p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"It's easier here, to be an inventor. Where the weather doesn't snow so much as cools and rains. Where people listen to him because of who his wife is and not the other way round. He likes it that way, here his name doesn't mean anything except for people having to excuse themselves and correct her name far too often. Even after so many years. It easier to breath here, to feel unburdened, though there will be a guilt he can never truly forget. Dark secrets that not even God, if there were such a thing, may not accept upon his end. Thomas lives for every moment after those thoughts take over in the dark of night. Sometimes he pulls his wife closer, sometimes he climbs carefully from their bed to the nursery to watch their daughter sleep. It's easier to be a husband here, a father. It's easier to be everything they both deserve even if he still believes he doesn't deserve them. It's so easy in fact, that the months seem to go by like seconds and the years minutes./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"They're a few weeks out from actually selling his mining invention, just because it would no longer be used to mine Crimson Peak did not mean it was entirely useless and she had made sure he never gave up the fight for his dream. And it had gotten him, much farther than-/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;""Master Sharpe," Lottie, their daughter's nanny, had come hurrying from the house towards him, "Mistress and the little miss would like you to come up to the house."/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"He wants to argue but they would have not sent the young woman if it had not been deemed important. She did not do well in the summer sun and was much happier playing with his daughter and helping his wife keep the house, she refused to have more servants than that and Lottie could hardly be considered that. His wife did not mind paying a higher wage and it had earned them hard workers that felt more like family than anything else./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;""Of course," he smiles, grabbing a kerchief from his pocket and turning to his foreman, "Think you can hold down the fort, Daniel?"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;""Haven't disappointed ya yet have I?" he called back, a glint in his that he briefly caught in Lottie's before he made his way back to the estate./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"As if they knew something he didn't./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"The doors were open in the summer heat and it gave him both a view straight in and his family a view straight out. Lily wore her brand new sundress, hair tied in her favorite knot on the top of her head. He's more intrigued by what she balances in her tiny little hands. A cake, nothing big, nothing fancy. Just a simple cake. She follows beside, keeping her hands ready, in case the precious thing would take a tumble. But they both manage to make it to the door with grins on their faces./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;""What is this now?" he asks, crouching so he can take the cake in his hands./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;""Happy birthday," she says, seeming quite excited about it and leaning forward to place a sloppy, wet kiss on his cheek, before looking up at her mother expectantly./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;""Perfect," bending over to press her lips to her tiny little ear, "I release you."/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"An excited shriek that seemed far to loud for the little body it came from was all that was left when she ran outside. No doubt she would bother Matthew down by the stables until he helped her ride the docile little pony they had recently acquired for her./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;""Is it my birthday?" he asked, truly having no idea. He had never been the one in charge of that sort of stuff./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"She nods, "We've been so busy the last few years. But she asked when your birthday was when we had hers-"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;""She is the most thoughtful little thing, isn't she?" setting the cake gently on the hall table, looking back at her with suddenly somber eyes, "I'm sorry I don't do these sorts of things for you."/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"She smiles, shaking her head and grasping the lapel of his dirty shirt, "You do so many things for me. Every day. And you have already done so much," the implication hung heavy in the air./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"They try to avoid it when they can, sometimes it is unavoidable. He thinks of every birthday before, or the lack of them. The last few years she had tried, a favorite dinner, some small gift she'd managed to sneak off and buy. But they had stopped the day, made him think about his life, his family. Another year spent in happiness./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;""Will we ever forget?" he asks, pulling her against him, lips ghosting across the long scar that traces the underside of her jaw./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;""No," pulling his head back, pressing her nose to his, "But each day we will think of it a little less and a little less. And soon, we can convince ourselves it was simply a nightmare one of us shared and the other made their own," moving the tips against each other gently./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;""Will she turn out like you? As long as we stay here?" his clinging to hope, almost worried he'll wake up and discover this was all some dream./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"It will be him and Lucille, trapped in that crypt forever. And he desperately never wanted to go back there./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;""Yes," smiling, the tip of her nose moving to catch the few tears that began to fall, "But much more clever and articulate. With much better posture. Just like her father."/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"There's a thousand shoulds, a million more emotions. It's the middle of the day, he has too much to do and there was only so long Lily could be entertained before she began to miss one of them. Thomas was not about to let the moment go to waste. He kissed her, hard, pressing forward towards the steps upstairs./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;""I believe I would like my birthday present, Mrs. Sharpe," smiling against her lips as he began to tug at her skirt, blinking the tears she'd quelled away. As he did so often./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;""Oh, that seems more like a present for me," yanking at his collar before turning and hurrying up the stairs./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"He wasted no time following after./p