Author's Note: In searching for a title for this story, I came across a quote from John Geddes' A Familiar Rain, which reads "I don't just wish you rain, Beloved; I wish you the beauty of storms." This quote, and the title of the novel it is part of, were too perfect of a match with this story for me to ignore.

The conservatory was, without a doubt, Felicia's favorite part of the Montague estate. She hadn't had anything to do with the large greenhouse's original construction, but she felt that she would have gotten along quite well with the Victorian Lady Montague who had.

It sat some distance from the manor proper – too far, many people sniffed, because who wanted one's gardening retreat to be closer to the garage than to the house? – and felt like a world unto itself. The building's orientation on a low ridge above Montague House lent it an unusual prominence. The designer had chosen delicate but strong oak framing for the high ceiling vaults, which softened the conservatory's aspect. Every other conservatory of its age, at least in Felicia's experience, featured cast iron framing that made one feel as if they were in a cage. In hers, though, one could look up at the wood and make believe that they were still outside, underneath a series of surprisingly straight-limbed trees.

She credited some of the massive success with which her lawn parties always met to these sylvan heights. Another share of the kudos, though, had to be given to what Felicia had achieved at ground level. Her skill with seed and soil was as well known around Kembleford as Mrs. McCarthy's prowess with flour and sugar, and today she was presenting her version of strawberry scones.

"I can never lay eyes on your conservatory, Lady Felicia," admitted Mrs. McCarthy as they approached, "without having to confess to jealousy on the following Sunday."

"It is gorgeous, isn't it?" The conservatory's many hundreds of panes were glinting like diamonds in the late afternoon light. Soon, she knew, they would glow pink, simultaneously reflecting and improving upon the sunset. On party nights ten thousand tiny fairy lights would turn the place into a beacon of brightness and fun. She never managed to see the dawn after those happiest of soirees, but she believed that the building must be as fresh-peach-hued then as it was on every early morning she did witness. "In fact," Felicia joked, "I sometimes think my first sight of it was the exact moment when I decided that Monty would make quite a good husband, after all."

"The giant house ain't such a bad perk, either," Sid threw in from behind them.

"No," Mrs. McCarthy agreed, "but this is a better one. There is a reason why the Lord saw fit to start humanity off in a garden that grew year-round rather than in a brick mansion."

"Huh. And here I was, thinking we didn't pick up gardening 'til after we got kicked out of Eden."

Mrs. McCarthy's chin rose. "Well, I count the conservatory as a blessing, Sidney, whatever order it came along in."

"Course, Mrs. M. Whatever makes you happy. I'm just saying."

Felicia bit back an amused hum. "Oh, hush, Sid," she said, beating Mrs. McCarthy to a chiding. She threw an affectionate smile back over her shoulder. "You'll ruin the analogy."

Sid tipped her a conspiratorial wink. "Wouldn't want to do that." Then he quickened his pace and dashed a short distance ahead to open the door for them. "Ladies," he said, bowing elaborately.

Sometimes, Felicia mused as she passed inside, Sid really was completely excessive. It was one of the things she adored most about him. "Thank you," Mrs. McCarthy said behind her. The words were spoken primly, but it was clear that her annoyance was already softening. "...Oh, my, that palm must have grown a foot since I last saw it! Have you had it measured recently?"

Mrs. McCarthy had never yet been able to step foot inside the conservatory without making the rounds and admiring everything. The side effect of this was that what should have been a brief visit to see the Montague donations for next weekend's church fair turned into an hour-long ramble along the conservatory's winding stone paths. Felicia didn't mind. Tours of this building were one of the few activities that she and Mrs. McCarthy could engage in together without ever coming to a disagreement, and when they were of an accord she really did enjoy the other woman's company.

Flower-viewing was a pleasurable pastime for them, but Felicia didn't understand why Sid had come along. He never refused to help her shuffle bags of fertilizer around or re-pot heavy plants, even though those activities were well outside of his job description, but he didn't generally spend his free time admiring her floral handiwork. He was still in uniform from running her into Kembleford earlier, but that was no reason for him to follow her around. She wasn't likely to want to jaunt off somewhere straight from here, after all. Honestly, Felicia had thought that Sid would stay behind at the house with Father Brown, whom they'd left on the edge of a post-tea doze in the south drawing room. Today would hardly have been the first time that she and Mrs. McCarthy had returned from the conservatory to find both men snoring on the silk sofas.

As if his choice of company wasn't unusual enough, he seemed distracted. Occasionally he poked at a bloom or a leaf - "what's this 'un, then?" - and appeared to file the answer away for later. Mostly, though, he squinted up through the roof and walls, as if all the foliage was getting in the way of the view.

Mrs. McCarthy cornered him about his behavior after they reached the conservatory's staging area. It was here that the bougainvillea cuttings and the live hanging baskets that would hopefully fetch good prices for St. Mary's were awaiting examination. Sid loitered, walking up and down the aisles between the oversized worktables as the two women discussed starting bids. He stared outside even more intently now that there were fewer tall plants to block his gaze. "Sidney," the parish secretary sighed as he squeezed by them for about the hundredth time, "what on earth has gotten into you?"

He paused. "Eh?"

"You're pacing like some kind of caged wild animal. It is extremely distracting."

"Oh. Am I? Sorry." Sid scratched the back of his head, his expression almost bashful. "I'll stop."

He did stop, but Felicia remained distracted. Sid might have been standing still now, but his deep interest in the sky hadn't slackened. If anything, he seemed to be having more trouble than ever deciding which direction he should look in. The owl-like swiveling of his head was more disconcerting than his brushing past them had ever been. "...What is it, Sid?"

Mrs. McCarthy, cut off mid-sentence, huffed. Then she caught sight of the vertical line that had appeared between Sid's eyebrows. "I daresay I know that look. You had too many sweets at tea, didn't you?"

"He only ate half the cake, Mrs. McCarthy," Felicia replied lightly. Maybe she could jolly him out of whatever was bothering him. "That's a little less than normal for Sid, wouldn't you say?"

Any other time, her teasing would have drawn some sort of reaction. Today, though, Sid's attention was riveted to the roof. When he failed to retort or chuckle or even so much as crack a smirk, Felicia spoke his name with greater insistence. "Sid. What's wrong?"

"I'm telling you, it must have been the cake," fretted Mrs. McCarthy. "And Father Brown had almost as much...he's probably lying comatose in the drawing room."

Felicia felt a little pinch of aggravation. "You say that as if there was something wrong with the cake."

"It was a little over-sweet."

"Oh, is that why you had a second serving?"

Mrs. McCarthy drew herself up. "I-"

"It's not the cake." Sid shook his head. "I don't know what it is. It's just...this funny feeling."

"What funny feeling?" pressed Mrs. McCarthy. "Now, don't you dare go taking unwell less than a week before the fair. If you can't help with the set-up, the Father will be out there on ladders and such trying to do it himself."

"I'm fine, Mrs. M. It's the air that's not right." He looked at each of them in turn. "Don't you feel it?"

"Feel what?" Perhaps Mrs. McCarthy was onto something with her worry that Sid was taking ill, though Felicia was sure it had nothing to do with the cake.

"Just...like something's coming. Like when-"

"When what?" Mrs. McCarthy pressed after he broke off.

"Nothin'," he answered, his tone evasive. "It's giving me the all-overs, that's all." And Sid's gaze wandered upward again.

Mrs. McCarthy had had enough. She marched around the worktable and up to Sid. When he glanced down at her, she took the opportunity to reach up and feel his forehead. "...Well, you're not feverish," she ruled after a moment. "But honestly, that just raises more questions. No more fooling around, Sidney; what is all this nonsense you're talking about?"

"I dunno, do I?" Sid shrugged, but there was an uncharacteristic tension in his shoulders. "It's just this sense I've had all day, off-and-on like."

If he'd felt out-of-sorts all day, Felicia ached to point out, then it definitely wasn't the cake's fault. She held her tongue, though, and looked skyward instead. Clouds had rolled in while they were occupied in the conservatory, and now she realized that it was a fair bit darker inside than was normal at this hour. It must have happened so gradually over the last hour that her eyes had adjusted along the way. She flicked a switch on the wall and brought a series of bright lamps to life. "It looks like a rainstorm."

Sid shook his head once more. "Feels like something else to me, Lady F." He turned to read the sky again, but the lamplight had turned the glass opaque.

Mrs. McCarthy was beginning to look nervous. "Maybe we should start back now. We don't want to get caught out here if it is about to rain."

Even at a quick pace it would take them ten minutes to regain the house. "I have an umbrella around somewhere, I think," Felicia remarked. "We'd better take it with us."

They all searched the cluttered work area for the umbrella. Just as Mrs. McCarthy announced her success, a massive roll of thunder shook the conservatory. The parish secretary jumped several inches into the air. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," she muttered, crossing herself as the faint rattle of glass faded away above them.

Felicia grimaced. "Let's hurry. Here, Sid," she added, taking the umbrella from Mrs. McCarthy and pressing it into Sid's hands. "You're the least likely to lose it if the wind picks up." Besides, she thought as he nodded distantly and squinted once more at the roof, he could use a task to focus on.

They were almost out of the work area and back into the conservatory proper when a whiz-crunch sounded overhead. Close on its heels came another impact, but this time the whistle was followed by more of a crack.

"...Hail," Sid said in the quiet that followed. "Big hail. It's...it's just hail."

"How funny," Felicia wondered out loud. "They sounded so different. You would think one piece would sound the same as another, wouldn't you?"

Mrs. McCarthy was wringing her hands. "I hope no more than that fell down in the village. The church roof won't be able to take much of that sort of thing."

"Yeah, never mind all the glass we're standing under," said Sid. He had, Felicia noted, gone rather pale.

"It must be done now, surely," said Mrs. McCarthy. "Listen, the rain has started." Indeed, a soft drizzle could be heard pattering down onto the panes. "There's no telling how long it will last. We should start back before it gets any darker outside."

Felicia looked to Sid. He'd said that he'd had a funny feeling, that something was coming. Maybe those few smacks of hail had been all he was worked up about. "...Sid?"

He licked his lips, uncertainty writ large on his face. "Could do. Sure. No!" he cried as Felicia took her first step. His hand shot out and latched around her wrist, not painfully, but with firmness. "Wait! Wait..."

For a moment he stood stock-still, his head bowed as if he was listening intently to something fuzzy and far away. Another round of thunder broke overhead, sending a fresh tremor through the world. Sid's fingers clenched.

"Sid!" Felicia gasped. "You're hur-"

"Under the table." His voice had become a growl. She had no chance to argue; he was already turning her around and pushing her to the floor. His grip on her wrist had loosened enough to relieve her pain, but she could feel the determination in it as he steered her.

"Sid, what-"

"Get under the bloody table, I said! And stay there!" Sid finally released her, letting her thump the last few inches down to the ground in a rather ignoble fashion. Felicia had to scoot back to avoid his step as he whirled to search for Mrs. McCarthy.

"Don't just stand around, Mrs. M.!" he shouted when he saw that the parish secretary hadn't budged. He grabbed her, too, and no more gently than he'd done with his employer. "Go on, underneath!" She didn't argue, but instead let herself be forced onto her knees and under cover, staring at Sid all the while as if he'd lost his mind.

And hadn't he? Sid could be uncouth sometimes, yes, but he wasn't violent. It wasn't in his nature to manhandle women into uncomfortable positions beneath dirt-smeared furniture. And yet his expression as he crawled in beside them was fierce, almost animal. Felicia couldn't help but shrink away from it as Mrs. McCarthy, who had been shoved in on her other side, clucked with outrage. "Sidney Carter," the older woman began, "I don't know what you think you're doing, throwing people around like that, but I have never-"

It was at that moment that the power went out.

She didn't mean to scream. The sudden blackness, though – it had grown much, much darker outside in the brief period since she'd turned on the lights – was too much on top of Sid's extreme personality change. "There, there," Mrs. McCarthy said, a trace of irritation underlining her soothing. She patted Felicia's arm with blind clumsiness. "Come now, it's only-"

Bam!

A hiss sounded from Sid's direction. Was he the one who'd produced the new noise? Had his inexplicable anger driven him to punch upward against the thick, scarred wood of the table, perhaps, and caused him to injure himself?

But no, no, that couldn't be it, because there were more noises now, crashes and bangs and the brittle, tinkling melody of shattering glass. The conservatory's roof was crumbling, and the whistling the storm's projectiles made when they fell became clearer with each passing second. The pots that were everywhere in the work room, some empty, some full, began to explode as they were hit. Soon Felicia couldn't distinguish individual notes anymore; they all bled together into an impenetrable din that made her cover her ears and bury her face against her knees.

"Oh, Lord, have mercy," the parish secretary keened beside her. Felicia tried to focus on the other woman's words, to match her as she moved through an Our Father, then a Hail Mary, then back around again. How many other people throughout history, she wondered wildly as her lips formed their prayers by rote, had spent their final moments on earth like this, cowering and pleading for the heavens to stop raining down wrath?

The sound of glass soon ceased. Its absence deepened the storm's rumble into a constant bass pounding that was punctuated by frequent loud bangs as another pot met its demise. The ground trembled, and the table under which they were crouching began to jitter sideways. Feeling it move, Felicia groped for a leg. Something cold and sharp slashed across her fingers almost immediately, drawing blood and causing her to snatch her hand away again.

Déjà vu rose in the back of her mind. She'd done this before, braced herself in the darkness and prayed that the world above wouldn't fall in and devour her. But last time there'd been bomb shelters and Tube stations to run to, places that provided more substantial protection than the wide worktable that was letting ice and glass and bits of broken pottery in on four sides.

She slammed her eyes closed. This sort of thing was supposed to have gone now, to have been done, to have stayed fifteen years in the past. "No more," she begged. "No more. Please."

Over what felt like hours but couldn't have been more than a few minutes, the terrible racket quietened. Felicia didn't register the change in volume until she picked up on a thin whine that was coming from something much closer than the sky. "Stop, stop, stop, you cunty bastards, go the bloody fucking hell awaaaaay..."

Felicia's eyes flew open. "Sid?!"

Mrs. McCarthy had heard him, too. As the ground began to still and the cacophony from above receded, Felicia felt the parish secretary move. "Come on," she summoned Felicia, her voice terse and pained. "Help me with him."

Felicia crawled as quickly as she could across the space that her earlier fear had put between her and Sid. A few shards of debris pinched her skin, but she ignored them. Those could be dealt with later, after she'd made that awful whimpering stop.

By the time they reached him he was the only thing still shaking. Except for Mrs. McCarthy's hands, Felicia noted as the older woman tugged him close. And, she added a moment later when she pressed into their huddle and reached out towards him, her own.

"There, there," Mrs. McCarthy started up again, her hushing now carrying a motherly coo. Felicia could do little more than offer auxiliary comfort, touching him here and there when an opening appeared. She ached to do more, to pull the still-curled Sid into her own arms, but Mrs. McCarthy had him thoroughly enveloped.

This made it doubly gratifying when Sid reacted to Felicia's small caresses by shifting so that he could tuck his head in tight against her neck. "Thank you," she whispered as she took part of his weight. She wasn't sure whom she was thanking – God, for stopping the torrent, perhaps, or maybe Sid, for fulfilling her vital need to succor him, or even Mrs. McCarthy, for lodging no objection to her greater participation in his care – but it didn't matter, really. Gratitude seemed to be owed everywhere, to everything, in exchange for this moment of grace. "Hush," she bade gently, stroking his hair. "Hush, it's over now, it's all right..."

When he didn't seem to take any solace from her promises, Felicia sent an anguished glance towards Mrs. McCarthy. Maybe it would have been better to leave him with the older, more experienced woman after all. But no; Sid had moved to her for comfort, had wordlessly asked for her protection. True, he hadn't fully pulled away from Mrs. McCarthy, who was clutching his right hand as if it was a lifeline and still had his legs stretched over one of her bent knees, but he'd chosen her. So why, why wasn't this working?

Grief and despair – he was still shaking, shaking so hard that Felicia could hear his teeth chattering, shaking even though she couldn't possibly hold him any more tightly than she was – stilled her tongue. When her words halted, Mrs. McCarthy tore her eyes from Sid's bowed and buried face and met Felicia's panicking stare. She sighed, and then her litany rose once more to fill the air. "There, there, now...there, there..."