Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Women and Children-September 1920

A/N: We finally get a shootout, Harrow making an incredible shot, general heroism, and hurt/comfort. Following along in the series? The events take place during Paris Green, which means the next chapter represents the end of Season One!

"I'm not sitting in the back seat."

Richard wants to argue with her, but she's the other Clara this afternoon. Other Clara terrifies him. Other Clara wears expensive clothes. She goes to hotels for luncheons and stands in groups of women dressed just like her, and they laugh in a way that doesn't seem quite real. She looks like someone from a moving picture. She stands differently. She talks differently. "I'm your driver. You should. Sit in the back."

"You are driving me. You are not a driver. There's a difference. If I were driving, would you sit in the backseat?" He knows there's a logical fallacy in her reasoning, but it seems altogether safer to get her in the car and off the street. He helps her into the car and flinches slightly at the feel of her hand against his fingers. When she moves her hand, he misses it.

"That was a complete waste of my afternoon. Real things are happening in the world, women getting the vote, a presidential election, European refugees. Still, I'm supposed to spend my afternoon listening to people complain about the servant problem? I could have spent the afternoon writing."

"Mmm, why. Do you. Do it?"

"Well, it was my bridal luncheon, so I rather had to show up." Richard's hands tighten on the wheel as the vision of red finger marks on her arm swims in front of his eye. "Of course, I didn't have one real friend there. Just a lot of people currying favor with my father."

If someone asked Clara to explain how Richard would maneuver them into the house, she wouldn't be able to. It was something akin to participating in a square dance, but there was no music, your partner had a gun, rarely touched you, and seemed to think assassins were hiding in the azalea bushes.

He pushed her back behind him as soon as they crossed the threshold. She knew why in a flash. The house was deathly silent and still. No one could be in it.

Clara looks into the living room. No toys, no blankets, no sign anyone lived there at all, except for a letter propped on the mantle.

They stare at each other. "I think this moment of domestic bliss has concluded. Do you want to tell my father, or should I?"

Within two hours, they are moved back into the Ritz-Carlton. Eddie assigns Richard the small box room next to Clara's room, and the men move in the bed Clara bought for Margaret's house.

Clara lays in her bed that night, trying to read This Side of Paradise, but her mind wanders to the fact Richard is on the other side of the wall. She still tries to focus before realizing reading is a lost cause at the moment. She gets up, sits on the floor, and starts tapping on the wall.

Richard is lying on his bed, enjoying the freedom that is removing his mask when he hears tapping on the wall separating his makeshift room from Clara's. He bounds out of bed, thinking she's calling for help, but then he recognizes the pattern. It sounds like morse code. It takes him a second to realize she's tapping out hello over and over again on the wall. He doesn't know what to do at first. Then he has to think about how to tap out his answer.

'I am here' is what he finally decides on.

There's silence from her side for a moment, and then the tapping begins again.

'I am glad.' Long after the tapping stops and he imagines Clara is asleep in her bed, he looks at the square of plaster and wonders why.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX