Chapter 12

"It's cold enough to kill
But you're so near
That I can hear you breathing

And it's all in your head
I spent today
Pretending I can't see you
And I can't decide
I can't decide

It's trouble

I'd be the one who knocks
While the rest
They come in through the window
They're enemies of mine
Enemies of mine

It's trouble"

- D. Simonett, E. Berry, D. Carroll, T. Saxhaug -

Cora woke the next morning feeling a little disoriented before she remembered that she was on the spare bed in the common room where Nathaniel usually slept. The pleasant, now-familiar scent of him lingered on the pillow and sheets. She allowed herself to breathe it in for just a moment, and wondered if he was as aware of her scent sleeping in her bed, or if he was still sleeping after last night's ordeal. An anxious twinge radiated behind her breastbone, but before she could think about it much, Alice walked over and sat down on the foot of the mattress.

"Oh, good, you're finally awake," she said with some relief. "Cora, we need to talk." Alice was dressed and her hair was freshly braided, but she looked tired and Cora could certainly relate. She vaguely remembered Alice coming inside last night and lying down beside her after she had decided to push the overwhelm of the evening aside and go to bed, helped along by a few shots of whisky. She could not ignore all that had happened, though, and Alice was right; there was a clear need to address a few things. She sat up, still in her dress from yesterday which was now unflatteringly rumpled, and moved closer to Alice.

"How long?" Cora asked simply, looking expectantly at her sister.

"Since the night you and Nathaniel married," she replied, color rising to her face. "Just a kiss!" she added quickly when Cora's eyes widened in shock. "I was feeling alone and scared, and he was trying to help me feel better, and… and well… it just happened."

"And obviously kept happening?" Cora prodded.

"Well I think we certainly realized neither of us was sorry about it," Alice said, ducking her head and glancing away. "But we didn't know how to tell anyone, because you and Nathaniel had just gotten married and everything seemed so awkward already, and aside from that it's so complicated because… because…"

"Because he's not white," Cora finished.

Alice nodded sadly. "We were afraid of what people would say, or God forbid, do. I didn't want him to be hurt, and after what Duncan and his friends did yesterday, I don't think we were wrong to worry. And that's just the beginning." Her eyes filled with tears, and Cora put a comforting arm around her. "I'm sorry," she lamented. "We didn't want any trouble, that's all. I didn't mean for you to find out the way you did. I wanted to tell you, I swear I did, and I was going to have to soon anyway."

"Do you love him?" Cora asked gently.

"Yes," Alice admitted with a quiet sob. "And I don't know what we will do about it with fall coming so soon and them leaving." Tears slipped down her cheeks, and Cora wrapped her in a close hug.

"You could have told me, Alice, really. I never would have been angry."

"You seemed angry last night," she sniffled.

"I wasn't. It was more frustration, but not really at you, it was just… everything. So much happened last night. I was tired and caught off guard, but honestly I can't say I'm very surprised."

"You're not?" Alice looked at her quizzically.

"No. I see the way he looks at you, the way he behaves around you. And the way you are with him, too. Alice, you're lovely and smart and wonderful, of course someone like Uncas would see that and want it. And no matter where he comes from, Uncas is all of those things too."

"I know he is. Cora, I've never… I've never felt comfortable around most men, especially after we lived at Franny's, but he's different. I can't explain it, but almost from the first moment, I felt like I could trust him. He said they wouldn't hurt us, and I knew I could believe that."

"I know what you mean," Cora nodded slowly, thinking of that first night in the glade; Nathaniel touching her bruised face, and her wonder at the foolish way she felt compelled to tell a stranger things she wouldn't normally tell anyone else.

"I see you, too, you know," Alice said with soft conviction, and jutted her chin at the closed bedroom door. "And him, too. What happened last night that had you so wound up, anyway?"

Cora started to reply just as the bedroom door swung open. Nathaniel stepped out wearing the blood-stained shirt he'd had on last night. He looked rather disgruntled at the moment, dark stubble shadowing his face and his bloodshot eyes squinting against the morning light behind the length of his mussed hair.

"Nathaniel," Cora stood up, forgetting everything else. "How are you feeling?"

"Not my best," he grumbled. "Wicked headache. Need to wash up and all my clothes were out here."

"Of course. You're welcome to the washstand and mirror."

"I'll get you some water," Alice said. She grabbed one of the jugs from beside the stove and took it into the bedroom to fill the washstand basin partway, and Cora followed her in with the teakettle to add some hot water. Nathaniel came back with a clean shirt and some of his other things, and the sisters left him to his business. A short time later he emerged again, shaven and in clean clothes, but still not looking like he felt very well.

"I made you a cup of tea with rock willow in it," Cora said, motioning nervously for him to sit down at the table. "It will help your headache, of course, and your hand."

He nodded his thanks when Alice brought him a plate of plain toast. Cora went to wash and dress, hoping to quell the jittery feeling in her stomach. By the time she reappeared he had finished both breakfast and the tea, and was feeling decidedly more human than when he had first woken.

"Better?" Cora asked, sitting down beside him and feeling no less on edge than before and quite unsure of what else to do or say.

"Yes. Thank you for the tea." He paused to gaze at her. Something was off with her this morning. She seemed jumpy as hell and kept fawning over him, yet she was barely able to look him in the eye. He felt badly about the trouble he'd brought her because of the fight, and maybe she was upset over it all. "I apologize for what happened with Heyward, Cora."

"Don't be," she replied woodenly. "He had it coming."

"Maybe so, but it wasn't my intent for you to spend half the night dragging me out of jail, or dealing with my injuries." Or yet another drunk, he chided himself, but didn't say it aloud to her. He had accepted Wyatt's bourbon only because he had been feeling reckless and hadn't expected to be released until morning. He couldn't remember much of what had happened after Cora had come and gotten him out of jail. There was a dim recollection of her arguing hotly with the deputy, and then helping him outside to his brother and Alice once he'd been released to her. He knew she had taken care of stitching up his scalp and wrapping his hand because the evidence was there, but the details inbetween were pretty well nonexistent.

"Speaking of your injuries, let me look at your hand." Cora's request pulled him back out of his own head, and he held the injured hand out to her. She cradled it gently in hers and undid the cloth wrapping, then had him move his fingers some to test it, and seemed satisfied that nothing was terribly wrong. It was starting to bruise along the outside edge, but the wrap had helped keep the swelling from getting too bad, which he was glad of. He watched her intently as she reapplied the wrap, the gentle touch of her fingers suddenly stirring a disjointed memory.

"You're so beautiful…" grabbing her hand, pressing it against his lips…

"And you are very drunk." Pulling her hand away, clearly bothered by his actions, then a beleaguered sigh. "You need to get some sleep."

"C'mere and lie down with me…"

"No." Her face almost frightened as she scrambled off the bed and quickly moved away from him… Then her muttering "Oh God, not again," clearly distressed as she dashed out of the room…

Nathaniel couldn't breathe for a moment as panic and shame spiraled through him. What else had he done to her last night that he couldn't remember?She finished wrapping his hand and looked up at him, noticing his odd expression.

"Is everything all right?" She gave a worried frown. "Is it very painful still? I can see if Doc has - "

"It's fine," he interrupted her, wondering why the hell she was being nice to him when he clearly didn't deserve it. "Do I… Is there anything else I need to apologize to you for?" He cringed inwardly, awaiting her response.

"Well…" she paused for a moment, and then her face fell. "No," she murmured at last, and Nathaniel's heart sank. What had happened that she couldn't even bring herself to tell him? She looked away, trying to hide the disappointment and betrayal in her eyes, but it was so evident that he could physically feel it. He wanted to ask her forgiveness for whatever he'd done to cause it; for being no better than all those other men before, but she didn't look like she wanted to hear that right now, and he could hardly blame her. Instead he got up from the table, hardly able to stand being in the same room with her anymore. He threw on his buckskin jacket and slung his saddlebags over his shoulder.

"I'll be back later," he stated gruffly, and walked out the door without further explanation. Cora and Alice stared after him, and after a long moment Alice turned to her elder sister.

"What got into him?" she asked, utterly perplexed.

"I haven't a clue, but I suppose it doesn't matter," Cora replied, crestfallen, tears gathering along her lower lashes and trembling with her effort to not let them fall as she turned away and went back to the kitchen with the breakfast dishes. Alice wanted to push her for answers, but she suspected that would only upset Cora more, so she let it go for now.

Nathaniel got to his feet on a rise above the stream where Duncan and his small crew were now working. It was getting into evening, and the miners had gathered their portable equipment and were making their way toward town. He stretched his legs briefly, then slung his longrifle across his back and followed them, sure to stay well hidden in the dense vegetation along the riverbank. When he came near the Munro claim he met Uncas watching from his own hidden vantage point, and dropped silently beside him until Duncan and his men were far enough up the road without making any detours.

"No trouble on your end?" Uncas grunted as he got up, collecting his Winchester and his haversack.

"None," Nathaniel confirmed, squinting into the sunset as he watched the other men disappear from view. "You gonna wait around to walk Alice home when Munro's crew is done?"

Uncas shook his head. "No, she didn't come down today. She's probably at Mikhail and Nayak's by now, they were supposed to leave this afternoon, remember?"

"Ah, right," Nathaniel replied absently, recalling now that Alice had agreed to stay at the Ivanovs' for several days while they went to visit Nayak's village and help her family smoke salmon to store for the coming winter. Normally they would take their entire pack of dogs with them and not need help, but one of the females was going to give birth to a litter of puppies any day, so they'd had to leave her behind. Rather than bring the dog to an unfamiliar home, Alice had offered to stay with her so she could be where she felt safe. The arrangement had been made the day they had all been together and he'd built the rat trap for Wyatt, but with everything that had happened since then he had forgotten until now.

"Probably means you ought to stay home some, since Cora will be there alone," Uncas gave his brother a glance, gauging his reaction. "I just figure, you know, since you're putting forth the effort to keep an eye on Heyward and make sure he doesn't cause any trouble…"

"I plan on it," Nathaniel cut him off.

Uncas nodded and they walked on toward Munro's cabin. Nathaniel had spent the last several days everywhere but home, leaving the house early in the morning an only going back in the late evening, and Uncas wondered if Cora not being at work had anything to do with it. The first day Nathaniel had shown up right after breakfast, looking like hell and wanting Uncas to go with him to make sure Wyatt had gotten out of jail. Ever since, he had been quiet and brooding, feeling a constant need to keep tabs on Duncan in case he decided to retaliate after the fight.

"I'm not trying to rile you," Uncas continued, "it's just… for being so concerned about keeping your wife safe, you sure seem to want to avoid her. Did something happen I don't know about?"

"Other than me behaving like a drunken ass and bringing her a heap of trouble she doesn't need? No."

Uncas gave him a sidelong glance. "Don't you think you're being a little dramatic? I doubt she feels that way. I saw the way she went into that jail ready to draw on the first person who crossed her, and how worried she was when she brought you out a bloody mess."

"A bloody, drunk mess. And you weren't there for the rest. Hell, I can't hardly remember it, except for pawing at her and saying things I had no business saying." Nathaniel shook his head with disgust. "And now I've got to worry about Heyward, too. I never should have let myself get so mad when he started in on Cora."

Uncas chuckled. "It seems to me he figured out your one weakness, nimàt. So much for 'just helping her get her inheritance'."

"After all this she'll probably just want to divorce me like I told her she could." Nathaniel sighed raggedly. "Uncas, if Heyward does anything to hurt Cora or Alice because of me… I'd never forgive myself. And I'll kill the son of a bitch if he touches either one of them."

"Not if I get to him first," Uncas vowed.

Nathaniel gave him a calculating look. "And I suppose you'll be making sure Alice stays safe at Mikhail's…" he trailed off with a wicked half-smile.

"You're damn right I will."

"I'm no more blind than you and Wyatt are, you know that, right?"

Uncas grunted and looked away, neither confirming or denying anything, but the deepening color of his skin gave him away. When they got to the cabin, the brothers went inside to find it empty, dim and cold. Nathaniel felt a knot of panic when he called out and Cora did not answer from anywhere.

"She's not at Doc's, is she?" Uncas wondered aloud.

"I don't know," Nathaniel replied. "I hope not. At least not without a safe escort home. Maybe I should - " He stopped abruptly and picked up a piece of paper on the table, blowing out a massive sigh of relief when he read it. "She went to the Ivanovs' with Alice." He glanced at it again. "And apparently there is soda bread and leftover stew on the stove."

"She probably doesn't hate you then, if she cared enough to feed you." Uncas grinned teasingly at his brother.

"Well, she's crazy if she thinks I'm gonna let her walk back here alone in the dark," Nathaniel grumbled, stacking wood in the fireplace and stuffing kindling into the spaces between.

"What are you doing that for?" Uncas asked. "You can't start a fire if you're coming with me."

"The temperature will drop more by the time we get back here, and she'll want the fire ready. She gets cold." He stood and picked up his rifle again. "Come on, let's go before it gets any later."

Uncas followed him out the door, laughing. "You should probably tell her you love her." Nathaniel kept walking, ignoring him.

"I suppose I should get going," Cora sighed, looking out the window at the darkening sky. "It will be completely dark soon, and I don't know when Nathaniel will come home."

Alice sat in Nayak's rocking chair by the fire, worried at her sister's forlorn tone. It had been like this for days, Nathaniel disappearing early and not coming home until it was almost bedtime. Cora had not been going to Doc's, stating that it was best to avoid town for now, specifically the possibility of running into Duncan or any of his cronies. As a result, Alice had been there to see her sister's face every morning when she got up and Nathaniel was already gone, or the way she kept herself busy in the evenings trying to hide her melancholy when he came home late, barely speaking to her long enough to let her check his hand and the stitches in his scalp. Both were healing well, but neither Cora or Nathaniel seemed very happy about anything at all, and she still didn't understand what had happened between them or why they weren't dealing with it.

"You know, you never did tell me what happened to get you in such a tizzy after we brought Nathaniel home from the jail," she said, stroking the head of the pregnant black and white malamute sitting at her feet. The dog closed her ice-blue eyes, laying her head on Alice's lap with a contented snuff.

"Why on earth are you bringing that up now?" Cora deflected.

"Because both of you have been acting odd and miserable ever since. And because I have to live with the two of you, so I think I deserve to know what's bothering the people I care about." Alice raised a brow pointedly.

Cora was quiet for several beats before she told Alice everything about what had happened in the bedroom while she patched Nathaniel up, why she had been so nerve-wracked when she had discovered Alice and Uncas outside, and why she had been so upset the next morning when he hadn't seemed to remember a thing and had simply chosen to hold her at arm's length. When she was done, Alice didn't know whether to laugh or feel sorry for them. Cora's obvious distress won the pity option, along with the notion that she would rather like to take Nathaniel by the shoulders and give him a firm shake for being so obtuse and upsetting her sister. What they needed was to be locked in a room together until they resolved all this foolishness.

"Cora… have you told him any of this? It might help for him to know what really happened. What if he thinks he did something horrible to you?"

"Well, I would love to tell him, if he would speak to me for more than two minutes before he just disappears again." Cora huffed indignantly. Her ire only lasted a moment before her face fell into despondence again. "Maybe he does remember, and maybe he's stayed away because he didn't really mean any of it and he can't bring himself to tell me that."

Alice rolled her eyes. "If you believe that, you're more of a fool than Nathaniel is."

"Maybe so, but we didn't marry for any of the right reasons, so it's hard to tell."

"Let me ask you, if anyone else around here besides Nathaniel Poe had asked you to marry them, for the sole purpose of securing Papa's accounts and rescuing you from Duncan, would you have said yes?"

"Well, no one else did, now, did they?" Cora retorted.

"You know what I'm getting at. And do you really think he would have offered if he didn't actually want to? I think deep down he wanted to marry you, and you wanted him too, even if neither of you knew it very well at the time because everything was so awful after Papa died. My God, Cora, can't you see how lost on you he is? I've seen it since the very beginning, long before all this came about."

Cora sighed. "All I know is that when Duncan proposed, it never felt right. I remember even then being aware that he didn't make me feel the way Nathaniel did when he looked at me. At the time I had no reason to expect any kind of future with Nathaniel, but now that one was essentially dropped in my lap, I find… I find that I want it, Alice. I truly do. But now everything is such a mess, and he won't talk to me."

"Well, maybe he will now," Alice said, pointing at the window and getting up from the chair as the dog rose and barked. Cora looked, catching sight of the shadowed figures of Nathaniel and Uncas coming up the footpath in the dark, and she realized that Nathaniel must have gone home and found the note she had left him.

"Oh," she whispered, her stomach dropping like a rock. She hadn't thought he would want to come here, but she was glad to see Uncas for Alice's sake.

"He won't have a choice about escaping you now," Alice whispered fervently. "Go home with him tonight, Cora. Tell him everything. He said before that he wouldn't touch you unless you asked him to, so… just ask."

"Alice!" Cora hissed, her face flaming red.

"Well, it's true!" Alice threw over her shoulder as she went to the cabin door to greet Uncas and Nathaniel. "And now he won't be sloshing drunk."

She opened the door with a wide smile, and Cora tried her best to paste one on as well. When Nathaniel came in and greeted her with only a silent nod, hardly affording her a glance, it faltered a bit.

"I'm surprised to see you," Cora said to him as brightly as she could manage to. "I wasn't sure you would be home yet."

"Well, I didn't want you to have to walk home by yourself," he said gruffly, his eyes darting around the room.

"And we had to make sure that Miss Alice was safe and settled, too," Uncas added, his eyes settling on her with an affectionate grin. Alice blushed prettily and returned his smile.

"I appreciate the sentiment, and now that I am assured that Cora will not have to go home alone, I will worry less. It is getting rather dark now, perhaps you should go. I'm sure you are tired." She looked at Nathaniel, and then Cora, nodding silent encouragement to her sister as she shooed them toward the door.

"Are you sure?" Cora asked nervously. "I could stay, I don't - "

"I am fine," Alice replied quickly. "Uncas will keep me company for a while, and then I believe I'll turn in for the night. Asiavik will guard me well." She patted the dog's soft, fluffy head. After a few more stops and starts and a reluctant bidding of good night to Alice and Uncas, Cora put her woolen shawl on and left with Nathaniel, who looked equally apprehensive.

"Perhaps they will settle whatever is between them now," Alice said quietly to Uncas as they stood in the doorway and watched their siblings disappear into the night. Uncas could sense the same kind of worry in her now as he had the night his brother had married Cora, and Alice had not wanted to leave her sister behind to an unknown fate. He took her hand, his long, slim fingers intertwining with hers, and his thumb stroked the inside of her wrist.

"Do not worry, Alice," he reassured her in his soft baritone, gazing down at her. "He loves her." Something in the depths of his eyes made her breath catch when he said this, and she wondered for a moment if Nathaniel was who he spoke of. Her fingers curled around his and she tilted her head onto his shoulder.

"She loves him, too."

Cora walked in silence beside Nathaniel, trying to find the right moment to say something about everything that had happened, to ask him why he had been so aloof the last few days, but she couldn't quite bring herself to do it. She wanted to know, but part of her was also terrified of what answer he might give her; what if he had truly decided that he just didn't want her? She walked along with her mental burden, worrying silently to herself and trying to screw up her courage, when he suddenly spoke.

"Come the end of this month, it'll be time for anyone who isn't spending the winter here to leave. We'll be headed back to Seattle and to parts south."

Cora nodded numbly, knowing that this was what he and his family did every year. "Yes, I… I suppose Alice and I really ought to figure out a plan of some sort. Wyatt and Josie will be going back for the winter as well, perhaps we might go together…" she trailed off, growing sad to hear herself speak of their imminent departure out loud. It had been easy on their arrival in Nome, and even soon after Edmund's death, to look forward to leaving this place at the end of the summer. Now that leaving meant separating from Nathaniel, however, she no longer wished for it at all unless she could stay with him – and she knew Alice felt the same about Uncas. She would have to put her pride aside and give him an ultimatum. She opened her mouth and took a breath, but he continued before she made a sound.

"We can travel together back to Seattle. It would be easiest to find a lawyer there who can draw up divorce paperwork, and make sure you get your father's gold profits free and clear. An uncontested divorce won't be difficult to get done quickly."

"I..." Cora stopped, too stunned to speak for a moment when the sharp sting of his words hit her. She looked at him, searching for any hint of what he was thinking or feeling, but his face was too shadowed to see well in the dark and his voice gave nothing away. "No, I don't guess it would be difficult," she managed to reply at last, trying with all she had to keep herself composed. She wanted to scream at him, 'No, I don't want any of that at all!' but found she could not breathe another word over the pressure of what felt like her heart shattering inside her ribs. He wanted the divorce. What she wanted didn't matter if he didn't want the same things, too. She had so hoped that she'd been right about what she saw in him, that he felt what he made her feel in return, but maybe she had read him all wrong, and what did she know of love and desire anyway? She walked on, praying that her face wasn't any more visible than his, because there would be no worse humiliation right now than for him to see her cry over this when he seemed fine with it all, damn him.

Author's Note:

Y'all. It's been a wild few months. The vast majority of the readers who follow my Tumblr or correspond with me, know that I had COVID-19 back in early December. You know, because life never stops going full tilt in my world, right? I got moderately sick, and only moderately thanks to a monoclonal antibody infusion. I have an autoimmune disease, so my doctor thought that was best to mitigate the situation. It took about a month, but I feel fully recovered at this point. My family was ok too, thank goodness.

I had hoped to write while I was down for the count, but one of my least favorite things about the virus was "COVID brain", which made my already tenuous mental organization pretty much nonexistent, so not much writing got done. I went full tilt as much as I could once I felt better though, and finally broke my writer's block by charging ahead and skipping over sections I had trouble with in favor of parts I had already made a lot of notes for over the last couple of years (have I seriously been writing this story since 2018?!), and then all I had to do was fill in gaps. Once it was all done, I found I had over 12,000 words, which is a LOT of emotional roller coaster for you all to read at once, and I decided to divide it into two chapters.

This chapter is pretty much the "conversations that need to happen" chapter. No way was Alice getting away with not explaining things to Cora after she caught her and Uncas red-handed (or red-lipped as it were) in the last chapter. Nathaniel, meanwhile, has made a gloriously confounded mess of literally everything, and DAMN does he have some stuff to make up for now. Poor guy, he's so decent that it may very well be his downfall. Now it just remains to be seen if Cora and Nathaniel will resolve all this emotional angst once and for all. Clock's ticking…. Also, by the way, the sled dog that Alice is doggy-sitting in preparation for adorable puppies? Her name, Asiavik, is the Inupiaq word for "blueberry", because she has pretty blue eyes.

Thank you all for caring, sending messages, and most of all for continuing to read and wait for my ridiculously slow timeline. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and that you'll enjoy the next one far more…

Music Inspirations for this chapter:

1. The morning after/Nathaniel leaves: "Gone Too Soon" Sarah Jarosz

2. Nathaniel & Cora's rollercoaster of angst and emotional turmoil: "Trouble" Trampled by Turtles