Chapter Text
Nepenthe: A medicine for sorrow, a means to forget suffering.
It was dark when they reached the village, the wheels of the buggy sticking a little in the wet mud that served as a road. The postmaster and his wife were there to greet them; their eyebrows lifted when they saw Edith descend, wrapped in Alan’s coat, a man’s dressing gown, and beneath that her thin chemise. Her loose curls blew around her face in the freezing wind.
“Alan…” She wrapped a hand around her friend’s arm, looking over her shoulder back the way they’d come. The house was entirely invisible, hidden by the hills. She turned away, suddenly weak and silently appreciating the arm he put around her.
“Lady Sharpe, to what do we owe the pleasure?” the postmaster asked. Edith felt a sudden wave of nausea. Her legs wobbled beneath her. “Lady Sharpe?”
“We need rooms for the night,” said Alan, tightening his arm so she wouldn’t collapse in front of them. She looked back to where the house should have been. They were there. She could still feel Thomas’s presence somehow, registering as dizziness, something that felt like a weight in her chest, and, of course, the desire that still swept through her veins. Even now she would not be granted a reprieve.
“I’m afraid we’ve just the one,” said the postmaster. “We could --”
“Then give that one to Edith. I’ll find a place.”
The postmaster’s wife made a look of mild reproach at Alan’s familiarity. Edith was barely aware of it. Were they alright? Did they hate her now?
She wanted to go back already, but she’d already made her decision. Bed and lie in it.
Alan and the postmaster were making some sort of negotiation; Edith couldn’t make herself care what they were saying. Her stomach was roiling too much.
Her face cooled suddenly, prickling, as all the blood drained from her face. The postmaster’s wife lunged forward with an alarmed madam? and Alan caught her just before she slumped to the ground. As if from very far away, she heard him say be careful, she’s not well as she rolled into someone else’s arms. There was a soft intake of breath above her, as if startled.
And then she was being carried over the steps of the depot, jolting slightly with every step taken. Above her the ceiling passed blurrily. She felt as though she were flying through space, borne on a breeze that would make all the decisions for her. She didn’t mind.
Gentle hands took her coat from her, laid her on a bed, and pulled the covers over her. Warmth at last.
“Thomas…” She seized one of the hands, clinging there. But it wasn’t right: the skin was too rough to be his...
“My name is Rachel,” said a woman’s voice, rather unsteadily. The postmaster’s wife. “You lie quietly now, my lady.”
Gradually Edith’s vision came into focus. A kind-faced, middle-aged woman was bent over her, brow knit in concern. She was flushed.
“I don’t… I don’t feel well…” Edith murmured. She reached beneath the sheets and pressed a hand to her belly.
“Will you need a basin, madam?” asked Rachel. Edith nodded after a long moment spent trying to process what she’d said.
“Thank you.”
She might have drifted to sleep. The next time she opened her eyes, Rachel had placed a bowl by the bed and was standing beside her.
“Anything more you need, madam?” She was gazing at her with some bemusement and not a little embarrassment -- Edith couldn’t guess why. She shook her head and her stomach turned. She turned to the side and gagged into the basin by the bed. Immediately Rachel caught her shoulders and held her steady. The remains of breakfast slopped into the bowl.
Edith fell back on the bed, staring miserably up at the ceiling. She felt so heavy… Could it really have been just a day since she’d seen Lucille bathing and Thomas’s cycle had begun again?
“It’s alright, madam.” There was a look of curiosity in Rachel’s eyes, but when Edith met her gaze, she was quick to look away. Edith couldn’t begin to imagine how many questions she must have. What was Lady Edith Sharpe doing traveling from the house with a strange American man? In a state of undress, no less.
“You must think the worst of me,” she whispered.
“I think nothing, madam.” She paused. “Madam, is everything entirely… alright?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you’re --” She flushed again. “I’m merely confused… why you… well…” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial tone, woman to woman. “Your scent, madam… it’s not…” Rachel placed a delicate hand on her shoulder. “Do you need to confide in someone?”
Edith blinked, uncomprehending. “What do you mean?” Rachel glanced around and lowered her voice even further.
“If you’ve left at an… unfortunate time…” She gazed at her meaningfully. “If you’re under the weather, you’re welcome to stay until it passes --”
“I’m not ill!” Edith protested.
“But you… forgive me, madam, but you don’t… you smell like your husband would when…” Edith pushed her hand from her shoulder.
“Can you not tell what I am?” she asked. “Have I learned to camouflage myself so well?”
“Madam?” Rachel looked confused, almost frightened by her outburst. She’d taken a step back.
“I don’t want to pretend anymore!” Her voice reverberated off the walls.
“Edith?”
Edith looked up to see Alan standing in the doorway. She turned away and covered her eyes.
“I’ve been living half a life,” she whispered to herself. Alan’s footsteps sounded on the wood.
“You can leave,” he told Rachel.
“But, sir --”
“You may keep the door open if it would set your mind at ease.”
Retreating footsteps. The creak of a door. Alan sat beside her on the bed and tentatively touched her shoulder.
“Please don’t.”
“Edith --”
“Just leave me be.”
“Not until I know that you’re alright.” Silence. “It’s not her fault, Edith. She’s an Omega, she can’t… tell… as easily. Their sense of smell isn’t as strong as --”
“You think I don’t know that?” she snapped.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…” Alan trailed away. “It’ll be alright,” he said finally. “We’ll go back home. The house is still in the family name so you still have a place to go.” He forced a smile. “You can write. You could do whatever you wanted.”
She looked at him as tears streamed silently down her face. “I’ve never been able to do that,” she said. “Not in Buffalo.”
“Things will be different this time.”
“Do you really think so? You really believe I could just go back?” She shook her head. “You don’t understand just how that world constricts you. I would return to how things were before without even meaning to. Just trying to muddle through and not draw attention to myself. Do you think that I could ever go back after what I’ve had?”
“Edith,” Alan began, but Edith went on.
“You don’t understand. You’re my best friend, but you don’t understand what all this means for me. It’s the end of the dream.” She lay back against the pillows. “I almost want to go back to them.”
“Edith --”
“The freedom there, Alan. I never thought I could have something like that.”
“Edith, what they did…”
“Just go.”
“Edith --”
“Leave me, Alan.”
A long silence. Then the bed creaked a little as Alan stood. Footsteps on the floor. Silence. She looked up to find him standing on the threshold, one hand on the doorknob.
“You’re my oldest friend, Edith,” he said. “Whatever happens… I want you to be happy.”
The door shut behind him with a clunk. Edith fell back against the pillows and covered her face with her hands.
She could not escape her memory. Everywhere she felt odd moments from the last few months creeping in on her. Meeting them for the first time at the McMichael gathering -- how long ago… and just a little over a month later, they’d married. Strange. Until now she hadn’t realized just how fast it all had been. She remembered saying goodbye to her father at the station, him waving goodbye to her as the train pulled away. Thomas and her sleeping beside each other. His terror when she tried to touch him that night. And how pointless her conflict between the two of them seemed now.
She brushed her fingertips over her lips, eyes closed, and remembered that kiss in the park when Thomas had first asked her to marry him. And the kiss months later with Lucille in the kitchen, Thomas slumbering upstairs. I can’t do this anymore, Lucille had said. Only now did she realize what she’d meant. Strange, the way the heart worked -- somehow she’d deluded herself into thinking that she knew them both when they’d lied to her this entire time, told her so little.
She was in love, but what did that mean anymore?
She lusted for them, but what did that matter?
Lust.
She still felt it. Pulsing in her belly and other, lower places. Despite her scant clothing, sweat glistened on her skin. Were things different, she might have slipped a hand under her skirt and relieved the ache herself -- but she simply didn’t have the energy or any real desire for it. It was only worth it if someone else was there to share it with her.
Snow drifted past her window. Sighing, she rolled onto her side, closed her eyes, and let her exhaustion pull her under. Her dream was vague, but she had the faint impression she was holding somebody’s hand and that they were leading her through the steps of a waltz. She was young again, a child, and the scent of orchids filled the room...
Night had fallen when she opened her eyes again, the tiny bedroom cast in mostly shadow. Moonlight made a pale puddle at the foot of her bed. Groaning, she sat up and stretched her arms above her head, rolling her stiff shoulders. Her cheeks were wet. I must have been crying in my sleep, she thought, wiping at her eyes.
The silence seemed oppressive, as did the closeness of the walls around her and the unfamiliar, worn-thin quality of the sheets. She was, she realized, accustomed to hearing two pairs of lungs breathing on either side of her. The absence of that familiar susurrus jarred her.
Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she reached for Alan’s coat where it had been abandoned on the floor, and carefully slipped out the door, wrapping the coat around herself.
Alan was sleeping on the floor outside her door, his breathing surprisingly deep and even in the otherwise-silent corridor. He must have traveled without stopping, she thought. Moving slowly so she wouldn’t wake him, she edged past and found the main entrance.
Snow crunched under her boots, moonlight reflecting off the ice and casting a blue-white glow over everything, a strange, alien world where nothing was quite as it should have been. The hill where Allerdale rested could just be seen in the distance; the snow seemed to have been absorbed by the clay, staining the entire peak a bloody red. In this light, it looked almost black.
How have they survived there? she wondered. And how will they? She suddenly remembered the ghost of Lady Beatrice, still creeping throughout the halls with Lucille’s knife buried in her head to the hilt. What if she begins her old habits again and torments them in death as well?
Their entire lives have been varying amounts of pain.
She closed her eyes and saw Thomas lying in bed, clinging to Lucille. Why won’t good things happen to us? I don’t know, I don’t know.
But she couldn’t let herself worry about them now. That chapter was completed and she would have to start another one. Perhaps she could travel for a few years, keep writing. There was, after all, no real need to stay in Buffalo. And surely there were other Omega men. Or perhaps she would meet a like-minded woman and they could live out the years together. Perhaps… Her treacherous mind provided her with the flaw: it would never be the same because, no matter how hard I try, they’ll never leave my mind or my --
Footsteps on the path. She drew beneath the eaves of the building, into the shadows. The last thing she wanted was to be noticed.
Her heart leapt into her mouth as two figures picked their way down the muddy path towards where she stood.
Two figures.
It could mean nothing. It was nothing.
But they came from the right direction -- from the hills in the distance -- and they were tall, dark, one leaning their head against the other’s shoulder, suitcases in their hands. She could hear a faint murmuring of encouragement from the upright one, in a cadence that sounded far too familiar.
They passed her without noticing and Edith could hold back no longer.
“Wait!”
The figures turned immediately at her cry and Edith felt the sudden urge to weep again, after everything, as the moonlight illuminated Thomas and Lucille’s faces. Lucille was wrapped in one of Thomas’s coats, her hair piled beneath one of Thomas’s hats, and Thomas leaned against her, barely conscious, but it was them.
Edith could barely breathe. “What are you doing here?”
Lucille was white-faced; it was clear that she hadn’t expected to see Edith any more than Edith had expected to see her.
“Did you really think we were going to wait for someone to turn us in?” she whispered. “We’re going.”
Edith gaped. “Can you move him right now?” she asked, forgetting momentarily their situation. “Is it safe?”
“I did what I could.” She held out Thomas’s left arm and pushed back the sleeve. In the dim light Edith saw a fresh needle prick, red, sore, and ill-performed. Thomas groaned and opened his eyes blearily. He blinked, staring as if not quite recognizing her.
“... Edith…?” he said at last, almost disbelieving. His free hand shot out and grabbed hers before she could pull away, laying her palm against his face. Edith gasped at the contact of skin against skin and the sudden flare of arousal within her in spite of his Alpha scent. Wetness dripped down the inside of her thigh. “You’re… you’re coming with us…?” The hope in his voice tore at her.
Edith couldn’t make herself reply. Affirming it would be a lie -- wouldn’t it -- and denying it would crush him. Instead she let him lean his cheek against her hand and said nothing, taking the coward’s way.
“What will you do?” she whispered at last.
“Leave here,” Lucille said. Only her eyes betrayed her terror. “Go somewhere else. Begin again.”
“Where will you -- ah --” Thomas was sucking on her index finger, eyes closed, and Edith could feel the pressure gathering between her legs, her bud throbbing.
“We should get off the main road,” Lucille said and steered them behind the depot, into the shadows. Suitcases crunched into the snow.
“Where will you go?” Edith pulled her hand free, trying to ignore her husband’s moan of protest.
“Why should you care, since you won’t be going with us?” Lucille shot back and oh, there was the anger in her eyes. It slammed into Edith, hot like the summers of her childhood. Accusatory.
“Lucille, you know that I can’t --”
“What will he do,” Lucille whispered, “without you?” Edith bit her lip, her eyes brimming.
“I don’t know,” she murmured. “I don’t know.”
“He needs you, Edith.”
She looked at him. He seemed barely able to stay conscious, his eyelids fluttering. One of his hands twitched in her direction, as if wanting to go to her again, but scared to try. Unsure of herself, she reached out and touched his fingertips with her own.
“Stay with me,” Thomas whispered, the moonlight shining in his eyes. Desperate, distraught. “I’m healing now. I can be what you’ve wanted me to be from the beginning. I won’t be so broken anymore.” He stepped unsteadily forward, away from his sister, to all but hurl himself into Edith’s arms, bringing his lips to hers. Edith held the kiss longer than she should have, starved as she was for the sensation, and then turned her face away, gently pushing him back. His weight had pressed her against the side of the building.
“I never wanted you for anything more than who you are,” she said. “Not for what you could do for me.”
“But that’s why I love you,” he whispered helplessly. “That’s what made me fall for you from the beginning.”
“Thomas.” Lucille put her hand on his shoulder and he turned to her. “It’s no use.” He gazed at Lucille for a moment and then sighed, nodding. They turned away together, Thomas leaning heavily on her. Edith watched them go, still breathing hard from the kiss. Was that to be all? Really?
“And what of you, Lucille?” she called after them. “How can you think that you can just walk away from me without a word?” She remembered that that was precisely what she herself had done, but she brushed the thought away.
Lucille looked away. “I don’t matter, Edith. It’s for Thomas that I beg, not for myself.”
“Liar.” She said it softly, without malice.
Lucille shook her head sadly. Her voice cracked hard when she spoke again.
“I don’t love myself, Edith.” She was toying with one of the buttons on her coat, not meeting Edith’s eyes. “I know that you know that. And my heart is torn in two. I believed for so long that Thomas was the whole of me, since I had no love to give myself. But you… Edith… you have me, too. You’re that other part of me that I’ve lacked. And… and with you both, I’m finding myself again. You are half of me. You always will be. No matter what happens, no matter where any of us goes… there will always be that. There will always be you.”
There was a long silence, broken only by a shuddering breath from Edith. Her throat ached from the effort of holding back her tears.
“And yet,” she said at last, voice lower than usual from the painful lump in her throat, “you would have killed me anyway.”
“Yes,” Lucille said simply. She sighed. “I don’t expect you to forgive me. I know that I don’t deserve forgiveness. But I know that you did love me, for a time.”
Edith could no longer resist her tears -- they came strangled and cracking from her throat, like a child’s.
“I do,” she sobbed. “That’s the cruelty of it.”
Lucille looked up, finally meeting her eyes. Blue in blue. “Love is cruel, Edith. It twists you inside out. Maims you. But if we lose it, it’s the end of everything.”
Edith wiped at her eyes, staring up at the sky. The stars had come out: pinpricks of silver-white light against the darkness. She took several lungfuls of air, the coldness burning her insides, clearing her head.
“I don’t know what I want,” she said at last. “Will you --” she had to find some grasp on the conversation -- “Will you go all this way on foot?”
“Don’t do this, Edith,” Lucille hissed. “Not to me. Not to us.”
“Do what?”
“Turn to small talk as if none of this matters,” she said. “Look at me and just try to say that you don’t care!”
“If I didn’t care, I would not find it so hard to leave you!” Edith cried, hot tears slipping down her cheeks. “I would have done it long ago!” They stared at each other. There was a quiet sigh from Thomas, who had fallen asleep against Lucille’s shoulder. “If I part from you,” she whispered, “I will regret it forever.”
They would have murdered you.
Can you really trust them so easily?
“I don’t ask you to forgive us,” Lucille said. “Just give me some sign. That’s all I want.” She shook her head, her eyes glimmering in the near-darkness. “Just be with us.”
Edith breathed out -- sharply from her sobs -- and spoke.
10 February 1896
Dear Alan,
By the time you read this I will have gone, along with my husband and Lucille. Do not try to find us. I know that what you have told me is true because they have confirmed it themselves. It is my decision to give them another chance.
I don’t think I can rationalize to you my reasons for going with them. Moreover, if I could, I doubt that you would understand. All I can say is that now I know everything and I am not afraid. I know that in doing this I have likely hurt you beyond repair. But I cannot and will not apologize for my decision. I believe there are things in life that are worth risking your life for, that there is more to love than security. And just as Thomas and Lucille have opened my eyes and made me wiser, I have, in my turn, helped them see beyond their mere survival. I have shown them the kindness and the love that they have lacked for too long.
Perhaps, in deciding this, I go to my death. But I think not. In spite of everything I still wish to trust them as I once did. Things will be different this time, and what went wrong will be fixed. I must have faith that people really can change.
Sometimes I fear what this has rendered me, that there is no remnant of your childhood friend left. It is in love’s nature to be cruel, to make monsters of us. But know that I will be content, no matter what happens. I have found my place in this world; I have found a love that will see me through whatever comes next; I am living the summer of my life. Some things, I think, are worth the pain they cause us. And after pain, there is relief. There are always new beginnings to make, new chapters to be written. A new story to begin.
I remain always
Your friend,
Edith Sharpe