had swallowed sandpaper, and her limbs felt heavy and odd. She sat up, trying to remember where she was. Not her bedroom, not Richard's, not the guest room at Margaret's. Margaret, she thought. Margaret had listened to her cry, poured a bottle of whiskey down Clara's throat, and then dragged Clara upstairs to her own bed. Clara stretched, her green party dress and stockings feeling dirty and tawdry after sleeping in them. As she woke up more, she realized she was missing a stocking.

The noises from the hall penetrated her hangover haze. Something's wrong, she thought, and scenarios ranging from something happening to Jimmy and Richard to her father's steamship sinking flashed through her mind. She stumbled out into the hallway. The young brunette maid stood uncertainly near the top of the stairs like she wasn't sure what she should be doing.

"Katy?" Clara asked after she searched for her name.

"Oh, miss," Katy said. "It's Emily. She can't move her legs."

Clara raced to the children's bedroom. Dr. Surran stood over Emily's bed, and the look of terror on Margaret's face ripped at her heart.

"We need to get her to the hospital immediately."

"I can't drive," Margaret said helplessly.

"I can," Clara replied. The doctor and Margaret turned to stare at her. "Give me five minutes."

Once more, Clara unclipped her stocking while she ran. She grabbed the first skirt and blouse she laid her hands on and clean underthings and ran into the bathroom so she could at least throw water on her face.

As she dashed from her room, she realized the Buick was still at the Ritz. She'd left it there and walked to the Garden Pier to find Jimmy and Richard (what a marvelous decision that turned out to be, she thought, and felt a flicker of pain), and when that turned into a catastrophe, Charlie Luciano had driven her back to Margaret's house. She hadn't thought of the Buick again until now.

"Katy, did my father or Mr. Sleater leave the keys to the Rolls?" Clara asked as she ran for the stairs. Katy nodded.

Eddie Kessler had taught Jimmy and her to drive back in 1914, in the Rolls. It had been a harrowing experience. She'd much preferred driving when her father bought a Ford as a backup vehicle. Clara cast off the fear. Something was desperately wrong with Emily. Margaret was terrified. She could manage to drive the blue menace.

Margaret climbed into the back seat before Dr. Surran carefully handed Emily to her mother. Emily started to cry out of fear.

"None of that, Princess Ozma," Clara said from the driver's seat, working to keep her voice light while her head continued to pound and she tried to remember the order to twist the levers to start the car. "We are off on a hot air balloon ride."

Please, Clara thought, please may a good witch intervene on Emily's behalf.

Clara scratched the passenger side running boards terribly as she pulled in to the hospital, where nursing sisters took Emily from her mother. Margaret and Clara were whisked upstairs to a floor labeled "Infectious Disease" and Clara felt a new sickness claw at her. She held Margaret's hand silently, unable to imagine any words that would make any of it okay.

It felt like an eternity and yet all too soon that Dr. Surran came for them, and showed them a glass door where more sisters were holding Emily down. The man's words rushed over Clara, but she understood the incoming horror and her heart broke in a new way.

They thought it was polio, and the only way to test was to put in a needle in the girl's spine. Margaret wasn't even allowed in the room to hold her daughter.

It's why she didn't believe in God, Clara thought. She knew all too well the horrors of a loving father could inflict on his children. But Emily. Emily wasn't even five years old.

As Margaret sank to the floor with the sound of Emily's screams from behind the glass door growing ever louder, Clara sank with her.

"I've never thought of you as a hysterical young woman," Dr. Surran began.

"Good, neither have I," Clara responded, wondering if men were taken away at a certain age and taught that lecturing, hectoring tone they loved to use when speaking with women.

He handed her papers. "You'll need to direct the staff. You have polio in the house. There are certain ways that things must be cleaned, and of course, the children's things will need to be burned."

Burned, Clara thought.

She was reasonably certain she damaged the clutch on her drive back to the house. Katy and Teddy sat on the porch.

"Is Emily going to die?" Teddy asked.

Clara kneeled down. Although she typically found Teddy to be a distasteful child, she knew the agony of being a child watching their family disappear around them.

"Of course not. The next few days are going to be very hard on everyone, though, but we are going to muddle through. Can you go play in the yard?" Standing up she looked at Katy. "I need to speak to the rest of the staff."

"They're gone, miss. They didn't want to catch..."

Clara stared down at the papers in her hand. The staff was gone, save for Katy. Okay. She walked inside and went to the telephone, calling the front desk of the Ritz. They'd find people willing to help her clean the house, and she'd make sure they were well rewarded for their work and risk.

The phone rang and rang without answer. The chaos of the lobby the night before came back to her and she slowly hung the phone up. The situation must have worsened. A strike? At the height of tourist season? So many people made their money for the year in these months, she knew. She felt sick again but forced herself to focus.

She wanted Richard. She knew in her bones she could call him and he would help her without question, even after the debacle of last night. He would know how to start a fire, he would know how to mix the disinfectant solution. Teddy would be happy to see him. He would make her feel like things might be okay. Clara shook off the feeling. Their relationship was in ruins; she couldn't ask for help, for comfort.

Jimmy was just as lost to her, calling Angela would endanger Tommy, Eli and June were off-limits for the same reasons. Eddie was vacationing, her father and Owen Sleater in England.

There was no one, Clara thought. No one could help her. She sat on the stairs and read the papers the doctor gave her.

"Katy, is there a bathroom downstairs near the kitchen?"

"Yes. A bedroom, too, for the cook."

"Okay, I want you and Teddy to go downstairs and stay. I might have some questions..."

Following the instructions, Clara ripped a clean pillowcase apart and tied it around her nose and mouth before she found baskets and started gathering toys. Basket after basket of blocks, books, dolls were dumped into a pile on the back lawn. When she found Emily's doll her resolve buckled and she almost hid the doll away. After all, she thought, what if Emily dies? Margaret would have nothing left that the child loved. But what if the doll was the reason someone else sickened, she thought? It went into the basket.

After the toys and books were all on the yard, she pulled down the drapes and gathered the clothing. It was hot, and the fabric over her nose and mouth stuck terribly to her face and made it difficult to breathe. Clara struggled to get the mattress off the bed, and fought to drag it down the hallway to the stairs, where she promptly got it stuck between the banisters.

Clara felt her hair slipping out the haphazard pinning job she had done that morning. Her shoulders ached, her legs were sore from the repeated trips up and down the stairs, and her head felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. She wanted someone to come save her, she realized. Well, she told herself, the cavalry's not coming.

"You are not going to best me," she said to the mattress and gave it one hard shove that sent the mattress and herself down the stairs, where they landed in a tumble. Clara stood up, took a deep breath, and pulled the mattress to its funeral pyre. And then did it again, with Teddy's mattress.

For the first time in weeks, months, her mind wasn't strumming in fear and pain about Jimmy and his damn coup or her heartbreak over Richard. She was to tired, to scared, to sore to do anything more than just push through. Over and over she read the instructions from the hospital, terrified she would miss something, that someone would sicken because of her lassitude. She found the Lysol and a bucket and mixed it at the recommended strength and began scrubbing the bed frames.

Finally, it was dark outside and she knew it was cool enough to start the fires. Please don't let me burn the house down, Clara thought as she filled bucket after bucket with water. In the garage she found a can of gasoline and poured some over the children's toys before lighting a match and throwing it.

One side of the fire seemed like it was going to rage out of control. Clara ran back to the greenhouse for a shovel and rake, and tried to beat it back as best she could.

"Miss Clara," a voice called from the house an instant before Clara felt cold water hit her.

"Your hair," Katy explained, "Teddy and I were watching and embers landed on your hair."

Clara turned and saw Teddy watching intently as all his belongings and those of his sick sister burned.

When Clara went back inside Katy had left sandwiches and lemonade on the hall table with a pair of scissors. Clara wanted to kiss her. She sat on the porch and inhaled the food, the first she remembered wanting since the day her father was shot. Then she walked back out to the smoldering remains of the fire and cut off her hair, throwing the burnt trimmings into the pyre. For a moment she heard Richard tell her she'd be pretty with a bob, and her worry that she'd twist her hair into knots if she couldn't pin it back. Well, what will be will be, she thought.

Later, she wouldn't remember how long she mixed disinfectant solutions and moved systemically through the house, cleaning as the papers told her. She worked until she was beyond thought, beyond words. At one point she woke up on the stairs, where she had fallen asleep disinfecting the banisters. While cleaning the bathroom she dropped bleach on her skirt and stocking and saw both develop holes and kept going.

Checking the papers again she thought there was nothing else to do. Finally, she went to take a shower. Staring at herself in the mirror she saw the bruises and cuts from where she battled with furniture and a very uneven haircut. Her hands were red and raw from the cleaning products. She peeled her clothing from her body, carefully wrapping them in the face-covering she was going to enjoy burning, and stepped under the water.

Her kimono was still at Richard's, and Clara assumed she'd never see it again. She put on the old robe that scratched and lay down on the bed. A boom woke her up a few hours later. She flew down the stairs, afraid somehow the fires had reignited.

Another boom felt like it shook the house.

"It's just fireworks, ma'am," Katy said from the side of the porch. Clara's legs went out from underneath her. July fourth. Of course.

"How's Teddy? How are you?" Clara asked.

"Teddy's asleep in the cook's room. I'm done with the laundry, and I made more sandwiches."

Yes, Clara thought. I'm starving. "But how are you?"

Katy smiled shyly. "I miss Owen, Mr. Sleater I mean, and I wish he'd come back."

"You and Sleater?" Clara asked delightedly, thinking of her father's obsession that she was going to fall for the Irishman. How typical of Father, she thought, he never actually saw what's going on in front of him.

Clara leaned back against the porch railing, watched the fireworks, and listened to Katy talk about exactly how wonderful Owen Sleater really was. For a wild moment, she wanted to join in, to tell Katy about all the reasons she loved Richard, but of course she couldn't. So she let the other girl's words wash over her.

"I could fix it for you," Katy offered. "Your hair."