Two o'clock clicked on to three, a relentless pounding in her ears, an ever-present reminder of her myriad failings. Sleep had never come easily to Emma, but with the night's events drowning her like this...

She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, possessed by the easy, comforting pull of instinct, and groped in the darkness for her brother's coat. She had meant to give it back to him, now that her secret need not be concealed, but the thought had slipped her mind as details were wont to do in moments of stress. The sight of it there, bunched and bent over the chair but somehow as steadfast as its owner, only served to reinforce her unconscious decision.

The seaside cast a salty chill over the boardwalk, a dreamy mist blanketing the dimmed lights and well-trodden beams. Emma wondered, with each creaking step, if one could ever tire of this place, and how she could possibly have lived her whole life up to this point with the sea so far away. With the spray of the ocean hanging in the air, she drank in the delicious freedom of this moment, the future underfoot and the horizon hidden in the hazy darkness like a mystery, a hint at an obscured reality that she need not burden herself with in this wonderful moment. She breathed it in and walked on.

The stranger's face swam into her mind, his leering smile and easygoing confidence in his own infallibility a slap in the face even hours after his demise. Pulling the trigger had been easy; it was her indifference to the act that scared her so.

Richard's boarding house stood sentry in the night, dark, silent, and still. She slipped through the front door and up to his tiny room without a sound, her whole body aching to be held by those strong, doting arms that had kept the monsters at bay for the first twenty years of her life before retreating to blinds of France and throwing her to the wolves of loneliness. She could forgive his myriad transgressions if only for the promise that he would never let her go again.

But the room was empty. Her shoulders slumped at the sight of the crumpled sheets and the ghost of his shape pressed into the thin mattress. Disappointment swelled within her, the familiar pang of guilt and loneliness that his absence so often inspired within her. She folded his coat over the chair and climbed onto the still-warm bed, breathing in his faint scent—no matter how far he traveled, he still smelled of home—and waited for the suffocating helplessness to ebb.

The slamming of her dresser drawers rattled the windows of the old farmhouse, almost drowning her mother's shouted protestations. Almost.

"You can't do this!" Ma cried, but the suitcase sat open-mouthed on the tiny bed, swallowing the shirts and pants and dresses she flung into it.

He had left before sunrise, without a last goodbye and, though she had been steeling herself for weeks for his departure, the reality of it had been a blow to the heart. She found herself waking in the dead of night, fingers curling around sweat-soaked bedsheets, gasping for air, unable to breathe without him by her side. She would creep into his room, into his bed, so long a beacon of unerring love in a weary world, but without him it was nothing but faded linens and the mocking ghost of his scent. Every waking moment, she was starkly aware of the danger he would soon face; every waking moment in this house was a reminder that he was gone.

"You hear me?" Ma was in her doorway, brandishing a rolling pin with eyes filled with fire. "You can't just waltz over to the trenches."

"They need nurses at the front, Ma."

"You ain't no nurse."

"Then they can train me." She shut the suitcase, pinning scraps of fabric in its jaws, and forced her way past her mother.

"You can't just leave! Not while Pa's sick!"

Emma stopped cold, stung by the harsh slap of reality. "He'll get better."

"Like the Dechamps boy? Or Jim Powell? There's death in this town, and it ain't leaving with you."

Eyes shut tight, she willed the truth away to no avail. Pa was sick, to be sure, and this fever was like nothing she had ever encountered, picking good farm folk off with alarming efficiency and decimating her once-mighty father to a shell of his former self. Richard's departure had hurt her enough; she had no intention of lingering to watch her father's.

"I can't stay here," she muttered, eyes welling painfully. She grasped the suitcase, white-knuckled, and marched to the front door.

She had barely pulled it open before her mother slammed it shut. "If you think you're gonna find Richard over there, you're crazy."

Emma's eyes bore into her mother's, seething. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"That's it, isn't it? That's why you're going."

"Ma—"

"You let him live his life, girl! You let him be! What he's doing is brave and decent and I won't have you filling his brain with…with…" Ma took a step back, swaying slightly in place.

Emma took advantage of her window of opportunity and swung the door open.

"Emma!" Ma cried behind her as the girl stalked off down the dirt path towards the road.

"It's too late, Ma!"

"You'll leave this farm over my dead body!"

"I said," Emma cried, exasperated, turning on her heel to face the house, "it's too—Ma?"

Her mother was sprawled on the porched, legs bent awkwardly beside her. Emma threw the suitcase to the wayside as she rushed to her aide. Tantalizing glimpses of escape slipped through her fingers as she cradled her mother's head in her lap, stroking her silvery hair and muttering her name in worried whispers.

It was several days before she remembered that her suitcase still lay there, nestled in the grass, and by then the Harrow elders were gone.

A thin stream of sunlight coaxed Richard awake, and it took him several moments to place his surroundings. The metal table, the white linens—suddenly he was back in the army hospital, reaching tentatively for his bandage face before the blinding pain rushed him back into unconsciousness. But the pain he faced now was not physical, not really. And the soft skin of the woman in his arms was a world away from the front lines.

He held her tighter, his trousers tightening around his erection as it pressed against Gillian's thigh. He breathed in her scent, the wildflower musk of her hair, and his mind swam with memories he would never breathe a word of to another living soul. And then he realized where they were, and the hour, and he sprung from the bed like a shot.

She stirred and rolled over to face him. "Where do you think you're going?" she cooed.

"I. Lost track of time."

"No, please." She reached for his hand, her skin like fresh cream in the soft morning light. "Please don't leave me."

"I have to."

"Please, James—"

His heart sank as he avoided her yearning, bloodshot stare. "I'm. Not Jimmy," he said as he pulled his hand from hers and let his long legs carry him away.

"Bring Tommy in to say goodnight before you put him to bed!" she called after him. He shut his eye tight and walked on.

Sleep had evaded Julia that night, as usual. Every time she closed her eyes, it was his face that swam into her mind—covered in blood, avoiding her questioning gaze. To call the memory frightening would be an understatement for the ages, but somehow she was left longing for him all the more. She refused to reconcile the unfolding truths about him with the kind, sensitive man she had come to know so well. Her Richard wasn't capable of such horrors.

And then there was Emma, to whom she had felt such an immediate connection before knowing for sure just who she was. Emma, who carried herself with so much confidence and strength, who didn't need the shield of humor that Julia kept raised at all times. Emma, who looked so very much like her brother, but whole, undamaged (at least on the surface). Emma, who suddenly felt so very, very far away from her. Dad was right: there was an awful lot about the Harrow family that remained shrouded in mystery, and it filled their already tense home with unease.

Tommy was fast asleep when she crept into Freddie's room. All around him were ghostly reminders of the child who was here before; Dad was far from the only one haunted by his absence. In the semi-darkness of dawn, his eyes shut tight and tiny chest rising and falling ever so slowly, he could have been her brother's double. Julia was suddenly propelled back to a fading memory, of waking in the night as a girl and tiptoeing in here on a whim to find her mother, body frail from the illness that would take her from them shortly thereafter, sitting in this very chair and watching her tiny boy. She remembered so little about her mother, but this scene was somehow vivid in her mind: the moonlight had cast a halo on her rose-gold curls as she held a slender finger to her lips, and Julia had crawled onto her waiting lap, her embrace the warmest blanket in the world, and watched with her as Freddie slept soundly, blissfully unaware that they were so near to him, and that such a scene would soon slip through their tiny fingers forever.

She didn't notice Paul tiptoe into the room, but she felt his presence before he placed a tender hand on her shoulder. "Looks familiar, doesn't it?" he said softly.

"What does?"

"All this. You look just like her."

Julia grasped her father's hand. "Do you miss her."

"Every fucking day."

"But not as much as you miss Fred."

"I had a lot longer to get used to your mother being gone." He squeezed her shoulder protectively as they both stared at the slumbering child, the stillness between them deafening.

"What are we gonna do with him?" Julia breathed, half to herself.

"What, we can't let the kid sleep?"

"That's not what I meant, Dad."

Paul shrugged and moved to the dresser, where Freddie's toy soldiers were arranged just as he left them—Tommy was always careful to replace them, in the event of their owner's return. "Boy his age should be in school. I can teach him to throw a ball around—maybe he'll get a scholarship."

"Dad!"

"What? You asked the question."

"You can't start planning his life. He's not ours!" She stood, her body lurching into concerned paces, the chair rocking wildly on its curved feet in her wake.

"I got news for you, sweetheart—he ain't no one else's, either."

"He has his grandma."

"Sure has a funny way of showing she cares. Look," he said, taking a placating step towards her, "Harrow ain't coming back for him. His grandma ain't coming back for him. We're all he's got. Might as well make the most of it."

"It's not right, Dad."

"Life ain't right. You think it's right that Freddie died? This is our second chance."

Julia brushed his hand away. "He's a little boy, Dad. Not a second chance." She breezed past him towards the door, realizing with a heavy heart that breakfast wouldn't make itself.

"Where'd your friend head off to last night?"

She stopped cold. "Emma?"

"Yeah. She snuck out in the middle of the night." He looked at her, brow cocked at her confusion. "What? You think you're the only one who can't sleep?"

"She's a grown woman. It's none of our business where she goes."

"Yeah, yeah, it's a free country and all that noise. Who d'you think fought to keep it that way?"

Julia rolled her eyes. "Don't you think it's a bit early to start in on your tirades?"

"How long's she gonna stay here, huh?" He followed her to the landing, raising his voice. "She ain't our kind, you know."

She paused halfway down the stairs and looked back at him with narrowed eyes. "I trust her."

"Like you trusted half-moon?"

Through clenched teeth, she said, "Why don't you just have another drink, Dad?" and left him standing defiantly at the top of the stairs.

The sight of her, curled up in his tiny bed with the sheets bunched in her fists, was at once startling and deeply comforting. Richard took a seat gingerly astride his sister, in the little hole where her knees and torso looped around him, and stroked her hair with all of the love that he was supposed to feel for her.

He couldn't bring himself to wake her from the peace of her labored sleep, remembering with a melancholy smile all the nights of their youth when only his arms could quiet her ever-active mind. In the quiet of the morning, they were children once again, relaxing only in each other's warm embrace. She felt a world away from him, just then.

He grabbed the valise and left without a sound.

The Ritz was just beginning to buzz with activity when he reached the ornate doors. He hadn't given a thought to the hour, and decided he would wait patiently for Nucky to wake, however long that might be. But the reluctant gangster was up and pouring himself a drink when Richard reached his suite.

"Mr. Harrow," he said, bright but not cheerful. "I was expecting your sister."

"She told me. To bring you this." He held the mysterious case out to his employer. Nucky took it in hand, studying it closely without opening the latch.

"I see she managed just fine last night."

"What's. In the suitcase?"

"That's none of your concern." He placed the case in a large desk drawer and locked it tight. "She's something, that sister of yours. I suppose you taught her how to shoot."

"Actually. She taught me."

A flicker of surprised crossed Nucky's face. He tossed back his drink and continued. "Have her come see me this afternoon. I have another job for her."

"No."

Nucky stepped towards him. "No?"

"I won't let her. Work for you."

"That's not your decision." He set the glass on his desk definitively. "Have her come see me." His definitive tone was as much of a dismissal as Richard needed. The masked man turned to leave, but Nucky called out to him. "And keep a low profile—you didn't kill everyone that night."

His warning burned in Richard's ears. He was well aware that things had long since begun to spiral out of control, and that he hadn't much time to set things right again.