Everything

'Never have you let me in. Even though I know the combination to the safe.'

There had been tears , before. But that was done. She laid beside him, quiet now. The silence was a heavy thing, solid and unchanging. It was a wall between them- a wall that he dared not pry open. But in the silence she did not sleep. She was just as trapped in wakefulness as he was. The two of them, with so much trapped inside and yet nothing ever being spoken. Not the way it should- not the way part of him wished for.

For her sake, he wished a great many things.

But he was trying to be good, was he not? He had said, after their girl- His eyes closed as the pain came. No pain had ever ached like this- to cut off his thoughts like this. His hand ran down his face, trying to stop the hurt from eating him alive in that moment. He forced himself to think- to find his thoughts again. He had to be good, now. There was no other choice, now. For their girl- for his Sunshine Girl.

"23. 24. 52. 55. My regrets." He felt his wife shift beside him but did not look. To look would be too much. He didn't know how to give this and look at her, too. "You know them- my regrets. You alone know what the numbers mean. But there are more. More numbers- more than I could put on a hundred safes."

"Tommy."

Her voice was tired. It was always tired now. Under the hurt. Under the anger. Under everything, Lizzie was always tired, now. 'That is my regret.' "This business, it is the last." A scoff came from the other side of the bed. A flare, red hot and angry, lashed through him. But still, he did not look. She had no cause to believe him, anyway. 'That is my regret.' "It is the last, Lizzie, because I will be gone soon. They would not let me pass and now I know why."

Silence. A wall. The heaviness of his words and the weight of what was still unspoken. He took a deep breath. Then another. And only after another still, did he open his eyes and look. Lizzie stared at the ceiling. Her face was blank and smooth- a porcelain mask. But her hands.... Her hands held fast to the bedsheet, knuckles white from the strength of her grip. "Is this your goodbye? So, I won't steal the bullets this time?"

He'd watched Grace fade into the mist. He'd seen Lizzie step into it fearlessly. 'Coward,' she'd called him. And he had been. He'd been a coward that day. And he'd been a coward a great many other days. "The doctor that came, do you remember?" Lizzie nodded. The mask cracked a bit. And perhaps he was a coward, still, because he looked away. "He says I am ill, Lizzie. Called it tuberculoma. TB in the brain." Lizzie gasped and Tommy reached blindly for a cigarette. He opened the tin; he found the light. 'Coward.' He set them down, again.

"So what?" she asked. "He could be wrong." And her voice was rough to hide the fear- but he heard it. He'd always heard it when Lizzie was scared. "We go to someone else. We- we find a better doctor, someone who can fix it." And it was that what decided him on his course. We, she said. And wasn't that just like Lizzie- loyal to the end, her.

But she couldn't do that, now. He couldn't let her do that now. Not after Ruby. Not with what was to come. "I've gone already- gotten a second opinion. There is nothing to do, now, except finish what is in motion. Then you will go, with Charlie. You will go somewhere far from Arrow House. Far from the name Shelby. You will go and you will be free- you and Charlie."

"And you will stay, shall you? Stay and die?" Lizzie asked.

"Yes." Sure. Unwavering. Decided.

She sat up. She turned so she was looking at him properly. She slapped him. "Fuck you, Tommy," she hissed. "You'd leave me like that? Not knowing if you were dead or alive? You'd leave me to wonder if you were hurt or scared?"