TW: Basically everything

The sound of the knocker echoed through the marble foyer of the mansion. Gillian roused herself from the divan, where she lay reading The Good Bad Girl. Being alone was not Gillian's preferred state of being. The excitement of the men coming over to confer with Jimmy, spending time with Jimmy, playing with Tommy, feeling Charlie Luciano's eyes on her whenever he entered the house... that's what Gillian preferred.

Last night she'd felt like the loneliest person in the whole world. Jimmy hadn't been by in days, so she'd gone down to the Blenheim. The young man in the lobby reminded her of Jimmy, of course, but also of Charlie. He looked so much like Jimmy with his floppy blond hair and soft pouty lips, but the power and ambition that hummed through his young, hard body was all Charlie Touching him was like putting a damp finger over a live socket.

Perhaps the person at the door was that delightful boy, Mr. Bud Matheson, coming to pay a proper call.

Gillian smoothed her hair as she glided towards the door.

"Clara," Gillian said, hardly believing who stood on her portico.

Gillian stepped aside, silently assessing her as she walked in. A white and blue pinafore dress clearly made to be worn at home and certainly not when out in the evening. The bob, which Gillian had to admit suited her, looked like Clara hadn't bothered to brush it. The engagement ring on her left hand was pretty enough, Gillian supposed, but certainly not as impressive as the one Clara wore when she was intended for Darcy Blaine.

"Well, my dear, I can tell two things just by looking at you. That odd husband of yours must be talented in areas I never expected because you look well bedded. It's often the quiet ones, isn't it? " Gillian stepped closer, her head tilting as she regarded the bruises on Clara's beck, wrists, and ankles. "However, I certainly wouldn't have expected him to tie you down and choke you this early in the marriage."

"My father had me kidnapped off Jimmy's porch and tossed into an insane asylum," Clara said, struggling to keep her voice level.

"Why did no one bring me Tommy?" Gillian cried.

"A friend of mine watched him, Jimmy thought he'd be safer out of Atlantic City." Clara studied Gillian, and saw the barely repressed rage. "Gillian, I know you are angry at me."

"Whatever gave you that impression? When you set it up so that Leander thought I killed the dear Commodore? When you took Tommy from his grandmother's care and manipulated Jimmy into thinking I'm not fit to be around my grandson?"

She was there to ask Gillian to tell her the truth, but that meant she could not force Gillian to look at the truth of why Clara refused to allow her near Tommy. But she had to make Gillian see.

"Listen to me, Gillian. My father had me committed. He got me out of the way. And then he came to a room where I had been tortured, where I was tied down to a bed, and told me Richard and Jimmy were dead. No one knew where I was. It was happenstance that they figured out where I was, that Leander was able to free me. But that doesn't mean my father won't attempt the rest of his plan. You must understand this-Father is planning on killing Jimmy and Richard."

Gillian gasped and turned away. "Clara, you are hysterical. Nucky would never. He loves Jimmy like a son, he's always viewed him as..."

"You convinced Jimmy to order a hit on my father. That rather changed the father/son dynamic. This wasn't a game. There are consequences."

Tommy could be hers, Gillian thought. Clara would have no claim. Bud Matheson would make a good father, they could raise the boy the way she wanted him to...

But Jimmy...how could she live in a world without her sweet James?

Clara watched Gillian's face closely. "Also understand this. No matter what happens, I will never let Tommy fall back into your clutches. Tommy's childhood will be different than Jimmy's."

Gillian looked at her with real hatred, but her voice was still bright and polite. "Well since you have all the answers, Clara, why are you here?"

"I don't have many tools available to me to stop my Father. And it's made worse by the fact I don't really know everything, do I?"

"Has James not taken you into his confidence?" Gillian breathed out, happy to think Jimmy hadn't turned over all his secrets to Clara.

"Gillian, I know Jimmy's perspective. I know my own. But this whole catastrophe didn't start when we came home from the war, or at the start of Prohibition, or even the day I watched my mother bleed out on the bathroom floor, did it? And you are the only one who I can ask..." she swallowed hard. "About my mother. About what happened back in 1897."

Gillian's smile was cold. "You fool everyone, don't you Clara? That sweet little rich girl routine. But you are just like your father. You decide what is best for everyone and we are all expected to bend to your will."

Clara nodded. "You might very well be correct. But maybe I'm also someone tired of all of the lies. Gillian, I had no idea what my father did to you. I knew the Commodore was too old to have fathered a child on you. I knew you were too young to be Jimmy's mother. But I didn't know my father's part in it, I didn't. And since I found out, that's how I've thought about it. My father's part in the abhorrent thing these men did to you."

She smiled up at Gillian. "But now I'm married. And there are nights when Richard comes home from, from working with Jimmy and I know. I just know. It's in the set of his shoulders, it's in the way he lays next to me. And with us..." Clara's voice broke, unwilling to expose that part of their lives to Gillian.

"So I thought you could tell me what my mother thought the first time my father climbed into bed next to her after he sold you to the Commodore."

No one had thought to dispose of the lunch Clara was making when she was taken. The smell and the flies attracted by the rotten food were equally abhorrent. Richard resolutely started clearing the rotten food so he could put the kitchen back to rights, so he could make something for them both to eat. He couldn't remember when he last ate and doubted Clara could either.

He turned the idea of Clara needing to speak to Gillian over and over in his head. Clara's relationship with Gillian had always seemed complicated in a way he couldn't explain. And then Clara had setup Gillian to take the blame for the Commodore's death to protect Jimmy. She'd taken Tommy and refused to even consider letting Gillian near the boy.

Why he wondered. Clara loved Tommy. He'd seen that the first time he met Tommy. It was when he was guarding Clara and as they walked down the Boardwalk a small shape in cap came running out of a store and barreled straight into Clara and she'd laughed as she picked the boy up. It had even been in her voice when she talked about him that day in Chicago.

But by her own words, she loved spoiling Tommy and passing him back to Angela when he became difficult. And although he knew she was doing her best, although he tried to help as much as he could, he also knew she struggled with suddenly becoming the person tasked with caring for Tommy. Clara had told him several times she wanted children-their children-but not yet. She didn't want to have children in this life, she wanted to have adventures, she wanted time with them alone together, she wanted to have time to write.

A small part of him was ashamed of how much he enjoyed caring for Tommy. Coming home to find Tommy sideways in the bed with Clara and carrying him back to his own room. Doing the voices of the Martian when Clara read Tommy a space story.

Somehow from the ruins of Angela and Jimmy's lives, he had gained everything he had ever wanted. Although he knew it wouldn't last. Jimmy would reign himself in soon and take responsibility for Tommy. Jimmy was a good man, a good father. He was certainly a good friend. Every good thing in his life Richard had because Jimmy had been kind enough to answer him when he spoke in that hospital hallway back in Chicago. It was his duty to make sure Jimmy survived this and to watch over Tommy.

Richard heard Jimmy's car pull up over the sound of the wind and the rain, which now howled outside, making the ocean sound like it was plowing the beach for a new crop, and walked into the living room to greet them. A few minutes later Tommy burst through the door ahead of his father, shaking water from his cap as he raced into the house.

"Richard, I stayed with an old lady and we ate fish eggs!"

The sound of Tommy's feet and voice felt like a warm wave of normalcy washing over her as she swam back up from the depths of another unplanned nap. Clara sat up on the sofa, adjusting the scarf holding her hair back, her annoyance at falling asleep swept away by relief in the confirmation that Tommy was fine, and finally letting going of the terror she'd first felt when...for a moment she was back in the kitchen and was happy to see the man on the porch but her mind wouldn't let her form a picture of who stood there, a danger to both she and Tommy.

"Tommy, I'm so glad..." Clara began as she joined them in the entryway.

"You left me," Tommy said, stepping away from Clara, his little face twisted in anger. "You yelled game and never came back."

"Tommy," Richard began. "Clara..."

"No, it's okay," Clara cut in. "Tommy, I'm so, so sorry you were scared."

Tommy moved behind Richard's legs and refused to come out.

"Tommy, it's not Clara's fault," Jimmy said but stopped speaking when it looked like Tommy was about to start crying.

"I'm hungry, Richard," Tommy declared.

Richard looked up at Clara, who looked like she'd just been slapped. Jimmy nodded towards Clara, and Tommy was pulling at Richard's hand, so he shepherded the boy into the kitchen.

Clara silently moved back to the sofa. Fuck Father, she thought furiously, and fuck whoever snatched her and terrorized that poor little boy who already been through so much.

Jimmy watched Tommy climb into a chair. Jesus, Richard was patient. Cooking was bad enough, letting Tommy help was practically torture. Silently he went to sit next to Clara, his eyes taking in her injuries. Those bruises. Jesus. Fucking Nucky.

He lit a cigarette and handed it to her, sitting silently for a moment. When Rose told him to leave Clara alone with Richard, it felt wrong. Clara was family, and so was Richard. They were his. The idea that they could fix each other, but only if he let them alone felt wrong. Like telling his right leg his left leg would heal better if it would just leave it alone for a time.

"We thought the Butcher had you. We went after him," Jimmy finally said, not looking directly at her. He needed her to know what they had done, what they had been willing to do, to get her back.

Clara nodded, remembering Richard's words that he had feared the Butcher had taken her.

"Did you get him?" she asked, not looking over at him, but willing to ask Jimmy to tell her things she couldn't bring herself to ask her husband.

"Yes," Jimmy answered, staring at the cigarette as Clara passed it back to him.

Clara cleared her throat. "You, or Richard?"

Jimmy looked up at her, surprised. "Both. We found him while we looked for you."

"No, I mean...trench knife or a Colt 1903?"

"Trench knife."

A start, Clara thought, but still not what she wanted to know. "Did he pay for Angela?"

Jimmy took a long drag and looked at her out of the corner of his eye, realizing what Clara was actually asking. "He screamed, Clara."

Clara clasped his free hand. For a man like the Butcher to scream? Jimmy was more skilled with that damn knife than she had presumed. "Good," she said softly.

There was so much packed into that one word that Jimmy flinched at the implication. This wasn't how it was supposed to be, he thought. How the fuck had they gotten so off course? And there were still more people who needed to pay.

"Do you remember who took you?" Jimmy asked.

Clara shook her head. "No, the whole morning is a blur."

A knock sounded at the door, startling them both. Jimmy silently left the couch, pulling the Glock from his waistband as he moved as stealthily as possible-his bum leg always acted up in the rain-so he could see the driveway and porch.

A stocky man sat behind the wheel of a Rolls Royce Silver Ghost, just like Torrio's. But it wasn't Al behind the wheel, and it wasn't anyone from Chicago standing on his porch. The threesome on the porch was easily identifiable. The little man built like an ox holding an umbrella over a slightly taller and much better-dressed man whose face, even in shadow, was carefully composed into blank pleasantness. And standing over them was a taller man with his head slightly bent and a hand brushing near his waistband.

Richard came out from the kitchen, his hand on Tommy's shoulder, and Jimmy nodded at him to look out the window.

"Tommy. Go to Clara," Richard instructed when he saw who was outside.

"I..."

"Mmm. Now." Richard instructed and Tommy finally went without arguing as Jimmy opened the door.

"Gentlemen," Rothstein said and swept into the house without having exactly being asked when Jimmy opened the door.

"Harrow," Luciano said with a nod before he walked, Richard noted, straight over to Clara. Tommy climbed into Clara's lap as Charlie approached them.

"At some point," Lansky said to Richard with a half-smirk when he saw that the man was watching Charlie and Clara, "we will have to let them know they are actually friends."

"Congratulations, both on your marriage and on recovering your wife," Rothstein said with a smile Richard thought was probably supposed to be ingratiating. "I trust you've made plans to get her away from Atlantic City, away from Thompson?"

Richard swallowed.

"Ah, well. Marrying a woman like Clara Thompson, it's a complicated endeavor. A delight, to be sure, but it is hard to imagine her in a cold-water tenement or some remote farm, isn't it? She's used to a certain standard of living. And of course, you want her to be happy, and safe. Keeping Nucky Thompson's daughter safe is a daunting proposition. Not only do you have to worry about Thompson's enemies-and it does appear to be his special talent to make new enemies the way other men make friends-but now you know Thompson is a danger to Clara. And how can you keep her safe from her own father? Especially here, in the town Thompson considers his fiefdom?"

Rothstein watched Richard closely as he spoke. Evaluating men's reactions to his words, his promises, his offers was one of Rothstein's strengths but he did have to admit it was a little more difficult with Harrow. The man was practically inscrutable. Rothstein liked that about him. But those hands, those fingers rubbing together, those were his tell. Rothstein also liked knowing that.

"I admire your loyalty to Darmody. And of course, Thompson is an even great danger to him than he is to Clara. That's why I propose this. Come to New York. Peter is my main bodyguard, of course, but I need someone like you. Meyer tells me you have quite the head for logistics, for organizing groups of men, for making things work. And there are your other very useful skills. I'll pay you $500 a week, plus more for certain jobs, and provide a three-bedroom apartment in my building at 144 West 57th Street. It's a beautiful apartment. Clara will like it. And it comes with doormen and elevator men who will fall under your purview."

Sometimes the trick was to know when to stop talking. He followed Harrow's eye. The Darmody boy clung to Clara while Charlie had moved to talk to Darmody. Charlie's report was correct. Darmody's son had somehow become Harrow and Clara's responsibility. What a deliciously complicated arrangement these young people had constructed.

"You'll never again have to worry that harm will come to them while you are working. They'll be safe under the watch of men of your choosing. If you ever feel the need to have them protected outside of the home that of course can be arranged.

"Clara will love being a young wife of means in the city. Being around other writers, her friends from school and college...she's meant for better things than Atlantic City. She can entertain in your apartment. And you can be the one who gives her that. Meanwhile, Darmody can work for Meyer and Charlie. They have their...fingers in all sorts of pies."

Clara would love living in New York, Richard knew. She spoke fondly of her time there with Angela, she'd been happy on their trip. And it would allow him to work, to support her without worrying that marrying him was causing her to go without. It would let him get Jimmy and Clara out of Atlantic City, to keep Tommy with them while Jimmy found his way, to repay the enormous debt of gratitude he felt for Jimmy.

And if Rothstein looked at him exactly the way his cousin Harold used to look at butterflies he planned on pinning to a board? So be it. Everything in life carried a price.

Another knock sounded at the door. Charlie and Jimmy stopped their conversation. Richard watched Clara smooth Tommy's hair back from his forehead as she drew the boy closer to her. She caught his eye and tried to smile.

Rothstein stepped into the shadows, while Meyer and Richard wordlessly coordinated covering the door.

NOTES:

AR and Torrio both owned Silver Ghosts.

AR paid assistant bodyguard Legs Diamond $1000 a week, so Richard is a bargain.

And yes, he really owned that apartment building on 57th street. The Darmody-Harrows are going to have VERY interesting neighbors.