𝐿𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑎 𝑆𝑢𝑟𝑔𝑒𝑜𝑛-𝒯𝒽ℯ 𝒜𝓇𝓉𝒻𝓊𝓁 𝒟ℴ𝒹𝑔ℯ𝓇//ʲᵃᶜᵏ ᵈᵃʷᵏⁱⁿˢ

𝙴𝚗𝚝𝚛𝚢 𝙴𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚎𝚎𝚗

"We are all broken, that's how the light gets in."

--Leonard Cohen 

SONG; Greensleeves

THE DISHCLOTH SLIPPED INTO THE SINK with a muted splash, and Mary's final words seemed to hang in the air long after her lips had pressed together.

"Do you understand?"

Jack couldn't answer her. Not truthfully. He stood frozen, chest rising with shallow breaths, watching her shoulders stiffen as she turned her back on him. Daisy squirmed in her mother's arms, giggling in oblivion at the storm raging unspoken between her parents.

Mary-Rose didn't slam the bedroom door, though the temptation was plain in the set of her jaw. Instead she closed it with a slow, deliberate click. The kind of silence that made Jack's stomach twist.

He dragged both hands down his face, sinking into the chair nearest the cold hearth. Shadows flickered across the walls, licking at his boots, reminding him of the fire scorch still blackened into the wood of their cupboards. A reminder of how fragile this house was. How easily things slipped through their fingers.

He thought of Mary's eyes when she'd said we have more to lose now. And damn her, she was right. She was always right.

But Fagin—he had been a boy once too, lost in the alleyways of London, clinging to scraps of loyalty where he could find them. Jack owed him something, didn't he? Or maybe he only owed himself the comfort of believing he'd finally turned the tables. That for once, he wasn't the one chained.

The fire hissed low. He ran a hand through his hair, wishing it could tear the guilt clean out of him.

It was then he noticed Thomas, still bent over the desk, his pencil stilled mid-line. The boy's head had sunk onto his sketches of cogs and pulleys, the candle burning low beside him. Jack pushed up from the chair with a sigh, slipping an arm under the boy's slight frame and lifting him as if he were still small. Thomas murmured something in his sleep but didn't wake.

The bedrooms upstairs were cramped, timber beams pressing close overhead, brick walls patched with plaster. There were only three rooms in the whole cottage: one for Mary and Jack, where Daisy's cradle sat pressed to the side of the bed; one for Billy and Theodore, who shared a wide but sagging mattress piled with thin blankets; and the other for Charlie and Thomas, just big enough to hold the four-poster Jack carried the boy to now.

He nudged the door open with his shoulder. The room was cold, air seeping through the stone, though the little fireplace in the wall still glowed faintly from an earlier fire. Charlie was already curled under the covers, half-asleep, but stirred when Jack laid Thomas gently onto the mattress beside him.

"'s he all right?" Charlie mumbled, blinking.

Jack tucked the blanket up over both boys' shoulders. "Just worn out, lad. Too much studying."

Charlie nodded, but his small hand reached out, resting against his brother's arm as though to keep him there. Then he peered at Jack with a seriousness beyond his years. "She don't look well, Jack."

The words struck harder than expected. "Who doesn't?"

"Mary," Charlie whispered, careful not to wake Thomas. "She's been pale all week. She doesn't eat enough, neither. You've seen it, haven't you?"