7. Motion

Later, Thomas had no idea how long he'd sat there. Eventually, Edith had lowered herself to the ground next to him, one arm around his back and her head against his shoulder, grounding him, giving him something to anchor himself to lest he went over the edge of the cliff he felt he was standing at. He put one arm around her to hold on, fully realising that he was smearing clay on her clothes and her hair but needing her too much to stop himself.

Eventually, he lowered the body of his son to the ground and let himself be steered to the elevator and up into the bathroom. His mind was slowly reassembling itself on the way. The boy hadn't been able to survive and death had been deliverance for the poor, tortured thing. A message from above that all that his and Lucille's wayward relationship could create was agony for all involved.

The past. It was all in the past while in the present Edith stripped him out of his shirt and cleaned the clay off his chest and his arms. A demeaning task for her. He stuttered back into action like a defective machine and plucked the cloth from her hands. He wanted to hide, feeling shame for what she had seen as well as the way he looked. The infection that had kept him in hospital had weakened him, and he hadn't yet recovered, he was too bony, little prettier than the skeletons in the vats. 'Don't,' he said. He took a corner of his shirt that was clean and continued her work.

She watched him, wide-eyed. 'Do you want me to leave?' she asked. Her face was a careful study of detachment. He was intimately familiar with that look from the mirror. She wasn't asking if he needed a moment. She was asking if he wanted her out of his life.

Thomas swallowed hard and glared at his hand. He turned on the faucet and let the water clean the wound. The water and the clay stung. He hissed. 'You should wash your hands, too. The clay, it's not good for the skin.' He gestured vaguely downwards. 'You've seen the bodies. They weren't skeletons when they were put in the vats. The clay feeds on flesh that is exposed to it for a long time. Not that it's going to strip the skin off your hands, but they could itch a bit for an hour or so.'

He shook his hand. The injury wasn't deep, but it was painful enough. It had helped, at the time, to keep Lucille out of his head, but now it was going to be a hindrance when he'd try and get the remaining bodies out. Two more. Just two more. He could do this. This wasn't getting any worse from here on out. When Edith made no move to clean her own hands, he took them and gently washed the clay off her. 'To answer your question,' he said then, 'the day I want you to leave is the day I know I'm no longer myself. You're all that's keeping me together right now.' Her lack of any reaction to that wasn't a good sign. But then, he hadn't graced her with an immediate answer, either.

'Do you need a doctor? Because the clay got into the wound.'

Thomas inspected it and found it sufficiently clean. 'No. It's not like it's toxic. Actually, it's a fine disinfectant.' He used his good hand to reach for her, intertwining their fingers. She didn't just let it happen but held on to him, too. Maybe that was a good sign, but Thomas didn't allow himself to think so. 'Did you know …'

'About your son? Yes. Lucille told me.'

'I feared it would be the thing that tips the scale.' He continued so quietly she wouldn't have heard him if they hadn't been so close. 'To convince you to leave a man so vile to put a damaged child into his own sister.'

Edith extracted her hand from his and reached behind herself where she'd prepared bandages. Again. 'I think she told me almost everything. She didn't mean for me to survive anyway.'

'Maybe I should be on the right side of your ledger,' Thomas said, his voice still very quiet. 'Among the things too broken to fix.'

'You are not a thing. Nor are you broken.' Edith tied the bandage firmly and stood. Rather than walking out, however, she stepped close to him and ran a hand over his head. 'You should rest. This will be over soon and then we can finally move on from all the pain.' To his eternal surprise, she pressed her lips to his cheek and let them linger there for several heartbeats. His skin still tingled when he sat alone in the room. Finding the remains of his child had been horrible. And yet, he felt as if a weight of lead in his heart was being lifted. Closure. He could find closure. And then he could live.

Ϡ

A while later, Edith stood in the mine, soaked in red, and observed her work. Five skeletal bodies, pulled from the depths of the vats. Learning to work the strange pulley had been easy, given that she'd grown up around machines, and retrieving the last two bodies from their graves was tricky but doable. With any luck, the requested cart would be there soon and they could store the bones on it, cover it with a blanket, and leave it outside the grounds. Hopefully, that would ensure that they'd stay where they meant them to. And if they were even luckier, the road would stay clear enough to bring them down before the next snowstorm.

Thomas had been shaken by the discovery of the child, and Lucille must have pounced at once, deeming him defenceless. That she'd been wrong was testament to the fortitude Thomas didn't even realise he had. How they would take care of her was yet beyond Edith, but maybe the priest had an idea about that, too. It could hardly hurt to ask, but she'd warn Thomas about that plan. Exhausted, emotionally more than physically, she took the elevator up and changed into something clean. This was horrible work for her. For Thomas, it had to be worse. Apart from seeing to the dead, she had needed him to face what he'd been a part of. He'd done that and Edith couldn't watch him suffer any longer. He needed to heal, and she had done little to help him there. She had made up her mind. And it was about time she let him know that.

A loud thud echoed through the house when she was done. That wasn't a sound the house just made. Something had happened. Another thud. Coming from below. Edith practically flew down the stairs. She heard the next thud coming from the library. The sight that greeted her when she entered the room stopped her dead in mid-run: Thomas stood there, his face pale, a large axe in his hands. Before him, broken down to pieces, the piano. With a roar of pain and fury, he lifted the axe again and hacked it into the largest remaining chunk of wood. Edith saw blood staining the bandage on his hand when he adjusted his grip and decided to put an end to this. 'Thomas, that'll do as a message, I believe.'

He threw the tool onto the wood and turned to face her, panting heavily. 'I want her gone. I should thank her, actually. If she didn't torment me from the grave, I would grieve, but this … This!' He strode over to Edith and embraced her. 'You don't even think you can walk away from me because you feel somehow obliged to protect me.'

This was her doing. The result of her refusal to answer the question he hadn't asked. Her fault he was hurting himself. Edith pushed him away. Not much and not to hurt him further, only enough to meet his eyes. 'I am not here out of obligation, Thomas.' She took his hand. 'You're bleeding. You shouldn't be doing this.'

'I should be burning the house down.'

'I'd rather you didn't, since we don't really have another place. But if we're lucky we'll get a longer time away very soon.'

'How's that?'

'I requested a cart and a horse from Finlay. I suggest after seeing that the bodies are buried, we'll remain in the village until spring and come up with a plan. Surely, we can rent some place.'

'You can. I have nothing. I am nothing.'

'You are my husband and I'm prepared to fight anyone who humiliates you. That includes you, too. What's mine is yours and what's yours is mine. The ghosts and the wealth both. We do this together.' She saw the flicker of hope in his face. He had once told her it was an emotion he stayed clear of, but maybe that, too was changing. He had every right to hope. Edith pulled his hand to her lips and kissed it. 'Come to bed, my dear Thomas. It's been a long day.'

Ϡ

That morning, when Thomas woke up with Edith in his arms, he didn't try and pull away. Come to bed, my dear Thomas. Her words echoed in his head and he buried his face in her hair, inhaling deeply. She always smelled so sweet of roses and Edith. He felt her stir and opened his eyes to meet hers. 'Good morning,' he said softly. 'I'm starting to think the better I feel, the safer I am.' And vice versa, apparently, but with a bit of time to calm himself, he realised his discovery was something he should have expected. Thomas fixed his eyes on Edith, pushing the past away to where it belonged. Away from his mind, certainly away from their bed.

'Possible,' Edith said. 'She seems to attack when you're hurting.' She kissed him on the lips, chastely but long enough to be unmistakeably more than friendly. 'I'm still so tired.'

He brushed her hair out of her face. 'Stay a bit longer then. I'll go down and continue my work.'

There was an odd look on her face that Thomas couldn't quite read. 'Ah,' she said. 'That.' She took his hands and caressed them. 'There's something I forgot to mention yesterday. I'll tell you what a bit later. Do you think you could do something for me until then?'

'Anything, my darling heart.' He knew he was being soppy and didn't care one bit. He meant it. God, how he meant it.

'Do you think you could make breakfast for us?'

Thomas opened his mouth to agree when the full depth of her request struck him. He noticed too late that he was gaping at her, his expression apparently so ridiculous that she started laughing, even though she tried to suppress it. It didn't matter. Nothing else mattered.

His hands cradled Edith's head and he moved closer until his lips were on hers, first tentative, then bolder. He poured all he had into the kiss and Edith melted against him, the laughter gone. Her hands went under his shirt resting on his sides, and her lips parted, inviting him in, and the kiss became deep and sensual.

Reluctantly, Thomas pulled away for air. A thread of saliva connected his lower lip to hers and for once he wasn't put off by the thought but amused. 'You wait here,' he said, his voice almost cracking with emotion. He couldn't care less. When they'd been down in the village, they'd bought various interesting foods, among other things Cumberland sausage and dried damsons that he wanted her to try, even though he wasn't too fond of the former himself. 'I'll make you a breakfast worthy of a queen.'