mirror shards // matthew fairchild {1}

twelve // wreckage

[cw: Grace, consent issues, addiction]

The next day, Sydney sleeps in very late, making up for all the time she spent not sleeping over the past weeks and months. Her dreams are filled with Matthew – fighting with him, making love to him, losing him. Eh, its better than the horrid, bloody nightmares she's been having recently.

Once she's awake enough to do so, she gets up, runs the shower, and dresses in a plain skirt and a pink blouse. She does her hair up in its usual twist, gets boots onto her feet, and goes downstairs to see about breakfast. She doesn't know if last night changed anything for Matthew, except perhaps how he feels about Sydney, but she's calling it a fresh start.

< & >

Hot oatmeal with brown sugar and a cup of tea later, Sydney boards a streetcar heading in the direction of Chiswick. She didn't have a free minute to spare yesterday, but after the insanity in the greenhouse two nights ago, she wants to check in with Agasha and make sure things are alright.

She finds her friend in the shattered mess of the greenhouse, picking up the shattered wood and glass and loading it onto a wheelbarrow.

"Would you like a hand, bunică?" Sydney asks.

"Yes, please. Just help me put this mess into the cart there." She shakes her head. "Half the time, I don't know what to do. Your brother wasn't drunk, and he was fighting a demon, but he still scattered glass all over the lawn where someone could fall on it and get badly cut up."

"You could speak for us, you know. You know the truth of what happened here."

"I could, but then I would lose my job, for real this time."

"We'd find work for you. Bridget knows you, you could come to work for her in our kitchens. Or you could be my ladies' maid, you help me with my hair and my dresses already."

"Sydney." Agasha shakes her head. "Don't." She tosses more chips of glass into the wheelbarrow. "How are you? You seem troubled. What's weighing on you?"

"I had a fight with Matthew."

"Fairchild? Why would you be fighting with him? Ooohhhh. You don't have some kind of understanding, do you?"

"You could say that's what it is, yes."

"If he's found out about Pavel and is being a bastard about it –"

"That's not it. I've been telling him my stories from Romania, he's well aware than I had a lover there. I don't know if he approves or not, but I think he realizes that to dis-approve would be hypocritical considering his own reputation. No, this was about...I'm sure you heard by now that Barbara Lightwood..." Sydney can't even bear to say the words 'passed away.'

Agasha nods.

"I blew up when I heard it, stormed off to the library, he followed and I told him all about my research at the Library of Bats and...it ended with me throwing his flask into the Thames. He's very sensitive about his drinking, so it's fair to say that did not earn me any favors."

"Well, then, your Matthew has two choices: either he can hold a grudge against you for caring about him, or he can realize than you actually care about him, and forgive. For your sake, I hope he does the latter."

"He's not 'my' Matthew."

"Uh-huh." Agasha raises her eyebrows. "We'll see about that."

< & >

Sydney takes the streetcar back home, goes to the library, and starts packing up her research. Out the window, the Consul's carriage rattles through the gates. She pays it no mind.