They lay together, after, panting and sweaty, both their heads swimming like the galaxies above through the sky. Tessa was focusing on coming back down to Earth for the second time, and Tommy was smirking a little behind his cigarette, but his eyes were crinkling like they did when he really smiled. They both stared up into the sky, their breathing, the distant lapping of the waves on the lake's edges, and the very faint swishing of Chase's tail the only noises in the night. He could see her hair in his peripheral vision, so vivid that the color stood out even in the dark, and her coppery waves were sticking to her neck, and she lifted her arms to gather it up in her hands, and the moonlight caught her bare breasts in a way that made Tommy want to ask if she wanted another go. He contented himself with taking another deep drag and watching her. The smoke tickled the back of his throat as he blew it out through his nose.
Neither of them slept much that night, finally slipping off in the early hours of the morning, as the sun crept tentatively back over the hills. Instead, they talked, or rather, Tessa talked and let Tommy listen. He was a good listener. She told him about her father, because if they both got killed by Germans, she wanted someone out there to know what kind of man he had been. She told him about growing up in America, she told him that she loved to write, that she preferred coffee over tea but all anyone drank in England was tea so she had had to resign herself to it. She told him about her brother, how he had died in the war, how her grandfather's memory had slipped away until he was nearly empty by the end, how her mother had been so crushed by the death of her son and father in the same year that she crawled into a hole of champagne and never came back out.
"Champagne is for celebrating, usually. I think she found it rather ironic," Tessa said, her eyes dry but an expression on her face like her heart was still bleeding, like it would never really stop. Tommy didn't think she wanted his sympathy, so he didn't give it. He chain smoked and she talked because he thought she probably wanted someone who understood, and he did. He understood the snow, now, too. Why she was self destructive enough to be drawn to him, to risk her life breaking a stranger out of a hospital. Why the only thing she loved was a horse that couldn't drink itself to death or lose all its memories or volunteer to get blown up in a war. Eventually, she went quiet, and then she said, "Thank you," in a quiet voice. He passed her his cigarette, and she took it.
"If I ask you something, will you tell me?" She asked him. She passed him the smoke back.
"Depends what it is," he said.
"Why don't you ever tell anyone anything about yourself?"
He snorted. "That's what you want to know?"
"Yes." Her small chin was set defiantly.
He breathed out. "Knowledge is power. The more people know about you, the more they can use it against you. That's why I don't tell people things. That, and I just don't fucking like it."
"Do you want to know what I think?"
He rolled his eyes. "You're going to tell me anyway," he said, around his cigarette.
"I think," she continued, like she hadn't heard him, "that being afraid of nothing and being afraid of everything are the same thing."
He pulled another breath in, looked at her. Her large grey-green eyes, her fine nose, her lovely mouth. "Maybe," he told her. Then he pointed at her with the cigarette. "I should have known you wanted to be a writer. Always saying shit like that."
She slapped his hand, laughing. A few sparks trailed from the edge of the smoke and landed in the grass, their orange glows slowly disappearing, one by one.
The ride back to the stables was very quiet. Tessa couldn't find any words and doubted Thomas would want to hear them anyway. His face was closed again, his eyes sharp and endless. Chase could feel the tension of his riders, and was pulling at the reins and balking at every possible obstruction, his tail held high in the foggy morning air like a banner. Tommy slid off from his spot behind Tessa to walk next to the horses' head so that he could lead him, and talked to him quietly now and then when his spirit acted up, but did not say much to her. She couldn't hear what it was he was saying to Chase, or what language it was in. She couldn't tell what he was thinking, or feeling, or if he was thinking or feeling at all, or just acting. Just impulses, just nerves, just the need to survive. A soldier. Other than a tightness in his shoulders, and his silence, he seemed perfectly normal. Like this was any other day. She supposed that was his best technique, out of all of them. No matter what, let nothing get to the surface. Let none of the cracks show.
She was not a solider. She had never been in a battle, she had never fought in a war, and even hearing the low sound of his voice made her want to cry because all she could think about was never hearing it again for whatever reason and never seeing her father again because the moment they saw her they just shot her on sight and never never never. She was exhausted and everything felt like too much, everything was too much, Thomas was like that, everything, all the time, all at once. She didn't blame him for it. She tried not to, anyway. It was what drew her to him. It wasn't his fault she had fallen for him, although he certainly hadn't helped. With his eyes and his guns and his every once in a while almost-smiles. She circled back to thinking about her father. And then to Tommy, and then her father, and then the Germans, until her head was spinning and her stomach was clenching. She slid off of Chase's back and went to crouch by the long grass at the side of the road. Tommy stopped the horse with a gentle "Whoa," watching her but not asking what she was doing. Tessa closed her eyes to try to stop the nausea, but that just made it worse, so she just leaned on her knees and breathed through her nose and tried to fight down the awful, terrible, anxious feeling and to fight down the vomit but in the end, the vomit won. She managed to get her hair out of the way, at least. She jumped a little when she felt a hand on her back. She hadn't heard him walk over. She didn't want to look at him. She didn't want him to see her like this, weak and shaky and uncomposed. His hand was large and warm on her shoulder. She stared out in front of her, at the little hills and valleys they had been passing. There were birds chirping. It seemed impossible that the rest of the day would ever, could ever happen.
"Arthur got sick every time before a fight for years,'' Tommy said, his voice low, crouched down at her side. She was surprised at how soft he was being with her.
"But you didn't," she said.
"No," he told her. Then, "I got sick after." He waited a moment, both of them looking out past the trees and the grass. Then he stood and offered her his hand. She took it, and they walked back to the stables together, on either side of Chase.
When they returned to the house at Watery Lane, Polly was the only one there, sitting in the betting room and writing in a large, leather bound book. She looked up as they entered, but back down at the book when she addressed Thomas.
"And where have you been?"
"Out," he said, smoke drifting out with his voice. He ashed his cigarette and put his hand in his pocket, pulled out his watch and checked the time.
"And it didn't occur to you that there might have been a better time for you to go "out" than the night before a heist?" Polly asked, closing her book forcefully, looking up and taking in their appearances. Yesterday's clothes. Tessa's wild hair.
"I don't need your permission, Polly."
She scoffed. "It's not about my permission, it's about me knowing where you bloody are!"
Tommy put his smoke in his mouth and raised both hands as if to say "Well, here I am". "And now you know. Now, if you'll excuse me, someone said something important might be happening today." He pulled on his hat and caught Tessa's eye before leaving again, but she couldn't see past his sharp features and impenetrable eyes to discern any meaning besides that he was going away and not telling her where or why. Just like Polly, who was throwing her hands in the air as the door shut behind Tommy and saying "Jesus Christ".
"It is somewhat comforting to know he is that difficult all the time," Tessa said out loud before really considering it. When she looked up, Polly was studying her.
"Try impossible. Tommy does what he wants when he wants to," Polly said. Tessa met her stare. "Which is including you, now."
Tessa wanted to blush but didn't think her blood was warm enough that morning. She said nothing, which was an admittance. Polly lit a cigarette, still looking at her. "He's not a good man," she said. Like Tessa didn't know.
"Great men are rarely good," Tessa said, fighting off an overpowering desire for her white powder. Polly's dark eyes scanned her in the same way her nephew's did.
"So you're in love with him, then."
There it was. Tessa sat down in the chair across from her, put her arms on the table, and her head down on top of them. It was unladylike and immature and she could not have given less of a fuck. The worn wood was soft under her hands. She heard Polly take a drag and exhale, and looked up.
"It could be worse," Polly said, after one last, contemplative pause. "You could be a communist. We've had that happen before."
"I could be," Tessa said, half heartedly. "How do you know I'm not?"
Polly chucked, dryly. "Because you're Tommy's."