When Tommy finally tracked Arthur down and dragged him back to Watery Lane, Sorcha was so full of nerves she was ready to hoist out the rifle John had given her and find them herself. Tommy was none too gentle with his older brother when they entered the front door.
"Arthur!" Her hand reached out to him but Tommy put himself between her and his brother, who was ascending up the stairs to the small parlor with a broken look back.
Tommy put his hand out. "It's best if you stay down here, nurse."
"Like hell I will!"
"Sorcha." It was a warning and sounded the part.
"I'm not scared of you." Sorcha may not have been scared of him, but Tommy was certainly stronger than her. When she attempted to rush up the stairs, he yanked her back down, matching the glare she tilted up for his viewing pleasures. "I'm not scared of you, Tommy," she firmly repeated. "You let me come up there or I will stab you between the fifth and sixth rib and I'll go up myself while you lay here bleeding to death."
Anyone else would have shaken in their shoes. Anyone else would have suddenly found their knees weak with fear at the look Tommy gave her now. But Sorcha forced herself to remember the terrified man he used to be in France and she armed herself with that memory.
Tommy stared down at her, knowing there was no use fighting or intimidating. When he consented her footfalls were a light noise that barely bounced off the walls. He followed long after she'd disappeared to Arthur's side. At the open door, Tommy could hear her whispering hushed words into his older brother's ear. He moved into the room a little further and saw her framed against the cackling fire, leaning over Arthur, brushing stray threads of hair, damp with sweat and tears, from his eyes. Sorcha's fingers were pinched around Arthur's wrist and, from where he stood, Tommy took his fill of the domestic scene with impatience.
His first step into the room landed heavy on the floorboards. Sorcha shot a shrewd look meant to silence him but Tommy advanced further into the room with no sign of heeding her warning.
Slumped in the chair, Arthur couldn't bring himself to look at Sorcha's face. She leaned over him, fingers cool against his wrist, acting as though he hadn't just killed a boy.
Arthur Shelby stared at her still profile through tear filled eyes. In a minute she'd turn to him with disappointment and fear in her eyes. She would condemn him for his sins and he would have to see her on the first train towards 's chest heaved pain filled at the very thought.
"I should have stuck with the medicine," Arthur bemoaned to his brother.
Sorcha's head snapped up. "What medicine?" She faced Tommy squarely.
Tommy, in turn, gave her a long-suffering glare, unwilling to bend to her dirty look. "It did more harm than good."
"Get the fuck out."
"I need to talk to my brother."
She advanced with a finger speared up to his face. "I said get the fuck out!"
"Either you stay here and keep your mouth shut," his voice dropped low and harsh like gravel, "or I'll throw you out. Your choice, nurse."
Taken aback and showing as much, Sorcha resigned herself to Arthur's side, stroking his back or brushing the hair from over his eyes.
Tommy continued with an exasperated huff. "Arthur, the kid probably had a weak heart. That's what the doctors will say. We'll look after his mother."
"I… ," Arthur's voice sounded parched and husky, "I don't think I'm okay."
"We've been home a long time now." Tommy's patience was worn thin by Sorcha and on its last seams the more his brother spoke in that infuriating croaky voice. He held onto his anger a little longer, at least as long as Sorcha was in the room.
Arthur craned his neck back towards Sorcha. "I don't think I'm okay, little bird. I don't think I'm okay."
"Just fuck off, Arthur," his brother groaned and rolled his eyes. "Just fuck off."
But Sorcha put a gentle hand on Arthur's neck, tears forming in her eyes, feeling helpless. She wasn't okay either. He called her little bird as though he believed she could reverse time and reshape his pain so it could manifest itself as sore muscle or a pulled tendon. Something that kept the original pain but in a way that was more manageable.
In one crass movement, Arthur removed himself from her touch. "Don't touch me," he sobbed. "Someone like you can't touch me."
"Look at you, Arthur!" Tommy pushed off the wall and might have forced his brother to meet his eye if Sorcha hadn't stepped between them. Even so, Tommy shouted past her shoulder, "fuckin' look at you, Arthur! The war is over! It's done! Fuckin' shut the door on it! Shut the fuckin' door!"
"I'll shut the fuckin' door on you, Tom!" Sorcha shoved him back. "Stop it! Just stop!"
Tommy swiped the spittle from his mouth and stared her down. Whatever attraction he had felt for her before this had felt like a dream. He despised the sight of her now, defending a broken, simpering man instead of knocking reality back into him. "He's your man now," the words bitterly fell from Tommy's lips, "you fuckin' handle him! We've been home a long time, Sorcha! He shouldn't be acting like this."
"He needs more time," Sorcha vehemently argued. "We can't all be like you, Tommy! We can't all just hide everything away without letting it eat us away. If that's the miserable fuckin' death you choose for youself, you do it! But don't drag us down with you!"
Arthur wept silently behind the folds of her skirts, and Tommy could barely look at him without disgust bubbling away in his chest.
"Take this away from me." Arthur handed his gun and pocket knife past Sorcha to his brother. "Please. Take it away."
Before Tommy could snatch it up with derision, Sorcha gently took the weapons from Arthur's hands and slipped it into the deep pockets of Tommy's coat before he could object. She wiped away the tears that had annoyingly escaped her eyes. In a calmer voice than he deserved, Sorcha implored, "please leave, Tom. He gets the point. I'll look after him now."
Grim and still seething, Tommy straightened his stiff spine. "I still need you in London."
"Okay." She drew an exhausted breath. "Okay, Tom, I give up. You win. Just leave him alone."
Tommy gave his older brother one last look at the door then at her still figure. When he finally left, shutting the door behind him none too gently, Sorcha had to convince herself to face the man she loved.
Behind her, Arthur lowered his head and rested it against the small of her back. The gentle contact nearly toppled Sorcha over into the hearth entirely. His touch felt foreign. She could almost feel the dead boy's blood flow from Arthur's fingers to stain her skirts and drip down her legs. A shiver ran down the length of her spine.
Sorcha braced a hand against the mantle. She could feel the rotting fingers of all the dead soliders slither up her body again. Fear seized her and she wanted to pull herself out of Arthur's grip to flee from the decomosing knuckles and pussing skin.
"Sorcha."
She shook her head, rejecting the way her name sounded on his tongue. "Don't."
"Please," Arthur begged. "It was an accident."
And he kept repeating it over and over. It was an accident. It was an accident. It was an accident. It was an accident. The words fell on Sorcha's ears so many times she hardly believed it anymore.
Patching up a man whose torso had been blown away by artillery and having him die in your arms was a tragedy. Trying to draw blood on a rocking ship and missing the vein over and over was an accident. Killing a boy in the ring… Sorcha wanted to get away from Arthur's touch. Maybe not forever, but just for now.
"I think you should sleep it off, Arthur."
He wrapped his arms around her waist. "Don't leave me."
A painful lump sat at the base of her throat and Sorcha forced herself to swallow it down before more tears dripped down her face. "I won't leave you," her words trembled. "I won't leave you, Arthur, but you have to go to sleep now. Do you want me to help you?"
Arthur was silently behind her.
Instead of tears, beads of sweat from the heat of the fire began at Sorcha's temples. He wasn't answering and the room had turned stiflingly hot. She didn't want to turn around. She wasn't ready to face him.
"Arthur?" Her voice broke. She was trying hard to stay strong, to stay brave, but it was an agonizing feeling. "Arthur, go to bed. We'll talk about it tomorrow, yeah? We'll talk about it tomorrow, my love."
His arms loosened and fell away from her body. The chair creaked as he rose. The door creaked as he opened it. And the floorboards in the hall creaked as he walked to their bed.
So much creaking, Sorcha thought as she stood by the fire. So many reminders of how they had all grown old and changed, and how the world was growing old and changing along with them.
She sunk into the chair, still warm from Arthur's body, and wiped away her tears. In the morning she would have to talk to Arthur and in a few weeks she would have to go to London. Sorcha wondered how she'd survive the time in between.
There was no time to feel sorry for herself. She'd have to survive somehow.
After all, did little birds feel sorry for themselves in the dead of winter?
AN: Finally another chapter! What a turning point for poor Sorcha! All she wanted to do was have a happy quiet little life :(