Chapter 47

We'll talk about it in the morning. Jack stares up at the ceiling, the slight glimmer of streetlights outside their bedroom window just bright enough to illuminate the constellations painted above their heads, white spots in interminable darkness. If you joined them all up, they'd spell out those words. We'll talk about it in the morning. Against his side, Katherine shifts, her breathing slowly evening out as she slips into proper restfulness.

He should go downstairs. Jack knows this. He'll be able to think more clearly downstairs, when he doesn't have to worry about accidentally drifting off and then waking Katherine with his nightmares. But he lies there a little longer, because the smell of her, the feel of her, warm and close, comforts and calms him in a way that really ought to terrify him, that she has this much power over him without even trying. We'll talk about it in the morning. She must be really mad. Maybe she'll ask for an annulment. After all, illiteracy probably counts as a reason for that, right? Maybe she'll just ask him to keep their marriage in name only. It wouldn't be ideal, of course, but he thinks that he could live with that. He could deal with most things if they could keep living in the same house, if he gets to see her face every day even if it isn't filled with love for him. It's more than he deserves. We'll talk about it in the morning. What the fuck does that even mean?

Sighing, Jack eases his arm out from under her body, slow and careful, before slipping out of bed and down the stairs. In the living room, he lies down on the sofa and stares at a different ceiling, this one without stars, and hopes, in vain, that it might spell out the answer.

At some point, he must fall asleep, because he wakes up an indeterminate amount of time later to hear somebody speaking his name. It's only the voice, soft, kind, familiar, that keeps him from screaming when he opens his eyes to see a figure looming over him. That guard from the Refuge, Sanderson, he'd done that, loomed over them like that before he beat them. But this figure isn't as big as Sanderson. Katherine, his half-asleep brain realises, a wash of relief relaxing his muscles, it's just Katherine.

"Move over." She tells him, poking at his side once she sees the recognition in his eyes.

Jack obliges, pressing himself more closely against the back of the sofa so that she can lie down next to him and cuddle into his chest. He doesn't know exactly what's going on yet, he never does fully understand the way that Katherine's brain works, it's so much more complicated than his, but he likes her feeling of her body when it's pressed against his so he just wraps his arms around her.

"I know we fought, Jack, but that's no reason to sleep on the sofa." She says. He can feel her breath against his collarbone. "Do you want to tell me why I keep waking up to find that you've sneaked out of bed to sleep downstairs?"

He's glad, suddenly, of their position. It means that he can look at the fire, its embers still not quite extinguished, instead of having to look at the disappointment that must be there in her eyes. "Didn't want to wake you. Nightmares, an' all."

Katherine winces. "I know I didn't handle it well-"

"'S not that, you handled it fine." He cuts her off. He's not having her thinking that it's her bloody fault. "'S jus' no sense in me wakin' you."

She jerks away from him, almost falling off the sofa in the process, forcing him to look into her eyes. Katherine takes his face in her hands, stubble prickling her palms. "I love you. I married you because I want you. Not you minus the difficult parts. I'd much rather you stayed in bed and we could work through your nightmares together than you dealing with them on your own down here."

What had he ever done to deserve somebody like her? "I love you too."

"Are you going to sleep in bed from now on, then?"

Jack nods, and even that feels like he's just had an anvil lifted off his chest. He hadn't quite realised just how much he's been missing waking up with Katherine in his arms. She wants him in spite of everything. That's a miracle in itself.

"Good. Now, about the numbers-"

And the anvil drops right back onto his chest. Breathless with the pressure, he squeezes the words out. "I was a jerk, 'm sorry. I shoulda told you 'fore we got married, I know it ain't fair o' me."

Katherine frowns. "I'm not angry that you don't know your numbers, Jack. I'm angry that you didn't tell me."

Jack looks down, rubbing his thumb over the band around his ring finger. "Didn't want you knowin' I's stupid."

"You're not stupid. I want to know you, Jack." Katherine rubs her thumbs over his cheekbones, soothing and rhythmic. "We're in this together; I promised you forever, remember?"

He swallows heavily, then nods.

"Anything else I should know, while we're sharing, hm?" A smile twitches at her lips. "A body under the floorboards? A skeleton in the closet?"

Jack doesn't laugh. He doesn't think that he has enough breath left. "I think I's told you most stuff. There's… other stuff. From the Refuge. From my old man."

"I can wait for you to tell me those things. Until you're ready. But you have to tell me things like this. I need you to talk to me. Yes?"

"Alright."

When Katherine wakes up, she's overheated and a bit squashed, which, she realises, is probably due to the fact that Jack is half on top of her, pressing her down into the couch. It's vaguely uncomfortable, but she doesn't want to move him. They'll have to move soon enough to get ready for work. She wants a few minutes more of this, the pressure of his body against hers, the morning light streaming in through the window, faint noises of horses' hooves and cheerful voices outside. Katherine truly believes that she could live forever in this moment, here, with Jack. Her Jack. She can't help it, brings her hand up from where it's resting against his chest to card her fingers through his hair, mussed from sleep. Amongst the dark curls, her pale fingers stand out, her wedding ring glinting like a buried treasure. Jack. Her diamond in the rough. Or a rough diamond, one of the two. Nightmares and numbers mean nothing anymore. He's hers, for better or worse, and they've stood up and said it before God and their friends and their family, and it's a promise that she's never going to break. That she never wants to break.

Her heart, however, does break when Jack wakes up and the first words out of his mouth are:

"Is we… is we okay? You an' me?"

"Jack, we're always okay." She sighs, stroking her hand further in his hair and watching his eyes flutter closed. Sometimes she wonders whether she has a housecat for a husband. "You're clever and wonderful and I love you. People have rows, remember?"

"Yeah." Jack murmurs, dropping his head against her side, keening into her touch. "You's clever an' wonderful an' I love you too. I don' tell you enough."

"You tell me plenty. Still, I never object to hearing it."

When she finally pulls her hand away from his hair (if only so that she can press a quick kiss to his lips) he opens his eyes again.

"Breakfast?" Trust Jack to be thinking about food after a conversation like that.

"I'll do coffee if you do toast?"

"Deal."

…

Jack wakes up feeling like he's drowning every night that week. Katherine, however, is nothing if not a quick learner. She doesn't touch him until he gathers himself enough to swing his legs over the side of the bed and sit, elbows on knees, head in hands, and take deep breaths to keep himself from throwing up. It's only then, when his skin has stopped burning and his breaths have evened out into something resembling normality, that she wraps her arms around his middle and presses kisses along the line of his shoulder, up to the back of his neck, coaxing him back to her, back to reality. She lets him wrap her up in himself, their bodies pressed impossibly close, lets him cling to her like a lifeboat until he falls asleep again. They don't talk about it, not really. Jack doesn't want to and Katherine doesn't think she can handle hearing about anything that can make her husband, strong as he is, scream like that. She'd listen, if he needed her to, of course, they both know this, but she's quietly grateful that she doesn't have to. They're here, together, and that's enough.

The night that leads into Saturday is much the same, except that Katherine doesn't fall asleep again in Jack's arms, instead lying there and staring at the stars on the ceiling as if they have the answer to how to approach this tea of Rose's that afternoon. She focuses on the band that weighs heavy on her finger, runs her other fingers over it, quick swipes of sweat-sheened skin, just enough to reassure her. No matter what happens, she reminds herself, you have Jack to come home to. And she's pretty sure that everything will be alright so long as she has him.

She feels far from sure, however, when she's trying to figure out what to wear. Katherine has never been one to put much stock in clothing, preferring the practical over the fashionable, but this feels important, somehow, like she's making a first impression despite her having known these girls for her entire life. It's like she doesn't know how to be one of them anymore.

"How do I look in this dress?"

She bursts into the living room. Jack peers at her over his easel. He's got a new commission going for some rich old lady who desperately wants a portrait of her ugly little dog. Jack had turned his nose up when he'd been sent a photograph of the most hideous pug either of them had ever seen, but they'd both been considerably more amenable to the idea after realising quite how much the cheque was for that had been sent with the photograph.

"I mean," Jack grins at her, eyes crinkling, a dot of blue paint inexplicably, adorably, having found a home on his cheek, "you looks better without it."

"Jack!"

She snatches a paint-stained rag off the mantelpiece, because in this house she never seems to be more than three feet from one, and flicks it at his head. Jack ducks neatly, emerging from behind his canvas once again with his grin considerably softened.

"You looks lovely."

Katherine frowns, looking down at herself in the skirt and blouse combination. It's simple, most of her clothes are, these days. After a couple of weeks of being moved in, she'd gone through her wardrobe and ditched a good number of her formal dresses, aware that for a life amongst Jack and the newsies, hard-wearing fabrics that are easy to wash and mend are vastly preferable. Still, it makes her feel a little plain.

"You'd tell me I look lovely if I was wearing a potato sack."

"I would." Jack agrees. "Don' mean it ain't true, though."

"Ugh." She scrubs at her face with her hands, rubbing at her eyes, her skin, as if she wants to reveal some high-society self underneath. "Why am I so nervous?"

"No idea, sweetheart. You's goin' to be perfect."

That, Katherine thinks, is a gross overestimation of her abilities. Then again, it's Jack. She's pretty sure that he'd follow her into a burning building if she told him that it was safe. So she walks to the Graceton's house and, pressing her fingers against the warm metal of her wedding ring one last time, she marches up to Rose's front door and rings the bell, head held high.

It takes her exactly seven minutes to remember why she always despised these things, with the same mundane conversation about dress styles and who is engaged to whom, and the same selection of vile cucumber sandwiches. Katherine can think of few things she hates more than cucumber, and most of them are also present at these teas. Speaking of which, the utter delight that is Cornelia is naturally present, along with Eliza who merely ducked her head when Katherine entered, and a few of Rose's married friends. Katherine is pretty sure that she's met some of those women before, but can't quite pin them down, so smiles politely at all of them and makes a beeline for the cake. Sugar. Sugar is the way through this.

She's halfway through a slice of really rather exquisite lemon drizzle cake when Rose drops her bombshell and Katherine realises exactly why she's been invited.

"So, I have news." She announces, her countenance glowing. The women make excited, tittery noises. "I am with child!"

"Oh, Rose, how wonderful!"

"Congratulations! When are you due?"

And so on the conversation goes. Katherine has to forcibly extract herself from her own thoughts to congratulate Rose. Who will she tell, she wonders, when she conceives? She can't imagine gathering these women together to tell them. Despite the fact that she certainly doesn't want children yet, though, and she certainly doesn't want the kind of fuss that is currently erupting around the tea-table, she can't help but feel a little envious of Rose. She wonders what it will be like, to have a child that they made, her and Jack, inside of her, in her arms, running around the house. It's the kind of contentment that makes her breath catch in her throat.

Katherine is pulled out of her daydream by more tittering. One of the women (Katherine is about eighty-six percent sure her name is Frances) leans forward with a conspiratorial smile. "You must feel more content now that your pregnancy has dulled your husband's urges, at least."

"Oh, yes, it is such a relief." Rose giggles. "Roger used to reach for me so often as twice a week, but now that I am with child, several weeks can expire without so much as a sniff of interest."

More giggles from around the table, the married women nodding knowingly. One of them (and this one Katherine can't even guess at her name) who has a swollen stomach, her hand resting atop it as if to draw attention to its roundness, nods sagely. "Oh, yes. Before the timetable was frankly alarming – three times a week, if you can believe it."

Three times a week? And they think that a chore? Katherine shudders to think of what the rest of their married lives are like. She can't imagine going so long without that kind of affection now. In the darkness of their bedroom, Jack kisses her like a man praying. Whether that escalates or not, she hardly thinks that she could live without it, the idea of cold sheets between their bodies a repulsive one. These women, with their sordid concerns, the idea of the marital bed as something merely perfunctory, a duty to be done… that repulses her even more.

"What about you, Katherine?" Cornelia turns to Katherine, an affected smile playing across her lips. "You are the newest bride here. How often does your husband make demands of you?"

Katherine takes a long, casual sip of her tea before answering. "Once or twice, usually."

"Once or twice a week is most reasonable." Rose nods approvingly, as if such is an appropriate number, as if Katherine has given the correct answer.

Such an action riles her, reminds her of her father's assessing eyes, and she opens her mouth before she can properly think it through. "I meant once or twice a day."

Eliza drops her pink-patterned china teacup and it shatters on the floor. Frances (is it Frances? Her surety has dipped to seventy-three percent) breaks into a coughing fit. Katherine rather thinks she's terrified them. She can only imagine Jack's face if he was witnessing this right now, the way that his lips would twist as he suppresses his laughter. Such a smile must play across her own face, because Cornelia turns to her, reproving and arch, motioning rather violently for the maid to come and clean up the broken china.

"Come, Katherine." She snaps, lips pressed tightly together. "Such things are not to be joked about."

That's rich, considering that you asked me. "I am not joking."

"But – but I –"

"Such are love matches, I suppose." Eliza mutters.

Katherine turns to make her answer, but Rose's hand covers her own, the woman leaning forward in wide-eyed concern, as if Katherine is some little child requiring careful treatment, protection. "Katherine. Do you need me to ask Roger to talk to your husband?"

Oh, good grief. "Whatever about?"

Rose blinks. "Well, you shouldn't be expected to –"

"I am not unhappy with the arrangement." Katherine interrupts, thoroughly tired of this whole debacle. "You merely asked me how often. Was my answer not plain?"

Rose, horror spreading across her face like spilled water across a dainty tablecloth, covers her mouth with her hand. Several of the women around the table follow suit. Seconds pass before Rose opens her mouth to try again and Frances (sixty-seven percent), seeing her friend's intentions, practically screams:

"Silk!" Six heads snap to face her. She quiets a little, flushing. "I have a new dress coming from Paris. In yellow silk."

…

Katherine elects to walk home from Rose's house, rather than taking a carriage. She's already proved herself to be improper enough today, clearly, what will a little more impropriety do? Her expression remains stormy until she reaches the corner of their street and sees Jack, leaning in the doorway of their house chatting to Mrs. Ross from next door, and the clouds that have fallen in front of her eyes clear away, and it's really difficult to stay annoyed anymore.

She only gets halfway down the street before Jack spots her, lifting his hand and waving, a stupidly wide grin on her face. It's thoroughly unladylike, but she lifts her own hand in an equally enthusiastic wave, and quickens her pace, nearing him.

"You know," Katherine hears Mrs. Ross say as she approaches them, "my daughter has the most terrible taste in men."

"Oh, Mr. Chavers seems real nice, ma'am." Jack replies, clearly trying very hard not to laugh.

"Oh no, a dirty man, he is. Leaves his socks in all places around the house. I always say, you can tell everything you need to know about a man from his socks." Mrs. Ross shakes her head, despairing, completely oblivious to her audience's amusement. As Katherine starts up the path, the old woman turns her beady gaze on Jack. "You don't leave your socks lying around, do you?"

"Wouldn't dream o' it." Jack lies smoothly, reaching out an arm to pull Katherine into his side in a show of easy affection which will, in all likelihood, be reported to the entire street as an shameless expression of animalistic sexuality by the next morning. "Nasty habit, that is." Katherine pinches Jack's side to let him know that his little fib hasn't gone unnoticed. He just grins down at her.

"Good, good." Mrs. Ross nods approvingly, turning her gaze upon Katherine. "You've trained him well."

"I have." Katherine smiles. "You'll have to excuse us, Mrs. Ross, but my husband here must be in dire need of his dinner."

"Thank you." Jack chuckles just as soon as the front door is closed, tugging her tighter into their side hug in gratitude for her saving him from that particular conversation (and conversation, here, is defined as mode of torture).

"You're a filthy liar." Katherine laughs, pressing him up against the hallway wall and pulling him down to kiss her.

Delighted, Jack grins against her lips. "An' yet you married me."

"Your socks are strewn across our bedroom floor –"

"Like your hairpins ain't on every surface –"

"- and you lied about it to Mrs. Ross! Shame on you, Kelly." Katherine smacks at his chest, playful, but he catches hold of her hand, chuckling as he twines their fingers together.

"An' what did you want me to say? I leaves my socks everywhere, can never find a matchin' pair. Oh, but here's your nose back, Mrs. Ross. I's found it in my business."

She can't help but snicker at that, even as Jack tugs her into the living room and pulls her down onto the sofa with him. "How was your day?"

"Alright." Jack shrugs, settling her against him, her back against his chest, stretched out and languid. She hums in contentment, which Jack takes as his cue to continue. "How'd your tea go?"

"Terribly." She sighs, letting her head fall back onto Jack's shoulder and closing her eyes. "I scandalised everyone."

Jack snorts quietly. "Sounds like you. Tell me, what'd you do this time?"

"They were comparing how often they lie with their husbands and –"

"They was what?"

"I know, that was my reaction exactly, and they asked me and -" Katherine breaks off, blushing.

"An' what?" Jack presses, twining his fingers in and out of hers where their hands rest on her stomach, restless and serpentine, in a way that is thoroughly distracting.

Katherine feels embarrassment heat her cheeks. "I assumed everybody lay together as often as we do."

The noise that Jack makes, behind her, tells her that he, at least, had been under no delusions as to the regularity of other couples' sex lives. Honestly, she has been finding Mrs. Ross' reactions to their affectionate noises rather amusing up until now, but now, perhaps, she wonders whether they're right to be scandalised. And then Jack presses a kiss to the side of her neck, and she decides that if they're scandalised, then that's entirely their problem.

"What did you tell them?" Jack murmurs against her skin. She can feel the gravel of his voice shiver through her, buzzing down into her toes.

"The truth. I said once or twice, I meant per day, they thought I meant a week, and now they all think that I'm a slut and that you're a brute – why are you laughing?" She breaks off, tilting her head to the side to peer up at him.

"'Cos, I love you." Jack shakes his head, his chest rumbling with laughter. "'Specially when you's traumatisin' those high-society folks."