Author's Note: Under God's Power She Flourishes flashes back to reveal the beginning of Jimmy's relationship with Angela and delves into the tragedy of Gillian and Jimmy; Do What We Must flashes back to Angela and Clara during the War, and delves into the tragedy of Nucky and Clara

Princeton/Atlantic City: December 1916

Her feet pained her terribly, and the smell of bacon was making her sick. The gentleman she was pouring coffee for was telling her about how terrible the never-ending Battle of Verdun was in Europe. Angela pasted a smile on her face.

As she poured him another refill, Angela watched a young woman walk hesitantly into the restaurant, like she wasn't sure she was in the right place. Unconsciously, Angela started noting details, mentally sketching her royal blue coat with navy blue cuffs, the blond curls that coiled heavily against her neck, the ringlets on either side of her face that grazed her jaw. The girl slipped the coat off and hung it on the peg by the booth. Under the coat, she was wearing an olive green jumper style tunic over a matching olive green skirt. The blouse under the jumper was striped olive green and light blue silk. Everything about her spoke of money. A college girl in town to visit her brother or beau, Angela decided. She drifted over to take the girl's order, internally betting that the girl would order coffee and toast and forget to leave a tip.

"What can I get you?"

The girl looked up and bit her lip. "Are you Angela Ianotti?"

"Yes?" Angela said. "Why are you asking?"

"I'm Clara Thompson. Jimmy, Jimmy Darmody, wrote me and asked me to come see you."

Angela sat the coffee pot down and burst into tears.

Clara stared at her for a moment, before jumping up and helping Angela into the booth. Reaching into her skirt pocket she retrieved her handkerchief and pushed it into Angela's hand.

"Where is he?" Angela asked.

"He joined the Army. He's at Camp Grant, in Illinois."

"Why?"

"I don't know. One night last month Jimmy showed up at my college and told me he had left Princeton and enlisted. A few days ago I got a letter, telling me about you, about the baby."

Angela buried her face in her hands. Jimmy was gone, gone for real. Gone to the Army. "My aunt threw me out. I barely make enough money waitressing to rent a terrible room, much less pay for decent food. What am I going to do? What am I going to do when I can't work?"

"That's why I'm here," Clara said decisively. "You are going home with me. My father, he'll help you. Jimmy is like his son. He's like my brother. You are our responsibility."

Angela thought later that day that she would believe that Clara and Jimmy were really brother and sister. They had the same way of convincing someone to follow their plans, no matter how outlandish. Before she could even think, she had quit her job, packed up her scant belongings, stepped into Bamberger's so Clara could buy her an engagement ring , and was walking into the Ritz-Carlton in Atlantic City.

"Miss Clara! You are home a day early," a man with a German accent said when they arrived on the eighth floor.

"I missed you, too, Eddie," Clara said with a smile. "This is my friend, Angela Ianotti, she's going to stay with us."

"No one told me, I don't have a room..."

"She can stay with me."

Angela looked around Clara's room. She'd never seen a hotel room like it, and she'd spent her childhood in hotel rooms. It wasn't just that it was nice, although it was nicer than any hotel room Angela had ever been it. It was that someone so clearly lived there. Bookshelves lined one wall and were overflowing with books and pictures. Angela picked one of Jimmy and Clara as toddlers, let her finger brush over the image of Jimmy, and wondered if that's what their baby was going to look like, all floppy hair and pouty lips.

Clara drew a deep breath and knocked on her father's office door. So far, nothing in her day had gone according to plan. She'd just meant to check on Angela, see what she needed, and then come home to talk to her father. But once she knew Angela's aunt had thrown her out, once she'd seen Angela's desperation, what could she do? This was the girl Jimmy loved, this was his baby, she had to protect them.

"I'm guessing you know exactly where James is?" her father said in way of greeting. He didn't bother to get up from his desk.

"It's nice to see you as well, Daddy. I'm happy to be home for Christmas, thank you for asking," Clara replied with what she hoped was her most charming smile.

"Clara, today is not the day. Where is James?"

Clara bit her lip. "I don't know what happened, Daddy, I really don't. He came to Bryn Mawr one night night and told me he'd joined the Army. He's at Camp Grant, for basic training."

"He's where?" Nucky asked angrily. "Do you know how hard I worked to get him into Princeton? And he's thrown it away, why, because he couldn't cut it? And he's joined the Army? Does he even know there's a war in Europe that idiot Wilson is going to get us involved in?"

"I think that was the appeal, honestly. And Jimmy was doing well at Princeton, that's not why he left."

"James joined the Army because he wants to go war?"

"That's not all, Daddy. There's good news. Jimmy's engaged!" Clara said, trying to make her voice bright. "Her name is Angela Ianotti. She's very nice, you're going to like her a lot."

Nucky stared at his daughter. "James is engaged?"

Clara smiled. "Isn't it lovely? And that's not all, they are going to have a baby."

"James has knocked up some Princeton townie, ran off to join the Army, and left you to clean up his mess?" Nucky said in a dangerously low voice. "You have college to worry about, Clara."

"That's not fair, Daddy. Jimmy is...he's the only brother I have. Jimmy would do the same for me."

Would he, Nucky thought. "So I'm expected to support this girl and her baby?"

"Not just you, Daddy. I wouldn't ask that. Jimmy will send money from his Army pay, and I'm going to help, too."

"I didn't realize Bryn Mawr allowed its students to work."

Clara took a deep breath. "They don't. That's why I quit school. The War Department, they're advertising for girls who speak French or Italian. I speak both, Daddy. My Italian is better than my French, thanks to the sisters, but my French is still quite good. They are going to train us to be telegraph operators in France, behind the front lines, because like you said, it's not long until..."

"You want to work on the battlefield in France?" Nucky asked, his voice completely cold. He looked at his daughter, with her bright eyes and her freckles. Mabel, he thought, and pictured his wife when she was not much older than their daughter, before she was his wife, excitedly talking about teaching in the tenements of Newark. His sweet, innocent, idealistic Mabel.

Anger flared deep inside him. How dare Clara think he'd allow her to risk her life like this? How dare Mabel leave him to raise their girl on his own? He turned to look out the window, remembering coming home that evening before dinner because it was the housekeeper's afternoon off and he was worried about Clara and Mabel being alone. The house had been as silent as a tomb except for a slight thumping noise coming from the bathroom. When he opened the bathroom door he was greeted by a sea of red flowing across the white tile. It was Mabel's blood and his warm Mabel was as cold and white as the tile itself as she lay in a heap in front of the sink.

He lifted his wife's body from the floor. For a moment he tried to close the wounds on her wrists, tried to make her warm again, but already she was cold and heavy in his arms. The thumping noise continued. When he looked up he saw their daughter rocking back and forth in a pool of her mother's blood, her head knocking against the lip of the tub. Their daughter, who already woke up screaming every night because she'd seen the rotting corpse of her baby brother, the one Mabel cared for instead of taking care of their living, breathing girl. At that moment, all he saw was blood all over his little girl's face, her plaid dress, her white stockings, her black buttoned boots. Eight years old, and covered in her mother's blood. He dropped Mabel back to the floor and grabbed his baby, called her name, tried to get her to talk.

Clara hadn't answered. Not when he took her into the other bathroom, washed her, and dressed her in a clean nightgown. Not when he rocked her, sitting on the stairs, ignoring his wife's body in the next room, just rocking his girl while her teeth chattered like she was freezing.

Clara didn't speak until Gillian brought James to sit in Clara's bedroom with her while she rocked back and forth holding her old velvet rabbit. That's when he heard his daughter's voice, saying "My Mommy's dead, Jimmy". When he swept Clara up to take her to the Ritz, he took James with them. Gillian was crying over Mabel like she had lost her mother. He couldn't leave either child with her.

Practically as soon as Clara could sit up Mabel had put Jimmy and Clara in the bath together. Mabel had smiled up at Nucky as she'd washed both babies, and said, 'Gillian will always need help with Jimmy. If we treat them like siblings they'll always think of themselves as siblings.' How many nights had he gone into Clara's room to tell her goodnight, and seen two small fair heads laying on her pillow? Clara, who could tend toward selfishness, was never selfish when it came to James. If Clara got a treat, she expected James to get a treat. If Nucky took Clara on an outing, she wanted James to accompany them.

He had made so many mistakes raising Clara. The night of his party for the state government when Clara's scream echoed through the suite, and he found a drunk commissioner standing over his thirteen-year-old daughter in her nightgown. Eli had come to him the next day and told him the Ritz was no place to raise Clara. Eli and June wanted Clara to come live with them.

Like he was going to hand Clara over to Eli. Instead, he told James that one of his new jobs was to stay in Clara's room whenever Nucky had guests. Gillian had complained, but she never complained about the money. Sometimes he wondered if he should lock two teenagers up together, but Mabel's gambit had worked. He had warned James away from ever touching Clara. 'She's like my sister, Nuck,' James had said, clearly insulted. When he spoke to Clara about it, she'd looked up at him with horrified eyes and said 'don't be ridiculous, Daddy! Jimmy, he's my brother.'

James was so nice and easy because he was a boy. They could go fishing, go hunting, and Nucky didn't constantly have to worry about protecting James from bad language or meeting the wrong people. It didn't mean he didn't have hopes and dreams for James. The boy was so bright, so personable, was even athletic. The All American Boy. Nucky had plans for James. Plans the little prick had just destroyed by running off and joining the Army. The Army, where he could be hurt, he could be killed, for a war over what? Protecting the holdings of inbred royals across the sea? Enriching the war barons in this country?

Clara and James were still just children, Nucky thought. Just in August, just a few months ago, he'd thrown a ball and for the first time let them attend. They'd finally disappeared after the breakfast, and he found them both in Clara's room. James was asleep across the foot of her bed, Clara asleep across the head, both still in their fancy clothes like tired children after a birthday party.

James had already thrown his destiny to the winds. It felt like a knife to Nucky's soul, but what could he do? But his Clara, the little girl who loved nothing more than the stories about the mermaids that Mabel who used to tell her, who after her mother's death would tell the stories to James or to her rabbit, making the stories more complicated over the years, he was supposed to let her once more be covered with blood? He had failed to protect her once, but he'd be damned if he failed to protect her again.

"Absolutely not, Clara. James might have thrown his future away, but you will not follow suit. I have plans for your life."

Clara's eyes flashed with anger. "I have plans for my life! Do you know how rare it is for women to have the chance to work like this?"

"Work? You need to worry about school and finding a husband."

"If that's your only goal for me, then what better place to meet men than working with the Army?" Clara answered back.

"I didn't raise you to marry some enlisted solider," Nucky snapped back. "And if you want me to help the girl James has abandoned, you best give up the idea of going to France."

Clara blinked, her dream of an adventure of her making dying. Damn it, Jimmy, she thought, but she knew she'd already lost. "Okay, but I still want to work for the War Department, even if I have to do it in New York or Washington. It makes sense, really. Angela and I can share an apartment, and I can help cover her expenses."

Nucky sighed. He'd rather she stay safely on the campus of Bryn Mawr, but Clara was already taken with James's stray. At least the girl could function as Clara's chaperone.

Princeton, August 1921

Clara took a deep breath when they stood in front of Jimmy's hotel room door. Richard knocked, loudly.

"Jimmy, it's Richard and me. Open the door," Clara called out. There was no response. "Open the door, or we are going to get the innkeeper to let us in!"

They heard shuffling from inside the room.

Only years of her father's training kept Clara from gasping when Jimmy opened the door. The room, and Jimmy, reeked of sweat and whiskey. There was another smell underneath it, one Clara couldn't identify. It was Jimmy's eyes that startled her the most. They looked like oysters on the half shell that had been left out in the sun. Jimmy's eyes were almost completely dilated, even with the bright hallway light shining in them.

"If you came to tell me Angela's dead, I already know," Jimmy said, swaying on his feet. "I didn't make the deliveries, Rich."

Richard swallowed. Did the deliveries still matter, he wondered? He saw Jimmy's small notebook and went over to begin flipping through the notes.

"I'd ask if you are okay, but you clearly are not,"Clara said softly.

Jimmy lifted another bottle to his lips and slid down the wall. "It's my fault Angela's dead."

New York City July, 1917

Nothing about the day had gone as planned. First of all, Gillian appeared out of nowhere, right as Clara ran out to call for the midwife. The midwife wasn't available, so a substitute had to be found. Suddenly their little apartment felt like it was transformed into something else, as Angela hit a point where she couldn't hold back her cries of pain, and women rushed about to help her. Clara was dispatched to hold Angela's hand while Gillian flitted about and made sure she was the first person to hold the new baby.

The new baby who currently stared up at Clara from his little basket. She could already see Jimmy in the shape of his face, and Angela in his tiny little eyes. Hesitantly, she reached out and gingerly touched his cheek. Jimmy's baby. How odd.

"You can pick him up, you know," Gillian said from the doorway.

"I can't, actually," Clara replied, smiling up at Gillian. "I've never held a baby."

Gillian started to say something, but then crossed over to the basket and lifted the small blanketed bundle out. "Hold your arms out, and then fold your elbow under his head."

Clara hesitated, and then reached out. The small warm weight settled against her. She felt some of her love for Jimmy pour over to his son. You're one of mine, she thought fiercely as she smelled the sweet, soft smell of his head.

"Don't you just want to run your lips all over his little body?" Gillian asked.

No, Clara thought, but she did lean down and let her lips brush his forehead.

The midwife finished in the bedroom. Clara and Gillian walked with the baby back to Angela, and Clara carefully passed the baby back to his mother. Angela had never looked more beautiful, Clara thought. Jimmy, you are missing this. How can you ever understand what you missed by missing this?

"We need to name this little mite," Gillian said. "Obviously, we should name him for Nucky."

Angela looked up, surprised. She had been planning on naming him Joseph.

"Gillian, not only is that not necessary, but she can not name this baby Enoch," Clara said, struggling to keep her voice low. "And she certainly doesn't want to name him Malachi."

"Ah, of course," Gillian replied. "Well, what about Thompson?"

"It's just unnecessary," Clara protested.

"Thompson is such a big name for such a tiny baby, but I do want Mr. Thompson to know how grateful I am for all his help," Angela said softly.

"Well, we can always call him Tommy," Gillian said decisively.

"Hello, Tommy," Angela said softly, stroking her baby's cheek.

Later that afternoon Gillian was napping on Clara's daybed in the living room, so Clara sat in the chair and watched Angela and Tommy sleep. Her own head was falling against the back of the chair when the bedroom door burst open.

"You finally have everything you wanted, don't you? You have Jimmy all to yourself," Gillian said in a voice Clara instantly recognized as her most angry. She was waving envelopes around.

"He's in France, Gillian..."

"But he was with you in March, before he shipped out," Gillian said, handing a picture to Angela.

"He's in a uniform," Angela said in a quiet voice. "He's in a uniform, Clara. I thought you hadn't seen him since November, since he told you he enlisted."

Clara closed her eyes. "He sent me a telegram, asking me to spend a few days with him before he shipped out."

"He was here?" Angela asked with tears in her voice. "He was here, in New York? Did he know I was here?"

"He knew," Gillian said coldly. "He told her not to tell anyone, it was just for two of them to be able to see each other before he left."

"You said you were going to visit your friend Romola?" Angela said in disbelief.

"Jimmy didn't want me to tell anyone," Clara said softly. "I had to honor his wishes."

Angela looked down at her baby, tears falling on his face. Gillian looked up at Clara with something like triumph in her eyes.

"One day you'll love someone like we love James," Gillian said, "and you'll understand how this feels."

It was days later before Angela and Clara spoke about Jimmy. Angela wasn't surprised to find Clara standing by the bassinet. Over the last days, Clara often stood with her fingers lightly pressed against the baby's chest, like she was feeling for the rise and fall of his breathing.

"Tommy's not going anywhere," Angela said softly.

Clara looked up and bit her lip. "I'm so sorry, Angela."

"Why doesn't he want me, Clara?" Angela asked after she turned to start braiding her hair.

Clara sighed. "It's not that. I think he was afraid that he wouldn't be able to go if he saw you. It's the same with the letters. He barely writes me, just enough to say he's alive."

"You've written him about Tommy?"

"I have."

"Can you go pick up some bread?"

Princeton, August, 1921