"He's going to find out where you are."

Nate had said the words with no sense of urgency or fear, over dinner one night. The kind of dinner, the spread, the presence of another male at the table, she felt a slow burn spread just under her ribs at remembering when such a thing was possible for her, wondering if it ever would be again.

Nate had not asked questions about specifically why Nancy was in their guest room, but from the veiled glances she caught between Bess and her husband, Nancy knew the reason had been passed on.

She knew she had reacted badly. But there was no good way to react; she could think of no other course than the one she had taken, to leave her with face or any sense of self-worth.

"We kissed."

The anger, the hypocritical anger; he had seen her, locked in another's embrace, exposed and listless, the circumstantial evidence so damning she could barely even think of it. But she, blameless, disdained, had been left with wall after icy wall he had slammed against her. Not now. Not this on top of the support he had taken from her, the children he had taken from her, the grief welled up so deep she could never touch the bottom.

She had taken the children back from him, the suitcases she had so hastily packed, and hours later with her feet just beneath the covers, knees tucked to her chest, eyes glazed with damning tears, she had sobbed over the russet silk she had wanted to wear for him. Her children wailed with her, the three of them with angry red-blotched faces keening together, and she had gathered them to her chest and wept. Wept safe in Bess's house, among the pale castoffs and faded rugs.

Oh God, the taste was so bitter, the faith, it had been so easy to look the other way after seeing the hurt in his eyes, the hurt she couldn't bear to deepen, only to find...

"Oh God," she gasped, and Helene had wailed in her arms

love would be dead in me

Ned's face when Jean's arm had been around her throat, a part of her had chosen death over the oblivion that would be his embrace

the way he had trembled when rinsing the blood off her skin, the hours later, speechless and drawn tired

He had not touched her with such intent in four months. The slow erosion of her resistance had begun before then, the horror of the doctor's slow voice as he had traced the lines of her fall, the way it had been stopped, cauterized, by Ned's leaving.

"I know he'll find me," she replied to Nate.

"What do you want us to do when he does?"

--

"Maybe this is all for the best."

Ned brought the glass to his lips and took a long, determined sip, draining it and bringing it back down to the countertop with an uneven click. He was alone; Hannah had taken Amy back to her parents for the school year and was elsewhere, in her shiny metal trailer, having dispensed all the wisdom and goodwill she could to him before she'd departed. She was one who had never claimed that any of their separations had been for the best, and she had believed from the beginning that they would end up together. But the comfort granted by her certainty had faded.

He looked around the house; the house was Nancy's, he had given it to her with no rancor, had never thought himself able or willing to set foot in it again. But he had found the bloodstain, dark and camouflaged in the shadow of their island, and the house had been baptized, exorcised of its demon.

And he had given her another.

Clear gleaming curves of ice remained in the bottom of his glass. He refreshed it with a few more cubes and sloshed more liquid in, wanting to drown the ice, but found it impossible to outrun.

Maybe if he called Danielle he could get her to explain...

And despite the alcohol he remembered the look in her eyes, on her face, when she had pulled back, her pale skin flushed with excitement, and knew that whatever explanation Danielle could possibly give, Nancy would never hear.

Their children. She had taken their children. Hana and Helene in her arms, and he knew how it was to look down at them and remember and wish so bitterly to forget.

She had his number blocked. He knew that. Desperation welled in his throat, black and thin. She had to understand. He had to make her understand. But she would not see him. And he didn't want to wait until her anger had cooled, hardened into a pallid forgiveness for his crimes that allowed him no further contact with her or their children. He had already given her a week; he was afraid to give her any more.

"I didn't," he whispered, his voice rough and slight, and took another sip. Then he dug out his cell phone.

He knew where he would go, were he her. He called George and eliminated her as a possibility, then capped the bottle and stared blankly at the television, waiting. The night faded into crickets and fireflies. He took a shower, cold, remembering her face in shadow beneath his palms, and after that every single inch of their house was a living invisible snapshot of her laughing, crying, screaming at him, screaming under him, everything, and he slammed it out of his mind as he toweled off and dressed in grey.

i won't mourn you

The silver Jag gleamed in the moonlight as he abandoned it in the elementary school parking lot and jogged the few blocks left, intoxication burning off with every step he slammed into the pavement. The bedroom window was dark, as was the porch light, but he didn't want to risk a walk around to find Nancy's window.

Her car was in the garage. For someone who used to be a PI...

Ned stopped the thought and retreated cautiously. None of the telltale signs; no silver wires gleaming at their windows, no keypad gleaming silent sentinel at the front door. He had scoped Bess's house out before, and found it unchanged.

Best way to do it is act like you own the place. He took a slow breath and walked up to their front door.

Two choices for the room they had put her in. One door had a light escaping from underneath, and his heart sank as he gently twisted the knob and opened the door of the darker room. No shallow even breath greeted him, no warm confusion of human occupancy. He snicked the door shut again, then turned to the lit room. If she had locked it, a good kick at knob-height would break the lock, but alert everyone in the house. He rested his fingertips on the knob for a minute, then closed his eyes and twisted it by slow degrees, waiting for some noise or indication that he had been too careless.

The light shone from a reading lamp beside her bed. Their children were peaceful and quiet in the crib beside him, but he afforded them only a glance before looking over.

And meeting her blue eyes.

He had only a second to register the faint pink of the skin, swollen around her eyes, before the book in her lap dropped. Ned pulled the door closed behind him and leapt across the room as her lips pulled back from her teeth in a snarl, her hand darting under her pillow and coming back wrapped around gleaming metal. She drew a breath and he snaked his left hand under her grasp and pressed it firmly against her mouth, keeping the scream in her throat. She drew her knees up and kicked him away, her breath hot against his fingers, the awkward grip so hard to maintain that he fell back, watching her pant. She had flicked the knife over his sleeve and he felt a hot thread of stinging pain over his bicep.

He lost his balance and grabbed her foot, so quick she couldn't kick him away, and they fell off the bed together in an audible crash. One of the girls drew breath in a keening wail as Nancy scissor-kicked her husband in the solar plexus, his breath rushing out in a terrible gust, but he pushed himself off the floor and onto her, scrabbling for purchase, her scalp pressed hard against the nightstand, fire in her eyes, her face scarlet as they wrestled.

"Don't scream," he said, managing only a whisper, nursing his sore stomach.

She drew her legs up but he planted his knees on her stomach and she winced, and he remembered how recently she had given birth. He slipped off so his legs were against her waist, his knees planted on either side, and she lashed up with the knife. He grabbed her hand but could not force her to release it, and they stayed that way, locked together, panting. A red mark was already fading into a bruise on her forehead. He felt something drip to his elbow.

She sucked in a swift breath again but managed only a squeak that carried little above the wail of their daughter as he cut her off again. She looked away for a minute and he narrowed his eyes, then yelped as she bit into his palm, drawing blood. When he was off balance, his grip having lessened slightly, she swung her arm around in an arc, caught a handful of his hair in her hand, and he swayed to the side with the force of her weight before he caught himself. She shoved his other shoulder, and he retreated under the point of her knife. The back of his head slammed against the floor and he groaned, Nancy's knees planted on his inner thighs, the knife at his throat. She was breathing heavily, and she tossed her hair back from her glowing face.

Their daughter caught the movement and her gasping howls trailed off to uncertain cries.

Ned brought his feet together, still in heavy-soled shoes, as she opened her mouth again. He grasped her wrists, forcing the knife away from his skin, folding his body double as his joined feet hit her squarely in the spine, just beneath her shoulder blades. He held their hands up in the air as she flew over him and her legs crashed into a dresser, and she let out a soft hiss of pain. Her fingers shifted the knife in her grasp and he saw it just above his face, tip downward, and drew her hands down in an arc, bashing them against the metal foot of the bed until she cried out in pain and dropped the knife onto the carpet.

"We need to talk," he panted, just as the door of the bedroom was hesitantly pushed open, Nate and Bess framed against the darkness. A ceramic snowman was claimed by gravity and fell from the dresser onto the floor, sending Hana into a fresh set of anguished cries.

--

Ned waited on the front porch, safely out of the angry gazes of the three adults. He had wanted to bring the children with him, but Bess had forbid it, her cheeks hot in an authoritative glow of anger; so he had placed Hana back in the crib, his arm still smarting from the wound, a knot forming on the back of his head, and walked out to the front porch, his head hanging.

He had no guarantee that she would even grant him an audience, other than the swiftly fading hope he didn't dare to fan, still glowing faintly in him. He tortured himself with the memory of her eyes, the fierce anger, her cries of pain at his hand.

The living room light had long been out when he heard the soft creak of floorboards. Nancy walked out in her thin cotton nightshirt, a bandage showing dimly on her right hand. Her arms were wrapped tight around her chest just under her breasts, and she was looking everywhere but to his eyes.

"I don't have a thing to say to you and you've said about all you need to to me."

Ned stayed silent, watching the impossibly hard line of her jaw as she waited for him to open his mouth so she could slam him back down. Her eyes met his and his heart sank at the anger there before she looked away.

"We can work out custody later," she said, but her voice was far from casual. She tilted her head back and he recognized the gesture, saw the minute trembling in the dismissing wave.

There were no words, and he knew that. He pushed himself carefully out of the porch swing and approached her, expecting and accepting the retreat, her bare feet sliding backwards over the slats until her back was against the safety of her best friend's front door. Fire and ice, the reddish blond hair curling over her shoulders in a soft flip, the sparking blue of her contemptuous recovered gaze.

"What the hell do you think you can say to me," she said, the edge of her voice cracking, and he recognized the sound of it, the fierce malformed hope that it had all been a terrible terrible bad dream, but the bitter taste in the mouth to belie it.

He leaned toward her and she pushed him back, fists beating against his chest, the dull soft thud and burst of pain with each one. Her wounds were bandaged, but he could feel the tearing heat of the wound with each flex of his arm. He forced her arms to her sides and she broke his hold, panting, glaring.

Something soft. Something understanding. Something he would have been forced to listen to during those terrible nights in the hotel room when he just wanted it all to be a bad dream.

"I hate you for this," he heard, in his own voice, coming out of his own mouth, his breath hot and rushed, and was horrified at its vehemence, and the truth. "I hate you for making me come back here and crawl on my hands and knees for something I didn't do--"

"Now you know how it feels," she returned, tears brimming on her lower lashes.

He leaned in close and she tensed, backing away from him, but finding no outlet. He curled his fingers around her hair and felt her scrabble for the doorknob, to let herself in to safety, but forced her head back, feeling hearing the decisive dull crunch of her skull against the wood panels.

"Shut up," he hissed, brown eyes gleaming dangerously. She curved her fingers into claws and batted at his hand, but he just forced her head back further, her spine arching her body against his as his grip tightened on the silk strands of her hair. She moved as though burned by his touch, but found nowhere to go. The movement barely registered as she stretched her arms and brought them in swiftly to either side of his head, and he ducked his head forward to her shoulder, feeling the soft hitching gasps of her breath as she tried to crush his throat between her palms, in desperate short blows that winded him.

He jerked her head back again and she cried out in pain, her blows softening. Before they could redouble he knocked her off balance, cradling the base of her skull in his hand as they both thudded to a painful stop on the porch. He could feel the bones in his hand yield at her weight, but she cried out in rage and frustration as he jerked his hand from underneath her head, batted back her arms, pinned her legs beneath him and her wrists above her head. His face smarted at the feel of the night air, from her barely connected blows.

She writhed for a second, panting, then licked her lips, a wicked grin on them. "What, you want to--"

He didn't know if he heard the word, if he felt it, if she had even meant to complete the sentence with that terrible reference, but the next thing he knew he was pulling his hand back to slap her, and she was breaking his grasp, her hands darting up in a flash to cup his temples and drive the balls of her thumbs against his eyelids. He leaned back out of her grasp and pushed his knees into the yield of her flesh, her startled intake of breath harsh in the darkness, his hand trembling at the realization of what he had done and what he still wanted to do.

"I hate you," she rasped, her entire body tensing underneath him, and he was pinpoint alert before she released in a sob that shook her frame, great wrenching cries that poured out of her, her face wet and flushed, her arms still flailing at him in halfhearted blows that he deflected absently. He rolled off her and she drew her limbs into a ball, shrinking away from his concerned touch, forcing the heels of her hands against her eyes as though she could stifle and reverse her tears.

"I hate you too," he said, and he caught the involuntary twitch of her lips at that before she launched herself up into sitting and rammed her fists into his torso again. He accepted it this time, without moving, until his skin screamed, and then he picked her up, his fingernails biting crescents into her skin, and pulled her into his embrace. She was gasping, gulping noisily for air, trembling under the shirt.

"I didn't tell you about her because I was going to leave you for her, I told you because I thought it was only fair that you knew," he said, his hand on her hair, stroking it and tensed to force her head back onto his shoulder to lessen a further onslaught. "I thought you were with him, I thought you had just as much left me, and I felt a thousand miles away from you."

"I can't," she mumbled, rubbing at her eyes again. Her fists slipped wetly over her cheeks. "You were with her," she said, losing control at the very end of it, her voice slipping up into an anguished cry.

"Nan," he breathed. "Oh God, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

"You should be," she blazed, her breath hitching in a hiccup at the very end. "You should get down on your hands and knees and crawl to me, because I never in a million years--"

"And let you beat the crap out of me," he returned, rolling his sleeve up and showing her the gleaming wound. "And stab me."

"That's not a stab," she replied, looking at it instead of his eyes. She touched the red, puckered edge of it, and he shrank back. "That was a miss."

"Yeah, right," he replied, "whatever."

She met his eyes. "Does it hurt?"

"What doesn't?" he whispered, holding her gaze. "I want us to be even. I want us to be back at zero again."

"How can we?"

"Just say it."

"You think I can forget you leaving?" She squirmed, trying to struggle out of his embrace, and her eyes flared as he prevented her. "Go to hell."

His arm swung up before he realized what he was doing, the hot dark trembling anguish of his rage boiling up into his limbs, and he managed to lessen the blow at the last second, so that he caught her solidly across the forehead and forced her head against the wall of the house. She made some choked noise, swallowed, and glared fire at him.

"I thought we were okay right before you left," he murmured, half to himself. "Not great, but okay."

russet silk

She closed her eyes and shook her head slightly, and he caught the movement. "Give me a minute," she said, and pushed herself up again.

He tightened his grip on her. "To do what?"

"Just give me a minute," she said, tired and sad, and he released her. Her nightshirt hung off one shoulder, her face flushed with exertion, and he watched her go. She shot him one last, vaguely reassuring, blank glance before vanishing back into the house.

--

Unfamiliar slippers.

"The babies are asleep."

He nodded, filing the words away to be translated later, still staring at her feet. Terrycloth mules he had never seen before. They slipped along the sidewalk, her steps slow with exhaustion.

"I don't want to think," she said. "Just don't let me think, okay?"

He nodded another meaningless assent, their entangled numb fingers dropping apart as she caught sight of his car. They climbed inside, her black trenchcoat flapping against the wind.

He felt drained, defeated but alert, as though allowing her to go back inside the house without giving him an answer had given her time to construct walls against him again, though their joined hands and her asking to go back to his car had made him feel a little better.

Their children sleeping in borrowed anonymous rooms, because of Jean, because of his own stupidity.

He buried his face in his hands and took a slow, shuddering breath, then turned his face and caught his wife staring at him. Her arm was draped casually along the line of the passenger door, as though they were going for an afternoon drive and she was just waiting for him to start the car. He reached into his pocket and found the keys, but she stopped the arc his hand described on the way to the ignition and let them drop from his nerveless fingers into the floorboard.

The coat gapped open, silk stretched taut over her curves, blood red in the shadows.

She had changed clothes.

Her refrain, her wish, sounded soft in his head as he pressed his fingertips against her hand, as he reached over for her face, for the first time in the past few hours to do something other than hit her or force her into brief submission. She leaned into his touch, into the palm he cupped around her cheek, then shrugged out of the coat, her arms pale in the dark.

He exhaled slowly as she leaned toward his seat and tugged at the hem of his shirt, pulling it up over his head and discarding it without breaking his gaze. His flesh was tender and shrank briefly from the touch of her fingers in an unaccustomed caress, but she perched and swung herself over the gearshift, her knees on either side of his hips, her eyes wide and searching his, her breath warming his skin. For a second they lingered in that state, motionless, her tender thighs around his hips, her back braced on the steering wheel. Nancy had given all she could and was unable to find the impetus in her to move or breathe or do anything other than stare at him, will him...

He kissed her.

The action was hard and violent, reclaiming her after far too long a delay, far too serious an interruption. Four months or more he'd waited. He wanted to tug her forward until their hips were flush seamless together, her gasps of pleasure over the pain, broken skin and rended flesh and bruised ribs and the flush of their skin meeting numbing the sting and slow ache of his wounds. He wanted another kind of slow ache, pulling her in tight, the only thing between them air and stupid cloth, why was he wearing pants, their mouths wet and gasping softly in pressed rough kisses as

Her elbow pressed the car horn.

The car emitted a brief blaring cry and she jerked toward him as though burned by his leather wrapped steering wheel. He forgot his wretched clothing as she drew a breath, then shook in gales of laughter, edged in a panicked hysteria. He took her face in his hands, her hips settling back in familiar movement against his, as he kissed her again, and the laughter subsided, drowning in the touch of his mouth. He closed his eyes and pressed his lips against the point of her jaw.

"Let me take you home," he breathed into her skin, and felt her nod.

The streets were deserted as he wound his way through the suburbs of Chicago, between the sleeping houses and stilled miniature bicycles and the toys discarded when the children were called in to dinner. Nancy traced their lines with her eyes and missed their babies in a way she had never allowed herself to do while he had had them, when they were apart. She didn't feel anything like forgiveness in her, because forgiveness meant acceptance, and all she felt was a tired wish to go home. Home meant their house, home meant him, home meant their children, and she would have two out of the three.

And she could scream as loud as she wanted with the babies safe several hundred houses away.

don't think

He raced the engine and she caught the look of satisfaction that crossed his slightly swollen lip, the streetlights tracing their way over his bare torso. She stared as though she had never seen his bare skin before, eyes locked but she didn't care, feeling the unaccustomed hour, the drain of her tears, the energy she had wasted on their fight. Her head ached in a way that promised pounding pain later, and her exploring fingers found two separate knots on her scalp.

She had never left Bess's house. She would never be this stupid. Would never have put on the silk nightgown, splotched with her tears, would never have pulled it from where she had tossed it in a careless tangle in the lowest drawer. She was so tired; and right now she was asleep, her fingers twitching softly against Bess's borrowed pillow, not

in Ned's arms, lit by shafts of moonlight, her nightgown just this side of decency, her legs wrapped around his waist as he carried her inside. Her skin tingled pleasantly, the kitchen a silent witness to Jean's violent and bloody death below them. She leaned back, trusting his arms, and reached down to tug the nightgown over her head.

He stopped her with a wordless exhalation of breath, drawing her face forward to his as they reached the landing and stopped. She rested her back against the wall as she returned his kiss, then unhooked her legs and stood on her own two feet. He kissed her hungrily, rubbing the strap of her nightgown between finger and thumb, then curving his arms around her to gather her up into his embrace.

"Ned," she gasped.

He released her quickly, thinking her in pain, but she took his hand and led him to their quiet bedroom. Door open, comforter and sheets in a tangle, and at the sight of their bed she wanted to sleep.

But not as much as she wanted to satisfy the ache, the longing, the interruption.

After, she turned her face towards him and watched, eyes locked, for the long moment it took him to open his eyes again. He smiled at her softly, his fingers tightening on hers.

"So why the hell did you have a knife?" he asked, his voice rough, a sardonic smile twisting his lips, and she chuckled before turning her face to stare up at the ceiling.

"How long did it take you to break in?" she countered.

He stifled a yawn, brought their joined hands to his lips, then kissed the back of her hand. "Not long at all," he admitted.

"Jean hasn't been dead that long," Nancy replied. Her lower lip trembled.

"Hey," he said softly, then propped himself up to look at her face, her gleaming eyes. He lowered his face to hers, kissed her lips, her chin. "I'm sorry I hurt you earlier," he said, tracing his lips over her skin in slow, tired kisses, down to her neck, listening to her shuddering breath. He traced the marks left by his knees and hands, his touch light as a sigh now, chanting "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..."

"I'm sorry too," she said, brushing her lips over the healing wound on his arm, the wet salt of her tears falling on his skin.

"I missed you," she breathed. "I miss our babies."

He pressed his lips against her forehead and held them there. His hand slid from the curve of her cheek down her neck, her shoulder, her arm, in a slow caress, and then he tugged the sheet up over them and curved his arm around her, over her back. "I missed you too," he breathed, inhaling her scent, rubbing the tip of his nose over her skin, his breath warm on her. "I wanted you..."

She reached up and cupped his face in her hands, forcing him to meet her eyes, both their gazes wet. "Say you forgive me," he breathed, scared, his eyes searching hers. "Please," his muscles tense under her touch, his grief palpable in the dark.

"You know I do," she murmured. "Nothing to forgive..."

She drew him down to rest his cheek in the pillow of her aching breasts, his breath coming in fits, his body fitting over and around hers as she waited, and the relief and exhaustion were almost immediate, her eyelids, she just needed to close them for a second...

"Love you too babe," he replied.

"Love you," she breathed, her eyes still closed, drawing her hand halfway over his hair, barely noticing as he drew her back to her side to face him, his skin warm and damp against hers in the dark.

--

Her sleep was deep and dreamless, though she was aware of a distant muted ache every time she shifted, and the soft new familiarity of the naked body settling against hers after every movement. She thought for a while that maybe she was wrong, maybe the five years they had to spend apart were not over, the children had just been a dream, their Irish twins. But when she curled her fingers over the available flesh there was an answering murmur, one she could not summon the strength to answer with her own, and she sighed, content.

As always she woke just before the phone rang and was disoriented, wondering what it could be, when Ned's arm unexpectedly snaked out from under the covers and snagged it.

In her bed. They were in bed. The blood splattered nightmare in the kitchen.

"'Lo," he mumbled.

"Let me talk to Nancy," Bess said icily into Ned's ear.

He handed her the phone mutely and burrowed back into the pillows, letting out a groan just louder than a breath as he briefly rested weight on tender skin.

After she blinked herself closer to wakefulness and rubbed sleep from her eyes, Nancy carried on a conversation with Bess, mostly of half-mumbled words and soothing agreement. She hung up the phone and traced the ball of her thumb over his cheek.

"Damn, I got you good, didn't I," she murmured.

He opened his eyes, squinted for a second, then shook his head. "Don't go near a cop today," he advised her, sliding his fingertip just over the surface of her skin at her hairline. He whistled, and she winced. "That hurt?"

She shrugged. "The children are hungry," she replied. "And I'm so full I hurt." She rolled out of bed and out of his halfhearted lunge, found some underclothes and stepped into them. Then she stopped, hands on her hips, her skin a liberally mottled shade of pale. "You have to drive, darling," she drawled.

He reached for his discarded pants and pulled them on, wincing. "You're still nursing?"

She nodded, and the swell of her breasts was noticeable under the tight t-shirt she tugged over her bra. "Mm?"

"Birth control," he explained briefly, almost pulling on a wifebeater, then deciding on a white pocket t-shirt. "Bess mad at me?"

Nancy didn't meet his eyes. "I'll make it quick."

"Of course she's mad," Ned said, halfway to himself, just louder than a breath. "You thought I'd cheated on you and now she thinks I did too."

"I'll tell her." She walked over to him and laced her fingers between his. "I promise."

He kissed her, close-mouthed, then traced his lips over her cheek, over her neck. "Okay."

After a brief embrace she found a ballcap, wincing as she pulled it over her head, threading her hair through it.

--

"If you don't call the police, I will."

Hana was tugging at the front of Nancy's shirt, nuzzling her face greedily, and Nancy shifted her weight, her arm curled under the child. Bess was nursing a cup of coffee, wearing her bathrobe, not touching the slippers Nancy had returned to her.

"Don't call the police," Nancy sighed. Then a smile curved her mouth. "You think I look bad, you should see him."

"I don't care if you beat the shit out of him, Nancy, have you looked at yourself in the mirror? Do you see the damn bruises on your face?" Nancy winced as she shifted Helene's weight and Bess caught that, too.

"I'll tell Carson."

Nancy's gaze jerked to Bess's at that remark. "Please..."

Bess sighed. "Even if you could make me not, Nate saw it too, and Nate's even madder than I am. He won't even come downstairs knowing Ned's out front. Why, why didn't he just talk to you?"

"Mostly because I pulled a knife," Nancy said.