Nine Shillings

Just a Little Loathing

London - 1842

Josef was sitting in one of the chairs by the library fire, glaring at the flames. His grip on the glass of whiskey propped on his knee looked dangerous.

'I'll take that.' I tugged the glass from his hand before it shattered and he ended up with a fist full of shards. Just because he would heal quickly didn't mean I was going to let him accidentally hurt himself.

'Hm?' He blinked as if he's been completely out of synch with the world, opened his hand, and looked at it as if he was surprised it was there. 'It's my fault.'

I tapped the glass against my chin, still standing beside him. 'Technically... yes.'

He chuckled, bitterly, and turned his hand over to grip the arm of the chair. 'I always admired the way you'd tell me exactly what you think.'

'I think you should stop with your self-loathing. It's making it very difficult to be angry at you.'

He chuckled a little more genuinely.

I had an urge to reach out and smooth his already tidy hair as I would with Bran. I looked away, shrugged, and dropped down into the other chair.

He sighed and rubbed his beard. 'I should've... I should've done... Something.' He tipped his head and bumped it against the back of the chair.

'There wasn't much you could do to be certain she'd leave Bran alone, short of killing her.' I rolled the glass between my fingers. 'And you're not like me.'

'You're young and think you can change the world,' he murmured, smiling wryly.

'No.' I sat forward and rested my elbows on my knees. 'You're a good person, or you try to be.'

He looked at me, frowning.

'You chose not to take a child's mother from them. Would Veronica have been better off without her mother?' I tilted my head. 'In retrospect... probably. But you didn't know that. She could've been a great mother.' I sat back and spread my arms. 'Look at me, who would've thought The Reaper would make a good mother?'

He sucked his teeth. 'I don't think I'm going to answer that.'

I smiled. 'Probably wise.'

He rubbed his face. 'I should've taken Veronica from her and been a proper father but...' He shook his head and pulled his pipe out of his pocket. 'I wasn't what I am now, I was...' He shook his head again as if he was trying to shake a thought loose. 'Detached, I supposed.' He tapped tobacco into his pipe.

'When we first met, I never would've believed you had a broody side.'

He chuckled, lit his pipe with a match, extinguished the match with a sweep of his wrist, and flicked it into the fire.

'Don't do that, the children will try it,' I said.

He laughed and sat back with one foot on a nearby footstool. 'Most people don't see my "broody side".' He exhaled a cloud of smoke.

'Josef,' I murmured.

He tilted his head to look at me.

'Did Elizabeth ever mistreat Veronica in front of you?'

'No,' he whispered. 'Probably too frightened to lose the money.'

'Was Veronica always clean and well fed?'

'Yes...' He eyed me. 'What's you point?'

'If you never saw Elizabeth harm her then why would you know to save her?'

He took a shuddery breath. 'Veronica never wanted me to take her home to her mother. And I always said she couldn't stay with me.' He snorted. 'I said I wasn't good father material.'

'Maybe you weren't, then.'

He lowered his pipe.

I tapped the glass I was holding with my finger. 'If I'm a good mother, it's because I have my family to help me. I didn't know what to do with children, you and Bran helped me.' I set the glass aside. 'And if you never saw anything amiss, why would you know to rescue Veronica?'

'Because I should've listened,' he snapped, but I had a sense he was snapping at himself rather than me.

I pulled my legs up and crossed them both on the chair. 'The problem is Josef, we all fuck up, you just live so long it inevitably comes round again. But the thing about that is, you have the chance to do it right this time.'

'With our children?'

'Yes, but with Veronica too. You have a chance to be the father she needs and you want to be, and we'll help you.' I reached out a hand to him.

He eyed my hand and his lips twitched. 'Would you be her mother?'

'If she wanted me to be.' I smiled. 'I am an ageless immortal now.'

He chuckled and put the pipe to his lips. 'Hmm... Only on the outside.'

'Oh, I'm already old on the inside.'

He tipped his head and slid me a look but diplomatically said nothing. His eyes said he'd noticed. Some people never got to be young. I'd make sure my children got to be young as long as they needed to be.

Instead, he slipped his hand into mine and squeezed it across the gap.

I squeezed back. 'You're allowed to make mistakes here, Josef. You're allowed to be messy and imperfect. You're allowed to make mistakes.'

He looked at me, eyes bright and jaw working, then he dropped my hand and looked away.

Small steps.

'You're wrong about one thing,' he said to the fire.

'What?'

He looked at me. 'You are a good person.'

I smiled and drained the glass I was holding. 'I'll pour us some more, and one for Bran.'