The end of season one. Just like in the real final episode of season one, there's violence, and references to Gillian's abuse as a child.

However, we also get our first glimpses of Arnold Rothstein, Al Capone, and Meyer Lansky. Clara admits to how much she knows-and doesn't know-about her father's business. Clara and Jimmy talk about their feelings. And? The Stratemeyer Syndicate shows up.

Comments are always appreciated!

"She's basically my sister," Jimmy told the assorted gathering. "What happened to Clara can't be allowed to stand."

"I think the deal between Mr. Rothstein and myself addresses the violence against Clara," Nucky retorted, annoyed at Jimmy's unspoken implication that he wasn't seeking retribution for the attack on Clara. Who was his own damn daughter, Nucky thought,

"Gentleman, no one in this room wants our enemies to believe that going after daughters, sisters, mothers, wives is acceptable. We all have things we do not wish to lose," Arnold Rothstein said smoothly. The other men in the room nodded. "In fact, Mr. Thompson, I would like to apologize to the young lady personally for my part in her ordeal."

"That won't be necessary," Nucky replied.

"I'm afraid I must insist," Rothstein said.

Nucky nodded. It wasn't worth arguing over, he decided. He rang the bell, and when Eddie appeared asked him to fetch Clara and Harrow.

Minutes later the most interesting pairing Arnold Rothstein had ever feasted his eyes upon-and he was a man who sought out the interesting, the absurd, and the unusual the way most men seek out breakfast-walked into the room. The girl was lovely. The man...it struck Rothstein that the man had been lovely. That mane of dark hair, the chiseled jaw, the height, the build. But the strange metal mask he wore destroyed the illusion, and something made the uncovered part of his mouth pull strangely. The war, he presumed. What else could destroy such a young man? He barely looked older than the girl. For all their differences-his cheap but immaculate clothing, her simple but expensive dress; his destroyed beauty versus her lovely wholeness-the electricity between them was almost palpable.

"Frankenstein! How ya' doin'?" The tubby little man from Chicago called from his corner, Al...Something. Rothstein couldn't recollect. He hadn't seemed important enough to commit to memory. Torrio shook his head at Capone's inability to control his mouth.

Rothstein was busy watching the main event. Clara Thompson walked into the room wearing a carefully composed social face, one he assumed she had honed since childhood. There was no doubt Thompson had raised this girl to be a princess. She practically glowed with money and good manners. That social face, Rothstein imagined, rarely slipped. Yet when the Chicagoan spoke for one moment the mask fell and the look Miss Thompson shot him was pure ice. She also took the smallest of steps towards the man in the mask. Their hands weren't touching, Rothstein noted, but they could be.

"My apologies, I don't believe anyone has ever referred to me in that way?" Clara said, refusing to break eye contact with the odious little man with the potato face.

The man in the mask spoke. "He knows me. From Chicago. He calls me. Frankenstein." The low growl was almost inhuman, made worse by a clicking noise that followed some words, Rothstein thought.

Jimmy looked down at his feet. Nucky had once told Jimmy to stop fighting at school (Gillian was having an affair with the father of one of their schoolmates; Jimmy couldn't walk down the hall without someone saying something about his ma). One kid, though, one kid needed it. Jimmy had been considering risking Nucky's wrath one afternoon on the playground when the kid wouldn't shut his mouth, but before he could act Clara jumped down from the top of the monkey bars on top of the little bastard and proceeded to blacken his eye before anyone could pull her off. She had the exact same look on her face now.

"He thinks you a mad scientist, or simply a physician?" Clara asked, and slightly turned her body so she was making eye contact with the masked man's good eye. Ah, Rothstein saw, she still thinks him lovely and it grieves her that others don't see it.

Rothstein snorted out loud, saw Meyer Lansky and Jimmy Darmody fight to hide laughter, and Thompson briefly close his eyes at his daughter's retort. The girl's literary critique went over the heads of the rest. The masked man allowed himself a slight smile, or what Rothstein assumed was a smile.

"I think it safe to assume that our friend from Chicago has not read the book," Rothstein replied. "He is simply being unforgivably rude to, if I presume correctly, the man who saved your life?"

"My daughter, Clara Thompson, and Richard Harrow, who works for me. Mr. Harrow did save Clara," Nucky interjected. Jesus, why couldn't Torrio control that little troll? Of course, it was Nucky's daughter who refused to ignore the insult. Nucky knew controlling his young wasn't one of his strengths, either.

"Miss Thompson, I wanted to apologize for what happened to you. I had no idea, of course, that the people I was doing business with could be capable of such savagery. However, I did go into business with them, and unknowingly played a part in the chain of events that led to your attack," Rothstein said in his most charming voice.

The social mask was back, Rothstein saw, and she turned a charming, practiced smile towards him. "Mr. Rothstein, no one is responsible for the actions of others. Who was it that said 'we are too much accustomed to attribute to a single cause that which is the product of several, and the majority of our controversies come from that.' I'm sure there were many contributing factors that led to those men deciding to attack me."

"Marcus Aurelius," Rothstein replied. "Which I'm sure you know." Clara smiled again, less practiced.

"That will be all, Clara. Harrow, stay," Thompson directed.

Rothstein watched the million microscopic ways Harrow and Clara parted from each other. He made a mental note of this delicious find, made sweeter by the fact that no one else-not the man that spoke of Clara as a sister, not her father-seemed to notice what was going on before their eyes.

Later, Meyer Lanskey drives Rothstein to the station to catch a train to Chicago and comments that most girls find Charlie Luciano attractive but Miss Thompson never even looked at him. Little Meyer, Rothstein reflects. He might turn into a fine collector himself someday.


When Clara returned to her room she saw her mail stacked next to the typewriter. The return address on the top letter was 17 Madison Avenue. Her heart skipped a beat when she realizes the envelope was fat, and her hands shook so with excitement she dropped the envelope on the floor as she tried to open it.

"Clara," Richard said from the door, which Clara had left open. When she turned to face him he thought something was wrong. Her eyes were incredibly bright.

"I got it. I got it. I wrote a Tom Swift book on speculation, and they liked it well enough that they've assigned me a Bobbsey Twin novel and a Ruth Fielding novel to write! I'm a real writer. I'm going to make actual money," she actually laughed a little out of sheer happiness.

Richard's mouth twitched. "You wrote. A Tom Swift book?"

Clara nodded. "Jimmy and I used to love them. When he came back from Chicago he gave me Tom Swift and His Undersea Search. I read it, and thought, I can write that. Once I understood how it all worked, I wrote one and sent it to this place called the Stratemeyer Syndicate. They liked it! Not enough to let me write Tom Swift, but they've assigned me books from two other series."

"Mmm. I thought. Victor Appleton wrote. Tom Swift," Richard replied, still confused.

"Victor Appleton is just a name ghostwriters like me write under," Clara answered.

"I gave. Jimmy that book," Richard told her.

Clara smiled, "Well, thank you, then! I would have never, ever thought to consider writing children's books without reading it. And now? I might have a career."

"I'm leaving. For Philadelphia. I won't be back until tomorrow. Then you won't need protection," Richard said.

Clara's face fell. She turned back towards her desk, pushing down a cascade of emotion, as she twisted a stray ribbon into her hands. All good things end, she knew, and being shot at in front of her home wasn't a good thing. But having Richard around to talk to, to be with...she wasn't lonely. She'd been lonely since when? Since her mother died, since she left Angela and Tommy in New York, since she said goodbye to Rose Grenville at the end of the war and left for D.C.? She couldn't remember, she just knew with Richard she wasn't lonely.

"I'm going to miss you. You have to promise you'll still be my friend," Clara said, already grieving the lack of him.

"If you want to. Be friends with me," Richard answered, looking up at her for a moment. He was happy Clara was going to be safe. He couldn't tell her how he was haunted by the shot he made that went inches from her head, by the thought he could have gotten into Mr. Thompson's blue car and not heard her scream for him. Clara being safe was the most important thing. But he liked knowing she was on the side of the wall when he went to bed. Clara smiling at him in the morning, or sitting next to him to talk about anything from the magazine that arrived that day to her thoughts about Harding. He knew securing her safety meant going back to his boarding house and not seeing her.

"You were very plucky. And adventurous taking on. Capone."

She smiled as best she could, trying to hide her feelings. Fear as she reconsidered his words were sinking into all of her other feelings. "It's easy to be brave when I have you with me,"

Richard twisted his hands nervously as she spoke. "Just...I'm the daughter of this house. I know what's about to happen. Please be safe, and let me know when you are back in Atlantic City and are okay, because," Clara blinked rapidly to hold back the tears. "I'm going to worry about you until I know."

Clara took a deep breath before leaning up to kiss his good cheek. She didn't move away quickly. She held her face against his, letting herself have that moment to know what his skin felt like under her mouth, what his beard felt like against her skin, what his skin smelled like up close. Richard couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't think while Clara was pressed against him. The smell of her orange soap was almost overwhelming, and triggered a memory deep inside him. His hands moved up to touch her, but he pushed them back down. Her skin was soft against his, and she was so very close to him. He wanted her to move, and he wanted her to stay there forever.

When he left, Clara sat down, pulled out the information from the Stratemeyer Syndicate, and started planning her first novel. It was hours before she let herself get up, and then it hit her.

At some point, when she was very young, she realized that Jimmy's life with Gillian wasn't normal. She'd always thought that was the moment that a thread tied with knots and made of lava embedded itself into the very core of her being. That thread was always just under the surface, weaving worry and concern for Jimmy into the texture of her days. When he left for the war it grew from a thread to a heavy rope that some days felt like it might consume her, as it encircled her thoughts and her feelings. Was he safe? Was he scared? Was he cold? Was he hungry? That lava rope is why she left college and got a job working for the War Department in New York, so that at least every day she knew was doing something to make it more feasible that Jimmy could come home.

Now she knew she had another molten cord melting into her soul. This one felt like copper, always giving off little bits of electricity, never quite letting Richard drop from her mind. Those copper threads were pulsating in fear. Clara took a deep breath. He was a sharpshooter. She had seen his deadly aim, she reassured herself. He'd be okay.

The young face of the boy, really, who tried to pull her into the car floated through her mind's eye, but Clara resolutely pushed it back. She simply could not allow herself to think of it.

Instead, she let herself wander into Richard's room. Tomorrow or the next day he'd come for his things, and this room would go back to storage for trunks and suitcases. She could feel the loneliness that was waiting for her, feel the Princess of the Tower once more becoming her identity. A life full of people but devoid of friends.

His room was so neat. No stacks of books and papers, or hairbrushes randomly laid down like her own room. He straightened it up with military precision. She gave in and laid down on his bed, sick with worry about whatever deal with the devil Jimmy and Richard were carrying out.

Something struck her thigh. She reached under the mattress and found a book. That's taking neatness a step too far, she thinks. She idly opens it, curious as to what Richard reads.

Almost every page of the book was pasted over with a variety of pictures cut from magazines or newspapers. Each page represented some carefully constructed vision of family life or romantic relationships. One particularly beautiful page had several different pictures overlapping to display a field with bluebirds. A few more pages in, and Clara found a picture of Richard. It was his enlistment picture. She ran her finger across the left side of his face. The loss was almost unimaginable, she realized. He was so incredibly handsome. How could anyone's psyche deal with the sudden change from being good looking to being someone whose face made children scream? When Clara said his face doesn't bother her, she meant it. She could see this man in Richard every time she looked at him, maybe because she first saw him in profile, because her first thought was the he was handsome. Never, though, had she so clearly understood how the loss must torture him.

Careful not to get tears in the book, she kept turning pages, feeling like she was seeing a part of him she'd never known was there. That was when she finds a layout devoted to her. The Good Housekeeping article from the magazine she left in Jimmy's room, other articles she had published since, a paper napkin from the hotel, a drawing Margaret's son Teddy made, showing the Tin Man next to a stick figure with yellow hair (Clara assumed that was her). She realized, then, that she's looking at something he never meant anyone to see and put the book away.

Later that night Clara thought of the scrapbook. Her fingers worked back and forth over the blanket, thinking about the loneliness she'd seen in the book. Richard was imagining a life he believed he'd never have, she thought. He was reaching for something lovely in only the way he thought he can. Part of her realized Richard might be the first man she knew who actually saw such mundane things as wives and children and beauty as a vital part of a man's existence. More than ever, she missed his presence on the other side of her wall.

Richard did come back to tell her he's fine, he did get his things, and her life somehow becomes much quieter. How was the possible, she wondered, when Richard barely spoke?

It's not quiet the next night at the Ritz-Carlton. Her father was throwing an election night preparty, but everyone was clothed so she was playing hostess at her father's request for a bit. She was feigning interest in something a ward boss was saying when she saw Jimmy, who was obviously drunk, being dragged into the hallway by her father. She smilingly stepped away.

It won't be the first fight between the two Clara's mediated; she doubted it would be the last.

The way Jimmy was talking, though, made her pause to listen out of sight. Slowly, slowly Jimmy's words started to coalesce in her mind.

Her father. Gillian. The Commodore. Jimmy. It all started to come together to form a complete picture. She thought she's going to throw up. She thought she was going to start running and never stop.

The first clear memory Clara has of Gillian, was when she and Jimmy were only about three. Clara thought of how young Gillian seemed at sixteen. Now she imagined her at thirteen. Nora, Uncle Eli's oldest daughter, she was almost thirteen. To Clara, she was a child. A little girl. And so would Gillian have been. She imagined the Commodore, who must have been in his fifties, touching the child. The horrible wet, heavy feeling of Darcy's hands on her comes back. The way that when he kissed her she felt like the weight of his face on hers was going to suffocate her. Clara was an adult woman; how much worse would it be for a child. How much worse if it didn't stop at unwanted kisses and touches.

"Jimmy's right, isn't he?" She finally spoke, startling her father, after Jimmy walks away. "You would sacrifice anyone for an advantage. You were willing to see me married to someone I find repulsive. Gillian was a child, and you just handed her to that old man. And how could you tell Jimmy you don't love him? Jimmy...you raised him just as much, maybe even more, as you raised me. How can you not love a child that you raised?" Clara blinks back tears. "Do you even love me, or was I just another obligation?"

Nucky sighed in frustration as Clara added to his bad day. "You and Jimmy talk a lot about being adults, yet you revert to childishness..."

Clara shook her head. "No. You don't get to treat us-and not just us, but Eli, your own brother like this." Eli had been quietly watching and starts when he realizes that his niece realized her father's perfidy against him, "You think because we're family, you can just treat us like pieces on your chessboard. We only exist to you as potential sacrifices or advantages to the game you play." Clara walked away, shaking with anger. Her father calls her, but she doesn't look back.

She wrapped her heaviest coat over the green velvet party dress she'd meant to wear to the election night party at Babette's and took to the Boardwalk. First, she wandered aimlessly, her entire life replaying in front of her eyes. The money behind every luxury, every treat traced back to her father's betrayal of a child. Again, the boy who tried to pull her into the car flashed in front of her eyes. She had told Richard she was her father's daughter, that she understood the ugliness that powered the prettiness of her father's life, of her own.

What she hadn't known was the original sin that made it all possible.

Jimmy was aimlessly wandering the beach near dawn when he saw a girl asleep on the steps down to the beach. Clara.

"What the hell?" he asked her as he woke her up.

"I knew you'd come this way," she answered, rubbing her face. Jimmy sat facing her on the step below her, his bad leg straight out in front of him, each of them leaned against the railings. He lit a cigarette, took a drag, and hands it to her. She took a slow drag.

"It's not that he doesn't love you, Jimmy. I think he doesn't love any of us. Maybe my mother? Maybe if Enoch Junior had lived? But the rest of us? I'm not sure he thinks of us as fully human. He's shown these last months that we are all disposable-you, me, Eli- if push comes to shove." Clara's tone wasn't even bitter, Jimmy thought, just resigned.

Clara reached forward and put her hands on his wrists. "I love you," she said, and Jimmy knew it was true. Clara might be the only person whose love didn't hurt, didn't cost, or come with a contract's worth of stipulations.

"I love you, too," he says and means it. They look at each other in the dawn. Clara thinks that Jimmy might the only person who loves her, really.

"Whatever happens," Clara said. "I'll be on your side, for almost anything. I just...Please don't put me in a position where I have to make an unbearable choice. But if that's going to happen, please tell me so that I can be the one who makes it."

Jimmy nodded, slowly. It was a promise he meant to keep. It was a promise he would inevitably break.