So here is chapter three I have no idea when I'll post chapter four but it has been started, so as always I own nothing, enjoy.
"There you are I was about to get worried." Abe looked up when he saw the shop doors chime. "Oh Jo, that's a pleasant surprise. He hasn't been boring you to much I hope."
"No, but I'm hoping for a couple stories with dinner." Jo returned.
"Jo was the one telling stories tonight, that's why I'm a little later than usual." Henry added.
"Well dinners in the oven it should only be a couple minutes longer, I'll poor some wine." Abe locked the shop and started for the stairs.
"Something stronger might be preferred Abraham it's been an interesting day." Henry stopped.
"I can do stronger no problem." Abe nodded, knowing he'd probably hear the whole story at dinner. He hoped. "So how was your day?" Abe served dinner and scotch.
"It was rather interesting, I'm afraid I dodged a bullet at work got Jo rather irritated with me." Henry stated casually.
"He means a literal bullet by the way." Jo went straight for the scotch.
"But here you are both alive and well." Abe baited them for information.
"It's funny how things work out like that." Jo shrugged.
"Please tell me you told her." Abe cut straight to the chase.
"Yes, yes I told her." Henry assured, but didn't exaggerate.
"Come on Pops you gotta give me something." Abe threw his hands up.
"Pops?" Jo put her silverware down.
"I told you I had a son." Henry reminded.
"I should have known." Jo laughed, "Of course it would have been Abe."
"You seem surprisingly calm detective." Abe was very confused.
"Jo and I have had a little bit of time to talk about it. I think my age was the most shocking, she always accused me of a lack of self preservation." Henry wasn't going to make Jo share if she didn't want to he knew how hard it was to tell a secret like that. He trusted Abe but Jo had only known Abe for a couple months.
"Well to be fair your age is the only thing we talked about regarding you." Jo pointed out. "I think it's your turn to share your story."
"I don't know if you're prepared to sit here all night detective." Henry smiled.
"I told you mine, you owe me." Jo argued.
"Fair enough." Henry sighed, "Where to begin?"
"Try the beginning." Abe rolled his eyes.
"You can skip the it was a humid night in early September when after hours of…" Jo agreed.
"I get it start with death then." Henry chuckled, "How well do you remember the case regarding the Empress of Africa?"
"The slave ship?" Jo frowned.
"My fathers slave ship." Henry confirmed. " I was on board as a doctor with an ulterior motive of spiting my father for his involvement in such an obvious disgrace of human life."
"He's very passionate about this." Abe cut in.
"I get it." Jo understood.
"I was going to give one of the slaves a key so that they could free themselves and rebel but before I could get him the key I was called to attend to a sick slave, the captain didn't want to ruin his 'stock' and wanted him thrown over board it was just a fever from malnutrition he didn't need to be killed and I argued with the captain. Who then had me shot and as they were throwing me over board the key slipped from my hand as I passed the slaves I had hoped to free."
"Isaacs ancestors." Jo remembered.
"Precisely." Henry nodded. "From there I woke up naked in the water, I drowned a few more times before a ship found me and brought me back to England. Where I spent far more time drinking than any man ever should have so I would have the courage to kill myself each night. I didn't know what was going on I didn't know how it was possible, which frankly I still don't know how any of it's possible. Eventually I made it back to my wife with the foolhardy thought that I had been saved for her." Henry stopped there he didn't know how much to tell Jo, she surely knew the risks of telling people about their condition but it hadn't appeared that she had been so jaded by past experience, he didn't want his past to affect her.
"I thought you said you married Abigail after world war two?" Jo wanted to know everything, here was a man just like her with so much more experience, there were things she could learn.
"He did, he married mom after we moved to New York, Nora was his first wife." Abe supplied for Henry, Abe saw his old man flinch at the name, but he associated it with the trauma she had inflicted on him.
"What happened with Nora, what aren't you telling me?" Jo wasn't blind to the flinching and panicking taking place.
"At first nothing, we lived happily for several months before she pressured me to tell her about my scar. So I did, by that time the next day I was admitted into Bedlam." Henry finished by finishing off his glass of scotch. Jo immediately regretted asking, she didn't know how to respond, what could she say to make that type of betrayal better.
Henry continued with his story and eventually Abe turned in for the night. As the story continued Henry and Jo moved from the kitchen to the living room and then from the living room to the bedroom.
Once in the bedroom Jo was quickly frustrated by the layers that Henry seemed set on wearing, Henry only chuckled and moved one hand to undue his own shirt while the other continued to remove what was left of Jo's clothes. Making Jo think that maybe Henry wasn't such the gentlemen he seemed to be, or maybe bra's were just that much easier than the corset from Henry's younger days.
Neither were the type to throw themselves at someone else, but neither had ever had this type of honest connection before. They had shared their secrets with the ones they loved, but never had they had this unquestioning understanding of what the other must have experienced. It was easy for them to commit to each other completely in that moment.