Clara crept into the bedroom where Tommy slept, not wanting to wake him. He was so tiny, she thought as she watched him from across the room, so absolutely little and defenseless in the huge bed topped with carved lion heads. Surrounding the bed like creatures from a nightmare were the stuffed corpses of big game animals his grandfather had slaughtered. It wasn't a fit nursery for any child. Tommy needed to be home, in his own little bed, with his own, less terrifying things around him.

"Clara?" a small voice called from the depths of the blankets.

"Hey, kiddo," she whispered and moved to sit on the edge of the bed.

"Where's my mommy?" Tommy asked fretfully.

Her heart skipped a beat. "Daddy is downstairs, Richard is coming soon, and I'm here now," Clara said.

Tommy looked up at her with sad eyes. "Mema said Mommy moved to Paris because she wanted to be with her friends. Mema says now she's my mommy."

Clara couldn't hide her sharp intake of breath. A cold chill ran down her spine at the idea of Gillian declaring herself Tommy's mother. She was grateful that the room was only lit by moonlight so that Tommy couldn't see her face. Damn Gillian to hell and back, she thought fiercely, how dare she tell this baby his mother had left him of her own accord.

"Tommy, your mommy would never leave you of her own choice, never ever," Clara answered while she rubbed his hands. "She loves you so much. And she'll always be your mommy, okay? She'll always be the only mommy you'll ever have. Mema is Mema, she's not your mother."

"But where is Mommy, Clara?" Tommy pressed.

Clara grasped for an answer. Jimmy needed to be the one to tell his boy Angela was dead, and she couldn't think of what to tell Tommy that wasn't a lie but that would comfort him so he could go back to sleep.

Screams shattered the quiet stillness of the night. Deep, guttural ones, but also a high pitched one. Tommy grabbed Clara's arm. Clara patted his hand as she tried to decipher the noises.

"It's going to be okay," she said in the most reassuring voice she could muster. "Tommy, do you know how to lock a door?"

Tommy looked scared. "Mema says don't lock doors in her house."

It's not, Clara thought angrily, her fucking house. Clara swallowed around the lump of fear and anger in her throat and calmed her voice before responding. "Well, Daddy said I'm in charge of you, and I say it's all right. Lock the door. Only open it for Daddy, Richard, or me, okay?"

Richard was making one last run to the warehouse to deal with the booze orders from Northern New Jersey, but she wished desperately he was at the haunted house from hell with her. From the second floor landing, she watched carefully before revealing herself. Jimmy was sprawled on the floor. Another dark shape lay slumped on the floor behind Jimmy. The Commodore. Gillian stood over both of them. The horror of the scene-the blood, the bodies-made her go silent and still. Clara shook off the feeling and ran down the stairs.

"What happened?"

Gillian looked up, and Clara saw pure, unadulterated triumph in Gillian's eyes for just a moment before Gillian softened her face. "Oh, Clara, I'm so glad you're here! The Commodore stabbed James. James killed his father."

Clara was already sliding to her knees next to Jimmy. You've never been happy for me to be anywhere around Jimmy, Clara thought bitterly as she examined Jimmy's wound. Blood was seeping out of a deep wound on the upper left of his back, but his pulse was steady under her fingertips when she touched his neck. It was a big, deep wound. She looked over at the Commodore and saw his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. There was no doubt he was dead.

"Have you called Dr. Surran?" Clara asked and looked back up at Gillian.

Gillian looked like a queen, Clara thought. Like she was assuming power as Jimmy's blood pooled under Clara's hand and the Commodore lay dead a few feet ahead. On the floor next to the Commodore, Clara noticed a piece of needlework and an open sewing basket.

Not that Clara mourned the Commodore, she thought as she tried to take it all in. She just wished he wasn't dead by Jimmy's hand, for Jimmy's sake, for Tommy's, because once more Gillian would hold power over Jimmy...a glimmer of a plan to started to form in her mind. Clara looked down at Jimmy's wound and pretended to be studying it while she weighed her options.

What would my father do? Clara thought. How would he use this situation to help him achieve his goals?

Her stomach turned and her heart rate sped up. She took a deep breath. Clara didn't see another option.

"Gillian," she said in a voice heavy with emotion and unshed tears. "You must call Dr. Surran, this is so much blood, Jimmy needs a doctor."

Gillian didn't move.

"You also need to call Mr. Whitlock," Clara said, desperation rising in her voice. "We have to protect Jimmy. Mr. Whitlock will know what to do about the Commodore."

Gillian nodded and moved towards the conservatory where the telephone was located.

Clara leaped into action. She reached into Jimmy's pocket and searched for his handkerchief. Instead, she found two more paper packets of heroin. Quickly, she shoved them into her brassiere and reached into his other pocket to retrieve his handkerchief abd covered her bloody hand with the linen cloth. With great care she opened the sewing box and searched through the contents until she found what she needed.

Pinking shears.

Bile rose in her throat as she crawled over to the Commodore's prone body, picking up Gillian's dropped needlepoint and yanking it from its hoop as she went. Jimmy's trench knife rose from his father's unmoving stomach. Clara took a deep breath and steadied her nerves before she wrapped her hand around the trench knife and pulled it out with all her strength. The wet, gloppy noise as the suction of the Commodore's body gave up the knife made her gag. She carefully wrapped the knife in the needlepoint, grabbed the pinking shears, and plunged them into the existing wound. Clara closed her eyes and prepared for a spray of blood that never happened. Oh, of course, she realized. His heart is no longer beating.

Pushing the thought away, she pulled the shears out and repeated the process with the other wounds as quickly as she could, feeling the edges of the wounds give way under her hand as she purposefully changed the shape of the wounds. She tried to think of other things as she pushed the scissors into the Commodore's rapidly cooling flesh. The smell of the ocean as she walked across the Boardwalk. The swirls of paint as Angela mixed her colors. Just another smell, she thought. Just more colors mixing, that's all.

Clara grabbed a bottle of whiskey and poured some over Jimmy's trench knife, purposefully splashing whiskey on the ground and grabbing two glasses which she set rolling across the floor. As she ran back to Jimmy's side she cleaned the knife with the needlepoint. Feeling around the top of his boot she finally felt the knife sheath, inserted his knife, and pulled his pant leg back down. Grabbing both the needlepoint and Jimmy's handkerchief she held both against his wound, making sure they were soaked with blood. Looking down at her sensible navy blue knit sailor's dress, she was glad she chose a dark dress, what, forty hours ago, she thought? In a different life, she'd pulled this dress on in her guest room at Margaret's.

Gillian wasn't dressed sensibly, Clara thought. Gillian was wearing an acid green silk gown. Every drop of blood would show on it.

"Thank god you're back," Clara called as she heard Gillian's footsteps approaching and then Clara let every emotion flood over her and let them be heard in her voice. "Gillian, I think Jimmy might be dying. He's bleeding so badly, we have to get him sitting up, we need to slow the blood loss."

The terror on Gillian's face at the idea Jimmy was bleeding to death was real, and Clara felt a pang of regret.

'It wasn't the first time,' Jimmy had said in a haunted voice, and the burgeoning regret was replaced with fury over what Gillian did to her son, what power over him could still mean, and terror over what Gillian could do to the motherless Tommy.

"Why don't you help hold him up," Clara said sweetly. "He'll feel better knowing his mother is holding him." Forgive me Jimmy, Clara silently begged. Watching Gillian touch Jimmy's unconscious form made Clara want to retch.

When the doorbell rang, Jimmy was leaned against his mother, who was absolutely covered in blood.

"Dr. Surran, please come in," Clara said and directed him to Jimmy. Please fix him, Clara prayed silently. Please. Tommy can't be an orphan.

Clara ran up the stairs while Gillian was distracted. "Tommy, open the door," she whispered urgently.

Tommy's eyes were red and he threw himself into his arms. "It's okay, baby," she whispered in the brightest voice she was capable of as she smoothed his hair back and kissed his forehead.

She smiled her best smile at Tommy. "Everything is okay, but you and I are going to play a game now. When your daddy and I were little, we'd play hide and go seek when Nucky would bring us here. I'm going to show you our best hiding place, and you are going to stay there and be very quiet until when?"

"Until you or Daddy or Richard finds me," Tommy answered, clutching his stuffed cow.

"That's right, kiddo. Just daddy or Richard or me, no one else."

Once Tommy was safely hidden in the armoire with the fancy metal screens door on the landing Clara rejoined everyone, murmuring comforting words to Gillian as the doctor cut away the remains of Jimmy's vest and shirt. Jimmy loved that suit, Clara thought as the fabric fell away.

The doorbell rang again. Please be Richard, please be Richard she prayed silently as she opened it.

"Oh, Mr. Whitlock, thank god you are here. Gillian has killed the Commodore and Jimmy was stabbed trying to stop the fight between his parents," Clara said with her widest-eyed expression, the emotion in her voice absolutely real. "I didn't know what to do other than call you."

"Louis is dead?" Mr. Whitlock asked in shock.

Clara felt a flash of sympathy. Mr. Whitlock was so old, and, although she found it hard to believe, truly was fond of the Commodore. Perhaps she shouldn't have involved him.

Nonsense, she thought. She needed him. Jimmy needed him. If Mr. Whitlock thought Jimmy killed his father it would lose Jimmy a valuable ally and all of the support of the Yacht Club. It would mean the man wouldn't be her ally in the fight. Needs must, she told herself, and then took a deep breath as heart beat so fast it felt like it was going to leave her chest, and told her story. She saw the anger rise in his face.

"Oh, Leander, thank you so much for coming," Gillian cried when they walked into the drawing-room.

He didn't answer, walking around the doctor bandaging James over to where Louis lay on the floor. Immediately he noticed the sewing scissors protruding from his torso, and the empty glasses under the davenport. Damn Gillian to hell, Louis thought. Other than it bringing forth James, telling Nucky to bring him that harridan was the worst bit of business Louis ever conducted.

The doorbell rang again, and Leander watched the Thompson girl leave to answer it. Gillian stared at him from across the room.

"Leander, I knew you'd know exactly what to do," Gillian began.

Clara opened the door and stepped into Richard's space, wrapping her arms around him. The warm solidness of his body against hers almost made her resolve almost crumble, a flash of comfort and safety in the midst of bloody insanity.

"Mmm," he swallowed, knowing in an instant something was terribly amiss. "Clara?"

She took a deep breath. It was one thing to tell Richard what happened. It was another to admit she had purposefully framed Gillian, that she had plunged shears into the Commodore's dead body in a desperate attempt to save Tommy and Jimmy. Her stomach twisted at the thought that her actions would change the Richard thought of her.

"I did it to protect Tommy and Jimmy," she whispered in his ear.

Richard stared at his feet and didn't answer when she finished and stepped back. Clara's fingers twisted the now-limp pleats of her dress. He finally reached out and covered her hand with his.

"Take him. To my. Mmm. Place. I'm going to stay to help. Jimmy. Then I'll come home."

"Mr. Harrow, good," Leander said when they walked into the room. "We require your assistance."

You owe this to Angela, Clara reminded herself. This is the only way.

"Mr. Whitlock, this is not an appropriate place for Tommy. I'm going to take him until Jimmy recovers," Clara said in her best Princess of the Boardwalk voice, the one her father worked so hard to instill in her.

"What?" Gillian said in disbelief. "Clara, you are not taking my grandson anywhere."

The look Clara shot Gillian was the most dismissive glance she was capable of. "Mr. Whitlock, do you think we should leave Tommy with the woman who killed his grandfather?"

Please no one ask Richard anything, she thought. Please please please please please.

"What? I didn't kill Louis! James did!" Gillian cried out in shock and outrage.

"Gillian, try to hold onto some kind of honor," Leander said wearily. "Louis's heir will be safe with Miss Thompson until James recovers."

"She's not taking Tommy! Tommy is mine, that little boy, he's mine. I didn't hurt Louis, Leander! It was James! It was James!"

"What kind of mother accuses her child of her crime?" Clara asked coldly, trying to infuse shock and disbelief in his voice. "And anyway, Tommy is not yours. He had a mother. He has a father."

"You aren't his mother either," Gillian hissed. "Is that what this is about? Your little rebellion with this remnant of a man, but not even you will go so far as to..."

The last strands of Clara's composure snapped. Before either man could react, Clara was across the floor towards Gillian. As her arm arched back for momentum, Richard grabbed it and pulled her back.

"Gillian, enough!" Whitlock said sharply. "You are incredibly fortunate that Clara didn't call the sheriff's office, that she told you to call me instead. I can fix this, but not if you'd been arrested for murder. She's going to take the child to safety. Please try to behave with some sense of decorum."

"No! She can't take Tommy!"

"I believe James would want her to take the boy, I believe it's what Louis would desire as well. She's taking the boy."

Richard followed Clara up the stairs.

"It's Richard and me," Clara whispered as she opened the doors to the armoire. Tommy was sound asleep, his cheek resting on the toy cow.

Richard carried the sleeping child with his left arm, leaving his right arm free for any situation which arose. Mrs. Darmody glared as they walked towards the front door, but Richard pushed it from his mind. Clara had made it look like Mrs. Darmody killed the Commodore. She must have her reasons.

For a moment he considered driving with them to his place, but he thought of the horror show inside. The Commodore's body needed to be dealt with, the mess cleaned up, Jimmy watched over. He carefully placed Tommy in the backseat of his car, and turned back to Clara, hesitating as to what he should do next.

"I want. To go with. You. Mmm. But..."

"Jimmy, I know. Tommy and I will be okay."

Richard hesitated, and then slid his hand into his waistband and brought forth the Mauser pocket pistol and pressed it into her hand.

"Do you think I need this?"

He couldn't meet her eye. "I think. You'll be fine. But. Hmm. I'd feel..."

Clara closed her hand around the gun. The butcher is still out there, she realized. Nothing has stopped. It stopped for me, because Angela was dead and Jimmy was in distress, and now this. But the Butcher, my father, Charlie, Capone...it's all still out there.

"You can. Shoot. There's extra ammunition..."

She leaned forward and kissed the side of his mouth. "We'll be okay. Just come home when you can."